My Shiny Things

Home stagers are professional hired by real estate agents and real estate investors. Home stagers take a home that is either cluttered or abandoned and transform it into a beautiful showcase property. They make use of furniture, paint, window treatments, and home décor accessories to transform a home into a stunning masterpiece. You’ve probably seen home stagers on reality shows and decorating shows. If you spend time with real estate professionals, you know that home stagers are held in high esteem. They can literally transform a home so that it sells more quickly or sells for a higher asking price.

Home stagers use many tricks of the trade in order to transform properties, but one of their most effective secrets is the use of lighting to transform a home from dingy to cozy very quickly and at little cost. If you want to make over your own property, you can easily use the same tricks that home stagers use to transform your home:

1) Add more light to living rooms, dining rooms, and bathrooms. Low, dingy light makes an entire room look dingy, small, and flat. More light gives the illusion of more space as well as greater cleanliness. More light can also look more inviting. You do not have to replace all the fixtures of your home in order to enjoy more light. If you wish to add additional lighting to your living room, for example, a few lamps or a few candles will help immensely. If you wish to make candles produce even more light, light them in front of a mirror. A mirror will reflect light, adding even more brightness to the room.

2) Make lighting do double duty. While lamps or lighting fixtures only add light, you can easily have candles do double duty by providing light as well as sent. Scented candles are a wonderful addition to any home décor, since they make your room more attractive by appealing to both your sense of sight and your sense of smell. Best of all, you can complement your room décor by making use of lights and smells that are complimentary. For example, in your kitchen, where you want a warmer and softer atmosphere, you can add jar candles that are scented with apple and spice fragrances. Choose red candles that add a very warm and pleasant glow, and your kitchen will seem far more delicious. In the bedroom, were you may be trying to create a more romantic mood, pale yellow and soft rose colored candles will cast a very soft glow over the room. Exotic fragrances such as sandalwood and green tea will set a sensual atmosphere.

3) Replace harsh lighting. Flats, bright, white lighting — such as fluorescent lighting — is very unflattering and can make a room look too harsh. It can also create a great deal of shadows in the corners, making a room look unpleasant. Replace surgical lighting with the soft glow of candles. Candles offer a slightly yellowish-pinkish glow, which is flattering for most faces and is also considered far more pleasant than harsh and bright white lights.

You may drool over the beautiful fashion spreads in home decorating magazines, and you may lust after all the luscious fabrics, furniture, and decorating accents that are enjoyed by the wealthy and famous. However, you may not realize that you don’t need a ton of money in order to generate a beautifully styled home. In fact, you can decorate your home for less than you imagine while still enjoying stunning surroundings.

The secret is to shop around. Rather than shopping at home decor stores, look for sales, online catalogs, online auction sites, yard sales, estate sales, and newspaper ads. All these sources can sell you antiques, furnishings, and accents for far less than you would expect to pay. Buy unusual items that attract you, and then paint, refinish, and touch them up to suit your exact style. This way, not only will you get beautiful pieces for far less than you expect to pay, but you also get customized items that fit with your overall color scheme and decor style perfectly. In fact, you may find that people ask you where you got your decoration ideas and decor items!

One of the best places to shop is online. Browse online sites in stores to see what is available, what attracts you, and which pieces would best suit your home. Once you have browsed a bit, start a scrapbook detailing which pieces attract you, which styles you like, which items you wish to buy, and what items you need. Keeping a scrapbook full of paint chips, fabric samples, and inspirational ideas will ensure that when you do find that perfect piece, you will easily be able to snatch it up at a great price.

Don’t overlook the possibility of using inexpensive illusions in order to create a wonderful home. While many people focus on that gorgeous sofa, chandelier, or stained glass window, you can start achieving a beautiful home right now with inexpensive accents such as candles. Simply clustering some beautifully colored candles on a plain tray can make your room look far more alluring and mysterious. Using candles rather then your overhead lights in your dining room or kitchen while you dine is another way to introduce beautiful living to your home. Don’t overlook paint, either. For just a few dollars, you can buy enough paint to touch up a wall, floor, or makeover to desk. And be sure to use your nose, as well. Introduce beautiful fragrances, perfumes(Christina Aguilera perfume for example), scented candles, and incense into your rooms in order to create an attractive atmosphere. Fragrances make your room seem fresher and far more welcoming.

With decorating, the important thing is not to delay. Start implementing some subtle changes today. Move around some furniture, add a few candles, spray a few spurts of a favorite fragrance into a room. You will immediately start to see the effects of decorating and you will enjoy living in your home far more. This will keep you motivated and interested in your home decor as you pursue all the decorating projects in your new scrapbook.

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If your home decor has become a little stale, watching television may make you think that you need to spend thousands of dollars on a trendy designer in order to get the latest indoor looks. This is not the case. In fact, one of the simplest and most effective ways to change the look of your home is with light illusions or optical illusions. Simply by implement in a few inexpensive changes, you can make your home look larger, lighter, airier, and more welcoming.

One of the simplest optical illusions you can achieve with your home décor is with the use of color. For example, if you repaint a room with paint that has cool colors in finishing — such as pale green, grey-blue, or pearl, you can make the room seem much larger. Similarly, you can create the illusion of a larger room by painting the room in pale colors. For large rooms, deep colors or pastel colors are striking and create a warmth and coziness. Color your floor in rich hues in order to create the illusion of a higher ceiling.

Another simple optical illusion is to use furniture and finishing materials in order to create lines in a room. Look around the room you want to make over right now. Do most of the lines in the room go up and down — such as tall bookcases, tall curtains, and stripes on the wallpaper? You can make a ceiling look higher by using lamps, tall candles, vertical stripes on the walls, and pictures that create the illusion of height.

Mirrors are another wonderful way to makeover a room. Placing mirrors on ceilings expands the space of a room. Placing a large mirror above the mantelpiece also creates the illusion of a much larger space. Look for inexpensive, large mirrors with attractive frames that will work with your current décor.

Finally, you can transform your room with the use of light. You don’t have to spend thousands of dollars on chandeliers and lamps. Inexpensive candles are one of the best ways of decorating with light. For example, cluster candles on a simple mirror and place the mirror on a table. When the candles are lit, the mirror will reflect the flames, and expand the amount of light. You can create a similar fact by grouping candles on the mantelpiece, and placing a mirror behind the candles. Keep in mind, too, that candles can help create a much softer glow in your room.

Lighting candles instead of using too many lamps can create a soft, warm glow that is very flattering to most faces. In fact, some aging actresses of times past have insisted that they be seen by nothing but candlelight. Candlelight is simply the light that will make you look most attractive. If you want to read a beautiful room where you can dine by candlelight, keep in mind that candlelight will make you seem more alluring and mysterious to your dinner date.

When decorating, don’t overlook the illusions that scents can bring. Perfumes have been used by generations in order to create attraction. For example, it is said that Cleopatra of ancient Egypt was actually a rather plain woman, but one who was able to use the fragrances of roses and other mysterious scents to her advantage in order to attract some of the most desirable men of her time. When decorating, be sure to add perfumes, scented candles, and little aromatherapy accents to your home to create rooms that are not only beautiful but also pleasant.

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