What you kitchen looks like can make of break the sale of your home. It’s a really expensive room to renovate, but there is plenty you can do to change the look with the right paint colors and by decluttering and re-accessorizing.
Stage Each Room with a Purpose
Many properties have awkward areas that you may not have really used while living in your home. But when it’s time to sell, you want to turn every room into something. This helps prospective buyers imagine how they might live in your home.
Color Palettes: Atmospheric Interiors
Color Palettes: Atmospheric Interiors
Using the Donald Kaufman Color Collection
by Suzanne K. Butterfield, Donald Kaufman, Jacqueline Goewey
Hardcover: 208 pages
ISBN: 060960144X
Filled with information that takes the mystery out of how color works in a room. Twenty six amazing interiors are shown with explanations of why each palette was chosen, and how individual colors affect each other and the rooms in which they are used. The color palettes are shown as swatches to provide ready-made color groupings that we can adapt for our own homes.
I was introduced to this book by a Client who had just completed a very modern, but fairly neutral, ocean front home. I was there to design custom runners and placemats for her 12 foot long kitchen table. I immediately fell in love with this book and bought a copy. I warn you, it’s hard not to head out to the paint store after looking at the pictures in Color Palettes! The ideas it contains will work in any home, large or small.
House of Belief: Creating Your Personal Style
House of Belief:
Creating Your Personal Style
by Kelee Katillac
Paperback: 160 pages
ISBN: 1586850741
In House of Belief: Creating Your Personal Style, author and interior designer Kelee Katillac urges us not to become slaves to design trends, but inspires us to find a decorating style that is a reflection of our personal style and creative spirit.
Through exercises and examples, Katillac helps unleash the creative and artistic powers that we all possess. She builds a strong case for shaping one’s home into a place of inspiration and affirmation.
After reading this book in 2000, I immediately took down all the pictures hanging in my home that I had inherited but didn’t like, or was tired of looking at. Within days I had moved all my furniture around and made my space more of a reflection of who I was, and not what I thought it “should” look like. My whole mood and energy changed after that.
In Canada, to Order – House of Belief: Creating Your Personal Style
In US, to Order – House of Belief: Creating Your Own Personal Style
Free Home Tips in Six Elements News
If you don’t receive our newsletter Six Elements News, you can sign up free in the box on the right of this page.
Every two months you’ll get a newsletter filled with free home tips and articles to help you whether you’re moving right now or not. Here’s what one reader says about Six Elements News:
“Your newsletter is a perfect combination of openness, knowledge and professionalism. Thanks for all the great information.” (Toby Fouks, BC)
A Room of her Own
A Room of her Own:
Women’s Personal Spaces
by Chris Casson Madden
Hardcover: 224 pages
ISBN: 0517599392
A Room of her Own: Women’s Personal Spaces introduces us to the sanctuaries various women have created in their own homes. Whether it’s a quiet sewing room, a tent in the garden, or even a corner of a busy kitchen, each woman has found a personal space, for nurturing her body, mind and spirit.
The famous (Oprah Winfrey, Maya Angelou and Ali MacGraw) are included with the not so famous; yet all the women lead very busy lives. Artists, entrepreneurs, mothers— each woman offers a glimpse into her life.
Each chapter contains design ideas and creative solutions that we can integrate into our own lives, as we try to cope with the loss of private time and space for ourselves that is a byproduct of our busy schedules.
Debra Gould’s Handpainted Accessories Jazz Up Rooms
Hand painted accessories can jazz up a room and set it apart. I’ve produced table runners, floorcloths, wall hangings and more for clients across North America. You can learn more about the Debra Gould Home Collection here.
My accessories can be used to decorate a house to sell and then you’ll have them to enjoy in your new home.
[Read more…] about Debra Gould’s Handpainted Accessories Jazz Up Rooms
Inspiring Books to Help You Create Empowering Personal Space
A house is just an empty shell until we make it a home by filling it with color, furnishings, art and special objects that have meaning for us.
Through thoughtful placement of these, we build an environment that enriches us, provides sanctuary and also one that is welcoming to others. They feel it as soon as they enter our space.
I’ll be sharing a number of books with you that I have found helpful in learning about design and color— more importantly they inspired me to think about interiors in a new way.
I have all of the books I’ll be recommending in my own library and I hope you will find them as inspiring as I have.
I welcome your feedback and any recommendations you have for similar finds. You can also send me your color and design questions for me to answer in an upcoming issue of Six Elements News.
[Read more…] about Inspiring Books to Help You Create Empowering Personal Space
