It usually only takes a few minutes after seeing the 2 pink lines on a pregnancy test before Mom starts dreaming of her next decorating venture: the nursery. Babies’ rooms are so much fun because you really can play out some of your childhood fantasies. However, this season of life often means you will be selling your house in a couple of years as your family continues to grow! Austin’s own Get Babied asked me to do a workshop for all of their expectant clients to help them create a room that will grow with time, and that won’t send a potential buyer running out the front door! Here is what I shared with them:

1. Don’t go crazy on customizing the walls: Here are some of my favorite wall decals from Land of Nod. They are not permanent and can go into the next nursery, playroom, or house! Other great sources for wall decals: Ferm Living, Marimekko, and What is Blik

I LOVE wallpaper, but it is a huge pain for future homebuyers to take down. You literally have to steam off the wallpaper and sometimes even redo drywall! Here is a non toxic wall adhesive recipe that is also semi permanent:

• 1 cup flour (wheat, corn, or rice)
• 3 teaspoons alum
• water
• 10 drops oil of cloves (natural preservative)

Combine the flour and alum in a double boiler. (If you don’t have a double boiler, set a smaller pan inside a bigger one that contains enough water that can be brought to a boil without overflowing). Add enough water to make a consistency of heavy cream; stir until blended. Heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture has thickened to a gravy texture. Let cool. Stir in the clove oil. Pour into a glass jar with a screw top. Apply with a glue brush.

Makes 1 cup. Shelf life: 2 weeks refrigerated.

Try to choose a wallpaper that isn’t SO baby, that the room couldn’t be repurposed for a study, or that your soon to be preschooler (they grow quickly!) will still LOVE.  Also, choose to do an accent wall instead of the whole room. Cole and Son is my favorite wall paper manufacturer.  Here are a few selections that would work great in baby’s room but also in a study or preschooler’s room:

Cole and Son Contemporary III Collection

Cole and Son Flower Collection

Cole and Son Flower Collection

Cole and Son Contemporary III Collection

2. Don’t let accessories be last!

When decorating, I start with an accessory that inspires me! Whether I find a must-have pillow, an antique light fixture, or a fabulous home made mobile, I start with a unique object, and then decide on paint color and room direction. Accessorize the crib with pillows that will be on a big girl or big boy bed some day. Choose light fixtures that create unique spaces, and don’t forget about adorable mobiles! Spend your budget on items that you can take with you no matter where you live!

This $85 antique light fixture inspired our daughter's room

Kim of KWillis Design personalized pillows for her new arrival. www.kwillisdesign.com

Hey Now Whoa Now recreated this inspired bird mobile. Make several for a big impact and easily relocate them to a play room when nursery days end! www.heynowwhoanow.com

3. Use furniture Creatively:

Oh please don’t buy a diaper changer!  It may feel like they will always be in diapers, but this too shall pass! This is your chance to customize an antique dresser, use a console table, or even borrow a chest of drawers. Finish the piece off with some cute pulls from Anthroplogie or Hobby Lobby.  When the diaper days are over, you can even move the piece to a different room or into your larger home (after you buy it)!

Can you spot the diaper changer in this nursery? When Berick is poddy trained, his parents can easily use this piece in another room. Thanks, Katie!

4. Toys are Inevitable

I think most parents, before they are actually parents, visit their friends’ home who have kids only to leave saying, “We will never have that many toys for our kids.” You may not have that many, but you will have some!  And you need a cute place to store them! Toys are not what you are thinking about during the nursery decorating stage but they are inevitable. Here are ways to incorporate future storage into the nursery:

• Find an upholstered storage ottoman on Craig’s list and reupholster with a fabulous fabric. If any upholstery project is DIY, it would be an ottoman. Place it at the end of the crib or, if small enough, use in front of your glider as a footrest.
• I love the idea of using clothesline pins to hold baby pics on a metal dress form that will soon hold dress up clothes and art projects. This one from Pier 1 is only $59!
  

