I write Decorating Our Space from a rented flat in Portland where two rooms get real light and one never will. I measure a room before I decide anything in it, and when a change did not hold, the article says so.
My living room has three doorways, and for a long time I arranged furniture as if the room only had four walls and no interruptions. That approach kept failing until I stopped ignoring the doors.
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My father taught me to paint a room in an order that never changes. Paint is unforgiving toward shortcuts in order, and…
My kitchen has four upper cabinets, no pantry, and a stretch of counter I already mentioned is eleven inches wide next to…
A room can have great colors and still feel wrong. Usually the problem is proportion, not taste. Here is how I check…
My sister called me in a panic the week her daughter started pulling up to stand on furniture, asking what to do…
I spent a year thinking my living room had a color problem. It didn't. It had a wood problem. The coffee table…
When I furnished my first apartment, I spent most of my budget on a coffee table I liked the look of, and…
A wider mat and a plain frame usually do more for a piece than an ornate frame does. Here is how mat…
Every apartment I lived in during my twenties had the same layout by default: couch against one wall, chairs against another, and…
I used the same shade of blue in two bedrooms in the same house, one facing north and one facing east. They…