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Easy DIY Cabinet Transformation

Posted in About Renovations, Decor Tips, Decorating Dilemmas, Make it Yourself Decor Ideas, Uncategorized, tagged , , on May 10, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

An affordable answer for the kitchen cabinet refresh/replace dilemma

Kitchen cabinets are crazy expensive but can become tired and dated looking after only a few years. You can totally replace them, if you have the budget for it, but you don’t have to. If the layout works for you and the cabinets are still in good shape, you can paint them to refresh your look. The problem with painting them is that you really should strip the old finish, sand them down, which is hard work and prime with a high adhesion primer. You need a top quality paint and even then the paint will only look good for a few years. Regular paint scratches and marks easily.

I have found a really interesting product, Rust-Oleum Transformations. I haven’t used it yet, but it looks like a really good product that is DIY  friendly. Check out the link below to see all about the product!

http://rustoleumtransformations.com/ 

There are a number of ‘transformation kits’. There is one to refinish your cabinets with paint colour and one for stain colours. There is a transformation kit for counter tops as well. They even offer a kit for wood floors, tiles and furniture!

If you are willing to put in the work, you could refinish the cabinets, counters, backs plash and floor, all with a Rust-Oleum kit!

As I said in the beginning, I have not used these products yet but they looked so interesting that I thought that I should pass on my DIY find. I will be trying it out for myself in the near future, I think.

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2013 Colour Trends are Bright and Bold

Posted in Colour Wheel, Colour Schemes: A Series, Decor Tips, Decorating Dilemmas, Uncategorized, tagged on January 19, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

This is one of Para's delicious colour combinations for 2013

This is one of Para’s delicious colour combinations for 2013

Colour, colour is everywhere this year.  You see it in the decor stores and on the catwalk.

Bright, bold and beautiful colour is everywhere you look.

The pictured colour combination is straight from the 70s. Avocado green, melon orange,  harvest gold with a warm cream to leaven all that colour, is all the rage this year.

Brown and beige have been the colours of choice for the last decade. They were usually paired with turquoise or soft blue as an accent colour. You can give your room(s) a whole new look by simply removing the blue accents and replacing them with vibrant cushions, throws and a few other accent pieces in these bright, bold and very cheerful vintage colours.

If you are not enamored with this particular combination, try other brights and bolds together. Purple, lime green and gold make a striking statement or you could liven up your brown furniture with red and gold with a touch of just the right eggplant purple.

You don’t have to spend a lot either. Just change out a few pieces purchased at your favourite bargain store. It is amazing what you can do with a couple of new cushions, a throw, a vase and a bowl and maybe one new piece of inexpensive, unframed art. And don’t forget to update your lampshades. Lampshades are so often forgotten and they too get shabby and dated looking.

Time to go shopping.

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Wrap It Up Beautifully Every Time (or Gift Wrapping 101)

Posted in Christmas Ideas and Crafts, Uncategorized, tagged , , on December 15, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

Professional looking gift wrappings are really easy to do. You need scissors and clear tape (not magic tape, it shows too much), lots of tape and a little bit of patience (not a lot).

The first thing to do is put the gift in a box of some kind. This automatically makes it easy to do a good job. I keep my boxes from year to year to year, so I always have lots. I also use anything that is the right size. Shoe boxes, Tea boxes, cereal boxes etc are all grist to my mill. Whatever logo is on the box, usually has nothing whatsoever to do with the contents!

place your box on the paper

place your box on the paper

Place the box across the paper as shown. Place the edge of the box slightly less than the thickness of the box, from the edge. At the other side, fold the paper up along the side of the box and mark. Lay the paper down and roll the roll to the mark. Draw a guide line right along where the roll meets the mark, using the roll as a straight edge or ruler. Cut along the line and put the roll aside

start at the bottom

start at the bottom

Make sure the box is centred on the paper. Pull the bottom edge up to just past the centre of the box and tape into place. Then fold the top edge over so that when it is wrapped, it covers the first edge. Crease the fold with your finger. Make sure that the outside edges overlap evenly, if not shift the box a little (without untaping if possible) and try again. When the edges are even, tug on the paper a little so that it is nice and snug, not sloppy. Tape the centre down firmly.

Nice, neat ends are easy

Nice, neat ends are easy

Place the box so the seam is on top. Start at one end. Push the top edge down and crease, right to the sides. Tape it down in the centre. Make an angled crease at each end as shown and crease it neatly with your thumb and finger. (Always press every fold and it will come out so much more neatly) Each neatly creased fold makes the next step easier and neater too.

Fold the sides in and finger press

Fold the sides in and finger press

Fold in each of the sides and finger press, then tape into place.