  Bows are organized and dress up clothes and tap shoes are easily reached!

I reupholstered this resale store find in a fun houndstooth. The best part? It stores all of those tiny toddler toys!

5. Our Favorite Paint Colors that whisper, don’t scream, Baby

• You probably wonder why I didn’t start with paint colors! Because I first like to decorate around an object that inspires me, I have many paint colors that compliment most objects de vertu. They are from Restoration Hardware’s paint collections. They have all been faithfully tested on Honegger Construction remodeled homes.
  

  Butter Paint Collection

Shore Paint Collection

Silver Sage Paint Collection

I have an obsession with chairs, and as our lifestyle has changed over the years (ie toddlers in the house), I have needed to think more strategically about them. The delicately embroidered crewel work upholstered chairs and newly upholstered YELLOW chair were not holding up in the family room. Nor were they passing the comfort test from guests. I soon realized that the family room needed to, actually be,  family friendly!

What qualifies as family friendly?

• Comfort
• Durable fabrics
• Inexpensive so I don’t live with paranoia when I see crayons and scissors!
• Cute!

The first place I turn when looking for something to reupholster? Craig’s List, of course! Austin’s craigslist is usually sufficient, but I always check surrounding areas as well. I decided on slipcovers because you can remove and clean them, so I needed chairs that would look good slipcovered. I found a fabulous fabric that was $200 a yard… then googled around to find something similar for $10 a yard. I chose a durable wool in a darker color that seemed fairly indestructible.  For the added touch of comfort and luxury, I stuffed the bottom cushions with large down pillows. My home has a tiny vintage modern french country thing going on, so I found some fabulously hand printed pillows on Etsy. The result? They actually get sat in! My crewel work chairs are now in the entry way and have a very small chance of getting destroyed!

Cost

chair: $75 (also at IKEA for $100 with no slipcover)

fabric: $40 a chair (8 yards at $10 dollars a yard)

custom slipcover: $100

throw pillow: $25 from Etsy

Bottom Cushion: $18 down pillow

Total: $250 each

Before

After

$200 a yard fabric

Whether you are getting your home ready to sell this spring or just have old appliances that need replacing, now is the time to take advantage of some amazing rebates offered by the State Energy Conservation Office, SECO.  The SECO is offering a number of rebates from economic stimulus money on energy efficient appliances.  This combined with the City of Austin and Texas Gas rebates means you can receive an amazing discount depending on which appliances you need.  To be eligible you must be a Texas resident.  The funding is limited and they will begin taking reservations on April 5^th, 2010.  The appliances must be purchased between April 16^th and April 25^th.  You can apply for up to 2 appliances and they must be different kinds.  The eligible appliances are:  refrigerators, freezers, room air conditioners, clothes washers, dishwashers, central air conditioners, air source heat pumps, and hot water heaters.

Here is a link to all the information you will need for SECO and Austin Energy.

In addition, the Austin Water Utility reinstated the free toilet program to help you improve your water efficiency!

If you are looking to sell your Austin home this year, contact JH Residential for advice on which appliances will bring you the most return on your investment.

3 year old carpet art!

Art is gone!

As our 3 year old approaches 4, nap times are being replaced by “rest times” which has lead to interesting imaginative play time in her room. It has also lead to exploring with crayons- on walls, stuffed animals, and the carpet. She even dressed up a crayon like a princess the other day. I always take the crayons away and, inevitably, a few weeks later, return them in hopes for no disasters. For the most part, it has worked. But we recently hired a chem dry carpet cleaning company to clean up past messes.

We have always used and recommended steam cleaning companies when listing an Austin home for sale. But often steam cleaning means days off the carpet which is an impossibility with kids. Chem-drying, a carpet cleaning alternative, uses carbonation to extract the dirt and grime and doesn’t use as much steam so the carpet dries much faster. Even if you aren’t selling your home any time soon, cleaning your carpets is an affordable way to maintain your home and help it to feel new!

