This customer had relocated and moved into a new home.  Instead of moving with their old dining set, they chose to order a new set from us.  While they awaited the new furniture, they used a folding table.  Needless to say, once the new furniture arrived it brought the room to life.  Don’t you think it is a beautiful transformation?

Step 1: Evaluate

This is a critical part of the process.  What is the room used for? What needs to be in here, what doesn’t?  What can be donated, re-purposed or sold? Where does the clutter pile up? Take a mental note (or physical list) of this and answer some of the following questions.

1. How can this room stay organized?
2. Where and what are the clutter zones?
3. Where should the most used items be?
4. Do I need additional storage pieces to help better separate un-like items?

By answering questions like this, you can better assess what needs to happen.  Some rooms may just need a little work while others may need a lot!

Step 2: Planning

By answering the questions above, you should have reached some conclusions about what you will need.  Its now time to start planning.  Go online and shop around for needed storage bins or organizing items that will fit your space.  I find that bins in closets and drawers help keep items easier to access and to put away. Here are some of my favorite organizing tools:

Pictured above: 1.) Cabinet Door Pan Lid Rack, 2.) Under Shelf Basket, 3.) Skubb Collapsible Storage Boxes, 4.) Media Storage Boxes, 5.) Hanging Closet Shelves, 6.) Pan Organizer, 7.) Collapsible Storage Cubes

Step 3: The Attack

After securing items you think will work, its time to attack the room you are ready to take on.  Note: Save your receipts as items may not work out exactly as you planned and your space may require another size or completely different item! I prefer to start Friday evening by pulling items out that I don’t want in the room and getting clutter and trash out.  Then Saturday morning, armed with cleaning tools and a large coffee, you can start the project.  Keeping cleaning items at arms reach allows you to do some deep cleaning as you take items off a shelf, give it a good scrub! Once you return items to their places, not only will things be tidy but sparkling clean as well!

Step 4: Enjoy

After your successful organizing, sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor. Make sure to keep things tidy by returning items to their proper places!

The Nest.com

Living Room

You can dramatically change the look of your living room no matter how small your budget may be. A great place to start is by painting an accent wall a shade or two darker than your existing color. Another budget friendly option is to add new throw pillows in a variety of prints, colors, and textures. A new area rug or slipcovers on your existing furniture can make a big difference as well.

Bedroom

Does the look of your bedroom need waking up? Why not give it a fresh coat of paint? While you are at it, add some molding to give it a nice finished look. If you are not interested in painting the whole room, consider painting just the furniture. You could also try dressing up your bed by making a fabric slip cover for your headboard or by adding new pillows and linens.

Bathroom

Photo Credit: Real Simple

Who doesn’t like to go to the spa? You can give your drab bathroom a spa-like feel by painting the walls a soft, relaxing color. Instead of buying expensive artwork, try buying scrapbooking paper and framing it. Plants and aromatic candles are also affordable accessories that can change the appearance of any bathroom. For a real spa-like feel indulge in new towels. Setting a basket full of rolled towels near the bathtub can not only be stylish but also a storage solution.

Kitchen

Kitchen redesigns always improve the overall look of a home and don’t have to cost a fortune. Almost everything in your kitchen can be repainted, refinished, or renewed; you can repaint your walls, cabinets, or even your appliances. If painting sounds like too much work, updating your cabinetry hardware can be a refreshing change. Another economical choice would be to replace old rugs, dish rags, and towels with new ones. New curtains, updated plumbing fixtures, shiny counter top appliances, and a fresh bowl of fruit can also have impact when trying to give a kitchen a fresh look.

Photo Credit: Real Simple

Dining Room

Dining rooms tend to be forgotten about when doing home makeovers but there are many ways to refresh this room too. Everything in your dining room can be painted. If you don’t want to paint your table and chairs but want to give them a new look, try reupholstering your chairs. This is much easier than it sounds, all you need is about a 1/2 yard of fabric, a heavy duty stapler, and the ability to wrap a present. Other low-cost decorating options include a new mirror, wall hangings, window coverings, and a fresh and pretty centerpiece.

