Down Savannah Way

Better Homes & Gardens, November 2006

Artist Katie Runnel's Savannah, GA home is a mixture of flea market items, antiques, family hand-me-downs and discount store items. (Hmmm, sounds familiar once you scratch that antiques part) This magazine feature on her Georgia home was written in 2006, she now lives in Columbia, South Carolina.

An obvious love of bird imagery is expressed in her artwork and collections, from the wall sculptures to salt and pepper shakers.



Her palette of colors; harvest gold and olive green, is highly individual and not influenced by a trend. I LOVE this home and apologize for just now sharing it.





Click to see details

This is the story that got me into checking out Better Homes & Garden magazine. I now flip through the pages at the newsstand every month. Features like these along with their incredibly delicious sounding and easy to make recipes make this perhaps another magazine you should consider giving a new look.

I just discovered that Katie has a wonderful site for her art and a blog full of inspiration at The Constant Gatherer.

UPDATE: She is guest blogging on Design*Sponge this week while Grace is on her honeymoon.

Images: November 2006 issue of Better Homes and Garden

Creative Home Makeover

I love Better Homes & Gardens' special publication magazines like Creative Home and my saved copies of the now defunct Budget Style (each and every issue was worth keeping!) I want to share with you a favorite inspiration story from Creative Home. It was part of a reader room makeover. The designer Jenni Hipplewi took the reader from white walls and beige furniture to a blast of pattern and color. If I can translate this makeover to my apartment I will be a very happy woman. Using a bright and varied palette of green, orange, and blue, the decor would definitely fit in here. The furniture was recovered with brighter fabrics in multiple patterns and textures. Then more color and pattern was brought in through small amounts of bold decorator fabrics on accessories and two different paint colors on the walls. Then the artwork was created using a computer software program, PaintByNumbers (already featured here.) Ingenious idea #2 (#1 being the computer generated artwork) was covering an unwanted chandelier with a huge homemade drum shade. This is a great temporary way of dealing with this if you do not want to repaint it. The brightly painted cabinets are lined with coordinating patterned paper

Tricks of the trade - revealed

For this post I'm going to direct you to these posts by fellow Richmond bloggers, John and Sherry at This Young House, who I mentioned before here. Their beautiful home was just photographed for use in Better Homes & Gardens' Do It Yourself magazine and they supplied the behind-the-scenes details used in styling their home for the two-day photo shoot. Very interesting stuff. 

My favorite were these two pictures. Note the relationship of the coffee table to the sofa to the window in the first pic. It seems that sometimes to get the right look in one picture, the furniture isn't actually where you would think it would be in real life. Very good to know. So, the next time you use those floor diagrams and photos in Domino to set up your apartment, don't panic when it doesn't work out. It probably didn't work out in real life either. John and Sherry, thanks for sharing your lovely home!

Paint Everything By the Numbers!

Note: A few weeks late, but here's the second part to my post about paint-by-numbers. This is a solution for affordable yet custom home-made art for your home. Make your own! Use this software I installed more than a year ago, Paint by Numbers from the Color Wheel Company. It's incredible, a really good idea. I wish I had thought it up. You can turn a digital file into a paint by number diagram complete with the corresponding paint colors derived from three craft paint companies partnered with Color Wheel. You can even choose how difficult to make the project, by adjusting the amount of detail you want to capture which effectively limits the number of colors the software assigns to your image. After you've made those adjustments, the program will spit out a shopping list of which colors to purchase in order to make the combinations needed to complete your custom piece. My original plan was to use this kit to create canvases for my living room walls, much like this project from Better Homes & Gardens publications. I saw on a website that this process would be good in replicating a photo into embroidery or needlepoint patterns. How cool. This software could be used to make great gifts. Imagine, you could create a painting from a picture you took of a friend's new baby, the quick shot you took at a wedding, or a picture you took at your last get-together. Or you could go one step further (or back, depending on your point-of-view) and make this into a "gift kit".

• Choose the photo or use a friend's favorite picture.
• Buy a stretched canvas, create the diagram using the software, and transfer the design.
• Print out the shopping list and buy the assigned paint colors.
• Package these up with brushes, a little plastic palette, an easel, Handi-Wipes, and a nice frame.

Voila! A decorative gift and relaxing activity all in one.

Why I Love Better Homes & Garden

Color!



Color!



Color!

Why can't I arrange my pictures?

kimhas4cats

I really am going to attempt it this time. I have two great expanses of off-white walls to cover. However, I am terrified of putting little holes all over the place and still being disappointed. I have done my research, I have my inspiration photos, and I have framed the heavy hitters. Now I just need to start playing with display arrangements.

I have my research, like this article from the Better Homes & Gardens site. [By the way, have you checked out the magazine lately? Not bad at all.]

Rentaldecorating.com also provided these helpful and easy rules.

But I still wish it was as easy as this interactive salon wall tool from Cottage Living's website. While playing with this, I came out like a pro and everything looked fabulous.

Some great examples of what other people have been able to do, all found on Flickr:

Photo credits: darwinbell, aoneko, scrtagentmarten, thomatically, and jiminycrow

Week Three Update

I know that I am very, very behind in the Cure. I just finished my spring semester and finals.

Week One tasks

• My sister reminded me that she was the one that gave me the lamp, and she would rather have it back than I throw it out. Do I need to put another item outside of the apartment?

Week Two tasks

• Kitchen has not been cleaned. Will do this weekend.
• I have not purchased a water filter but I already use a Brita pitcher.
  
• My outbox is being fed regulary.
• I have not chosen a date for my housewarming.

Week Three tasks

• I did get one repair done: the bathroom sink. I called apartment maintenance and it was fixed that same day.
• I need to buy the shelf for my landing strip.

*******
Last week I tried to create a floor plan tool for my apartment (One-Room Remedy). I have a good one drawn on paper, but I wanted one as a document I could play with onscreen. After seeing Bri & Chad’s colorful and patterned room layout from "smallest coolest" I wanted to have one like that; a more realistic picture of my space.

So I looked into the AT suggested programs Visio and Smart Draw. Visio looked too extensive and detailed so I signed up for the Smart Draw free trial. However, during its 7-day time period, it almost drove me crazy. I have created layouts with the design tools on the Better Homes & Gardens and Storehouse web sites more easily. Perhaps it could have worked out if I was not as busy and the trial was longer than a week.

Last week I did finish the curtains for my bookcases.


However, I am rethinking the half curtains after seeing this in the new Real Simple magazine.

I vow that I will catch up or perhaps be two weeks behind in the Cure. (I'll see how this weekend goes.) I do have a few weeks before the summer semester starts.