At the end of the day, the artwork is off the carpet and the upholstery! And really, that is all we wanted! If you are listing your Austin home for sale this spring, read more of our tips about how to prepare your Austin home for sale. Give Austin Chem-Dry a call for a free estimate. We found them to be efficient and affordable.

Because we have spent many years remodeling and flipping homes as central Austin realtors, we often get questions this time of year from clients getting ready to sell their homes in the spring. What should they do now to prepare an outdated Austin home to sell in the Spring?  Here are some projects that each cost under $2,000 that will cause a big impact in terms of buyer appeal. And if you do it now, you will actually get to enjoy the projects!

• Are your kitchen cabinets outdated? Reconditioning the cabinets will take out the nicks and scratches that years acquire. Add new hardware (I love the Restoration Hardware Outlet for hardware), and your kitchen will feel much cleaner. Or, paint the cabinets for a whole new look.
• Open up your floorplan. This may be easier said than done or it could be really easy and you didn’t know it! If your kitchen is separate from your family room, taking out even half a wall and adding a breakfast bar or island will modernize the floor plan. I have found some amazing deals on breakfast bars on Craig’s List. Joe and I would love to look at your kitchen to see if this is a feasible option.
• You may have an 80’s bathroom and think you are stuck with a $5,000 bathroom remodel. Actually, regrouting, replacing old faucets, light fixtures, and vanities, will create the feel of a new bathroom for under $500. Add a cute shower curtain (here are some cute ones from Anthropologie), and monogram some towels. Instead of a bath rug, buy a fun rug that covers up the outdated tile from Pottery Barn Teen like this one . These are all things you can take to your new home, but will help sell your current home in the mean time!
• Replace outdated light fixtures. If your house doesn’t have any recessed lighting, consider adding it to the living area and kitchen.
• Replace brass fixtures and door knobs.
• Add an interesting backsplash if your kitchen doesn’t have one. Kitchen backsplashes are fun because it is a smaller surface area that requires less tile so you can be creative and spend less money. I LOVE Ann Sacks tile! We have plenty of samples if you would like to see them in person.

In this economy, spending money when you are unsure about the return feels risky. Contact Joe at JH Residential so that he can provide you with a market analysis on your specific area of town and let you know a wise way to update your home.

The gym has been packed lately. The childcare providers told me that it will be like this for another month and then people start calling to cancel their memberships, realizing their New Year’s resolutions were a little bit ambitious. People are usually great about setting goals for their eating and exercise routines at the beginning of the year. But do they do the same for their homes? Here are some simple, unsexy things you can do this week to shape up your house in 2010:

• Make an appointment to dry clean your carpets. Dry cleaning, as opposed to steam cleaning your rugs, reduces the chance of mold growing under your carpets. It also dries in an hour; whereas, steam cleaning can stay wet for a day which is REALLY difficult with little tikes running around. We have an appointment set with Austin Chem-Dry for February. I can’t wait to show you the before and after photos.
• Clean under your fridge. A tiny toy fell under the fridge the other day and I was DISGUSTED to discover everything else that had piled under the fridge. It is near food. It should be clean!
• Replace rotted siding. This will have to be done if you plan on listing your home for sale, so might as well do it now.
• Get rid of socks that don’t have a mate. This will revolutionize your sock drawer!
• I love these erase pads for the walls! I got mine at the new central Austin Staples, but you can get them everywhere. I admit- the kids drew on the wall a few months ago and I did nothing about it until recently. These erase pads made everything look brand new! It is one of those extremely gratifying cleaning jobs!

I haven’t been the best blogger the last couple of months. I was approached by a couple of people to help them with the interior design of their homes. I look forward to sharing the photos with you! I want to share what I have been learning and doing, so I am back in the blogging saddle. Let me know of YOUR 2010 home shape up goals. I would love to help you conquer them! And of course, if you are thinking of listing your Austin home for sale in the Spring, it isn’t too early to contact JH Residential to help ready your home.

