3 items you need to hang art perfectly!

I've written a few posts on hanging pictures. The one about hanging pictures above your stairs is especially popular. So, when I recently hung 3 pictures above my own stairs, I made note of what made it easy and I took pictures to share with you.

{Three pictures, 3 holes, up in minutes}

Three things you'll need to hang your art perfectly (the first time) are craft paper, your floor and heavy duty wall hangers!

Here are the easy steps to hanging your art.

First, get a large sheet(s) of craft paper (or any large paper). I have a huge roll of craft paper for my girls' art table, so I use that. Cut out pieces of paper to match each piece of art you'll be hanging. Grab some painters tape for hanging the paper on the wall.

The second step is arranging the art and this is where your floor comes in. If you have many pieces in a variety of sizes I recommend you find a large spot on your floor and arrange your art there (measure your wall space and set the same size space on your floor). This lets you move things around and see how they work together before you put any holes in the wall.

{This is a client's art on her floor - a great way to see how the pieces work together size-, color- and shape-wise. Play until you get it right}


{The wall where the art on the floor will live eventually, once framed!}

If you only have a few pieces (like me), you can skip the floor and take your craft paper right to the wall. Hang them with the painter's tape. Step back and see how it looks. Move them around until you get the right positions.

{One up, 2 to go}


{One more...almost there!}

Finally, use these great picture hooks - no tools needed! You simply stick them into the wall, turn them right side up and hang your art! A few notes on this. Some art is easier to hang with a small nail and picture hook, but using the large hooks is so easy that I use them whenever I can.

{Many stores sell these heavy duty picture hooks...find them online here (complete with demo): MonkeyHook or ACE hardware}

Bonus tips! Keep the craft paper on the wall to mark and measure your hook location. Mark the spot with a pen or pencil on the paper (no marks on your wall!) and place your hook in the wall over your paper. Once in the wall, remove the paper and hang the picture!

{Final view of my photos of our favorite black dog, Lexi}

And finally, to secure your larger art (especially when hung with one hook, causing a lot of movement), buy some self-stick rubber pads to put on the bottom corners of your art. They help prevent scratches on your walls and bring the bottom of the art out in line with the top (which can be extended off the wall a bit from the hook).

{These pads stick to the back of the frame to even the picture out from top to bottom, keep the frame from bouncing around and scratching your wall}

As with many jobs, the right tools make all of the difference. These tips should help take the stress and wonder out of out hanging your art and ideally they help you do it right the first time!

Happy decorating!

design tip - it's all in the shapes

Here's an easy decorating tip for you on this beautiful Spring day (at least it is here in Maryland)!

When accessorizing it's all about the shape of the objects, not the actual objects (although you should love the objects in your home).

When I accessorize a space I look for shapes to fill the space. If you are stuck accessorizing a side table, look at what you already have and see what shape is missing - tall? short? round? thin? Look for an object that is the shape you need to fit the bill and you will have a nice combination. Vary heights and weights and group in odd numbers to get started.

Sometimes we get stuck looking for something specific, like a silver, 4x6 picture frame when a wooden box, the same SHAPE, will do!

{The table in the back has a tall rectangle shape (with organic shape on top), combined with something organic shaped and "light" and a shorter object. Three shapes, one great arrangement.}

{A tall, large cylinder with an organic shape on top surrounded by three round shapes of various heights. Lovely. This large table needs large scale accessories.}

{Tall rectangle (lamp), with horizontal rectangle (books stacked), topped with another rectangle (picture frame) and surrounded by rounded and organic smaller shapes. The shells could be any other small, ornate objects. The books could be a box, the picture frame could be a clock. You get the idea!}

{Three basic shapes, large oval, shorter circle and medium rectangle. Vary heights so all are visible.}

{On the buffet a large oval with an organic shape on top is balanced out by clear, tall ovals on either side. Two smaller round objects fill the middle.}

{Rectangle picture frame on top of rectangle books, with round object in front and tall object on the side.}

So, stop running around your house looking for that picture frame and look for a rectangle instead!

Happy decorating!

"Where should I begin?"

Do you struggle with how to begin your design projects? Does your living room just stare at you, giving no answers, suggestions or feedback? I hear this question a lot from clients and I have a few tips to help you figure out where to start your next design project.

