Decorating by Room

Towels may serve a strictly utilitarian purpose—to dry you off after a shower, swim, or long bath—but, trust us, they’re far from basic. Truth is, choosing the right towel for your lifestyle and space can add a luxurious, spa-like quality to your standard bathroom. That’s why some people are willing to shell out the big bucks for ’em. (Need proof? Here are 14 bath towels that will rock your world!

When taking on a home improvement project as major, time-consuming, and expensive (!!!) as designing a new kitchen, the last thing that you want to do is make a few choices now that you end up regretting later—especially if that ends up meaning you wasted money. To help identify the biggest money-wasting no-nos to avoid, we consulted a few kitchen design experts. Having been around plenty of renovations, they had some good live-and-learn lessons and what-not-to-dos to share.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Amazon has a bunch of home decor pieces that look expensive, but are ridiculously affordable. It’s not that surprising, right? After all, you can buy just about everything (and we mean everything) at the mega-retailer—and usually for a low, fair price. Of course, we’re not the only ones who think Amazon is a decorating enthusiast’s paradise.

I’ve been cooking for most of my adult life, and I’ve never actually been completely sure just what that drawer under the oven is for. It seems like a good enough place to store baking pans, but that also feels like wasted space, or that it should actually be for something besides storage. I’ve never really used that drawer for anything.

When you think of monograms, do the frilly handkerchiefs from your grandmother’s handbag pop into your mind? Sure, monogramming has been around forever, but we’re loving all of the fresh, modern takes on the age-old classic that we’ve been coming across. Check out our favorite inspiration images and shopping picks below; we guarantee you’ll have a hard time settling on just one!

Americans spent the last three or four decades tearing out pretty-in-pastel bathroom tiles. Pale pinks and greens surrounded every toilet, every shower, every sink. After spending decades finding the same shades everywhere, it’s no wonder we grew tired of the trend. But it’s time to break out your mortar and grout: Colorful bathroom tiles are coming back.

When it comes to buying furniture, some pieces stay with you for a year or two, and some for a lifetime. But when it comes to buying furniture on a budget, more can fall into the former camp. And while some inexpensive options might be required to get started while you save up for more investment pieces, it’s also nice when those inexpensive pieces can grow with you.

Welcome to Scandi Week—Apartment Therapy’s seven-day focus on all-things Scandinavia (often defined as the countries of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway). Sometimes it seems like the whole world is obsessed with trying to copy this corner of the globe, from its timeless style aesthetic to its now-famous coziness rituals. For the next week, we’ll take a look at all of it—cleaning, pop culture, and of course tons of eye-popping design inspiration.

From inventive dining options, to world-class music, to ample outdoor recreation, these five college towns tick all the boxes for non-student residents.

Every kitchen needs a KitchenAid mixer. Yes, they are a bit pricey and take up a decent amount of space, but they are so versatile. You can make cakes, cookies, pies, dough, and so much more using your mixer, especially if you get the KitchenAid attachments. Not only can you get a lot done with this mixer, it really stands the test of time. People can have their mixers for decades, as long as they take good care of them. KitchenAid is celebrating a big anniversary in 2019.

Sneaky homeowners used to fill bowls with fake apples, grapes, and bananas—but don't you dare take a bite.

There was a time when matching bedroom sets were de rigueur. If your bed frame, dresser, and nightstand didn’t match perfectly well, did you even have a bedroom? Alas, those years are far behind us, and now, full-on bedroom sets just feel too matchy-matchy. You’re much more likely to find bedrooms decorated with items that complement each other, but aren’t the exact same style, which gives you the chance to add your own personal style to the mix.

Good news for farmhouse style fans: Chip and Joanna Gaines’ latest collection of Hearth & Hand with Magnolia is hitting Target stores this weekend. We have your exclusive sneak peek at everything new, plus tips from Joanna, below. There are over 50 pieces in the new collection, with prices ranging from $3.99 for a kitchen towel to $55.99 for a pouf, with most under $25.

