A Beautiful Home must not be necessarily luxurious and the result of a 6-zero investment. Beyond the love for beautiful simplicity, it is the practical ideas and some good advice that may help you to create a space of your own without too much effort and huge debts. A book I strongly recommended to beginner and advanced home decorators and anyone interested to build easily the ambiance they were longing for a long time.
After all, creating a good environment for a healthy emotional and personal life isn't such an impossible mission. You don't have to be rich, talented designer or updated with the latest sophisticated trends. You need to know what can make you happy, what colours and arrangements are recommended for your space and to organize your time according to your priorities. You don't even need to take a leave from your office, as most of the changes can be done during the week-end or in the afternoon, especially if you are a couple and there are four hands involved.
Michelle Stewart encourages everyone, with or without previous experience in the area of decoration and home design: 'Anyone can have a beautiful home'. For instance, you can turn your kitchen into a small coffee shop where you will enjoy spending time and finding inspiration for the good life of you and your entire family. 'A fresh coat of paint and a little bit of color goes a long way to making a room look attractive', advices Stewart.
How the planning goes
Before you plan the interior design and refurbishing projects, you should know where do you stand for: how much money do you have, how many people are using the house regularly, what the owners want to do in the house - many social events, evening lunches etc..Also, the presence of pets and small children will assign different functions to the space.
The house is a business card of your personal style and try to adapt the environment as much as possible to your personality. As in many creative domains, having ideas is not enough: you need to read and see as much as possible, collect inspiration, use social media - Pinterest especially - for sharing impressions and finding out people with similar interests. Don't hesitate to ask the opinion of the experts and recognize your limits. With Michelle Stewart's words: 'The freedom to be creative involves the freedom to make mistakes'.
What's trendy in the kitchen
The book covers all the spaces from the home, but obviously I focused most of my attention to the ideas for the kitchen. In many cases, the recommendations suit any space and can be easily used for embellishing your cooking space. It is important to find out the ads and prints that may set a special theme for your kitchen - like apples, family, joy in the kitchen, the mother in the kitchen etc. As in writing, it is important that the space says a story about yourself in a very articulated way.
Wallpapers are recommended, but if you want to do some painting, don't hesitate to use high contrasts as it may add a different dimension and depth to the space. It is useful especially if your kitchen is small and you need to better feel the space. Let the natural light enter into the room and keep the windows open as much as possible.
More than any other space in the house, the kitchen should be functional and the items added need to be strictly of immediate use. Flowers in the kitchen? Maybe, but only if you have enough space, otherwise, you better try to put your pans and towels in the perfect order. Especially if you are busy with job, family chores and cooking, you have to know where you find what and move easily for preparing the food as fast as possible. Get rid of the pieces of furniture which are not useful, repaint the old ones and think your space in relation with your cooking priorities.
