The Ritual of Spring Cleaning

Any cleaning that happens during a certain three months could be considered spring cleaning, but we have given such a simple term a much grander meaning. Springtime is when we go through the items in the closets and spend hours cleaning parts of the house we often don't even remember exist. It hits us like an instinctual compulsion, and the more we get done the more rejuvenated we feel.

Spring cleaning gives us an opportunity to get our blood pumping again as we breathe in the air from our opened windows. It is truly rejuvenating to feel that breeze and hear the birds as we're on our hands and knees cleaning the baseboard. Spring cleaning is a spiritual ceremony of lightening ourselves and freeing us from the clutter that builds when we sit still for too long.

Yet even with all the benefits the idea of beginning our spring clean can be quite daunting. Here are a few things to consider:

• Make a list of all things you would like to replace, fix or give to charity, and prepare a budget if necessary.
• Take one room at a time: It does not matter how many rooms you have in your house, you cannot do your house in a single day even if you have only two rooms.
• Open the doors and let the fresh air in: open all the doors, let the fresh air in, start some music and start working in the room.
• Start cleaning from the top. Chandeliers and ceiling fans are hardest to clean so tackle them first.
• Wash the draperies after you have cleaned the room. If you have Venetian blinds, clean those with a wet cloth after you have dusted the room and vacuumed the carpet.
• Sort the useful and useless: In each room, sort the items you wish to keep and get rid of everything you don’t want. Open all the drawers and cupboards, and take out everything that you have not used recently and you are not likely to use, and store it separately for a garage sale or charity.
• Collect all the papers that you have in each room and organize them in two groups/piles. One pile you wish to keep and the other you want to throw away.
• When in doubt, throw it out.
• Recycle it permanently: If you are a firm believer in keeping things for use “just in case” you’ll collect many items that you’ll never need.
• Try to make spring-cleaning fun. If you can involve your family members, it will be just like the outing you are planning during the summer. Well, maybe not, but you can try!

All this work is definitely deserving of some sort of reward. For some of us, just the new openness and feeling of lightness our space provides is a great enough reward. The rest of us want a little something more. It can be good to redecorate a room or two. This allows us to maximize the positive changes we are making to our living environment.

Decorate Your Table for the 2010 Fall Season with Maple Leaf Dinnerware

The fall season is here and with it comes the hope of autumn festivities. Kick your season off right by following one of the freshest dinnerware trends of the 2010 fall season with maple leaf themed dinnerware. This delightful new pattern will transform your autumn table into a masterpiece of design without the boring themed tableware that lacks color and personality.

This season, autumn decorating styles have shifted more to traditional designs with more concentration on textures and colors. When using colorful maple leaf dishes, you can forgo the normal fall table decorations such as containers of flowers, vivid table linens, and so forth. This trend makes setting up an autumn table fast and easy.

To make the most out of this trend, mix and match the sizes and colors. One example would be to use the earthy brown plates with mugs of a contrasting color and bowls of still another color. If you have a favorite harvest tablecloth, you can still use this style, but opt instead for matching the tableware pieces in a color that contrasts to your tablecloth. The plan is to make your fall table decorations brilliant and attractive.

These fall table decorations are showing up in other rooms as well, taking their place in the family room as fabulous containers for pinecones or autumn treats. The subtle design makes it simple to switch these pieces from room to room and function to function.
Let Interiors Refined by Paula redesign your dining room this Fall.

Place Looking Tired? Simple Tricks to Update Your Home Now

Look around and ask yourself how your home looks and feels- Right now. Is your environment supporting a harmonious state of mind? Do your surroundings uplift or inspire? It's easy to breathe new life into a tired space. Here are 5 basic and inexpensive ways to refresh and revive your home today!

Restore Your Door. If your front door is old, worn out or has peeling paint, you have several options. Buy a replacement door from a building center for as little as $165. Paint your door a signature colour, or install a decorative window and let light in. A door with character will enhance curb appeal and bring a smile to your face every time you come home.

Rejuvenate with Color. Refreshing home areas that are used most (the foyer, living room or kitchen for example) will create impact and energy. Deliver design punch to rooms with interesting accent cushions, bright curtain panels or a bold accent wall.

Refresh the Trim. Think about replacing or painting any scuffed or non-existent baseboards and/or trim. Home Depot and Lowes as well as other home improvement centers have new trim starts at less than a dollar per linear foot for pre-painted “easy to install” plastic. Crown molding adds drama and architecture to a foyer, living room or dining room.