Living in just one room doesn’t have to mean seeing your bedroom from the front door. These smart studio dwellers created cozy bedroom areas despite the fact that their homes don’t have walls. Elaine Burns had the unique idea for her studio apartment to create a plantation shutter faux wall to hide the bed and separate it from the entryway. She reached out to American Blinds to have the wall custom built.

More and more, it’s becoming increasingly normal to hear stories of people learning to acclimate themselves to living in seriously small apartments. Cities are practically bursting at the seams so for many metropolitan dwellers, creatively maximizing a small living space has quickly become a modern-day survival tactic.

We might try to walk into Target with good intentions. The plan is to pick up that one thing we need, responsibly tossing it into our baskets before popping through self checkout, paying a respectable amount of money, and going on our ways. Sure, good intentions are great and all—but we also know that no one is safe from the lure of Target.

Summer-proofing your home happens like clockwork. Once the temperature rises, you add an air conditioning unit and screens to your windows, trade in your woodsy candle for a beachier scent, and swap out your flannel sheets for some lightweight linen ones. But, if we’re being honest, we never know what to do with our duvets. On the one hand, duvets are comfortable and a great extra layer for when your AC is on full blast.

Minimalism and functionality are two key elements that can take a hum-drum, cluttered kitchen and turn it into a beautiful space to cook and entertain in. As I mentioned in this Scandinavian-style house tour round-up last month, perhaps the greatest feature of Scandi-inspired style is that it can be interpreted and used in so many different ways.

There’s something about a well-designed kitchen that makes me want to abandon my takeout-loving ways and transform into the type of person who hosts dinner parties on the regular and whips up delectable meals with ease. Or at least someone who plays the part on Instagram. And nothing piques my interest more than a light, airy kitchen with a few pops of pastel. Coincidentally that seems to be exactly the aesthetic of most popular Instagram influencers. The secret to their style?

I admit it: I am a kitchen appliance junkie. I have been for more than a decade, since I fell in love with cooking. I want to buy nearly everything that comes on the market, but actually only buy the ones I know I will use on a regular basis. I make sure that the ones I do buy are the best value for the money no matter how inexpensive or expensive they may be. And then I love them to no end. I have a few high-speed blenders (because is one really enough?

When talking vintage, a fine line surely exists between the vintage item that makes you the envy of your design-eyed friends, and the vintage that makes you question an object’s actual hygienic repercussions on your home. When the conversation becomes about vintage and antique rugs, as most conversations do(!), a whole new myriad of myths, musts and maybes are called into question— questions that are left best to the experts.

If I asked you to imagine something made of denim, I’m guessing you’d probably think of a pair of pants—not a couch. Over the years, this distinctive blue canvas material has become almost synonymous with blue jeans. The idea of using denim in interior decor may seem a bit strange to you—I thought so too, until I saw this striking sofa in actress Denise Vasi’s Los Angeles home and began to wonder: what if?

I pride myself on the fact that I have never dropped my phone in a toilet or spilled coffee on it. (My poor laptop is another story. RIP, Lisa’s MacBook!) And I tend to do everything in my power to keep up those bragging rights. But as someone who cooks a lot, following recipes (from Kitchn!) on my phone, it’s not always easy to keep my phone safe. Which is where this plastic bag comes in. I oddly got the idea while treating myself to a manicure.

Here at Apartment Therapy, we write about tiny houses a whole lot. Sometimes, I find myself wondering if we’ve reached peak tiny house. Are these adorable little dwellings on wheels just glorified trailer homes? Are they destined for the pages of Craigslist in a few years, once the mania dies down? Or are they a reflection of a cultural shift in the way we look at our homes, where bigger isn’t always better?

The trend of tiny living is well, huge. Whether it’s municipalities looking to solve affordable housing crises, or individuals looking to live a simpler life in the woods, tiny homes seem to be the answer to nearly every question these days. Now the tiny living phenomena has inspired equally tiny, yet incredibly functional and beautifully designed, kitchens for modern living.

Some of you may remember this post I wrote, asking you if I should break down and get one of those ugly-as-sin kitchen mats, even though they offend my eyes. (If you haven’t read it, I’ll wait while you do!) Despite the popular advice to just break down and do it, I’ve been hemming and hawing over the decision for months. And I’m glad, actually. Because I’ve just come across something that is a million times more attractive than the typical kitchen mat.