Start with the item that has the most limitations. For example, if you are reupholstering an existing sofa, purchasing an area rug and window treatments and painting you need to determine which of these things has the most limits.

Retail purchases are the most limited in that you are limited by what the store carries. They may carry something you LOVE, but it's still the most limited as far as selection goes.

Custom fabric treatments (upholstery or window fabrics) are going to provide you more options than retail. Your budget will be your most limiting factor here, but there are thousands of custom fabric options available. You'll need to work with a professional to access to the widest fabric selections, but he/she can assist you with selecting the proper fabric type for your project.

Finally, your least limiting option is paint color. Paint can be mixed in any shade you desire. You can bring anything inspiration piece to your favorite paint shop and ask them to match any color.

So as you are planning your design projects, select retail items first, followed by custom and then select your paint color last to tie all of your selections together. It's easy to jump into paint color first, but that can limit your future selections, which are already limited.

I always suggest starting with an inspiration piece to get any room started. This helps with any purchases (retail or custom) and can be anything—art, fabric, a printed card, pillow, rug or a flower. Anything that catches your eye can inspire a room!

Then shop with that inspiration piece with you so you can coordinate colors.

Happy decorating!

five fabulously-easy decorating tips!

Who couldn't use some tips and tricks to make decorating a bit easier? 

Let me share a few of my favorite easy "tricks" in the hopes that they will make you and your home a bit happier!

Here goes....

1. Find your center.

People tend to hand their pictures way too high on their walls. An ideal height for the center of your pictures (the ones you view while sitting vs. hallways where you view standing) is 54" high. That's about where the CENTER of the picture should fall. Not the top. 

Here's the tip -- find YOUR center. Measure 54" up on your body and then when you hang (or rehang) your pictures you'll easily find their proper height. When hanging pictures in a walkway use 60" as your center guide. We're not talking hard and fast rules here (I'm not a rules girl), just guidelines. The reason for lowering your pictures is simple—so you can SEE them without straining your neck. Put your art in front of you eyes!

2. Make a wall.

Most newer houses have large living spaces that spread into dining spaces that open into kitchens. These open floor plans don't provide a lot of separation between spaces, which can make defining spaces and arranging some furniture difficult. 

Here's an idea—make a wall! Hang fabric from a tension rod (via hooks from the ceiling, so it all but disappears) perpendicular to a long wall. This fabric "wall" will allow you to place items in the new "corner," creating new options for furniture arrangements. 

3. Hang them high.

Along with hanging art too high, many people hang their window treatments too low. Take your curtain rods 8" or more above your window. For lower ceilings I often hang the rod as close to the ceiling as I can. This adds height to your room and creates a finished look.

4. Paint it.

Painting your walls is obvious, but many people overlook the many other things they can and should paint along with their walls. Painting your closet doors, trim, ceilings and other ill-place cabinets makes them disappear, or in the case of a ceiling, feel higher. 

If you have a red room with two white bi-fold closet doors and you paint the doors and trim around them red too the doors no longer stand out; they suddenly blend in. Do you really want the focal pint of your room to be white bi-fold doors? Ceilings that are painted a lighter version of the color room they are in (blue room, lighter blue ceiling) automatically feel higher. You eliminate the sharp line of contrast between the wall and ceiling colors that make your ceiling feel lower.

5. Book it.

Books can be a great decorating tool. Of course their obvious job is just being books—sitting on a shelf and looking good—but they can be useful in other ways too. If you need a lamp on a table but the lamp you have isn't tall enough, place it on a few nice looking books and you add instant height to the lamp. Other accessories are benefit from this trick. 

If you have colorful hardback books try arranging them by color—creating color "blocks" on a shelf. Five red books together and 6 green books on the next shelf. And while you're at it pull those books to the front of your shelves, where you can SEE them!

Happy decorating. Please share other tips/tricks!

How to make smart color choices

With spring around the corner color is about to surround us all—that Mother Nature has an eye for color, doesn’t she? I have good news. You don’t have to wait for Mother Nature to add color to your life. Painting is the most affordable and easiest change you can make to update your space. If you are afraid of selecting color fear not, I’m here to assist.

Let’s talk about some common myths and I’ll offer a few helpful suggestions.

