Contrast Adds Drama

While it is true that high contrast will add drama to a room, it is wise to consider how you use contrast.  A painted accent wall is fairly easy to change should you decide you cannot live with the drama the color created, but a floor or a tiled backsplash or shower enclosure is a bit more complicated in terms of expense and time invested.

When you are considering changing something more permanent in your home, like flooring and counter surfaces as well as backsplashes and tub/shower enclosures, try less contrast.  You will be living with these changes for a long time and a classic surface in these areas will serve you better.

Think of all the homes built in the early to mid-20th Century; for the most part, these homes were built with hardwood flooring.  Over the years, as wall to wall carpet became popular, these floors were covered with soft, colorful carpet.   Today, that carpet is considered undesirable and old fashioned.  Carpets in older homes are routinely being  pulled up, exposing those now treasured hardwood floors.  If the wood is in good condition, a simple sanding, staining and fresh coat of polyurethane to preserve its beauty for another half century or more.

Choosing a new color for the floor will be important and fairly permanent.  While it may be tempting to add or stain a border or pattern, think in terms of long term use and how you will feel about such a contrast as a wide, light or dark border verses a solid-colored floor.  An exception to this rule, would be if the floors cannot be successfully refinished, but can be painted instead; then I’d say, go ahead and paint a fun harlequin pattern or boarder.  While the traditional black and white pattern is always popular, you can use softer colors for less contrast, like shades of grey or spa colors like blues and greens; even shades of beige would be a calm and peaceful color combination. 

Tile and natural stone is an expensive and fairly permanent surface for kitchens and baths.  Tempting are the bright colors and fun patterns, but again, consider how long it will be in style, staying classic is wiser.

Unless your home is clearly in a particular style like a Spanish Revival or Spanish Colonial, the use of colorfully patterned tiles might be a bit risky.  Adding cute “accent tiles” to a kitchen backsplash will date your renovation very quickly and reduce its value at resale time.

If using these colorful and playful tiles is something you have your heart set on, use them in less permanent ways.  For instance you can make tile trivets and hang them on the backsplash to add some personality without risking the need to tear it out once you tire of it.

When considering high contrast, think about how long you will live in this home and consider the home’s style.  High contrast will give you high drama, but you can enjoy soft contrast too and it is often easier to live with in the long term.

To Paint or Not to Paint

For many of us, painting natural wood is considered either difficult or forbidden; these views are understandable and have been handed down for generations.  In the past, people did not paint furniture of good quality and workmanship; it took valuable time and resources to do so; in Victorian times, it simply wasn’t done.  As furnishing were passed down, they may have been revered as family treasures, and to paint them would be to dishonor them.  As these pieces were passed down further, such feelings became less important and more distant; and painting was more acceptable and in vogue.

Not much has changed today.  Pieces that hold fond memories from a favorite aunt or grandmother still may be left untouched.  However, if you have such a piece, have grown tired of it, but still can’t part with it, and know that the next generation is not interested in it, why not consider giving it new life and paint it?

Painting often is dismissed as a solution because it is considered time consuming and difficult; thoughts of stripping the piece are shunned.  It is true that painting is time consuming, but painting is not so difficult; taken step by step, it is really quite easy.  If you consider it boring, plug in a book or your favorite music on your CD player; being entertained while doing a task you have been putting off, makes it enjoyable and a new hobby might be born.

Once a piece has reached the end of its life cycle for me, I think first of reusing it in another way or place in my home or yard; doing so usually involves recovering the fabric portion or painting the piece, sometimes removing or adding ornamentation.  If  I can’t reuse the piece, I offer it to a family member; if there are no takers, I move down the line, friends, associates and charities.

I remember my mother-in-law telling me how exciting it was when painting furniture was in vogue.  Living with furniture from previous generations was oppressive; such furniture often was dark and dated, and the freedom to paint it gave the family a lift, like coming out of a depression.

The pendulum swings back and forth in both fashion and interior design.  We experience it daily in print and television shows, as we see what was old is new again.  Take, for example, the renewed interest in Mid-Century Modern and the juxtaposition of a Victorian piece, or the mod-textile prints popular in the 1970’s, placed in a more contemporary setting.  In some cases, a little paint and color can go a long way.  Today there is a plethora of colors as opposed to what was available a few decades ago.

Making the Most of Your Pantry and Under Counter Cabinets

Most of us can benefit from more storage in every room, but the kitchen, being the heart of the home, deserves special consideration.  Once, storage for food, cooking utensils, and large and small appliances, were all that a kitchen afforded the one cook in the house.  Counter space was important, too, but not as much so as it is today.  Now kitchens serve as entertainment areas as well as the food preparation and eating room.  Now, too, there may be multiple cooks in the kitchen.

