Decorating

Here in West Michigan, we’ve had record-breaking high temperatures the past 2 weeks {it’s been in the 80′s!!} so it’s felt like Spring for a while already — and I’m not complaining!

However, since it’s now officially spring, I thought I’d share a few simple ways I transform our home for Spring.

I Open The Windows

.

There is nothing I love more than the first time we’re able to open the windows after a long, cold winter. There have been many years when I open the windows even when it’s still too cold — simply because I love the smell and feel of fresh spring air.

We’ve been so fortunate with this warm weather; our windows have actually been open for a while now!

And if you live somewhere that’s just too cold to open the windows, then at least open up all the curtains, mini blinds, and anything else you have covering up your windows. Let the light it and your home will automatically feel a little more like spring!

I Bring Fresh Flowers In

.

I’m usually not much of a “fresh flower person” — and Dave knows that he probably shouldn’t waste money buying me flowers {I’d much rather have chocolate!} However, something about the first few weeks of spring makes me want to go out and purchase big bunches of fresh flowers for our kitchen, living room, bedroom, and even bathroom.

Yes, I know they’re going to die, but I buy cheap flowers — so I can make our whole house feel a bit more “springy” for less than $20!

I Switch to Spring Scents

.

I love WallFlowers from Bath & Body Works and these soy candles from Pure Integrity – and I’m always eager to swap out my cinnamon, apple, and vanilla scents for lavendar, lilac, and fresh linen.

I’ve already been burning my lavender candle for the past week and just love the smell of my WallFlowers every time I walk in the door.

I Remove Extra Pillows and Blankets

.

Every Fall, I pile lots and lots of fluffy pillows and blankets on all our beds, couches, and chairs. I love curling up in a blanket and snuggling into bed with pillows all around me.

But every Spring, I start to feel claustrophobic with all the extra fabric around me… so I often put these extra pillows and blankets in vacuum-sealed storage bags for the spring and summer months.

Everything feels and looks lighter for Spring!

I Declutter

.

After I take down my Christmas decorations in January, I often keep decluttering and purging on an “as-needed” basis until mid Spring — when I go crazy, purging everything and anything we don’t need, use, and love.

I can’t stand clutter any time of year, but the Spring is the worst. Everything is fresh and new and I want my house to feel the same way — not heavy, stale, or full of clutter.

I Deep-Clean

.

No, I don’t think you should go crazy, deep-cleaning everything in your home {unless of course, you really enjoy cleaning and have nothing better to do}. But I’ve found that deep-cleaning is a fantastic way to transform my home for spring.

Even if just one small area of my home is REALLY clean, I feel good. And then next week, I’ll tackel another area. I realize this method is not ideal, but it’s the only way my home gets deep-cleaned, so it has to be good enough!

With these simple tips, you could totally transform your home in an afternoon — so what are you waiting for!

How do you transform your home for spring?

.

{I love how everything looks SO green in the spring!}

I have partnered with Apartment Guide to serve as an Official Apartment Guide Organizing Blogger! As an official blogger, I will be sharing articles filled with tips for living on a budget.

Looking for more frugal ways to bring Spring into your home?

• Here are a few tips to “Bring Spring Indoors”
• Brighten up your home for Spring with new trendy colors like Honeysuckle
• Like Apartment Guide on Facebook and follow them on Twitter and Google+ for real-time tips and updates on making the most of your space.
• Whether you’re living, looking or moving, Apartment Guide offers how-to tips for making the most of a space on a budget.
• If you’re ready for a whole new space or are looking to move, Apartment Guide has the photos, floor plans, features and tips to help you find the perfect apartment community.

Apartment Guide and owner Consumer Source, Inc. have partnered with bloggers like me as Official Apartment Guide Bloggers. As part of this program, I have received compensation. They have not told me what to purchase or what to say about the products used, and believe that consumers and bloggers are free to form their own opinions and share them in their own words. Consumer Source’s policies align with WOMMA Ethics Code, FTC guidelines and social media engagement recommendations.

