Nell Hill's Feather Your Nest: It's All in the Details

Mary Carol's Thoughts for Your Decorating Redo

Be true to your home's architecture. Let's face it, you aren't going to get an expansive tudor feel inside a cozy country cottage, nor vice-versa. Similarly, if your home happens to be a 130-year-old Greek revival, you aren't going to have the luxury of spacious bathrooms. Be creative when defining the space and your needs, but also be consistent to the bare bones of your home's lineage.

Focus on your home's strengths. Begin your remodel by calling attention to your home's inherit assets and playing them up—be it sculptural crown molding painted in different trim tones, custom craftsman touches like beadboarded bookcases, a high ceiling painted in a complementary wall hue, or a window overlooking you idyllic back yard flanked by a set of strategically hung prints.

Learn how to best utilize your space. Sometimes time is to our advantage. Before tackling a dusty demo that involves the collapsing of walls and sanity alike, take the time to understand your space and how you are going to use it. Renovations are costly enough without feeling pressed to make hasty changes during the process.

Create a retreat from your redo. Resist the urge to tackle your entire home en masse just to get the project behind you. Consider beginning with a room like your living room, or bedroom, which you will use the most often, as well as choosing a room that you can retreat to during future construction chaos.

Unify dissimilar spaces or furnishings with color. If your home feels "choppy," unify the spaces by selecting a warm, neutral tone to run throughout. If you've inherited seemingly different pieces of furniture that you can't ever imagine working together in the same space, try giving them new life with unifying fabrics in an array of similar tones. Before you know it, you'll be noticing how everything fits together to tell your own design story.

Ground spaces with a neutral presence. Whenever I can, I encourage customers to include a piece of black furniture in their rooms to add depth and drama to the mix of furnishings. A few carefully chosen and well-placed black accents can instantly pull a room together.

Balance the budget. To counter the expense of a fine investment piece, consider decorating the rest of your space with precious gifts from friends and family, or a special find from a local tag sale.

Invest in items that can serve multiple functions. Using an ottoman as a coffee table provides you with the option of additional seating when entertaining. A trunk fashioned as an end-table can hold spare blankets or board games. A small bureau with drawers makes the perfect men's bedside table providing ample drawer space for an alarm clock and remote, as well as additional storage for clothing in homes with small closets.

Utilitarian doesn't have to mean ugly. I firmly believe in making my home's work spaces just as sublime as the showier spots in my home. While function reigns supreme, you can still decorate these hardworking rooms so attractively that you'll actually look forward to spending time in them...working.

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Contact: Kathy Hilliard, Publicity Director, (800) 851-8923, ext. 7497, khilliard@amuniversal.com

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Nell Hill's Feather Your Nest: It's All in the Details

Author: Mary Carol Garrity
ISBN: 978-0-7407-6858-3
Format: Hardcover 8 3/4 x 10, 128 pages
Price: $29.95 ($37.50 Canada)