New Heights with Drapery Panels

Drapery panels can feel like an architectural feature in a room when hung to highlight the ceiling height and provide symmetrical frames to your light-infusing windows. If right-out-of-the-package panels have left you feeling less than thrilled with your retail fabric options, contemplate the alternatives to create customized panels that suit your home and your unique style.

You can choose from options beyond drapery panels by looking at the extensive selections of flat bedding sheets, fabric shower curtains, and fabric by the yard. For any of these options you may choose, you can buy extra to make throw pillows to match to add to your seating or bedding. Why limit yourself? Flat bedding sheets are wide enough and long enough for billowy, drama drapes, and they come in so many colors and styles. You can match or blend with your actual bedding to carry out the design. Fabric shower curtains similarly provide plenty of width and height and bold patterns and prints. Fabric by the yard is a great option for someone who is handy with a sewing machine to finish off a hemline. And fabric by the yard can easily create tall drapery panels that can be hung from a level just below the ceiling line to add height and sophistication to the look of your room. When hung correctly, they can all look professional in place.

That starts with the right hardware. My preference is a rod mounted above the window frame or at the ceiling line with two or three simple hardware mounts that the rod rests in. The size and style selections are wide-ranging from thin metallics to larger wood or iron rods with a slew of end cap finial styles. Pair this with sets of ring clips to accommodate the width and weight of your panel. Each ring slides onto the rod, and its attached clip holds a pinch of the fabric. This completely eliminates the need for those dated, hard-to-operate, thin, metal pieces you had to slide through tight pockets sewn into the drapery panels and then struggle to affix to their mounting hardware. Instead, update to a modern version for both ease and style.

Think outside the drapery aisle to find fabric panels that can act as art and décor in your living space. From vivid shades to strong graphic or geometric prints, you can add texture and personality, panel by panel.

DesignInMind column; appeared in the Valley Morning Star August 28th.

The Dish on Organizing Recipes

A recipe box stuffed with random, handwritten pieces of paper and online printouts alongside stacks of outdated, mix-matched cookbooks is not fully conducive to creative, productive time spent in the kitchen. Every family has their favorite recipes that are handed down from generation to generation and those popular dishes that are craved each holiday. To ensure your special collection stays intact and easy to retrieve, give your recipes a makeover of their own before the next holiday season starts to cook.

Add some order to your storage system. I recommend moving away from recipe cards and getting your go-to recipes in 3-ring white notebooks with clear view covers and spines for inserting labeled sheets. This helps eliminate the free-floating factor that can cause cards to be lost or quickly disorganized. Type out the card contents on full sheets of paper and include picture references when possible. You can use one larger 3 inch notebook and use dividers to separate and label your categories. Or for larger collections, use 1 inch or 1 ½ inch notebooks for individual categories. Consider using the labels “Appetizers,” “Soups & Salads,” “Vegetables & Side Dishes,” “Main Dishes,” “Meats,” “Breads,” “Desserts,” “Cookies & Candy,” or any detailed categories that would suite your set of recipes, like “No-Bake Desserts,” “Pies,” or “Beverages.”

Another important step in organizing a recipe collection is pairing down. Have you found recipes, tried them out, and then decided they didn’t make the cut for your family’s tastes? Throw those away. Organized and stored recipes should be made up of the ones you intend to use repeatedly. Use a plastic document case or an expanding file folder to pull together internet recipes or recipes torn out of magazines or off of product packaging. Only add them uniformly to your main collection if you have tried them and decided they are worth making again. A similar principle applies to cookbooks. They can stack up over the years and may just be taking up shelving space if you only really use a few recipes continually out of a book. Make photocopies of those applicable pages and add them to your notebooks. Then donate the cookbook or pass it on a relative or friend. They may find all new kitchen treasures inside.

Tackle your boxes or piles of recipes and turn them into a well-oiled kitchen machine right at your fingertips that can produce tasty dishes again and again. Do it with style if you use decorative scrapbooking paper, contact paper, or even leftover wallpaper in your finished product, and you have added a little flamboyance to your flambé.

DesignInMind column; appeared in the Valley Morning Star August 21st.

Decorating with Numbers & Letters

Reading, writing, and arithmetic have their place in modern home décor. To add a little literary zest to your living space, consider the ways in which numbers and letters can really count.

I like the concept of using numbers to add a modern decorative touch as well as organization to a space shared by multiple family members or house guests. Hang up pegs, hooks, or oversized clips in a bathroom in place of a towel ring or bath towel bar and place decorative numbers above each. These are the kind that are used to display addresses on the exterior of a home and can be found at a home improvement store or online for even more size and style options. This is a twist on the “his-and-hers” labels of decades past and works great for kids and overnight company as well. Each person has their own hand and/or bath towel under their own assigned number, which keeps things straight, neat, and may even cut down a little on the laundry.

