Style In A Snap

Fix your past décor and furnishings mistakes – and prevent future ones – by injecting personality and flair into your home. Here’s how to do it without breaking the bank

By Bev Bennett
CTW Features

Spice up your decor with some purposeful color and a splash of emotion. Image courtesy Pier 1 Imports

You shopped a furniture bargain warehouse and got a bedroom set that’s straight out of a Holiday Inn. Going to bed makes you feel like you’re in a strange town. Or maybe you went in the other direction. You splurged on an Italian designer sofa. It’s stunning; a work of art, but it isn’t you. In fact, it reminds your friends of a museum lobby.

Unfortunately you fell into a common trap. You furnished your home without giving much thought to making it personal and exciting. However, drab is not destiny. It’s never too late to fix your mistakes. And you can do so without spending a fortune or becoming a slave to designer fads.

If you follow the three Cs – color, collections and creativity – you can transform your surroundings from blah to beautiful. Take stock of your surroundings. If your walls, carpet and furnishings are the same shade as your morning latte, you probably fear color commitment. But adding color is one of the easiest ways to bring warmth to a room, says Joan Steffend, host of HGTV’s “Decorating Cents” television series.

Look for color opportunities when you buy furnishings or accessories. Paint walls, ceilings or trimmings in contrasting or complementary colors. Choose small touches or grand flourishes, according to your taste.

“Color is something we should concentrate on more,” says Steffend. “We are so worried about making mistakes we stick with creamy white.”

Steffend admits though, to painting one room four times this year – she encourages people to take paint brush in hand as a way to bring color to a home. Start small by painting the bathroom, for example.

“Paint the powder room terra cotta or periwinkle. There’s a spring in your step when you walk into a periwinkle room,” says Steffend.

Finding colors to live with may be as easy as looking in your closet. “Look at the colors you like to wear and use those to decorate,” says Donna Babylon. Colorphobes who’ve been in black the last 20 years may be challenged. But you can think about colors you would wear, suggests Babylon.

She, for instance, wears black but loves purple. “My living room is purple. Decorating with it is another way of getting purple into my life,” says Babylon, author of “More Splash Than Cash Decorating Ideas” (Windsor Oak Publishing, 1999). Color isn’t just eye-catching, it’s unifying. Pieces look like they’re planned, not tossed together into a room, says Steffend. “Color is the prime way to connect disparate pieces in a room. It’s like giving your room a hug,” she says. Accessories are a great way to create unity. For example, toss blue cushions on a sofa. Place blue glass vases on bookshelves or end tables. Drape a blue hand-woven shawl over an armchair. The blue theme makes a living room instantly more attractive.

Collections have a different purpose. You use color to pull pieces together; you use collections to draw the eye back to one specific element or area of a room. Be gutsy. A ditsy arrangement isn’t worth doing. Your collection can be anything from the cookie cutters you’d otherwise shove in the kitchen drawer, to spools of thread. Imagine a den with arm chairs, television and end table. Pretty sterile, isn’t it? Then picture skeins of lovely yarn piled high in baskets next to one of the chairs. Instant warmth. Don’t limit your collectibles to coffee tables or bookshelves. Fill your platters with anything from childhood marbles to old buttons and set them out where people can have fun rummaging through the odds and ends. As you assemble your favorite objects don’t be afraid to reveal yourself in your display.

“You don’t want people to look at your room and say, ‘this is a lovely showroom.’ You want a room that shows your love and personality,” says Steffend.

How do you do this? “Use things you’ve collected to make your room talk as you’re talking,” Babylon says. “These things don’t have to be expensive. It can be as simple as a childhood smocked dress you display on the wall. Add a story. Make the dress into art. Frame it. Then add a photo of you in the dress. It becomes art.”

Babylon encourages you to bring your life into your rooms. “My home includes pieces of furniture I grew up with. I have an antique spool cabinet from my mother, who got it from a general store in the small town in which she grew up,” Babylon says. “Look at your history and background. If you’re a CPA, have your accounting books on your bookshelf. If you weave or carve or save your children’s artwork, you can display all that.”

Finding your inner decorator may be your biggest challenge. It’s easy to be intimidated if you compare your artistry to what you see in magazines. Don’t worry. You want your home to reflect your tastes and interests, not those on the newsstand.

“I’m a great believer in doing things yourself. It’s a great way to express yourself. Cross-stitch beautiful pillows or knit a throw,” Babylon says. And if nothing else, write your personality into your home. Scribble an inspirational quote on a blackboard in the dining room. Press your childhood letters into a picture frame to hang on the wall. Let everyone know what you’re thinking.

“I stenciled ‘love, laugh and dream’ on a sign on my daughter’s room,” says Steffend.

Once you’re inspired, it’s tempting to turn your house upside down. Have patience, say the decorators. “You don’t have to redo your house overnight. Start small. I don’t feel a room is ever finished, Steffend says.

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