6 Fun Ways to Use Stripes in Your Décor

Think you can’t balance sass with classic? Fun with sophisticated? Think again. Decorating with stripes gives your home a textural balance of timeless spunk. Here are some great ways to incorporate stripes into your décor. 

Pillow line up

Whether you’re sprucing up a sitting area or a bedroom, mingling striped pillows with floral or delicate patterned pillows is a foolproof design trick. Just stick within a one-color palette. The result will be a homey, yet cohesive design. 

Lengthen your walls

For the subtle among us, a nice muted or tone-on-tone vertical stripe on wall paper or fabric wall treatment will give more height to your room. Feeling bold? Stripes in more pronounced contrast colors make a statement. Whether you apply your striped finish to one wall as an accent or take it all the way with a roomful, make sure you get those lines hung straight and even. If you decide to paint your stripes on the wall, pull out your blue painters tape and a level to ensure crisp, clean lines.

Jazz up the floor

If you’ve got hardwood, you’ve got beautiful natural lines just waiting for a chance to shake things up! Refinish your floors using the wood slats as a natural guide. Be creative and design the pattern that best reflects your style. If you’re not ready to break out the paints for a wood floor or to create a pattern with tile flooring, area rugs offer the flexibility of a dose of pattern and color without the long-term commitment.

Go up

Make a statement with a striped ceiling. Break out the tape and paint brush! You can keep your bars of color isolated to the ceiling or you can continue the vertical lines of an accent wall up and across the overhead space. If your room has a pendant lamp or chandelier, your lines can radiate out from the light source like sun rays shining across your room.

Cushions and bedding, oh my!

Your furniture is a great place to introduce stripes. Pick a piece to spotlight instead of going all out. A single chair or ottoman in a stripe pattern demands notice. In the bedroom, bring in the lines with your bedding. A striped bed skirt paired with a floral or solid duvet can be stunning. Alternately, striped sheets can complement a more demure bedspread. Like the throw pillows, you can mix and match your patterns of your seating and bedding as long as you stay within the same color palette.

Accessorize

From lamps to mirror frames, from wall art to drapes, stripes can be an accessory's best friend. Just don’t overdo it. Pick a few items to feature lines, and intermingle them with solids and complementary patterns.

by Anjie Cho

Sagging Sofa? Refresh Rather Than Replace.

There’s a time in every day when you want to kick off your shoes and sink into the welcome embrace of your favorite seat in the house. Over time, however, the well-loved and much used couch can show its age. If your once plump and lush sofa is looking more squished and sagging, follow these six steps to bring new life into your favorite seat. 

1. Snap a photo of your sofa.

While it’s always fun to admire your work with a good before/after visual, that’s not our goal here. Having a picture will help you reassemble the couch properly when you’re done. And if you’re going to spice things up with a few new throw pillows, having that snapshot for your designer or with you in the stores will come in handy, too!

2. Remove the seat cushions from the sofa.

The cushions likely have a zipper on the side that faces into the couch. Remove the covers. This is a good time to wash those! Just make sure you follow the directions on the tag. Go the eco-friendly route and air dry the covers outside. While you’ve got everything taken apart, vacuum the foam cushions and the base of your sofa. 

3. Inspect the frame of your sofa.

Is it in good shape? Are the springs looking worse for the wear? You may find the bones of your favorite coach are beyond your abilities to repair. If that’s the case, it might be time to find a new love. However, if the frame just needs a little TLC, one option is to place a sheet of plywood over the base of your seat. This will create a new platform for the cushions to sit on. Cut the platform to fit the base properly. Once you put your cushions back into place, you’ll never know the wood is there. 

4. Plump your back cushions up. 

Use Poly-fil batting and/or quilt batting to plump up the back cushions of your sofa. If the back cushions don’t come off the frame of your couch, they may still have a zipper at their base. That’s when you reach for the Poly-fil. Tuck generous handfuls of fill behind the existing pillow or foam. If you need help, use a ruler to get the stuffing into the corners and edges. Fill each cushion until you achieve your desired level of plump and comfy. 

If you can remove the cushions, wrap the foam with layers of quilt batting. Use spray adhesive to help hold each layer of batting in place. How many layers? That depends on how plush you want your seat and how much space you have between the existing cushion and the seat cover. You want your revitalized cushion to have a tight fit, but it still needs to get in the cover. 

5. Reassemble your sofa. 

Place the now clean and plumped cushions back into place. If you have any extra Poly-fil, freshen up your throw pillows before you place them back into place. Or take your sofa photo shopping, and pick up new throw pillows or fabric to make your own covers for the existing pillows.

6. Kick off your shoes and sink into your renewed, refreshed, favorite seat!

by Anjie Cho

The Sticky Secret to Painting Straight, Even Edges

You’ve spent time looking at paint swatches. You’ve hung your homemade poster board-sized samples on the wall, and then moved them to check your hue from various angles. You’ve spackled, sanded, and repaired. You’re armed with rollers and brushes and you’re ready to give your room new life with a fresh coat of paint. Right? Wait. There’s one more thing you need to do to paint like a pro: Tape. 

Let’s talk about this painter’s staple for a moment. A bit of magic, tape will ensure you get paint where you want it and not where you don’t. If you want clean, straight lines, you need to tape off your borders before you get started. 

The right stuff

Don’t rack your brain trying to figure out what you have at home already that might sub for the roll of tape in the paint department. If you don’t have a roll of this specific stuff, you’re going to need to buy one (or more). Painter’s tape is low-tack, which means it will go on and peel off without leaving sticky residue on your walls and trim. It also won’t pull away the finish you wish to keep. There are different tapes suited for specific surfaces. Read the label or ask the paint shop staff for help in selecting the right roll for your job. For example, you’ll find tape designed for multi-purpose use, as well as tape specifically designed with delicate walls in mind (think fresh dry wall or newly painted). To get off on the right foot, pick the tape that’s best suited for your job. 

Prep the wall

Before you stick the tape anywhere, take a damp sponge and wipe down the wall and trim. Let the surface dry before you proceed. The best painted walls start off clean, dry, and dust-free. 

Go long

You may think it’s more manageable to pull off several inches of tape and apply it to the surface you wish to protect. Not necessarily. Every juncture point is an open invitation for paint to seep through. On the other hand, you don’t want to peel off a huge swath of tape all at once. Work with 1 to 2 foot sections at a time. Be sure to overlap your tape segments to limit the aforementioned invite to seep. Don’t go too long, however. Pulling off large sheets can create sticky tangles and ineffective, overstretched tape that won’t lie properly. This would invite paint to bleed past your tape border as well.

Smooth it out

The goal of taping is a clean, sharp line. Make sure the tape lies flat at your border line. Press it down with your fingertip or a putty knife to secure the edges. 

Base coat it

To really seal the deal, use your brush to lightly paint a thin strip of your primer or wall color along the edge of your tape. 

Take it off

If you wait for your paint to fully dry to remove your tape, the paint may chip and create uneven lines. Start pulling your tape off when you put your brush down from the last swipe of color. Pull down and away gently at a 45- degree angle. If the tape isn’t peeling back cleanly, adjust your angle to 90 degrees and enlist the help of a sharp tool to cut (or score) the layer of paint between the finished wall and the tape you’re pulling away.

by Anjie Cho