The folks at IKEA seem to have a knack for making pieces that are incredibly simple and also fit into all different kinds of interiors. They’re like the little black dresses of design. Case in point: the IKEA PS cabinet, which looks like a school locker and a credenza had a baby and somehow, despite its somewhat industrial appearance, is just the right thing for all kinds of spaces. And the best thing? It costs less than $100.

When furnishing a small space, it would seem to make sense to pick pieces that are small. After all, you don’t want to overwhelm the room with bulky, oversize furniture. But there’s one big exception: the sofa. In most living rooms, the sofa is the biggest piece of furniture, and the biggest design statement, and a larger sofa (that still fits comfortably in the room, of course) can help to visually expand the boundaries of the space.

Redecorating can be a bit overwhelming. You might get stuck deciding on what style is right for you or even just anxious about how much it’ll all cost. Eventually it can get stressful to the point where it just feels easier to avoid altogether and live with what you’ve got. Which got me chatting recently with a few fellow editors about what a good “budget” price point would be for a quick room refresh.

Tiny houses are charming, and a great way to simplify and streamline your life—but the tradeoff, for many tiny house designs, is having to struggle up a ladder at night to reach your tiny peaked loft bedroom. Forget where you are in the morning, and you may just whack your head on the tiny adorable roof of your tiny adorable home. But the Escher, a creation of New Frontier Tiny Homes, takes a different approach: it has a bedroom you’d actually want to wake up in.

A look into the history of a particularly weird old trend.

I can’t imagine I’m alone in this predicament: I tend to flip-flop between being a hot and cold sleeper, as does my S.O., except, we never seem to be on the same page at the same time. We are not sleeping temperature compatible, people, and wow is it a nuisance. When my toes are frozen solid and I can’t seem to cocoon myself enough in my comforter to achieve P.S.T.

These “truly lovely” yet teeny tiny modular units made from shipping containers, currently sitting on Copenhagen’s harbor front, just might be what the future of sustainable, affordable housing looks like — for students and other young people.

The days of coordinating your TP to your bathroom are over. Here's why.

Have you, too, stood in the linens department, eyes glazed as you try to figure out the best sheets? It doesn’t help that they tend to be folded up and jammed into a plastic container so that you can only feel a tiny corner of them. How are you supposed to know how it will feel on your entire body if only the tip of your finger can brush a sliver of the sheet? Well there’s always thread count, which is what it seems “they” want us to rely on.

Generally speaking, when building in a small space, something always has to give — and in an populated area, most often the “give” is in sacrificing outdoor spaces, especially gardens. But one Beijing- and Austria-based design duo has found a genius solution in the plans for this “Yin & Yang House” currently being built in central Germany.

We’ve already shown that we’d rather share homes and rides and bicycles, and we’d rather rent, borrow, or swap clothes and books and food and even pets than own them outright — just to name a few areas of life that have been “disrupted” by the “sharing economy.

In the third chapter of Wuthering Heights”, the narrator, finding himself at the manor house of the same name, describes a room with a curious kind of bed: The whole furniture consisted of a chair, a clothes-press, and a large oak case, with squares cut out near the top resembling coach windows.

Amsterdam has a distinctive architecture style, but we can guarantee that this giant crane-turned-residence sticks out among the city’s livable structures – in a good way. Typically, old construction equipment and luxury don’t go hand in hand, but that’s the best way to describe this unique spot.

And just like that, you can reclaim your nightstand.

Welcome to Design Doctors, our new series in which two designers offer expert prescriptions to readers who need help with a room in their home. These are not full renovations being suggested, but rather approachable, generally affordable changes that can be made by laypeople. The doctors are in! In this second installment, we have a basement that the owner describes as, “A half-timbered dingy cream stucco kinda tavern.

There’s a new term roaming the corridors of the internet that made our ears perk up the second we heard it and we think you’re going to like it, too. It’s called a “pajama lounge”, and we want one. The idea is nothing new, though: growing up in suburbia, you may have had an upstairs loft or living room where the kids studied, watched TV maybe before heading down to the kitchen for a bowl of cereal if your home was spacious enough.

