Gardening is not a hobby reserved only for people who own houses and land. With the popularity of container gardening, apartment and condominium dwellers with balconies or small patios can create colorful flower gardens or fragrant herb gardens in their outdoor living areas too.

Balcony Garden Inspiration Board

Outdoor furniture and garden product sources from this inspiration board are listed below. [Read more →]

Welcome back and thank you for tuning in to the continuing saga of finding a place for everything and putting everything in its place. When last I left you, a discussion on home organization ideas and storage solutions was just beginning to unfold. In Spring Clean Up - Kill the Clutter, we covered ideas for ridding your home of unwanted clutter. Now let’s look at what you have left over (your keep pile) and cover some ideas on how to organize those items you’ve deemed as essential. And instead of just shoving everything to the back of a closet, under the stairs, or beneath the living room carpet, we’ll also look at some creative storage solutions. [Read more →]

Yup, it’s spring - that time of year when many of us feel compelled to throw open the windows, let in some extra light and a large dose of fresh air to clean the cobwebs from our heads as well as our houses.

Does anyone actually like spring cleaning? It certainly seems to be one of those deeply ingrained, yearly rituals that we automatically perform whether we like it or not. No matter how we feel about doing house cleaning, there really is no better time than spring to clean out the clutter, introduce some new tactics for home organization and implement new storage solutions.

You can’t effectively spring clean if there’s too much clutter in the way, so this post is geared towards helping you sort through the clutter before the cleaning can begin. [Read more →]

Continuing with the outdoor room theme…..Get a little closer to nature this summer with an outdoor shower!

I’ve always wanted an outdoor shower, alas, the perfect location has eluded me. Maybe you’ll have better luck.

(For the products, sources and pricing of items featured in this design inspiration board, see below.)

[Read more →]

Told you I was inspired! Here’s the first of my outdoor room design inspiration boards for spring / summer 2008. See below for a complete list of sources and product information.

[Read more →]

Thursday, while visiting Canada Blooms - The Toronto Flower & Garden Festival, it became clear to me that outdoor rooms and outdoor kitchens would continue to be a hot home design trend for the summer of 2008. For Canada, parts of the United States and in many other places around the world, the spring and summer seasons seem to come and go in the blink of an eye. With such a small window of opportunity it’s not at all surprising that we want to maximize our enjoyment of outdoor living by enhancing our outdoor spaces.

To get you thinking ahead to sunshine-filled days and warm, sultry evenings, I thought I’d give you a peak at some of the outdoor room displays from Canada Blooms. [Read more →]

Don’t you love taking things, whether they are new or old, and using them in ways for which they weren’t originally intended?

Hooked Rug = Colorful Wall Hanging

[Read more →]

I came across a question at Curbly where a reader asked about covering popcorn stucco walls with fabric.

I have an interesting problem. Interesting for others, but driving me batty.
I have moved into an apartment that is the old Mayor’s mansion in the town I live in. It really is a super cool space. Large rooms, hardwood floors, floor to ceiling windows, a grand entrance…. Just great. EXCEPT the master bedroom. Someone, I have no clue who, felt that putting a chair rail around the room with popcorn ceiling style stucco stuff on the lower half was a good design decision.

The chair rail juts out quite a bit from the wall, so I was thinking that perhaps I could staple gun fabric from the chair rail down to the floor… but No clue what to do.
Any suggestions? Help. Please.

As I was attempting to answer her question it became obvious to me that my answer was too long to post in a comment, so here is how I would cover textured walls with fabric. [Read more →]

I received a version of this list in my email today. Sent by friends, I know it was meant as encouragement and inspiration. Even though it’s been posted many times over, I feel that this is good information for women of any age, so I’m posting it too. A little research has revealed that the true writer of these words was Pamela Redmond Satran. Written in 1997, it was originally published in Glamour Magazine. The author, having passed her 30th birthday, wanted to share with other women some of the things she wished she had and had known by the time she reached that age. Since it’s original publishing, she’s added a few items to her list and she encourages us to do the same. [Read more →]

Create something unique with these ideas for easy, inexpensive, do-it-yourself wall art. Design your own one-of-a-kind art with wallpaper, fabric, scrapbook paper, greeting cards, original photographs / pictures, calendar illustrations….

[Read more →]