Guest post from Bailey Harris. Bailey writes for Area Rugs, a retail site that sells brand name area rugs.

We felt inspired by the colors {and smells} of the season to bring you our first “fall must haves” style guide. We wanted to focus on ways you could incorporate the colors of the season into your home.  By accessorizing with pop color items you can bring these yummy colors into your home and then change it up next season!

What will you incorporate into your home this season to bring in the beauty of the outdoors?

Style Guide – Fall Must Haves:

Chargers: Pottery Barn

Dinnerware: Pottery Barn

Wallpaper: Anthropologie

Throw: Crate and Barrel

Bedding: Anthropologie

Wreath: Better Homes & Gardens

Color Trends for 2011

So you have your paint brushes out, you’ve got the drop cloth on the floor, and you’re standing in front of the color swatches at the paint store trying to decide what color to choose. It’s not like you don’t have a bazillion options!

If you’re up to speed on the color trends for 2011, this is a much easier task.

For the new year, color favorites will run the gambit from cool and sophisticated to bold and BOHO. Each of the major paint companies have collections of colors that are hot for the new year and fall into about 4 categories… Pale neutrals….organic naturals….bold and bright….and ethnic and global.

Neutrals with a Touch of Glam

Gray, white and taupe step it up in 2011 with touches of metallics, shine and sparkle.

Muted purples in shades ranging from soft lavender to deeper wines have become neutrals this year when they are paired with gray, natural whites and creams and more intense browns.

And you thought that gold was gone! Well look again! It’s being used in large does to add some glamour to a space. Shimmering softly, there’s no brassiness to this gold tone….just soft and luscious. Use it with other neutrals or more bold and beautiful….It’s baaaaack……

Organic Naturals

Going green, both literally and figuratively, is a hallmark of interior design for the present and the future. The colors or 2011 carry the theme along and present with colors of nature…think vegetables from the farm, rocks in a natural spring and clear summer skies mixed with milky whites and creams.

Color Brights

Remember how you loved the 96 count box of Crayolas? It had the sharpener and it made you hot stuff in kindergarten. You won’t need quite so many colors with the resurgence of primary colors in the 2011 color palette.

When the economy goes down the colors go bright! Even with the recovery, we gravitate to colors that enliven us and and elevate our moods. Paint the walls, bring in pops of color in accessories and mix it with bright whites and clear neutrals.

You Go BoHo

Global influences and ethnic designs are a big influencer in colors for 2011. Rich, earthy, bright and clear, the tribal colors and patterns bring inspiration and imagination to our spaces. Ancient Suzani, Ikat, Dhurrie patterns bring a rich array of textures, colors and energy to spaces, and their influence will continue to be felt throughout 2011.

The colors for 2011 speak to every person and every mood. Color is always personal, and there is plenty of room for everyone’s personality to shine in these varied palettes. Most importantly, choose color based on how it makes YOU feel and what you love. When that’s your measuring stick, there will be a design and a color to fit it!

Photo: freshome.com

If you’re looking to upgrade or just want to change from a tired and worn out look, you need to consider a lot of different factors before buying one on a whim because it looks good in the store display.  Let’s run through them:

Size

The first thing you need to consider is the space you have available for your sofa.  Buying one that is too big will make your living space feel crowded, while getting one that is too small will make the room feel barren.  Make sure to take measurements of the room you’re planning to put the couch in and know all of your placement options.  You’ll need to take into consideration how the couch will be placed in relation to other pieces of furniture and electronics.

With many larger televisions you need a certain amount of space between it and you to get an optimal viewing experience.  This measurement depends on the kind of TV you have and can be found in your user guide or online.  You’ll also want to have a decent amount of space to walk by or in between your couch and other pieces of furniture.  There is nothing worse than having an awesome couch that makes your room feel small and cramped.