Yes, I have an addiction.  I LOVE textiles for the home. It is such a great way to add punch to a room. Textiles set the atmosphere for a home, and I often make suggestions for fabric additions or subtractions when listing an Austin home for sale. I love textiles even more when I find deals on them! I have discovered some websites recently that are getting so much more attention than my Facebook account these days! I also love getting to slowly peruse fabrics online as oppossed to chase after children at Austin fabric stores. The sites and some of my latest fabric picks (from www.buyfabrics.com) are listed below:

• www.housefabric.com
• www.decorativefabricsdirect.com
• www.buyfabrics.com
• www.fabricresource.com
• www.onlinefabricstore.net

In the world of blogs, it is easy to feel like all the information anyone could ever need is already out there. My goal for this blog: tell you something you didn’t already know. Here is my attempt:

• Have you checked out your feet lately? I, personally, love pedicures. Did you ever think maybe your chairs, dresser drawers, or couch may want the same sort of treat? Find fabulous new feet for your home at www.ansaldi.com. An easy, inexpensive way to breathe new life into an old find.
• Knobs need not be boring. Check out these flights of fancy from Anthroplogie. They will find a place into my home somehow.
• Pottery Barn teen is my new go-to for fun rugs under $500.  This one is hard to resist.

I realize guys read this blog, too… so stay tuned for Joe’s words of wisdom (you know- how to figure out when you need to replace siding and how to do it).  Let us know what YOU want to know!

Don't be afraid to mix patterns

I have a small obsession with pillows and textiles- I like to change pillows with the seasons and I continually fall in love with new textiles.  When listing a home for sale, I notice that so many couches in homes still have the same pillows that came with the couch. BORING! (no offence) Pillows are an easy and economical way to style a room and pull it all together. Here is my sofa makeover:

1. Start with a clean slate by clearing off all matching throw pillows

2.  If you are unsure of yourself and insist on symmetry, anchor the sofa with 2 matching pillows (they don’t have to match the couch, but they shouldn’t clash. They just need to reflect another color in the room like a chair or rug or even flooring).

3. Add other pillow shapes in different fabrics and throw in a surprise textured piece (leather, seagrass, embroidery, animal hide, ect). Also, don’t be afraid to mix different prints.

4. For a personalized touch, add a monogram to a pillow.

5. Shop for cool pillows online at Pillows and Throws  and an all time fave John Robshaw. Etsy is another great spot for finding unique pillows.  Want custom? Amy Hadley will whip some up for you!

What every guest room needs! Water, lotion, a candle, and a flashlight on the nightstand arranged on a tray!

Tea time! Cute containers never go to waste at my parents' ranch house

One of the main things I notice when combing through a client’s home before listing it is the knick-knack problem. Maybe you have picked up something beautiful on an overseas trip, inherited a piece from grandma, or been given something special but you don’t know how to show it off. So instead of looking special, it just looks random.

I confess this is not my strong point. I vacillate between wanting to be a complete minimalist (rebelling against my mother) to scouring vintage shops in order to style my home. My mom, on the other hand, is an arranging expert. It amazes me that between her own home and two others, she still antiques and finds special places for special things. Not only does she still have a clay sculpture I made in high school sitting in her living room like a prized possession, but she now is making space for her granddaughter’s gifts! While my mom turns to me to declutter her house, I turn to her to arrange and style my house. The photos are a couple examples from my parents’ ranch home.  Ranch style may not be your thing, but the ideas of arranging are present. Here are some pointers I have picked up from Mom through the years:

• Trays cannot be underestimated. They automatically contain and create order to what may look random without the tray.
• Think in threes (or odd numbers) when displaying items.
• Size matters. Don’t let the beautiful piece you just hauled all over Europe look lonely on a table! If it is a smaller item, make sure it goes in a smaller space. Don’t let your stuff be lonely!