Update Switches, Plugs and Plates. An often overlooked but effective home update is replacing all old and painted over light switches with new plates, and to buy new dimmers, controls and plugs. It’s possible to refresh an entire house for less than $100. If you are handy, plug receptacles can be replaced with a newer, square style.

Make Over Dull Interior Doors. Take all ugly brown slab doors, add some inexpensive molding and paint them white. While this final project suggestion is a bit more intensive overall, the payoff is basic hollow-core doors transformed to appear expensive, clean and unified. Find an attractive new doorknob or handle in a complementary style or finish from about $10.

It’s easy to renew the spark in your home relationship. These refreshing and easy changes will increase the value of your home and can have you “loving it again”.

What is the Focal Point in Your Room

Every room has, or at least it should have an interest point (or focal point). If there isn’t an architectural one, we’ll have to create it ourselves. But what is a focal point? A fireplace, a painting or a window with an interesting view can all be focal points. The focal point can be compared to the verb in a sentence – you need it in order to complete the room.

If the focal point doesn’t exist we’ll have to create it. Hang a painting or a valuable rug on the wall. A wardrobe or shelves with an interesting design will have the same effect. Even a television, especially a flat screen mounted on the wall can become a focal point.

Once decided upon a focal point, the furniture will be arranged in such a way that will empower it. In other words, when you are sitting in the room you want the eyes to look at the focal point in a natural and comfortable way. Let Interiors Refined by Paula redesign your room to emphasize the focal point.

The furniture placement must encourage conversation. The first step is to place the chairs, keeping the distance of 3ft “tops” between them. More than that and you won’t be able to hear yourselves unless you raise your voice. Naturally the chairs or armchairs must be placed facing the focal point. Chairs should be placed within about eight feet of each other to encourage conversation. Position a table in such a way that it is easily accessible from every chair. Keep a light source near the seating area. Coffee tables should have a clearance of about 14 to 18 inches from the sofa. Side tables should be at least as tall as the arm of the chairs or sofa to make serving easy and discourage accidental spills. When arranging furniture, make sure you provide enough space to move around the room. Read more

Each chair should have a little table placed at a comfortable distance. Coffee tables are usually placed 14-18 inches from the couch and end tables are placed right next to the armchairs.

The most common furniture arrangement is in the “U” shape, in which the open space is occupied by the focal point.

Example: focal point on the northern wall, one armchair on the eastern wall, another armchair on the western wall and a couch on the southern wall.

If various reasons keep us from placing the furniture in a shape resembling the letter “U”, we can always place it in ”L”, with a few occasional pieces on the free side of the room.

Using Feng Shui in Interior Redesign and Staging

Feng Shui is great for an interior redesign in that it helps to bring a level of balance to the room that you are designing or staging. Everything blends in a room that has undergone Feng Shui, the ancient arts of placement.

Feng Shui interior redesign works in that everything matches appropriately in a room. Using Feng Shui can dramatically improve your health, happiness and personal prosperity by maximizing positive energy and harmony in the home.

Improve your life by discarding clutter and encouraging positive energy using the five elements of Feng Shui. Fire, which symbolizes summer and heat in your efforts in life uses red, orange, purple and bright yellow colors. Earth, covers stability and protection and symbolizes a nurturing environment, using light yellow and beige.

Element three in Feng Shui interior decorating is Metal which brings feelings of clarity and strength, communication and justice. Gray and white are used here. Water, which is an Element for purity and calmness suggests the inner self, art and beauty, uses blue and black colors. The last of the Elements is Wood, which suggests vitality and health, and this uses all spectrum of green and brown colors. Ideally, there should be a balance of all the elements.

Items in a certain room that don’t adhere to the elements of Feng Shui interior redesign should be moved to other places in the home. For instance, in a bedroom exercise equipment and office items will disrupt the balance in the room and should be moved into the appropriate rooms such as basement or a room specially designed for such.

In all parts of the home using natural cleaners and scents is better than chemically based cleaners and scents. This keeps the senses from being harmed and therefore will add to the balance in the home.

Using dimmer lights in the home can be used for Feng Shui interior redesign as well. Light is a symbol of energy and too much light will result in a feeling of more energy than what may be needed in a certain part of the home. Candles can also be used, but it is best to use candles without toxins.

Use these tips and create a greater balance of energy in the home and therefore help you to feel better about your home. For more information on real estate staging and interior redesign: www.InteriorsRefinedbypaula.com