3 comments →

I’ve been trying REALLY REALLY hard to take lots of photos these days. Of course, I’m snapping many of Nora, but I’m also trying to capture house projects, family, friends, nature, food, etc… because if I don’t, I think I’ll regret it later on!

However, I often get annoyed with myself for taking so many pictures… but then keeping them “locked up” in my camera, my phone, or on our portable hard drive.

I should be printing and displaying these photos, right!

So I’ve been trying to print more pictures lately… and since photos are relatively inexpensive {compare to pricey art pieces} I thought I would share some ideas for decorating your home with photos. Of course, these are just a FEW of the many ideas floating around the Internet, and they can all be re-worked to fit pretty much any space — big or small.

Eclectic Shelf Groupings:

.

I’ve shown pictures of these shelves in our office before — but I seriously just LOVE my “photo shelf” on the bottom. I found all these frames at garage sales or thrift stores and just spray painted them white. Now they look somewhat matching and I have an eye-catching display of our lives… all for pennies!

In a Row:

.

Wouldn’t this be great for a hallway, entryway, above the couch, or on any other blank wall? What a great way to display yearly school photos, family photos, or just a fun mix of your favorite shots.

I know you can find really cheap white frames at IKEA… or you could forgo the frames all together and simply use clothes pins to attach pictures to wire or string.

photo credit

Colorful Wall Collage:

.

Make a dramatic statement {and decorate an entire wall} with a gorgeous full wall collage like the one pictured below. All it takes is a grouping of inexpensive frames, and you can totally transform a small area into a fantastic photo gallery. Stunning isn’t it!

photo source

Dramatic Canvas Prints:

.

Canvas prints tend to be pricey — but I found this great tutorial that shows you how to make a “canvas look-alike” yourself. I already have ideas for doing something similar above our couch in the living room… now I just need to decide what pictures to use!

photo source

Black and White:

.

I love all black and white photos. Period.

I’m not the best photographer, so many of my photos are overly color-saturated, under exposed, a bit blurry, or just plain uninteresting. However, I can often transform them into a timeless piece of art just by cropping the image, zooming in, and removing the color.

photo source

In a Frame:

.

No, not just any frame… a couple weeks ago, I showed you how I made this simple chicken wire frame for about $5. I can’t get enough of this rustic-looking frame and just love walking past it every day. I also love that it takes about 10 seconds to swap new pictures in!

And here’s another clever {and really simple} idea for displaying multiple photos in a large frame. I think I might make something like this for our kitchen… or even the laundry room!

photo source

Even if you live in a small space and have a small budget, there are still SO many ways you can use photos to decorate your home. Plus, if you’re like me and often forget to actually print your photos — this will give you a good excuse!

How do you display your photos?

.

I have partnered with Apartment Guide to serve as an Official Apartment Guide Organizing Blogger! As an official blogger, I will be sharing articles filled with tips for living on a budget.

Looking for more?

• Check out the frugal decorating ideas over at ApartmentGuide.com
• And make sure you read these quick tips to spice up your decor over at MovingToday.com
• Like Apartment Guide on Facebook and follow them on Twitter for real-time tips and updates on making the most of your space.
• Whether you’re living, looking or moving, Apartment Guide offers how-to tips for making the most of a space on a budget.
• If you’re ready for a whole new space or are looking to move, Apartment Guide has the photos, floor plans, features and tips to help you find the perfect apartment community.

Apartment Guide and owner Consumer Source, Inc. have partnered with bloggers like me as Official Apartment Guide Bloggers. As part of this program, I have received compensation. They have not told me what to purchase or what to say about the products used, and believe that consumers and bloggers are free to form their own opinions and share them in their own words. Consumer Source’s policies align with WOMMA Ethics Code, FTC guidelines and social media engagement recommendations.

