Home Sense: simple solutions to enhance where and how you live by Eduardo Xol
Hooray, I finally found an X author! I tried to read A Case of Two Cities: an Inspector Chen novel by Qiu Xiaolong, but I just couldn't get into it - it started with a totally juicy murder in a karaoke brothel, but it got bogged down (in my opinion) with too much about the hierarchy of the Communist Party.
This one wasn't nearly that tough a read and since I've just moved, I thought it might give me some decorating ideas - it's time to have a grown-up place without (too much!) Ikea furniture.
Mostly it has lots of pretty pictures of things I could never afford, but they were nice to look at and daydream about. Unfortunately, I found that a lot of the tips, such as things like (not a direct quote) "the pattern of the floor is subtle and therefore doesn't clash with the bold wallpaper" quite often didn't show in the pictures, as either the floor or the wallpaper wasn't shown. So that was a bit odd. And it could've done with one more proof-read to catch errors with apostrophes and homonyms (peak/peek, etc). A small thing, but there were quite a few.
But I like his overall philosophy of your home being a reflection of your own personality and that it should be welcoming.
Here are a few tips that I did glean from it (put here so I'll remember them in the months of organizing and decorating to come!):
- use an area rug for an easy way to get a new look in a room or to create a conversation area
- rotate your decorative objects so the room doesn't look stale
- you can get under-mount sinks that collect less gross bacteria (definitely looking into that when it comes time to do the kitchen!)
- placing chests of drawers inside closets gives you more space plus an extra flat surface
- give in to the luxury of high thread count bedding - it's worth it!
- the dining room is an often underutilized area for displaying collectibles and photos
- use cute, interesting drawer pulls for an quick, cheap update
No comments:
Post a Comment