Sarah Crosset asked:


When you have a picky, sophisticated style, it can be difficult to decorate your home. Learning to appreciate the little things will keep you in the loop with life and loving your home, sophisticated or not.

Decorating your home can be difficult. We all know that. But if you’re one of those people that has a slightly sophisticated taste, if you yourself may not be a sophisticated person, decorating your home can be a veritable nightmare.

As a Home Decorating Sophisticate, or HDS as it were, you have a refined taste in furniture, flooring, sashes, throw pillows, drapery, rugs, lighting, hanging artwork and pretty much everything else that comes through your line of vision. You can sense imbalance in your sleep and your aura blends with Zen decorating on an ultimately frightening level.

Never fear, though. You don’t have to go to a professional decorator to get the look you want and can be happy with for your home-which is great because with your picky style, a professional decorator would be a complete waste of thousands of dollars.

First things first. Learn to appreciate imbalance and make it work with your extreme sense of balance. When you’re learning to appreciate the simple things in life, the sophisticated side of you can break lose and make it difficult. One of the most important things a sophisticate must know when trying to decorate a home for reality is that there can never be perfect balance in everything. Life may be about learning achieve balance, but if you have kids, or a life that moves with the speed of the world, there’s bound to be an occasional dirty sock on the floor, traffic marks and hand smudges on your walls. Decorate to suit those needs.

You may need to purchase an area rug to cover the places where people walk the most. Oriental rugs are perfect for parlors, living rooms and dining rooms as well as any other place your sophisticated little heart needs to put one. In outdoor spaces or sunrooms a well made bamboo area rug or seagrass area rug can be an excellent addition to your motif. Remember though, that an area rug is more than just a way to cover up the little imperfections that send your sophistication radar blaring up a storm. An area rug is a way to bring warmth and life into your otherwise over-perfected home.

But don’t think that it’s only about area rugs and covering things up that you don’t want to see. Decorating as a sophisticate is also about learning to appreciate the macaroni and glitter jewelry box your daughter made enough to proudly display it next to the Faberge egg knock off your grandmother left you.

Remind yourself everyday that sophistication is less important than the little things in life. As a sophisticate you can always have a beautiful home that you love. But it is so few and far between that a sophisticate can have both a beloved home and home that’s full of love.

It’s not easy to have a sophisticated home that is also full of life and ready for reality. Give life a change and you may find it’s more sophisticated than you thought.

Bob Bastian asked:


You should keep in mind that the best way to get a lot of decorating down is to take a few of your closest friends and ask them to come over and help you get your home decorating done. There are a lot of people who have painting parties. This is a cheap way to get your painting needs met without having to put a lot of time into the home. You will also find that there are many other things that you can do to keep the budget down too. Keep in mind that there are some other things that you can do to keep the decorating prices down. For those who have never had a professional come in and decorate a home, it can be very expensive. Instead of paying someone, you and your friends may be able to handle some of the decorating tasks and it could save you hundreds of money.

The first thing that you will want to think about when putting a home decorating party together is so that you can try to talk some of your skilled friends into helping you. You are going to have to have some people will some basic carpentry skills. The carpentry skills my come from your husband and his friends, but then you still have to find people who are trustworthy to come in and paint and hang some of your pictures. This is why is it always best to go with close friends and family members that you can trust.

The second thing that you have to think about is how you can stay within your budget. You will want to make sure that you consider telling this helpers that they are pretty just donating their time to you and that you have no concern in paying them. Even your best friend may expect some form of payment, however, you can always tell them that the drinks and pizza is one you for the night.

The third thing is that you will need to find some nicely priced supplies. It is very easy and very quick to decorate a home when you just try to use things like fabric, mirrors, and candles. This will make a room dramatic and lovely without having to waste a lot of your time or taking a lot of your money.

When you have a home decorating party you will find that there are a lot of opinions that you will have and you’ll get a lot of great ideas. These same ideas would be the ones that a professional home decorator would make. You will be able to save money on not having a home decorator and having professional painters come in to do the job that your friends have helped you to start and finish.