6 comments →

I know you know that I’m frugal… and that I LOVE to get great deal whenever and wherever I can… right?

Well, I thought it might be fun to show you a few pictures of our Master Bedroom furniture… all of which cost me less than $100!

When we first got married, we purchased a complete, matching set of bedroom furniture. It was very nice… but I never really loved it.

Then, one day, I found an old iron bed {see pictures above} at a junk sale for $70 and knew I wanted it for our room. So I sold our 1-year old bedroom furniture on Craigslist {for MORE than what I paid for it new!} and set out to find additional furniture pieces to complete our master bedroom.

Here’s what I found…

.

I already mentioned that I got the bed from a junk sale… and that red door behind the bed was actually in the basement of our first house. I loved it so much that it made the move with us to our farmhouse!

I wanted a little sitting area in our bedroom {see below}, so I found a cute “women’s rocker” on Craigslist for $10 and I made the little night stand out of an old wine crate that I bought for $1 at a garage sale!

The black ladder is actually only half of a huge ladder I found a few years ago. Some black paint and a bunch of nails makes it the perfect place to store my necklaces!

Dave and I both like to fold a lot of our clothes, so we each needed our own dressers. I bought the green dresser from our old neighbors for $10 and the white one from Goodwill for $7.00.

After a little paint and distressing, they fit perfectly in our farmhouse bedroom!

Oh, and I found that little black stool for free on the side of the road {I painted it} — all the accessories are either from garage sales, junk yards, or other places in our house.

So here’s the price breakdown:

• iron bed = $70
• red screen door = $0
• rocking chair = $10
• night stand = $0
• ladder = $0
• green dresser = $10
• white dresser = $7
• black stool = $0

I won’t even tell you how much we paid for our first bedroom set {a lot more than $100} but at least I got our money back when I sold it! Plus, I absolutely LOVE our new bedroom “set” so it was worth the extra effort it took to pull everything together!

What are your favorite frugal ways to find furniture?

.

Here are a few more inexpensive decorating tips:

• Get your disorganized bathroom in top-shape in no time with these hints from Apartment Guide.
• Is your kitchen an unorganized mess? Apartment Guide provides simple tasks and storage ideas to keep your kitchen spotless.
• Like Apartment Guide on Facebook and follow them on Twitter for real-time tips and updates on making the most of your space.
• Whether you’re living, looking or moving, Apartment Guide offers how-to tips for making the most of a space on a budget.

Apartment Guide and owner Consumer Source, Inc. have partnered with bloggers like me as Official Apartment Guide Bloggers. As part of this program, I have received compensation. They have not told me what to purchase or what to say about the products used, and believe that consumers and bloggers are free to form their own opinions and share them in their own words. Consumer Source’s policies align with WOMMA Ethics Code, FTC guidelines and social media engagement recommendations.

3 comments →

Whenever I work with my organizing clients their #1 question is usually “what type of storage containers should I buy?” And while I agree that storage containers are a big part of any organizing project, I ALWAYS tell them not to buy anything until I’ve taken a look through their house first.

The majority of the time, I can find something they already own and re-purpose it as a storage container for their specific space. And although I LOVE saving my clients money, I also love the fact that these storage containers often serve as decorative pieces around their house — so much nicer than bulky bins and tubs!

For the next 3 months, I’ll be partnering with Apartment Guide to serve as an Official Apartment Guide Organizing Blogger! I’ll be sharing lots of tips for living on a budget — and I’m starting this month with creative, decorative, and inexpensive storage solutions…

Here are a few of my favorite ideas from around our house! 

Bathroom:

.

We have a very small master bathroom, however it is packed full of decorative storage — my favorite of which are these gorgeous wicker baskets that we’ve filled with extra toiletries, towels, toilet paper, etc.

These baskets not only serve the functional purpose hiding our “clutter”, they also look fantastic!

Clothes:

.

