Redoing your kitchen? Have some questions? We’ve got some answers!

Do Kitchen appliances always come in standard sizes?

Answer: Yes, 98% of the time, but to ensure there are no surprises refer to manufacturer installation specifications for required openings and cutout sizes.

I want to be really green with my new kitchen, what are the most energy efficient appliances on the market?

Answer: Appliances, which have been labeled and endorsed as “Energy Star” products.

What type of paint is the best for kitchen walls?

Answer: Make sure to use good quality paint. If you foresee a need to scrub the walls, (and who doesn’t scrub their kitchen walls?), an eggshell paint should be used. Semi gloss paint can also be used, but it shows more imperfections in the walls than an eggshell paint. Eggshell will usually be sufficient for kitchen needs.

Is there a major difference in the material and the cost of solid surface countertops?

Answer: There are differences in the formulation of the materials and their compositions. Some solid surfaces are 100% man-made and some are blended with natural quartz and stones. Prices vary but are pretty consistent and typically include installation. Once you select the countertop material which complements the design and style of your kitchen, be sure to ask about maintenance and warranty of the product.

What is the most durable kitchen sink?

Answer: An 18 gauge stainless steel sink is going to be the most durable. Cast iron sinks that seem very sturdy can chip.

More questions? Just ask!

Do you find it frustrating to make a final choice when confronting numerous options? Sometimes it may seem as though the showroom, or the pumpkin patch, goes on forever and you worry that you may never find the right one to bring home.

If that happens, use the haunting technique to make your final choice. Here’s how to do it.

First, quickly review whatever options you’re considering, then leave the area. You can wander to other parts of the showroom or leave and shop for something completely unrelated. Go to lunch or get yourself a cup of coffee. You can even head home for the day.

As you do this, often one choice stays in your mind. You may find yourself dwelling on a particular tile, or imagining that carpeting in your own bedroom even when you’re focusing on something else. Well, congratulations, you have just been haunted by your actual favorite selection.

When this happens, go back and choose that flooring, or that seasonal vegetable accessory, and bring it home knowing that you found just the right one for you.

And when you stand back and admire how well your purchase fits the look and style of your home, it’s time to appreciate a type of haunting that doesn’t scare you, but helps you make a decision that you will be happy with for years to come, or in the case of your pumpkin, the next week or so.

You’ve spilled red wine on your carpet. It happens to all of us, during parties, girl’s night, Monday night football or just when relaxing at home. What can you do now to get the stain out?

The first thing to remember is to act as quickly as you can. Time is not your friend, as delaying tending to the spill may cause it to become a permanent stain. Blot the area with a clean white cloth; paper towels work well in a pinch.

For red wine first try a detergent solution to clean the spill out of your carpet. Don’t use a stronger concentration than this. Mix ¼ teaspoon of liquid dishwashing detergent with one cup of lukewarm water. It’s a good idea to test this solution on an area of carpet that is hidden to make sure it is not going to cause discoloring. Work this solution into the spill – gently – do not rub. Work from the outside edges of the spill to the center. Let the solution sit on the spill for a few minutes. Blot. Have patience. Continue to blot and use the cleaning solution until there is no more transfer of the spill onto your white cloth. If you cannot remove all of the stain with the detergent solution try this one – 1 cup white vinegar mixed with two cups of lukewarm water. Be sure to pretest!

When there is no more transfer of the wine to your white cloth rinse the area with cold water. Continue to blot until all the moisture is removed. You must be certain that all of the cleaning solution is out of the carpet, otherwise it will attract dirt.

If all else fails, call a professional carpet cleaner as soon as possible as they have powerful tools to help get even the most stubborn stains out. 

When decorating, it’s not enough to design each room separately; you also need to think about what happens as you look through doorways and move from one room to another.

As you plan your décor, think about the transitions. In a way, walking through a home is like reading a book. You don’t want too much of a disconnection from one chapter to the next, but if they’re all the same it becomes boring. Your home can find this balance from room to room.