8 easy-to-execute ideas to maximize your limited bedroom floor plan.

In these unpredictable times, Pantone delivered at least one certainty we can hold onto for 2018: their much-anticipated Color of the Year. And like it or not, the pick is Ultra Violet—an intense, bold shade of purple. At face value, the choice might seem like merely a design one that will influence everything from throw pillows to bridesmaid dresses in the coming year. But over time, these selections have come to take on a bit of a deeper meaning.

The “stranded island test” is a good way to think about the products you use that you really, truly love. I asked the Apartment Therapy editors what one small appliance they’d bring along if we were all whisked away to an island in the middle of nowhere (where electric outlets may or may not exist, but that part isn’t supposed to matter).

These get our vote for stylish space savers.

A lot of attention has been paid lately to the increasingly competitive mattress industry, and the growing lack of transparency for consumers, but it turns out that we should be just as concerned about what covers our mattresses. Two recent studies show that an overwhelming majority of fabric labels on our sheet sets have been faked.

One of the challenges of living in a small apartment is trying to figure out how to fit everything you need into a small bedroom. Fitting everything in, plus the bed (which is pretty essential) can feel nearly impossible, so we’ve rounded up five small bedrooms that make very efficient use of their small footprints—plus ideas you can steal from each one. The bedroom above, from Hemnet via Apartment Therapy, is a perfect example of small-space efficiency.

Last spring when my mother was in town, she offered to help me make an epic month-long supply of freezer meals. While preparing for the task, I came across a recommendation for a kitchen tool that I’d never seen or heard of before. Now they make me happy every time I have an occasion to use them. They’re so delightfully handy, I’ve even given them as gifts.

For the longest time, I thought there was only one solution for rugs in the bathroom: the traditional bath mat. I always struggled to find something I liked enough. Everything was either too fuzzy and nubby, or too bland in terms of design, as I like to add a punch of color via rugs in my all-beige bathroom to liven things up. That is, until I refreshed my space this past summer and went in a completely different direction. The “area rug as bath mat” concept is not a new one.

If you like someone enough to let them stay inside your home, chances are you like them enough to want them to have a nice time during their visit. Help that happen by making sure your guest room is a cozy and functional place to stay before the holidays get here! Guest rooms can easily turn into “junk” rooms the longer they sit unoccupied.

Thanksgiving is arguably the star holiday of the cooking world. And, apart from the oven, there’s no other kitchen feature that gets more play during this time of year quite like the island—whether built-in or freestanding. Before you gather around yours this year, take a moment to appreciate how this modern day kitchen staple came to be the status symbol that it has become (because it hasn’t always been that way).

My family and I live in a remote area—the nearest town has 200 people—so when it came time to replace our falling-apart sofa, our IRL shopping options were very limited unless we wanted to devote our lives to driving to furniture stores. The closest shops were perfectly respectable but lacked a certain flair. It seemed like ordering a sofa online was our only good option, and I’m thrilled it was, because it ended up working out great.

Inspiring rooms your guests will feel like sinking into and staying awhile.

Have you ever felt like the exercise of replacing the fitted sheet on your bed should be an Olympic sport? One innovative new company in New York feels your pain and wants to arm you with better equipment: a sheet set that’s more like a layered ski shell than your standard bedding. Stretto is a new zip-on, zip-off fitted sheet design that envelopes your mattress more like a mattress cover — allowing you to just zip off the top part for cleaning and zip a fresh one back on.

From the magical realism of Audrey Tatou’s bedroom in Amelie to the rustic cottage minimalism of Meryl Streep’s loft in Mama Mia, we all love to take Pinspiration from our favorite movie bedrooms — and HomeAdvisor just took it a step past paint swatches and accessories with these seven fantasy bedroom visualizations.

Let's focus on another time-honored living room pastime: conversation.

I always thought good sheets were an investment. Until I found the last set of sheets I'll ever buy...and for cheap.