Great storage, therefore, is even more important to today’s homeowner.  Old-style kitchen cabinets for food storage are more outdated now than ever, and have been replaced by pantries and pull-out shelves, which are far more practical.

What do you do, if your current kitchen doesn’t have these amenities?  Start with what you have, basic cabinets; lower cabinets will be far more efficient with pull-out shelves.   Most homeowners can retrofit the cabinets without having to break the bank.  The nice thing about pull-out shelves is you can buy them one or two at a time as your budget affords.  Having pull-out shelves allows you to utilize the entire 24 inch depth of your lower cabinets, without having to call in acrobatics to reach whatever might have slipped to the back.

Once your lower cabinets are in order, concentrate on the upper cabinets; for many of us, they are too tall to utilize more than one or two shelves effectively, so make the most of what you do have.  Using the hard-to-reach upper shelves for little-used items or large serving pieces makes the most sense.  For the shelves you can reach, try clear, vacuum sealed canisters; they come in a great variety of sizes for all your dry storage needs.  These are great for cereals, rice, crackers, and pasta; and you can easily see how much you have on hand, thus making quick work of your grocery shopping list when it’s time to restock.

You may want to keep your baking materials in one place; vacuum sealed canisters are a must here too, either clear or stainless or ceramic work nicely.  The smaller items like baking soda and powder are fine in their commercial containers and fit well into the space.  Since you likely use salt frequently, you may want to keep it in an easy-to-scoop apothecary jar for convenience.

Adding stackable wire racks to cabinets or a pantry shelf helps with cans and jars like soups and tomato products.  Once these items are faced-forward and in order, it will be simple to see and access them and record what is needed for the next stop at the grocery store.

If you are fortunate enough to have an actual pantry, keeping the above-mentioned ideas in mind will help keep your pantry well ordered.  If you happen to have a closet near-by--and I mean right near the kitchen--you can easily outfit it with some of these ideas.  Relegating a make-shift pantry to an entry hall closet is less than ideal; but remember that a retrofitted closet is going to be about 24 inches deep, so the same rules would apply regarding shelves that re too deep to access the items at the rear of the closet.  Having pull-out shelves would be most beneficial.  Having shelves custom cut to fit, measuring about 12 inches deep also works.  Lower shelves in a make-shift closet-turned-pantry can be deeper for storage of little-used large appliances, like a crock-pot, 40-cup coffee maker, or small appliances. 

All of these ideas are all simple enough for most homeowners to achieve a high level of success and a more orderly and efficient kitchen space.

Even Organizers Need a Tune Up

Sometimes décor means being better organized.  After all, if you aren’t organized, you waste time and cannot enjoy your lovely décor because you are busy searching for that thing you know you have, but cannot find.

This condition is a problem for everyone except the compulsively organized, which, by the way doesn’t apply to me and probably doesn’t apply to you.

I recently gave a talk about organizing the spaces we live in; even I was surprised at what I found in my own home.  The space under my kitchen sink was still organized, and everything that I use daily was in its place and easy to reach.  Lesser used items were relegated to the rear of the cabinet, but were easily accessed with the pull out container in which they sat.  The only improvement was a light cleaning; after the cleanser dust settles it just stays on everything until it is wiped away.  Boy I could use an app for that!

One area that was recently improved upon was my spice storage.  When we had our kitchen island replaced, I had one of those slick, narrow pull out spice cabinets installed.  While I loved it in theory, I found it to be less than idea in practice.  Small spice jars took up as much space as their taller ones, and I could not read the labels unless the top of the container was marked.  I found myself having to lift each one out to see if it was the spice I needed, which was a huge waste of time.

I found a pantry door system that is fantastic for me.  I counted the items I have stored on the back of my pantry door and discovered they numbered 73-- many more than I could store either in a drawer or in the pull-out cabinet.  Not all the 73 items are spices, but they are pantry related items and free up valuable pantry real estate.

The one area the group I spoke with, was most impressed with was the ever-present “junk drawer”.  Yes, mine was organized and does not deserve such a pejorative title; maybe it should be called the “odds and ends” drawer, but we all know every kitchen needs a junk drawer.  Organizing it makes it far less frustrating and quite a time saver in the bargain.  The key to avoiding this potential kitchen disaster is using small compartments that you can fit wall to wall and front-to-back, so there is no shifting about within the drawer.  Empty space begs to be filled, and hurried people tend to drop an item in the empty space rather than find its designated spot, thus creating the junk drawer syndrome.

The pantry door hanging system took my husband only minutes to install, and I took over fitting the baskets to suit my height.  From there it only took me less than an hour to complete.  It is not a weekend long project; actually, it took under 2 hours including the pantry shifting.

Next time: Making the Most of Your Pantry and Under the Counter Cabinets