The use of initials and monogram letters is also a more popular decorative accent idea. Display the family initial on a wall by way of a wall decal you custom order and apply or large wooden or acrylic lettering you find in a craft store and hang. For more of an art gallery feel, use the first initial of each family member’s name, perhaps pets included, in an arrangement, and make the last name initial the most prominent. Similarly, using symbols in the mix like the hash tag, ampersand, “at” symbol, or exclamation point can add a more creative and contemporary flair to a collective display.

Whether you choose to mix letters and numbers in a functional or purely aesthetic way, going back to the classroom basics can provide you with some standout labels and displays that add sophisticated structure and artistic finesse to your rooms. Decorating with numbers and letters really can be as simple as 1, 2, 3.

DesignInMind column; appeared in the Valley Morning Star August 14th.

10 Things: Must Do’s Before School Starts

1. Revamp the closets. Before the shopping bags enter the bedrooms full of new outfits for the new school year, clean out what no longer fits and what just doesn’t make the cut any longer because it’s torn, faded, or stained. You know, kids tend to have that effect on clothes. And you need the closet space.

2. Wipe the slate clean. With your calendar, that is. To keep the family schedule on track after a lackadaisical summer, employ the use of a large dry erase calendar and message board center to organize the paper paraphernalia of meetings, practices, parties, and events all in one stylish place.

3. Do the sporting goods shuffle. Store away the floaties, boogie boards, water guns, and pool noodles and dust off and organize the sports equipment that will be making an appearance on the field or court this fall. Decorative bins or baskets as a part of your back entryway storage keep these items at hand.

4. Swap your shades. Though August is not quite time yet for pumpkins and such, transition into the new season by toning down brights and adding in some school-spirited primary colors in table linens, guest bathroom hand towels, and couch throw pillows you rotate.

5. Revamp your outdoor living spaces. Some may use them consistently and some may use them sparingly in the heat, but regardless, keeping your patios and porches picked up, swept up, and well stocked will entice lingering activity outside as the after school hours wind down in the coming months.

6. Outline your “office space.” Since the lines of recreation and work in the home blur during the summer, help line out the difference by creating proper homework stations for your kids that supply them with everything they need to get crackin’ on the books without all the entertainment distractions.

7. Make your own menu. Free range snacking runs rampant June through July, so plan to rein it in and provide proportioned, nutritious after-school snacks and family dinners with a little more structure and planning. Making a menu plan ahead of time and grocery shopping accordingly can organize your eating and your food budget at the same time.

8. Make the beds. Now would be a good time to take advantage of end-of-season sales and spruce up the look of the kids’ beds with new, perhaps more grown-up bedding selections. Your available options can surely provide some contemporary choices that fit everyone’s style preferences.

9. Stock up. Your go-to items of the back-to-school days involve more than what makes the cut of the lengthy school supply list. Consider things for home like tissues, cold medication, extra white socks, bandages, batteries, wipes, water bottles, and lunchbox favorites that wait their turn in your pantry.

10. Soak up the last of summer. Take a day trip to the beach, savor the last crops of summery tastes like watermelon and peaches, and relish the longer daylight hours. And if you’re like me, one of the things you love most about the seasons is that they change. And then they let you anticipate their return.

DesignInMind column; appeared in the Valley Morning Star August 7th.

The Big Look of Smaller Scale Furniture Arrangements

Grand, large scale furniture is well suited for many homes, but smaller scale furniture has its place as well. When square footage is a challenge, don’t squeeze; just size right for the perfect petite setting.

The core of a smaller furniture arrangement is seating. An easy start to scaling back is choosing a loveseat over a full size sofa. When you pair it will smaller pieces, a loveseat can be just as substantial as its couch counterpart. Instead of a bulky recliner that seats one, choose two slim framed occasional chairs to accompany your loveseat. A couch and a recliner in an L shape seats four, and a loveseat and two side chairs in a square or rectangle seats four. You can recreate the same seating count and lay it out in a tighter formation to save on floor space and make your living area cozy and inviting.

Another key to a smaller arrangement is scaling back on the size of the side and center pieces. A loveseat does not need to be flanked by two standard end tables or have a massive coffee table in the center; they would all make your seating look diminutive. Instead, dial back the bulk of your tables and use small nesting tables, a tray side table, or a drum side table. The size and shapes of these pieces are well proportioned alongside small sofas and occasional side chairs. Additionally, take lighting more vertical and up-and-off the end tables. A lamp drum shade on a floor standing lamp can saddle up closer to your seating and not take up any surface area on a side table. Your living area arrangement is still well lit, and the height of two symmetrically-arranged lamps adds volume to the space.

Mix in bold patterned throw pillows that do not overwhelm the height of your loveseat cushions, decorative pieces like short glass vases, small sculptural pieces or coral, a stack of 3 or 4 books, an area rug to anchor the space, and framed artwork and pictures hung in a proportionate pattern. You will have created a smaller scale furniture arrangement fit for a big style look in your home. And you did not break the bank . . . or your back.

DesignInMind column; appeared in the Valley Morning Star July 31st.