Goals for your home for 2017- Your home's New Year's resolutions

Now that you have set goals and resolutions for yourself and you are drinking more water, being mindful, and adding more veggies to your meals. Let's look around at your space and see what resolutions you can make that will make your home more relaxed, confident, and updated.

Updated Duncan-Phyffe sofa, King House, Montevallo, AL

1. De-clutter and organize

This is the step that makes the most impact! We are in the habit of seeing this clutter everyday to the point that we don't "see" it anymore. So, how can we see it? Play real estate photographer for a few minutes. Grab the smartphone and snap a few images of each room... maybe each wall of each room. What do you see? Perhaps, stacks of magazines, random "decor" that you are now over, pillows that the dog loved too much? You might even print the images and circle the things you want to get rid of, then begin the process of letting those things go. Cull the magazines, box up the decor that you are over and give it to a charity shop, then toss those mushed pillows.

2. Look at lighting

Lighting and the color of light makes a difference in the way the colors look in a space. Though I am a fan of the long lasting CFL bulbs, if you pick the "natural" or "white" light bulbs, you will have a space that feels more like a doctor's office than a home. If you have a collection of various bulbs in a space, the sofa could look like different colors on each end, or the wall color could look different around the room. CFL's also change color over time, so mixing old and new bulbs make the colors look different in the space. The fastest, and cheapest, way to solve this is to sort the bulbs you have and put the like bulbs in the same room. Next, look at the LED bulbs as your next lighting purchase for an update. Lastly, perhaps you looked at your de-clutter images and reconsidered the lamps, chandeliers, and sconces in your space. It might be time for a fixture refresh!

3. Paint

Once you have decluttered and "color corrected" your lighting, is that the wall color you thought it was? Does is look like the magazine images that you tore out and your pin boards? You might need a quick paint evaluation! Paints can change color depending on the light reflected against them and the light in the space. A paint consultation with a designer can offer advice, color correct paint swatches, and a great weekend project. Your space could have a new look for under $100 (paint and consult), with you showing off your mad painting skills.

4. Artwork- adding, subtracting, and dividing

Your walls are painted beautifully and are ready to put up the artwork. You have an opportunity to reconfigure the walls, create a different patterns, make a placeholder for the "good piece" that you expect to purchase at the spring outdoor art shows. You, also, have a opportunity to "rest" some of the art that you are not sure you love anymore. Rested artwork can be like getting out your favorite boots in the fall- excitement and falling in love again with something you already own! 

5. Re-cover, replace, renew furniture

Like that loved, now flat, pillow, your fave furniture can sometimes use a facelift, too! A piece with good bones can be updated with a recover that cost less than replacing the piece with something new of the same quality. You can also find great replacement pieces this time of year, when it's time for someone else to love your old furniture. Antique stores and furniture store typically have sales in January. And, don't forget slipcovers! For furniture that needs a seasonal update, a slipcovered seat or back can offer an easy update that will extend the life of the fabric on the furniture.

6. Indoor Air Quality
Umm, did you just enter a lecture on heating a cooling? Yes and no. Yes we are talking cleaner, more pleasant air, but no I'm not going to deliver a 100 slide lecture that drones like a bagpipe. I'm talking indoor plants. They make a huge difference in the quality of the oxygen and humidity in a space. Yes, they will eventually die. So, talk to a professional at a garden shop, preferable a locally owned, and tell them the way you typically treat plants, they can guide you to ones that will like the way you treat them! Remember plants take in CO2, that we breath out, and they breath out oxygen, that we breath. Your air just got fresher without any plug-in, candle, or spray!

Need a little guidance with any of these resolutions, drop me a line! 

What are your New Year's resolutions for your home? Please share and inspire others!

In the details- Architectural details on older buildings

As the saying goes, they don't make thing like the used to, like this beautiful 1917 entryway of a Georgian Revival building. A juliet balcony with carved rosette underneath, deep brackets and a monogrammed wreath with carved ribbons on the lentil.  

Calkins Hall, University of Montevallo, Montevallo, Alabama

Professional practice and the interior designer

This spring, I will be teaching professional practice at the University of Alabama and I have given considerable thought to what my undergrad pro practice class was like and how the industry has changed. We are still needing a resume and a portfolio, but with the bloom of all types of social media, we have to look at how social media affects or reflects our professionalism. So, how are we presenting ourselves?

This is the type of images that I should be publishing- Sophisticated plant in a stylish cachepot, on an antique table, with the fashionable paint color in the background.