Function

When deciding on a couch you’ll need to consider what you’re going to be using it for.  Some questions you might want to ask yourself:

• Are you looking for maximum comfort because you’ll be watching a lot of TV or reading in it?
• Will this couch be placed in a formal living room meant for entertaining?
• How many people do you want this couch to sit?
• What kind of back angle are you comfortable with considering your plans for it?

Style

The style of your couch really depends on your own taste and look of your space.  Often the style is subordinate to the function the couch will serve.  There many styles of couches but here are the most common you’ll have to choose from:

• Lawson:  One of the most popular styles of couches.  The high back and low arms are built for comfort and lounging.
• Tuxedo:  Don’t expect lounging or a lot of comfort from this one.  Usually works best in formal settings or as a center piece for interior design.
• Chippendale:  More formal with definite old world touches.
• Chesterfield:  These elegant couches will take you back to 19th century drawing rooms.
• Sectional:  Super comfortable and versatile, these couches work well in big spaces.
• Slipper:  With no arms and high back this is style of couch is strictly for entertaining or business.
• Bridgewater:  Made for comfort, if you’re looking t relax you can’t go wrong with this style of couch.

Material

After you have decided where your couch is going to go, what you can fit, what its purpose is and what style you like, you’re going to need to pick a fabric.  Not all styles of couches are made in all fabrics, so you’ll need to balance your stylistic needs with the practical realities of what your couch will endure.

If you have dogs, kids or love to eat on your sofa then you need to pass on anything suede.  If this couch is in a high traffic area and is going to be used a lot, you need to make sure you’re using a durable material like leather or a micro fiber.  These are easy to clean and maintain and will last you years.  Definitely consider fabric that is treated with a stain protector as this will keep your sofa looking like new, no matter what you dish out to it!

Choosing a couch is a big decision and like anything else you’ll need to balance your needs, wants, and budget to find the right one for you.  At the end of the day, make sure you have something that fits your lifestyle and room and you’ll enjoy it for years to come.

Welcome to Amish Furniture Home’s Fourth Blog Carnival! We have collected posts from around the web that focus on updating one room of your home. With these simple steps, you could make over a room in a weekend! For this post we chose a guest room, but these steps could easily be applied to almost any room! If you choose to follow these steps, email us photos of your redesign and your design could be featured on our blog!

If you’d like to see one of your posts appear in next month’s Carnival, email us at marketing@amishtables.com or message us on Twitter. Remember, each article can be found by clicking the blue title before each summary.

Happy Re-Designing!

Ok, you have decided you are finally going to tackle that “catch-all” room. But where do you start? Blogger Janell Beals gives our readers some tips in this post.  In order to go through this too, we have picked an inspiration room, revealed next.

Here it is! This is the inspiration for the guest room, courtesy of Noir Blanc Interiors‘ Beach House Decor Blog!  You will see the photo of this guest room at the beginning of this post.  We love the relaxed colors and a little touch of the seaside. It is still summer after all!  We chose this as our inspiration room, because with some simple additions and a little planning, we felt this could be an easily attainable room for you our readers!

We love ceilings and like Barbara Miller we feel that they all too often get forgotten. We think her interesting paper technique could be a good addition to the guest room design we are working towards. If this is too daunting another idea would be to use a slightly darker shade on the ceiling, like a lovely warm gray!

How To: No Sew Faux Roman Shade

Working through our guest room re-design, we wanted to find a quick and easy curtain that we could make.  We found this great “How To” post from the blog High Heeled Foot in the Door. Of course making curtains yourself allows you the freedom to pick fabrics and colors that work with your scheme.  If you need more privacy, you could always add sheers behind the curtains or make them longer!

What bed is complete without some throw pillows? This handy “How To” from Fresh Nest Design is another perfect way to tie your scheme together, especially if you are also making your own Faux Roman Shade!  Instead of the rosettes, you could also use ribbon, buttons, or nothing at all depending on the type of fabric you are using.  If you don’t have time to do anything else, this is a great way to freshen up any room.  Think of new pillows on your sofa, instant pops of fresh color!