Myth: Dark colors make a room feel smaller.
Not necessarily true. High contrast between large pieces in a room make it feel smaller because the contrast highlights the size of the room. It breaks up the room rather than expanding it. If you paint your room dark blue and have a sofa of a similar shade they will “blend” and open up the room. If you are painting a room a dark color just keep the contrast of large pieces (sofas and curtains) down and you will expand the room.

This of course also means that light colors don’t necessarily make a room feel bigger. Again, contrast impacts that perception.

Myth: When decorating, pick your paint color first.
Paint is available in ANY color. If you can’t find the color you want on a chip, a paint store can custom mix a color to match anything. So, since sofas and bedding are not available in ANY color, begin your color selections with the large pieces in your room. Then, pick a paint color to coordinate. It doesn’t have to match exactly, but should compliment the larger pieces in the room.

This is not to say that you can’t decorate around a paint color—for example, if you know your décor will be black and white the sky is the limit for wall color—but selecting paint first can limit your choices in other areas.

Myth: If you like the color in the store you’ll like it at home.
Please, please, please do not go to a paint store, pick a color from a chip and go home with a gallon of paint. There are so many reasons why you should not do this. The first is that a tiny paint chip cannot begin to show you how actual paint will look on your walls in your house.

Every color looks different in every space. Your room’s light, floor color, furniture and surrounding room colors will impact how a color looks on your walls.

Here are my suggestions for selecting paint colors for your home.
Based on the note above about basing color on furnishings in your home, visit the paint store and select as many paint chips as you like and think might look good and bring them home! Feel free to bring inspirations with you to help you make your decision. Take 10 strips of blue, take 20 if you need them. It’s okay; they are free.

Once home, use painters tape to attach the chips to the wall. You need to look at the colors on the wall—not in your hand. The color looks different at different angles. Try to narrow the colors down to 2 – 3 that you like.

Next, buy samples of each and paint a 2’ x 2’ size swatch on your walls. Make sure you do two coats if needed. You want to see how the colors will really look. Look at the colors in the day, the night, give them a few days to make you happy or turn you off. Go with your gut. This is not a time to talk yourself into something, it will not look better with time!

If you like the color a lot but are worried about painting an entire room X color, select one wall and paint that wall. Select the wall your eye first sees as you enter the room. You may love it enough to paint the entire room, or you may just leave it on one wall. Finally, if you are making a dramatic color change make sure to use the right primer, your paint supplier can provide the right primer for your color.

It’s not unusual to experience a bit of shock when a room is painted a new color, but these pre-steps are the best way to “test drive” a color and reduce the post-painting shock.

I can’t tell you what colors to pick (unless I'm in your house!), but I know this will get you off to a great start and I always encourage folks to try new things in the world of color…be brave!

Idea Style File

People often tell me they don't know where to start when it comes to decorating. Some rooms are tougher than others and I have this same problem at times. I am spending a lot more time in my home office these days. It's the one room in my house that has received no attention. It was the room in our house where we dumped things and paid bills on the computer, but I now spend many a day in there and it really, really needs a face lift. 

The funny thing is that I don't know where to start! My room is directionless and I'm stumped. I think the spaces closest to us can be the most difficult. I thought about what I've done for other rooms, and what I've encouraged others to do when they start the design process—start an Idea Style File. 

I just love the sound of that—idea (a thought is in there somewhere) style (we all want it) and file (organizing!). Sounds great. And, there are tons of pretty files out there, so your file can be stylish too.

(I love stationery, so I may have gone a bit over board with the pictures of stylish files...but it's so hard to pick just one...or two).

Here's how it works. You label said stylish file with the room you're working on and then fill it with whatever you see that you like. Sounds simple, right? Well, it can be if you don't limit or edit yourself.

This is just for you and the first steps are a free for all—look at any and all magazines (fashion, home, cooking, gardening, anything), ads, pictures, fabrics, etc. and tear out anything you love for that room. Put it in the file. Don't worry about if it all goes together or if you already have 3 sofas in the file. Just FILL it with things you LOVE.

The items don't have to all be pictures of home-related things either. If you love the colors on a sweater in a catalog toss it in. Color of a pot in a cooking magazine? Dump it in. You get the idea (I hope).

After you've filled the file you must now edit. This part is harder. So, if you want to put it off, keep filling! But, at some point you will need to edit.