Fold the bottom edge

Fold the bottom edge

Fold up the bottom edge so that when it is folded up the folds make a perfect triangle — see the next picture.

Triangle corners

Triangle corners

Tape each corner and the centre for the best result

Finished end

Finished end (bottom side is up in the picture)

Now to tie a simple bow properly

Take a dollar store spool of wired ribbon. Find the middle. Place that on the front side and bring both end around to the back. Before you cross them, measure them out with your eyes to make sure that one end is slightly longer than the other. Now cross them and bring them around to the front.

How to make the tie come out straight with the tails the same length

How to make the tie come out straight with the tails the same length

Wrap the shorter end so that it comes out behind the knot and the longer end is on top of the knot. Grab the shorter end and make a loop with the tail on top and facing you. Wrap the longer end around the loop from above (over your finger holding the other loop) going from right to left. Tuck it under the front loop but over the knot. Pull snugly. If the loops are too big and the tails too short, start again but makes the loops smaller at the beginning.

Puff up the loops and bend the tails into a pretty bend. Cut the ends into a V  and tape the tail to the paper with a little roll of tape underneath.

Ta-Da, one beautiful gift.

Ta-Da, one beautiful gift.

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Gorgeous Christmas Tree

Posted in Decor Tips, Make it Yourself Decor Ideas, Uncategorized, tagged on December 1, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

Blue and silver tree trimmings and coordinating gift wrappings

Blue and silver tree trimmings and coordinating gift wrappings

A tip to help you get that decorator look to your Christmas tree. Add something unexpected. Look around your collections of this and that for something that would add interest to your tree.

I like to stuff flowers in my trees. One year it was filled with artificial white poinsettias. Another year I filled it with red ones. One year I took tiny puffs of pillow stuffing and put it on the tips of many of the branches so that it looked like snow had just fallen. This year I used sprigs of glittery white berries with leaves and some baby’s breath. I also inserted large silver snowflakes inside the larger ‘holes’ in the branches. I also curled curling ribbon and draped it in long curls randomly down the tree. It all adds up to one very pretty and rather elegant Christmas tree this year.

Blue and silver ornaments augmented with white flowers

Blue and silver ornaments augmented with white flowers

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Drapery Panel Deal!

Posted in Decor Tips, Drapery Panel Problems, Shopping with Leslie, Uncategorized, tagged , on November 8, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

Wow, the JYSK (pronounced Ysk, y as in yellow, by the way) has a great deal this week. (Nov 8 – 14, 2012) All of their drapery panels are half price. They have a huge selection and even at regular price are a good deal. If you want to do over your window treatments for Christmas or need to refresh a room, this is a very economical way to do it.

http://www.flyertown.ca/flyers/jysk-jyskweekly?sf_any=true&flyer_run_id=3500&type=1&locale=en#!/flyers/jysk-jyskweekly?flyer_run_id=3500

I am very fond of JYSK for a lot of different ‘decorating on a dime’ projects. They a wide variety of household items big and small. Take a trip to a store near you.

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Shopping for Lighting Options

Posted in Decor Tips, Decorating Dilemmas, Shopping with Leslie, Uncategorized, tagged , , on April 8, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

What ever

Happened to

Great Table Lamps?

Way back when, you could buy nice, big, decorative table lamps easily. Furniture stores were filled with them, there were lots of chain stores that  specialized in lighting only, not just ones that are few and far between, even in densely packed urban areas.  Now all you see is the same basic thing, place after place, too skinny, too short, lacking presence!

Here is one lamp that will go in any room and look great with modern, eclectic or a classic decor. It is nice and tall and has presence, yet it does not stand out and scream ‘look at my lamps’!! It is 30″h which is a really good height for reading and for balance & proportion. It is about 16″w which gives it some presence without being overwhelming. A plain white drum shade, completes the picture, with its straight sides offering a contrast to the curving base.

Check out EQ3 catalogue , eq3.com/cat, or any of their stores for interesting table lamps that, although modern in styling, will go well with many different decor styles!

EQ3 Solidity Lamp

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Earring Hanger you can make

Posted in Decor Tips, Make it Yourself Decor Ideas, Uncategorized, tagged , , on November 7, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Hang in There, Baby !


This useful decor ‘art’ is pretty as a picture’!Decorative Earring Hanger

I like to hang up my hook earrings and necklaces. I have always put a couple of nails or eyehooks in the wall and strung a piece of picture wire between them to hang up my hook earrings. It makes them easy to find and they don’t get all tangled up in each other but I came up with a better idea – at least I think so!