I have thought about my social media presence and how I use it. As well as, who I like to see on social media and what I like to see of them. 

I am, perhaps, a little too obsessed with sunsets and silhouettes for Instagram. 

Mainly, I am use Instagram because it populates Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook. It's my passive, not to mention free, method of populating multiple channels at one time, but is that really the best way to promote myself and my work.

Then there are the "look, I just bought flowers" instagram posts.

In this new year and it a time of change, perhaps it is time that we evaluate how we present ourselves to the world on social media. Though there is nothing wrong with flowers and sunsets, it is a crutch, not a feature. Business resolution should be to present my business with what I expect of others and not what is expedient.

P.S. The roses from Costco were purchased 10 days and still look good!

Pantone color of the year 2017- greenery

The new year brings new ideas, new decisions, and new resolutions to the forefront. It reviews the past year of design with the good, the great, and the please let's let that one go! It brings things like new technology with the CES show and of course, the color of the year from Pantone.

Greenery is hopeful, growth-inspiring, and peaceful. Concepts that we could all use. It is also a reminder of spring in these months of winter, like seed catalogs!

This year's color of the year that every eco-friendly desigher can get behind! 

To quote Pantone themselves, "Greenery is a fresh and zesty yellow-green shade that evokes the first days of spring when nature’s greens revive, restore and renew." It looks great with everything from navy to orange to rich pink. Crisp green has been on the color scene for a couple of years in small furnishings. I am hoping to see it more in a commitment like paint colors.

Navy Chair from DWR.com , Floriculture knob from Anthropologie, Butterfly lamp from CB2.com, Demijohn from Etsy.com, Moss Pillow from Etsy.com,
Kitchenaid mixer, Paint swatch from Benjamin Moore Color: Rosemary Green 2029-30

pickin' and grinnin'- My best antique find for Christmas

We are upon the holiday season and I am feverishly adding things to my Etsy and Ebay accounts when I run across this little sterling baby food pusher, dated Dec. 1914 on the handle.

A baby's first Christmas gift from the year that saw the start of WWI, the first Model T car, Charlie Chaplin starring in 'The Tramp", and a little boy is born in Birmingham Alabama that will change Christmas.

Yes, that's what I said. Changed Christmas with this movie score.

From Meet Me in St. Louis

His name was Hugh Martin and he wrote the musical score (words and music) for the movie Meet Me in St. Louis, starring Judy Garland, which included  "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas."

Found online this image is of Hugh Martin, Judy Garland and Frank Sinatra

Now you see how he changed Christmas! It a Christmas time standard that everyone has covered on their Christmas albums. It is a song that allows for us to feel melancholy and happy, simultaneously.

His first Merry Little Christmas, was December 1914, in Birmingham Alabama. Among his gifts was a baby food pusher. Actually it was this baby food pusher. I found it at his younger brother's estate sale in Birmingham.

This item is currently available on Ebay here. You too, can have a piece of Birmingham and American Christmas history.

July Antique Sale ONLINE!!!!

Find all my items on sale at Hanna Antiques, and now many items in my Ebay store! Find the items below, plus many more, on sale on Ebay in my Laurl Designs Store (click here). Everything listed below is 15% off!

Home Accessories with Staying Power- a How To

There is nothing worse than finding a trend you love only to see it panned the following year. The key to staying on trend without constantly changing your world is to catch the flavor of the trend, without a full out embrace- you need to "side hug" the trend!

Brass is a great hot trend right now. It gives a space warmth by reflecting warm light better than any other metal, even mirrors. However, going Brass-tastic on the family room will be disappointing when the next trend comes around.

The solution in three options:
Choose one brass piece, perhaps a table with brass legs or a brass top and place it prominently.

Find it here!

Find it here!

Find it here!

TIP: Hit local estate and tag sales for vintage brass items.

Fine it here!

Find it here!

You can truly give brass a side hug and use a gold leaf or mixed metal accessories.

Find it here!

Lastly, you can second guess the trend. Go one step beyond it. Say to yourself, if brass is hot now, what might be next, bronze, which is like brass. Or, is it time for the trend to swing in the opposite direction? If a trend just took a turn- from stainless steel to brass for example, then it will probably continue along the path for a bit. If we have already progressed down a trend path- red in the new black, pink is the new red, orange is the new pink, then we might be swinging to the opposite direction where green is the new orange. Opposite on the color wheel- green and orange. Try your hand at trend spotting! Even better, be an early adopter and the envy of your friends. Soon, you will be the trendsetter!