If you have a small house and/or limited closet space, you might have to get creative with your storage sollutions and come up with decorative ways to conceal your clothes clutter.

We have a small armoire in our living room that acts as a make-shift mudroom.

And we have really cute bins in our nursery for clothes that are too big, extra baby supplies, etc.

 Both of these storage ideas were extremely inexpensive and added tons of decorative storage.

Jewelry:

.

I’ve shared several decorative storage ideas for jewelry in previous posts, but I’m still partial to using old ice molds and muffin tins to store my own jewelry!

I also LOVE using ladders to hang necklaces and other “hang-able” items.

Both storage solutions keep the jewelry at my finger tips AND serve as fun decorative pieces for our bedroom!

So even if you have a REALLY small space, there are still plenty of ways to keep it organized, functional, AND nicely decorated without breaking the bank!

What are your best decorative storage Ideas?

.

Here are a few more resources for small-space decorating:

• Get your disorganized bathroom in top-shape in no time with these hints from Apartment Guide.
• Is your kitchen an unorganized mess? Apartment Guide provides simple tasks and storage ideas to keep your kitchen spotless.
• Like Apartment Guide on Facebook and follow them on Twitter for real-time tips and updates on making the most of your space.
• Whether you’re living, looking or moving, Apartment Guide offers how-to tips for making the most of a space on a budget.

Apartment Guide and owner Consumer Source, Inc. have partnered with bloggers like me as Official Apartment Guide Bloggers. As part of this program, I have received compensation. They have not told me what to purchase or what to say about the products used, and believe that consumers and bloggers are free to form their own opinions and share them in their own words. Consumer Source’s policies align with WOMMA Ethics Code, FTC guidelines and social media engagement recommendations.

7 comments →

As much as I LOVE putting up our Christmas decorations… I also love taking them down again.

Yes, it takes the better part of an afternoon to gather them all into my storage bins and bring them downstairs; but after I’m finished, the house feels so open, light, and un-cluttered. 

I packed our holiday decorations up this past weekend and just left some greenery and pine cones out — but those will stay up all winter long. Everything else is now stored away in the basement until next year.

Here are a Few Tips for Packing Up Christmas Decor

.

1. Do it all at one time.

Yes, I left some of my greenery out for the rest of the winter, but everything else gets packed up in one afternoon. I don’t like to drag things out so I just do it all at one time… make a big mess… and then clean it up.

I know people who do one room each day for a week — but then they have storage bins sitting out all week long. Also, if you do it all at one time, you can remind yourself of everything you have… which will help you with #2 and #3 below.

2. Declutter as You Pack.

Whenever I put my decorations away, I always end up purging at least a few things. The other day I shared how I declutter with clothes baskets… and I definitely put a few Christmas things in our clothes baskets this year!

3. Store Like Items Together.

I use 4 large clear tubs to store all our Christmas decorations {everything but the trees}. One bin is for all the greenery, one is for ornaments and tree decor, one is for Christmas linens/dishes, and the last one is just for everything else.

My bins are all the same size so they stack easily; and since they are labeled, I can quickly and easily find exactly what I need within minutes.

4. Clean While You Pack. 

Whenever I take my decorations down, I take a few extra minutes to dust or wipe down each surface. Then, after I put the bins back downstairs, I vacuum and sweep the floors.  It’s just part of the process for me and makes the house feel that much cleaner and un-cluttered when I’m finished!

5.  Stock up for Next Year. 

I had my eye on a few Christmas decor items in the stores this year — but I always wait until after Christmas to buy them at a ridiculously reduced price. I also stock up on Christmas napkins, paper plates, cups, etc. after Christmas and store them in the “linens/dishes” tub.

My house is now “back to normal” for another year… and I’m glad to have that project behind me!

When do you pack up your Christmas decorations?

.