I took and old wooden picture frame, mine was 10″ x 14″ but any medium size frame will do. I gave it a fresh coat of paint because it was rather marked up. Then I simply stapled rows of picture wire inside the set back edge of the back of the frame. I marked the frame with different spacings (for short, medium or long, dangly earrings)  to start. I stapled across one end of the wire and twisted it tightly, pushing the twist snugly back behind the front edge of the frame so that is wasn’t visible and cut off the excess wire. I then pulled it taut and did the same to the other end.

I have four rows of wire but you can have as many as the frame allows, just make sure the space between the rows is far enough apart for those very long earrings to not get tangled in the row below.

Now your earrings are ‘Pretty as a Picture’

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Decor Tip – Black Accessories

Posted in Decor Tips, Decorating Dilemmas, Uncategorized, tagged on June 1, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

scan0001Accent on

       Black

An easy way to get that ‘decorator look’ is to add a touch of black to any room. A few black accents will make all the other  colours colours in the room stand out. Black provides a strong contrast and therefore makes other colours appear more vibrant. 

This touch of black could be as simple as a decorative curtain rod over the window, a black box on the side table and a black vase or jar on the mantle. A group of chunky black candlesticks would give the room punch.  Simply having black  picture frames and a black curtain rod can give you a balanced touch of black. For a start though, three small touches of black placed equidistant around the room is enough to give a room some much needed punch. 

You could also make a bigger statement with black. A black lacquered cabinet or an area rug that is predominantly black combined with the small touches will make a much stronger statement.

Just make sure that the larger pieces are harmonious with the rest of the room. They don’t have to be the same style, they just have to look well with the other pieces of furniture. A black Chinese lacquered cabinet can look fabulous with clean, modern, linear pieces, just choose one that has relatively simple lines and is not overly ornate. An area rug is a little trickier. I would suggest taking a picture at the store and then looking at the picture while standing in the room in your home to get a better idea about whether that particular rug is suitable. This will save a lot of purchasing and returning of area rugs.

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Shopping with Leslie – Floor Lamp

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on March 7, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

dsc004541Unusual Floor Lamp

Floor lamps are really useful, but an attractive one is hard to find. There are the usual swing arm lamps and torch lamps, but they really all look alike and are not particularly nice to look at.

This one is rather striking. It is almost an art piece in its form. The shade is square and the framework is angled. It is completely neutral in colour. Unlike a pole lamp it is very stable and sheds a good light. Although it is very modern in design, it could work in a more eclectic room that has the right balance of traditional and contemporary/modern.

Believe it or not the tag says $45. Again, I found it at Liquidation World in Belleville ON, but you can find something as attractive if you skip your usual lighting departments in big box stores and look in more unlikely places.

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Furniture Arrangement Made Easy

Posted in Decorating Dilemmas, Uncategorized, tagged , , on November 14, 2008 | 1 Comment »

08-11_room

Furniture can be heavy and hard to move, but if you know exactly where to put it, you only have to move it once.The best way to achieve this is by making a floor plan of the room you wish you rearrange. It’s quite simple and can be a lot of fun when you get into it. Here’s how you do it:

  1. Buy a pad of graph paper and get out your measuring tape. Use the following parameters: 1 square=1foot (or 1 square= 30cm if you are more comfortable in metric)
  2. Measure the length and width of the room and draw them on your graph paper.
  3. Measure the openings, windows, doors etc. exactly
  4. Measure the distance on each side of these from the inside of the casing to the corner.
  5. Place the openings on your outline exactly where they are in real life.
  6. Measure and place any other architectural features such as fireplace or built-ins.
  7. Place plugs, switches, cable, central vac.outlet, registers, etc. on your floorplan exactly where they are in real life.
  8. Anything that is fixed in place must go on this map of your room exactly where it is in real life!
  9. Now mark in the traffic patterns. If you have to go through the living room to get to the bedrooms you can’t have a sofa blocking the way
  10. If there is a door that swings into the room, mark off 3 ft of unusable floor space
  11. Use hatch marks or colour in the squares for doorways or traffic patterns.
  12. Then measure all the furniture and area rug if you have one.
  13. Cut outlines of your furniture out of another sheet of graph paper. For instance a 2’x3’ table would be 2 squares x 3squares. Label the pieces.

When you have all the pieces cut out, have fun!Put all the pieces on the floor plan and push them around until they work for you. You may find that you do not have enough furniture or too much furniture. You may have thought the sofa could go on that wall but it covers up the central vac outlet. This way you know where things fit and where they don’t.

Things to remember:

  • Things do not have to go in traditional places.
  • Sofas or chairs can “float” in a room, away from the walls.
  • Furniture can go under or in front of a window.
  • There can be more than one “area” or furniture grouping in a room.
  • Area rugs can define an area in a room or a room in an open concept area.

It’s that easy! Have fun!

PHOTO: Wonderlane, Flickr Creative Commons

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