Bob Bastian asked:

For those who are trying to decorate a home, but need to stick to a specific budget may want to learn how to approach the art of buying decorating accessories and items. You will want to think about setting your budget together before you end up buying things to decorate. You will find that there are some things that you will want to purchase to go cheap when it comes to decorating. You will want to keep a few ideas in mind and you will also want to sit down with some mail catalogs and other magazines to see if there is anything that interests you. You will want to make sure that you consider the budget with every purchase that you make.

When it comes to home decorating you will want to focus on the areas that people are going to see on a regular basis. You will want to make sure that you first take care of the entry-level rooms first, because most people do not go upstairs when just a guest. You will find that there are many ways that you will be able to decorate, even the smallest of spaces, however, you will want to keep the three basic decorating tips in mind.

First, you will need to keep in mind fabric. Fabric is a cheap and easy way for you to be able to make a dramatic effect in any room. You will be able to add a whimsical look to any room and it is very nice to add bunting fabric in the setting rooms and in the family rooms.

Secondly you will find that candles are cheap and easy to use in the decor of your home. It makes any home seem more like a family home and you will also find that there are tons of ways to use the candles. You can use candles to make a dramatic effect as well. You will be able to keep you home decorating simple with candles, but you will at least be able to give the home a clean, country look or rustic medieval look.

When it comes to mirrors you will be able to sue them to your advantage. You should be able to use the mirrors in a way that will allow you to play around with the size of a room. Mirrors tend to make small or narrow rooms seem so much bigger. You will want to keep in mind that these tricks are used in practically any home. You’ll love the fact that people see your room differently over a couple candles and a good-sized mirror. You will find that this is a great and cheap way of doing things.

Adrian Adams asked:


Every homeowner has the constant desire to want to create a presentable environment in their house. It is only natural – if you make such a large investment as a house, you should maintain it to the best of your abilities. Using simple techniques to decorate your house, you can increase the aesthetics by a huge amount. It can be very expensive to hire a professional home decorator, and it is quite frankly unnecessary. Professional home decorators are simply people who have learned to spot certain fundamental truths about home aesthetics. So if you feel the need to decorate or redecorate your home, you should consider all of the following aspects.

The first step to home decorating is having tasteful furniture and accessories. This doesn’t mean you have to buy a ridiculously expensive set from a furniture store. You can do with thrift store goods if you’re careful. When you first start picking (or replacing) your furniture, you should decide on a certain theme that you want to stick with. You can buy furniture that is mostly made out of wood. If you buy a can of wood stain from your local home improvement store, you can magically match all of your furniture when previously they completely contrasted each other. Alternatively, you may decide to go with a modern theme, or any other number of themes and sub-themes used by decorators. You can get ideas from decorating magazines, stores, or homes of friends.

Once you’ve got your furniture and accessories all generally matching, you can consider your walls and carpets. Of course, this stage of the decorating depends on how much you want to overhaul your home, and how much you are willing to spend in time and money. The fact of the matter is, your carpet and walls are most likely not the best match for the rest of your house, since the builders of your home could not have known what sort of furniture you would have. Painting the walls is a relatively easy project, and you can do it in a weekend if you plan it out right. A tastefully-colored wall can lend a lot of aesthetic value to your home.

The hardest part of decorating your home is noticing small touches that you can make to lend to and improve the overall mood and theme of the house. The reason it’s hard is that you can’t analyze any specific aspect of your house and figure out how to change it for the better. Instead, you have to look at the big picture and creatively imagine things that you could be doing differently. If this doesn’t come naturally to you, then you can use many different sources as inspiration. But a few magazines next time you’re at the store, and look at the rooms pictured within. Most of them have likely been designed by professionals. You can look for the small details that give the room its great style, and figure out ways to apply the same thing to your home. Just make sure that the small details fit the color scheme and style of your overall decor.

The lighting of your rooms is also a very important aspect. When you have a very well-thought-out furniture layout, and specific decorations everywhere, usually the default lighting layout will not suffice. Think about changing the lighting to a different part of the room to change the focus. Think about putting a lamp on a table or even a track lighting system on the ceiling. There are many different options, and if you choose the right one then you can masterfully focus the attention of visitors to the parts of the room that you want them to be looking at.

Home decorating is never easy or quick, which is why so many people are tempted to spend a lot of money for professional advice. But before you do that, find out what exactly you are capable of, and see what you can do for your house.