10 comments →

I already showed you a few pictures of our Christmas decorations, but I thought it might be fun to show you a few other fabulously decorated homes from around the web — not to make you feel horrible because you don’t have a perfectly decorated home {if this is you, just read yesterday’s post} but instead to get you in the holiday spirit and be inspired by other people’s gorgeous homes.

I’m always amazed by how creative other people get with their decorations — especially since I mainly decorate with trees, garland, pine cones, and other natural items. Below are a few of my favorite rooms – and no, I don’t think they are necessarily simple OR practical… just beautiful!

Wouldn’t you just love to have a grand staircase like this one from the Martha Stewart website? I LOVE the look of dark stair treads and white risers.

Or what about this fabulously color-coordinated room from Modcodesign.com!

I have a soft spot in my heart for the color red, so even though I’d never dare to spend money on a somewhat impractical red couch, I just love how it fits so well in this room!

Of course this entryway is probably not doable for the normal home… but talk about making an entrance! Someday I’d love to have our entire front porch completely decorated for Christmas with lights, garland, lanterns, trees, etc… someday!

I love a good “green and white” decorating theme too — so this rustic room from Country Living Magazine immediately caught my attention. Wouldn’t it be fun to decorate a log cabin like this!

I appreciate the simplicity of this white-on-white fireplace. Now all I need is a fireplace and I can probably pull off the same look

Here’s another white room — this is how I would decorate my cottage for Christmas… if I had a cottage!

These are just a FEW of the many holiday decorations that caught my attention while surfing the web this past month. And like I said earlier, I don’t think they are “simple” but I’ve sure had fun dreaming about what it would be like to live in such lovely rooms.

However, I assume most of these rooms were “staged” for the photo!

What are your favorite types of holiday decorations?

.

4 comments →

I know it’s still the day before Thanksgiving — but since I’m over nine months pregnant and since I wasn’t able to put up many decorations last year — I decided to get a head start on holiday decorating this year.

And I’m SO glad I did!!

We’ve been enjoying the twinkling lights of Christmas trees and garland in every room since November 16 — I love it so much I may have have to change my tradition of setting up the Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving… we’ll see!

Here is a mini tour of our Christmas decorations so far.

.

This is the new tree I got just last week. It’s a 7.5 food slimline tree that would have cost over $300… but I got it from a local thrift store for $40 and it was already set up with all the branches perfectly spaced out!  It even came with the box for easy storage after Christmas!

This tree is in our office and is in the direct line of sight for anyone who walks through the front door.

Since we don’t have a fire place {I have plans to make one though}, I hung some old knitted stockings on the barnwood shelves. I actually really like the look!

Since that tree is our “main tree” this year; that is the tree I put all of Dave and my childhood ornaments on. We’ve each gotten at least one ornament every year of our entire lives, and we also have a bunch of ornaments we made as kids too.

We currently have over 80 of these ornaments, but for some reason, the ones above are a few of my favorites. I got the Cabbage Patch doll ornament in 1988 when I got my first Cabbage Patch doll; the sparkly Christmas tree was one I made in preschool; and the wooden bell was given to us on our first Christmas as a married couple.

One of the main ways I like to decorate during the holiday season is with natural items like pine cones, berries, greenery… and candy canes! OK, so candy canes aren’t really natural, but I have a bunch of HUGE fake candy canes that I use to decorate various places around our house.

I’m also a big fan of the tall, skinny Alpine trees — and have at least 5 of them floating around different rooms of our home. I often just put white lights on them and call it good, but I decided to string some cranberries and big gold bells on this one.

The book case is in the corner of our living room and just needed a few splashes of red, green, and gold to look really festive!

Told you I love these big candy canes! 

The girls are loving the lighted garland and candy canes that I used throughout the upstairs and down the banister. They started taking pictures immediately when they got home from school!

I have so many more decorations to share… but I think I’ll wait util AFTER Thanksgiving to post more pictures! For now, I’m just thrilled that I was able to get all the decorations up before our baby girl arrives.

Pin It

6 comments →