Take all of your items out and spread them out on a table. Look for similarities. Tons of pictures with orange? Lots of stripes? Animal prints? Straight lines? Start writing down the common things you see in the pictures. 

This now gives you an IDEA of what to look for for the basics—room color, furnishings, flooring and accessories. This is the IDEA style file. Let it spark ideas. The ACTION file is another thing for another day, when you've recovered from this filing project! 

Creating YOUR favorite art

About six years ago I decided to mess around with a Cannon manual camera that was my husband's grandfather's. Our dog, Lexi, pictured here at 7.5 years old, was just over a year old then and she became my willing subject.

I had little to no experience with manual cameras, but was always interested in photography so I thought I would try some black and white shots of the dog. Nothing to lose I figured.

After playing around with all of the buttons and knobs, I snapped away, able to control the focus and create some neat images. I developed several rolls of film and found a few that I really loved.

We didn't have any art in our house at the time (unless you count some framed posters), so I thought this would become great, affordable art for the living room. I wanted large pieces, so I put three 5x7 shots in large mattes and grouped the frames together to create "one" piece.

These images are by far my favorite pieces in our house.

Lexi's shots are in their second home now, right as you come up the stairs and I still love them every time I see them.

Take a peek.

They don't transfer well to web viewing, but in the one on the right I can almost feel her soft ear; the image is that crisp.

You may be wondering why I'm telling you this random story about my dog & her photography. It's not really to show off my art, but to share with you a story about how you can create beautiful, unique things for your home, that can become your favorite things.

They don't have to look like anything anyone else has, they don't have to come from a catalog (not that there's anything wrong with that) and they don't have to cost a lot, they just have to make YOU happy.

Kids, animals, nature and architecture are all wonderful photography subjects. Some are more willing subjects than others, but look around you for inspiration.

And, don't be afraid of messing up. Try new things. Abandon ship if it's not working and try something else. You can't create if you don't try.

Photography is certainly not the only way to go. I have many ideas for unique art and I will share them with you once I take pictures of all of my "homemade" art for posting. Stay tuned!

I believe a house becomes a home when it's filled with items that reflect you, your interests and your life. Whether you create it yourself, or search for that "just right" unique piece created by another, I encourage you to do so; the journey is just as much fun as the final prize.

We're heading to NYC for a long weekend this Spring and I plan on taking a lot of pictures of the city—hopefully to frame and hang in our family room.

Share one of your favorite pieces with me and send pictures! I'd love to see what surrounds you and makes you HAPPY.

Hanging pictures above a staircase

I received a comment asking how to best hang pictures going up a staircase. This can be such a great way to display pictures, so let's see if I can help.

First, there are "rules" about how to do this. I will tell you about them, but since I don't like design "rules" I will also show you how to break them!

One easy way to help you arrange many pictures together is to use craft paper (or any paper really) and trace your frames on the paper, cut them out and mark on the paper where the nail will go with that frame. This is your template. Cut out all of templates and use painter's tape to attach them to the wall you're working with. You can move them around, see how they work together, what fits well and how it will look in the end. The bonus is you've already marked the nail position, so you can hammer the nail in right over the paper, tear the paper down and hang your picture. Instant wall of well-placed pictures!

Here are some ideas to help you arrange pictures above stairs. I've attached two pictures to help me articulate my ideas.

The most pleasing arrangement is to follow the line of the angle up the stairs and use that as your base line for your pictures. Make sense? 

Take a look at the photo to the left with the two pieces of art. Simple and clean and if you drew a diagonal line connecting the bottom of the frames it would run parallel to the staircase. Sounds much more complicated than it is. 

Larger, "heavier" frames usually look best near the bottom of the arrangement, as they help weigh it down. 

While I think this looks great, there are other ways to hang pictures above stairs—that look just as great.

This picture, with the black-framed art, doesn't follow the angle of the steps, but plays with the wainscoting and shelves, stacking the pictures along those lines and creating great visual interest with the placement and contrast of the frames with the white wainscoting. 

The frames unify the look and the "stepped up" arrangement works with the steps. 

I love it. 

Try different things, do what looks good to you and showcases your pictures in their best light. Be brave, there's no "right" or "wrong" and anything you don't like is easily fixed!