When I started my hunt for the perfect tiny New York apartment, I knew that it would probably come with a tiny kitchen, too. I got lucky: my kitchen actually has a full-sized fridge, and it even has an oven. (Yes, there are people in New York who are paying lots and lots of money to rent apartments with no oven.) And while my kitchen is small—it only has two and a half feet of counter space—I saw others that were even smaller.

Or as the actual (but too long) title to this post should read: How to Pull Off Painting Your Living Room Black and It Not Look Like an Angsty Goth ’80s Teen Is Gearing up for a Halloween Party While Their Parents Are Out of Town. I’m here today to let you know it is possible to rock super dark paint on the walls, ceilings, shelving, mantel, fireplace, etc. and not look like you went on Trading Spaces with The Addams Family.

In this space planning series, Layout Lessons, we’ll be exploring layout options for different bed sizes within various shaped bedrooms because things can get tricky sometimes. We tapped Eleanor Büsing, a contributing writer for Apartment Therapy and an interior designer in her own right, for her expert opinion on the matter. Here, how to deal when only a King bed will do.

Ask anyone who’s ever lived in a studio apartment what their least favorite thing about it is, and chances are that (after the size) they’ll complain about their bed being out in the open, in sight of the living room/dining room/kitchen. It can make it feel like you’re living in a dorm room versus an actual adult home. But, with smart decor elements and design tricks, you can make your bed feel like its own area, improving the way your studio looks from any angle.

If you’ve ever lived in a particularly small space, especially a studio apartment, you may have noticed that your bed takes up a significant portion of your square footage. Some people choose to loft their bed to open up floor space, but this strategy is not without its own problems.

Entryway in need of some TLC? We have a dozen ideas to try on for size.

Should you have one of the following four room shapes, consider these your cheat sheets for how to best arrange your queen-sized bed.

Over the years I’ve come to realize that one of the keys to a well-functioning, uncluttered home is having an entryway that works well. It’s a spot to gather up all the things that you’ll need when you go out into the world, and also a sort of buffer zone to keep unwanted clutter from entering your home. Maxwell has really explored this with his idea of the landing strip, which is worth checking out.

Did you catch this rad house tour from Buenos Aires? Each room was bursting with bold design elements balanced and mixed to perfection. But something about the living room really stuck out to me: it’s an excellent example of the versatility of a black and white color palette. In other words, if you’re someone who gets tired of the same look after awhile and you like to mix it up, take some notes from this home.

We’ve heard it time and again: the bedroom is often the last place you tackle decorating because it’s behind closed doors (and it seems more practical to devote your energy and dollars to the more public areas of your home). However, just because you’re not ready to take a deep dive into reimagining your sleeping quarters doesn’t mean there isn’t something you can do to spruce up the place in the meantime…sort of like a pre-makeover.

If you’ve had it when it comes to dreary home office spaces, listen up. Those who are short on space or privacy (i.e. roommates) needn’t look further than the room you sleep in for home workspace, and while writing emails may not be high on your list of favorite bedroom activities, these nine bedroom office nooks are so good they’ll have you reducing your commute time in big way.

We don’t all have the luxury of a dedicated entryway, but that doesn’t mean we can’t all try carve one out using ingenuity and design elements. Start with the where — the obvious location is the wall right beside the door you use daily — and then add these things in. Below: your easy entryway checklist. This stylish yet simple entryway is from Michael’s ’80s-inspired boho glam rental apartment.

Earlier this year, we predicted what would be trendy in the kitchen for 2017, from rich, muted hues, warmer finishes, New Bohemian style and more. We’re now more than halfway through this year, and I find myself looking back at 2017’s designs. I’ve seen many of the trends predicted above come true, but I’ve also noticed a color trend emerge for the kitchen that I didn’t expect: mint green!

The debate between open shelving and closed cabinets in the kitchen divides many people. Some find the look charming, but hate the practicality of it. Others think it looks messy, but wonder if they’d use their stuff more if they could see. And many other opinions in between abound. So I asked some folks who live with open shelving in their kitchen every day to share the real truth. Kristina Browngardt is the co-founder of Wilder Design Co.