These photos show the same home from two directions. It has particular challenges because the positions of these doorways allow the eye to view four rooms from one position. This requires even more transitional planning. In the first photo, the entryway looks into the living room and then a sunroom.

The second photo shows the house from the other direction, standing in the living room and looking through the entryway to the dining room and one side of the kitchen. Each room has its own feel, and instead of making the home feel disjointed, it adds interest. Let’s look at why. First, the living, dining and entryway share rich wood flooring. This is the most consistent feature across the rooms, and compensates for the differences in wall color and details. The sunroom has different flooring, but having the step-down into the room allows that space to vary from the rest. The other design consistency comes from the doors themselves. The glass French doors help keep the space feeling open while echoing the same style from room to room.

Finally, the choice to scatter smaller Oriental rugs maintains a design link in spite of the different colors and furniture styles. With one room in a vivid red, one with wood paneling and the other two painted white and cream, color links from room to room come from the furniture and art. This allows each room to feature one color or tone while making sure that all of the rooms feel cohesive. Find your connective elements and then have fun letting each room feature its own design look and style.

Do you ignore your hallways? Are they just paths rather than an integrated part of your home’s décor? Well, it may be time to expand your narrow thinking of this skinniest part of your home and let it add its own charm.

Take a look at this hall. For something only about three to four feet wide, there’s a lot going on here. To begin, the pine wood floor helps to link all the rooms together. Architectural touches such as the high baseboards and door surrounds combine with the flooring to create a powerful look that combines the best of traditional with a touch of classy country.

The furniture choices support that image. A simple wooden bench that coordinates perfectly with the floor begs visitors to sit and take off their shoes. A watering can adds to the casual welcome. A few steps further in and a small chair and narrow table with a few accessories add personality.

While this hallway gives the impression of a casual decorating approach, the art and lighting prove that this is no unthinking design plan. Instead of the standard look of several hug-the-ceiling light fixtures, track lighting has been pre-set to provide each piece of art with its own spot. This provides an invitation to linger in the hall, pausing to see each picture along the way.

Altogether, this is not just a path from one room to another; it’s a welcoming event as you walk through this home. Do your hallways tempt visitors to linger and appreciate the walk? What can you do to make them as special as the rest of your home?

What makes this room so inviting? It certainly breaks more than one design rule. The furniture is too big and crowded for the space, seating is limited and not set for conversation, and colors are all over the map.

This room demonstrates that sometimes rules are made to be broken. It is so individual and almost quirky that it’s more about the people who live here than about design, and that’s alright.

Even if you are not inclined to create spaces as unique as this, you may find some ideas about breaking the rules that you can borrow from this room. First, the large rug overpowers the flooring, but this can be a good thing. If you are not ready to replace flooring in a room but it doesn’t work with your taste or color preferences, a rug like this can change the flavor of a room instantly.

Next, let’s consider the use of color. The rug and painting on the far wall have vivid colors that take over the color palette of the room. However, much of the furniture is neutral. By choosing white and black for the larger pieces, the smaller elements can carry some color without overwhelming the room.

Next, accessories have a particular place in this space. Take a look at the three figures in front of the piano. They are unusual and intriguing. Their position in the room gives them star status, and the white stand and piano behind them supports this. Sometimes a special piece of art or sculpture deserves center stage, as in this case.

Yes, this room breaks rules, but it does it in the right way. So don’t be afraid to step beyond the traditional standards of design to create a room as vivid and interesting as this one.

Would you love to have a home office but just can’t spare a room? Don’t limit your thinking. You may be surprised at the choices you actually have. Let’s consider one.

Do you have a formal dining room? How often do you use it? Chances are most of the time it sits empty. Well, with a laptop and rolling file cabinet, you can turn your dining room into a temporary home office. The room has comfortable chairs and a large table for spreading out your work.

It’s up to you how deeply you want to convert your dining room to the home office role. For some, it may make sense to simply repurpose the room. If you’re not ready to go that far, can you use part of your buffet for office supplies? Would a wooden file cabinet look appropriate in the room?

