My name is Jessica and I’m a serial renter. I first dipped my toe in the proverbial musky beige carpet in 2007, signing the lease on an affordable two-bedroom unit in Riverside, California. While I’ve only lived in three places throughout my 10 years as a renter, I’ve run the gamut of roommates, ugly permanent fixtures, and term lengths (my current stint finally being in an actual stand-alone house in Los Angeles), and as someone who loves design, I’ve learned a thing or two along the way. It’s a renters world and gone are the days of treating your rental like the purgatory of housing. Here are some ways you can (and should) stop seeing your place as a rental and start making it the home of your dreams (according to my own experiences).
Color is having a moment. True, when it comes to our favorite interiors, eye-catching pigments have always been winners, but in 2017, it seems things have been kicked up a notch. To prove our point, we scoured Instagram, one of our favorite sources of decor inspiration, high and low looking for the most loved and shared (and re-shared) rooms and more importantly, what their color palettes seemed to be. After distilling down some of our findings, we found seven colors and combos that reign supreme, according to the ‘gram.
As a design lover, Anthropologie is hands down one of the the best places to window shop, browse and discover. There’s something inspirational and beautiful to see in every corner at of the store, and half the time, it’s not even merchandise but Anthropologie’s expert propping, styling and display pieces. I don’t know about you, but whenever I’m in an
, I get a “I never want to leave this place” feeling.
You’ve probably seen big, dramatic moldings adorning the walls of beautiful, high-ceilinged spaces in dreamy Paris apartments. Maybe you found yourself thinking: “That looks great, but it would never work in my humble, totally average-sized American home.” I am here to tell you that you are wrong. A little architectural detail can liven up any space, no matter how small—and I’ve got the photos to prove it.
Sometimes the best way to decorate, particularly when you don’t know where to start, is by looking at nature itself. Plenty of decorators will tell you that they find color combos in nature, or that you can’t go wrong with a nature-inspired floral or foliage pattern.
It doesn’t take much to turn around a bedroom that you feel you don’t have the energy or funds to fully tackle. Simple bedding (white is always a winner) goes a long way to freshen things up, and a nicely styled nightstand picks up where linens leave off. Here are some fresh ideas for sprucing up your nightstand, pulled from our
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Nothing draws the eye quite like color—but when it comes to interiors, it can be a tricky thing to get right, especially when the colorful thing you want to incorporate into your space is incredibly bright or really boldly patterned (or both!).
We’ve heard it time and again: the bedroom is often the last place you tackle decorating because it’s behind closed doors (and it seems more practical to devote your energy and dollars to the more public areas of your home). However, just because you’re not ready to take a deep dive into reimagining your sleeping quarters doesn’t mean there isn’t something you can do to spruce up the place in the meantime…sort of like a pre-makeover.
Beds
, so you’d think that we had pretty much seen everything, design-wise. But that’s where you’d be wrong. After the invention of rolled steel made modern bedframes possible, the design of the bed really took off. On a modern bed, the headboard is not so much a part of the bed’s construction as a statement that introduces the bed to the world. It anchors the bed in the room, gives it prominence, makes it a comforting feature. So it is, perhaps, unsurprising that there’s a recent trend towards making headboards bigger and bigger. I, for one, am all for it. Let’s take a look.
