Decor & Accessories

Project by: David Katz of Katz Architecture Location: New York, New York Blessed with beautiful 1920s bones, this gorgeous kitchen just needed to blossom from its cramped IKEA cocoon into a gorgeous custom butterfly. The owner, an architect themselves, turned to David Katz to help this kitchen reach its full potential.

I recently faced the dilemma of finding a pretty rug for my living room that didn’t cost a fortune. As I scoured the web, I found many had way too many shades of brown to count or resembled something thrown over a fence at a roadside sale. But I persevered and have handpicked a selection of pretty and affordable area rugs (all around 5′ x 8′) that won’t break the bank.

Pillows, aka those comfy things on your bed that you spend eight hours a night drooling onto, were first used around 7,000 BC in Mesopotamia. Originally only owned by the rich or upper echelons, with multiple pillows meaning that the owner was wealthy, important, and probably well-rested.

Some decor styles are easy to pin point, as they follow certain rules. But for the eclectic collector, there are no pre-set design mandates. This artfully cluttered, anything goes aesthetic is all about throwing caution to the wind and filling your home with things you love that you’ve picked up along your journeys, whether from Monaco, Morocco or Minneapolis. To some, pattern mixing is an art form that is learn through trial and error.

A new rug can be one of the most anxiety-inducing purchases you can make for your home. For one thing, even the small ones seem shockingly expensive. For another, once you understand the importance of rug size in creating a comfortable space (spoiler alert: bigger is better here) they become even more so. There’s also room use and orientation to contend with.

The world of prints and patterns is wide. For instance, what you think is simply “plaid” is far more intricate. All tartans are plaids, but not all plaids are tartans, in fact. There are madras plaids, houndstooth plaids, windowpane plaids, and many, many more. So we beg the question: Do you know one from the other? With fall—the high season of plaid—just around the bend, it might be a good time to polish up on your terminology. As always, we’re here to help!

Are you the artful bohemian or a new traditionalist? Take this quiz to find out and don’t forget to share your results in the comments! Antsy for your results? Hang tight…they’re coming! Re-edited from a post that originally appeared 09.06.2017.

If you’ve ever had a roommate, you know exactly what we mean by “dishues.” They’re those petty but persistent issues—think unwashed dishes, stolen Kind bars and late-night commotions—that can only come of an inconsiderate cohabiter. Though trivial, they can prove problematic nonetheless.

Some artists make art not just of their canvases, but their entire homes. Today we’re taking a look at 3 incredibly creative homes of artists and designers, which will have you seeing your whole space in a completely different light.

When decorating a small space, the conventional wisdom is to use light colors to make the space seem as large as possible. But when your small space has high ceilings and great lighting, sometimes you can get away with breaking a few rules — and create a studio apartment with all the style of a much larger home. This Swedish — of course it’s Swedish — studio has a separate kitchen, and a rather large, high-ceilinged space that serves as both the living room and bedroom.

What do you think? Can the SUNNERSTA cart usurp the seemingly unstoppable and ever-popular RASKOG ? Will it capture the hearts of organizing decorators everywhere? It’s pretty darn cute and seems to tick many of the same boxes, including the price point. Designed by Henrik Preutz. IKEA says: Sometimes installing a large kitchen isn’t necessary, or too expensive and time-consuming. That’s why SUNNERSTA mini-kitchen was developed.

Poufs, floor pillows, low ottomans and small stools—these are all great decor elements to add to a living room whenever you need extra seating or more softness. But it’s not always crystal clear exactly where your newly purchased or DIYed pouf or floor pillow should go. In the place of side chairs? As a coffee table? Kind of floating off to the side?

The idea of 3D-printed products for the home is admittedly a little out there, even Jetsons-esque. The gadgets and gizmos a plenty on sale throughout the internet may run the gamut from completely bizarre to actually interesting (and normal), but no matter where they fall on the spectrum, something that came from a printer (that’s not a sheet of paper with words on it) is certainly a conversation starter. We rounded up a handful of things you might actually want to buy for your own home.

While I love minimal, white-walled interiors with occasional bursts of color just as much as the next person, every once in a while it’s nice to spot something different — like this Little Venice apartment by Sera of London. It’s a little bit Bohemian, a little bit Miss Havisham, a little bit crumbly European chic, wholly different, and wholly refreshing.

Even though I now have the tiny, perfect apartment of my dreams, I haven’t stopped being fascinated with other people’s tiny, perfect apartments. And I’m particularly drawn to this apartment in Stockholm, which despite measuring only 193 square feet manages to be everything you want an apartment to be: airy, stylish, cozy, comfortable.

For those collecting maximalists among us—who can’t have just one globe, camera, or milk glass goblet, but seem to amass them by the dozen—here are some creative ways to organize and live with the things you love. All of these ideas keep your most cherished items in sight, incorporating them seamlessly into your decor. This is probably going to become your new favorite spot in your home.

Many of us understand that adding art to a room can drastically alter its appearance. But there are so many ways you can use art to make a visual impact; making the decision on where to hang can be overwhelming. These room gifs represent common art-hanging questions—I’ve removed the artwork from the walls to show you just how powerful art can be when its used in the right place and at the optimum scale. Seeing is believing!

400 square feet may not seem like a lot — but that’s reckoning without the ingenuity of Swedish design. Thanks to a simple but very smart floor plan, this diminutive Swedish apartment makes living small look positively luxurious. It’s located in Stockholm, and was once available for sale (but sadly is no longer) from brokerage firm Husman Hagberg.

In Hong Kong, one of the most densely packed cities in the world, a young couple presented their architects with a seemingly impossible challenge: designing an apartment that would include a large kitchen, a home theater, a bathroom with a tub, and sleeping spaces for the couple and their overnight guests. The space also had to acommodate the couple’s three cats — and all this in 309 square feet.

Exposed pipes and radiators—the bane of apartment, loft, and refurbished factory dwellers everywhere. As if it wasn’t bad enough that they prevent you from nudging your bed directly against the wall, they interrupt the look of a space as they sweep across the wall or ceiling. Here’s some inspiration to help you make peace with your pipes by painting them, wrapping them, even hand-knitting them a colorful cozy.