Now What? Hopefully this Carnival has inspired you to to bring life to an un-inspired room in your home; you have a decent arsenal of tools to get this job done in one weekend. But what next?

It is time to start pulling your design together, piece by piece.  In our strategy, we would purchase all our items to make sure we can get the complete look we are hoping for. Then comes the time to pick your weekend, prep, paint and reassemble the room! You can tackle the DIY projects in between paint coats or you could do them ahead of time, so there is less to do over the weekend.

We have pulled together a style guide (complete with shopping resources) based on the featured room inspiration. Its a little different, but we think the feel is similar. What do you think?

Style Guide – Resources

1) Monogrammed Sheets: Restoration Hardware

2) Duvet Covers: Potterybarn

3) Shell Print: Etsy

4) Vintage Shell Print: Etsy

5) Fossil Lamp: West Elm

6) Plain Tin Slate Wool Rug: Dash & Albert

7) Royal Master Sealight Floor Lamp: Restoration Hardware

Linen: Home Fabrics & Rugs

Image: Elements of Style Blog

If finding a balance makes you feel like an oak table next to a termite mound, relax and take a deep breath; we’re going to walk you through this.  Decorating with color can be fun, bold and not as risky as you think.  Hey, the worse case scenario is that you paint over it, right?  Follow these simple steps and you’ll be living in colorful surroundings in no time!

Baby Steps

If you have a need for a splash of new color in your living space, then start small.  Find a color that you love, or an inspiration piece in your existing space that you would like to highlight and choose color off of that.  Something as simple as a few throw pillows, a new rug, tablecloth & napkins, or window treatments can introduce color to your home in a safe and fun way.  Try out some bolder choices that you like and see how it jives with your furniture and the rest of your house.

If these colors don’t work, return the goods and try something else.  If you like them, leave them be for the time being.  If a few weeks from now you still like them, then maybe it’s time to expand your use of that color.

Before you go out and buy enough paint to cover your entire house, warm up a bit first.  Try painting a small room that isn’t in the main living area like a bathroom, laundry room or utility space.  If you hate it, there is no rush to paint over it because chances are not a lot of people see those spaces compared to others in your house.  If you like it then maybe paint one of your walls in a main living area like a living room or bedroom.  This accent wall will bring plenty of color to the space and let you further evaluate what you think about your color choice.

Use these smaller spaces to get a feeling for how artificial and natural light make the color look.  You can also use these test spaces to see what other potential color choices will work with them, what your furniture looks like with them and so on.   Remember, there is no need to rush into anything here.

Mind the Flow

Once you have decided to expand your color usage throughout the house or into larger living areas, make sure you keep a sense of flow or connectedness through out the entire space.  Rooms that can be seen from others (no doors in between them) should have the same color schemes running through them.  Even if it’s just a trim color, similar hues or the same colors used in alternating dominate and accent ways, there needs to be some connection between the rooms.

Rooms that can’t be seen from one another can be decorated with a little more liberty, but you should still strive to keep similar tones and hues working throughout the house.  One green room and one pink room will make the house feel disjointed.

Color is fun!  Don’t forget that when you’re about to stress out over your selections.  Try new things, find examples of what you like elsewhere and don’t be afraid to break the mold.  Remember that this season’s “hot color” will be next season’s old thing, so find something you like for the long run.  Experiment and find your own perfect color balance!

Resources

Home Depot’s Room Visualization Tool: This allows you to try out similar looks with existing colors, fixtures, flooring, etc.
Paint Samples: Now available at most home improvement stores, you can purchase 8 oz containers of paint to apply to a part of a wall or board. Look at the paint throughout the day and night, in different lighting and with your existing home goods. If you don’t like you are only out about $3. Pick a new color and try again!

