Let’s get real… While we all wish our home was an ad in HGTV magazine, we know those gorgeous pictures are hard to mimic in our everyday lives! But don’t be discouraged! We’re here to help you pull inspiration from those gorgeous photos you see online, and incorporate some of those ideas into your own casa, where you live, dance, cook, play, and sleep! Your home is a place where you create memories, most of which include making messes. We want to give you, the busy, real person, some design tips for your home:
Natural vs. Porcelain Tile
When choosing a tile for your floors, backsplash in the kitchen or in the bathroom, most people are drawn to natural stone. Natural stone is naturally beautiful… literally. It’s spent several thousand years becoming the natural stone you see and want. The downfall is it’s porous. It needs to be treated with a sealer and then the sealer needs to be reapplied in the future. Lucky for us porcelain tile can mimic the look of stone but it does not absorb liquids and it costs less… Boom! Would you even be able to tell that the backsplash in the kitchen below is porcelain? Doubtful, and it looks beautiful!
Source: Source: http://www.atticmag.com/2012/10/aspects-of-gray-kitchens/
Low Maintenance Greenery
One of Whitney’s favorite things to do in any home design is bring plants inside. It helps bring an organic feel to your space while adding color and creativity to the design. The fiddle leaf fig is a beautiful plant that requires practically no maintenance. It needs to be placed in indirect light and watered about once a week. Even if you have a record of putting plants on death row, you can keep the fiddle leaf fig alive. We have faith in you, and your house will look great, too!
Storage
One of the main reasons homes appear so clean is because they have nothing laying around. While this isn’t realistic, having plenty of storage to hide everything you don’t want your friends and family to see is key. For example, in the living room below the entertainment center holds all of the DVDs, games and anything else that shouldn’t be laying out. Those wooden boxes under the coffee table aren’t just trendy; they are providing storage for more of those unsightly, but necessary living room essentials. This house looks clean while cozy and lived in. You could even get baskets for under the coffee table to hide toys, extra pillows, etc. Chests and shelves are other good storage options that can be found cheap at places like Target, Ikea, or HomeGoods.
Source: http://decoholic.org/2013/11/19/40-cozy-living-room-decorating-ideas/
The basket pictured below is Whitney’s and is a stylish way to hold those throw blankets and pillows that you want to show off, and get this, it only cost $15 from TJMaxx!
