Challenge Update

Hey Design Junkies — Have you been over to our RoomsByYou Custom Home Textiles Challenge yet? Just a couple days left and someone’s going to run away with a great prize of custom, print-on-demand bedroom textiles.

So give it a whirl — click and drag designer patterns and colors to create a virtual room for the teen in your life. (And don’t worry if [...] Read more »

When interior designer Debbie Wiener makes over a room, her goal is twofold: 1) To create a beautiful environment that people are pleased to be in and 2) To “Slobproof” it. Debbie coined the term Slobproof to describe her philosophy of designing with families and pets in mind.

Here’s a living room that Debbie recently decorated. The room before was bland and lacked the warmth of [...] Read more »

Design Junkies, get your right brains on — it’s time to click and create. This is a Prize Challenge and somebody’s going to win up to $350 worth of gorgeous, customized home textiles!

On the Web today with just a few clicks of the mouse, we have incredible design and decorating power to help us produce stylish, individualized spaces.

Case in point? RoomsByYou. It’s a cutting-edge [...] Read more »

Design Expert: Jenn Sbranti

Entertaining guru Jennifer Sbranti, Editor-in-Chief of the hip party planning resource, Hostess with the Mostess®, shares with us—in her own words—how to create memorable times with those closest to us, as we Make Time for Family and Friends in the

New Year….

“The idea of “making time for family and friends” seems like something that should be a no-brainer, right? Certainly it’s a different [...] Read more »

Sometimes colorful design inspiration is right in front of you. Like at your kid’s elementary school, for example. Seriously, have you seen some of the art projects that come out of fourth grade? Simple. Colorful. Whipped out with fearless abandon.

Or the cooperative creations auctioned off for school fundraisers? Splashy quilts of scanned watercolors, storage chests bedecked in original hand-painted tiles. Yummy.

Children are amazing, and elementary [...] Read more »

by Diana Durkes

Today we beautify a thrift-store find with our furniture and accessories makeover specialist, Contributor Diana Durkes. Diana gives “New Life to the Tossed and Found” at her blog, Fine Diving in Chicago.

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For last month’s makeover, I used a thrift shop resource to turn old sweaters into a throw rug. This month, I thought I’d continue the idea of giving new life to [...] Read more »

by GraceAnn Simoni

Once again, today we are joined by Contributor GraceAnn Simoni, Interior Redesign and Staging Specialist and Instructor from the Chicagoland area. GraceAnn shares with us budget tips and advice for decorating with your existing furniture and accessories.

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The holidays are fast approaching. Is your guest room ready or has it become the place where everything that does not have a home lands? Assuming [...] Read more »

I’m a sucker for family photos to help personalize a room’s decor. But instead of the typical small frames scattered about, how about some lively, high-impact wall art?

Images of your loved ones can become a captivating focal point or accent in a room when transformed into digital-art-on-canvas.

Renowned for its kaleidoscopic and Warhol-esque ‘Four-Panel-Pop‘ design, PhotoWow has been a leader in digital artwork since [...] Read more »

More on that Photos on Home Fabrics trend. VisionBedding will put your photo, your digital design, or one from its new gallery of a million photos and designs, onto a custom duvet cover or bedspread.

The kids are lining up for one of these. Can you imagine your little soccer athlete as the star of his own bedspread? Or your little swimmer diving into the pool? [...] Read more »

I’ve got to find a spot to use this creative person’s dream wallpaper I stumbled across the other day. “Frames” by Artists Taylor & Wood, is available at Graham & Brown.

The empty frames design (below left) is customizable with your own photos or artwork, your kids’ art, or memorabilia. You can even paint your own designs directly on it. What fun!

Our European Design Junkies [...] Read more »

I don’t think we’ll be creating a home theater any time soon. First, we don’t have a spare room. Second, the brokerage account needs to recover a bit more. But until it’s in the cards I can dream, right? So why don’t you come along? Here are some playful pieces for my fantasy home theater that I found at the Theater Seat Store.

Have to [...] Read more »

I never seem to get the ‘Q’ when I can use it. But memories are fond of Chuck and his dad facing off at ’speed SCRABBLE.’ One minute to play your word and it didn’t phase them at all. Chuck would plop down a doozie like ‘zenith’ and Paul would counter with ‘quorum,’ on a double word score no less. No dictionary needed.

So my [...] Read more »

Mental Note. Must visit Cooper-Hewitt on my next trip to NYC. A branch of the Smithsonian Institution since 1967, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum is unique in the U.S. as a museum entirely focused on historic and contemporary design.

Through the museum’s educational programs, it brings together professional designers and folks like us Design Junkies. I enjoyed this video of its recent museum lecture, ‘Designing the [...] Read more »

Am I the only one who swoons over design intended for kids and teens rooms? I am jealous of the fresh, colorful and organized spaces found in children’s decor.

I guess designers know that heaps of things come along with a child. It’s true: big plastic blocks, the complete Dr. Seuss Series, poster paints, bracelet-making kits, softballs, basketballs, footballs. And stuffed animals—don’t get me started [...] Read more »