These four rules of interior decoration will help you reinvent your living space and bring some style into your domicile.  While style and interior design are highly subjective, there are just some things that you should or shouldn’t do.  If you’re looking to spice things up inside but don’t want to commit any design faux pas, then you need to check out these easy to follow tips:

Source: Isabella & Max Rooms

1) Plan and Measure

A lot of people fall in love with a piece of furniture and figure they can just “make it work” in their living space. This is a big no-no!  We all know how people in clothes that don’t fit them look; that could be your living room.  Measure your room and make sure that large pieces fit properly.  Having something too big and placing it at weird angles will rob you of usable space and make your room look off.  Small pieces have the opposite effect, in that they make the room feel empty.  If you just end up buying more small pieces to fill the space, you will end up with a cluttered and thrown together room.

2) Use a Rug

Rugs come in a variety of shapes, colors and styles, so there is always one that is perfect for your room’s new look.  Rugs pull a room together and connect the individual elements.  Make sure the rug is tucked under the front of a piece of furniture like a chair, sofa or table.  Your rug needs to be physically and stylistically connected to the entire room.  Colour Me Happy has a great post on selecting the perfect rug for your space, check that out here.

3) Limit Collectibles

You’re going to want to cut down on the amount of collectibles you display.  Every one has their favorite knick-knack that they can’t get enough of, but too much of a good thing is bad.  Select your favorite piece or two and use them as accents or a focal piece on your mantel.  This highlights your collection, without cluttering the whole space with the entire deal.  The same goes for family heirlooms.  One or two is great but too many will hijack your room.

4) Function Over Fashion

At all costs make sure that your space is functional and above all comfortable.  There is nothing worse than a “perfectly decorated” room that can’t ever be used by people.  You’re not creating a Macy’s window display, you’re trying to make your living space lively and more livable.  Express your fashion sense and individuality but never at the expense of comfort and usability.  Sit in all of the chairs, try out the beds, use the towels and whatever else you have to do to fully test for comfort.  You, as well as your guests, will love it even more when the space you have created can actually be used.

Follow these simple rules and a well designed room is within your reach!  It’s a long road, but good style and design is a journey, not a destination.  Have fun, be yourself and try new things to find your unique look and style!

When discussing Amish furniture, you aren’t talking about the style of the piece but rather its origins and level of quality. The Amish use the best materials and techniques handed down for generations to make high quality heirloom furniture that will last decades longer than big-box furniture store stuff.

Amish furniture is extremely popular around the country and the world. The Amish are very careful to listen to the merchants that sell their furniture, so they make products that are not only of the highest quality but also popular amongst customers. It makes no sense to only restrict your furniture making to one or two styles, especially when your customer base demands a variety.

Funtional & Beautiful

Amish furniture is influenced heavily by classic styles like Queen Anne, Shaker and Mission. Their tie to the past is evident but that does not mean these pieces don’t have a place in a contemporary home. Amish furniture exemplifies functional, clean lined furniture. You won’t find any extraneous or overly ornate designs or elements on these pieces. Every drawer opens and every knob is attached to something that needs a knob! This simplicity gives them a universal appeal that will work perfectly with any interior design look you have adopted. Look at this Empire Chifferobe for example.

The materials used in creating this furniture have a huge impact on the overall style and look of the pieces. High quality wood and non-synthetic materials combine to create that clean line look that makes Amish furniture so universal in a design sense. The natural wood and stains are easy to match with other pieces and design elements. Putting together a room has never been easier when you’re dealing with Amish furniture!

Furniture That Will Last

The longevity of these pieces is one of their best qualities. Why spend money on something that is going to be land fill fodder in a few years? The Amish produce heirloom quality furniture that will last you decades. Its universal appeal will allow you to use it in many different design settings. As your tastes change and you redecorate you will always find a place for your Amish made pieces. The best thing is that these high quality pieces are made of all natural materials, so if you want to have them refinished or touched up you won’t have any trouble.

No matter how you have decorated your abode, you will enjoy using Amish made furniture to fill in that missing element. Quality is never out of style and with a wide variety of looks and pieces you’ll be sure to find something that goes perfectly in your current design scheme.