One other temporary addition might be helpful – a good floor lamp. Depending upon your dining room chandelier, you may need different lighting to be really efficient.

If your dining room has wood flooring or an area rug such as this one, you may want to think twice about pulling a rolling chair up to your dining table. Pick up an inexpensive rug or pad to protect your floors and good rugs. Then enjoy the fact that you can have your office space when you need it and quickly convert it to a dining room for those gatherings of family and friends.

At the end of the day, do you wish you could escape to a beach like this? For most of us this scene is beyond our reach on an everyday basis. However, you can take your back patio and find ways to bring the mood of the beach to your own home.

Although this scene is inviting, it’s also pretty impractical. We wouldn’t really want to have sand in the back yard or sit on those rough rustic twig chairs, but you can grab some ideas and translate their essence to your patio.

Sand is replaced by travertine pavers. The light neutral tones that travertine provides mimics the look of sand without the mess.

Substitute oiled teak for the rustic furniture on the beach. The contrast with the travertine and the rich wood color is still there, but made more comfortable and inviting for everyday use.

A few plants in pots recollect a natural setting, and the mosaic table has the feel of a seashell with its spiral pattern.

Instead of the colorful flags flying over the shore scene, adding throw pillows in bright solids finishes the space with color. Thanks to the weather-resistant fabric choices available now, those pillows can stay outside all the time.

As the sun sets, add candles or lanterns on tables and use light strings to add charm, set the boundaries and light pathways. Now you’re ready to relax at home every evening, or gather some friends together for a beach party with everything you need except for the ocean.

This living room is an unusual combination of good design and design mistakes. Can you tell the difference?

Let’s start with what works. The sofa with its matching dark brown pillows combines perfectly with the art above it. Proportion and tone balances well. The plant to the left of the photo has just the right height to match the other elements. The lamp may feel too dramatic for some, but its height and the silver and stone material choices link the sofa with the concrete floor.

This type of floor will always work better with an area rug. However, the rug’s position isn’t the best for this space. Laying the long edge of the rug parallel with the sofa would make the proportions of the room more cohesive.

The most questionable piece is the coffee table. The light wood tone works in the space, but the over-large size and busy surface compromises the look of the room. First, setting the long edge parallel to the sofa along with the rug will make the proportions work better. Second, the kaleidoscopes scattered in the pocket in the foreground of the table look cluttered and confusing. The clean lines of the rest of the room are hurt by this design decision.

Although the kaleidoscopes add an element of whimsy, the visual simply doesn’t work. What could you do to change the impact of this choice? How about a fabric bag or other container to hold them? Or they could simply be placed in another room. A final option would be to select a rug with more color so that the splashy multicolored toys blend in better with the room.

By taking a look at rooms like this and determining what works and what doesn’t, you can make your own home design plans a success.

The potential for every room is visible in the foundation. In this case, the light wood floor and matching two-inch wood blinds create the canvas for an appealing space.

Smart design connects to the basics of a room. The dark tapes outlining the blinds come to the foreground thanks to the dark padded headboard and the dark wood nightstand.

This room is a study in neutrals. Dark and light marry in the major room elements, and then the bedding and pillows bring in the mid-tones as well as some pattern. The simple choice of large dots for one set of bed pillows keep to the extremely contemporary theme. Then the second set of pillows with their old-style embroidered dragonfly fabric brings a soft touch to the room, keeping it from feeling too cold.

Although this room is crisp and modern, comfort has a strong role. The headboard is curved and padded, inviting the opportunity to lean back and read or watch television. The night table is just the right height for reaching from the bed, and has plenty of room for reading material and other bedside essentials such as a clock and phone. Add just a few flowers in a contemporary vase and the room is done.

With the foundation of the straightforward light wood floor and matching blinds, this canvas is ready for almost any look. A good start like this leads to a great room: a bedroom demonstrating comfort, style and taste.