Planning A Winter Garden

Think you have to live in the warm south of the United States to have lovely plants in the winter? Even if most of your winter months include a blanket of white on the ground, you can have a lovely garden around a window in your home and then move your plants outside from spring through early fall.

Indoor plants bright warmth and color to your home during the coldest months of the year. There are a good number of winter flowering plants that don't require a lot of care to grow and enjoy. A pot of colorful Cyclaman will flower about six weeks after planting and will bloom throughout the winter. Another great plant for indoors is the bright Indian Azalea which will flower for eight to ten weeks if you let it have ample sun in front of a window.

Flaming Katy is the perfect plant for anyone that has a decidedly brown thumb concerning plant life. This hardy and hard-to-kill plant is ideal. It has delicate blooms and will continue to bloom for months beyond winter. It doesn't like direct and many people have Flaming Katy plants on their kitchen counters for a splash of color in the area. For a sultry and sweet scent, plant some indoor jasmine. It will flower for a continuous six weeks and can look very elegant if you allow it to follow its nature and climb.

Any of these plants would look great in a rustic patch wood planter. They come in two sizes 6" x 6" and 6" x 12" and will fit nicely into any decor. Now that you know the basics, start planning your winter garden today.
posted by Home Decor Experts - Accent Architecturals   

Unusual Decor Tricks

It's easy to get bored with your decor. You may have been completely into a French Country look at the time you purchased your rustic throws, off-white country sofa and other items; and now you want something different. Before you chuck out your entire design, what you may need is just a little unique addition to make your room pop again.

You can go with a stunning impact piece such as a resin cast fragment that has the look of a piece of heavy stone sculpture but is actually made from a plastic resin and is very light. Consider adding a collection of tin ceiling tiles to your ceiling to bring a cozy feel to your room or you can go for something very unique and find a decor piece and use it in a way in which it may or may not have been intended.

A simple wrought iron French Gate with a straight bottom can serve a fun decor purpose in your room. If you don't have a garden area, make the illusion of one in your room. Use either a strip of wall paper that is 43 inches to 45 inches wide on a piece of wall or get a talented friend to paint you a scene of green grass and flowers and then put a wrought iron gate over the top. This will at first glance the give the illusion of a garden space leading right out through the gateway. Other accents you can use behind the gate are large repeated prints, stained glass pieces or mirrors make an unusual look and create depth when used in this manner.
posted by Home Decor Experts - Accent Architecturals   

Turning Your College Students Old Bedroom into a Guest Room

So, Junior is finally college bound and now you have an extra bedroom that you can turn into a guest room, busy room or other room of your choice. If you have always wanted to have an extra guest room, now is your chance and if you need the room to do double duty as a room for sewing, painting or other hobbies/ventures you can do that too.

If you don't entertain a lot, you can easily make a room have a dual purpose by being functional for yourself and also comfortable for guests. If you have always wanted a nook of your own for sewing or painting, you can have it along with a comfy place for guests to sleep as well.

First of all, you want to be able to make your room look like a cozy place to sleep instead of a place where you enjoy piddling around with your craft projects and making someone sleep around the inevitable clutter that happens. You can hide your hobbies by utilizing a cabinet with doors to keep your clutter in the room to a minimum and another item that will suffice nicely for a place to sit as well as a place for guests to sleep is a lovely daybed. If you get short notice company is coming you can clear the room quickly by putting your projects into a cabinet with doors and making up a daybed to be a cozy place to snooze.

You don't have to change a lot of elements to make a room function as a guest bedroom and a place to call your own. Just make sure you maximize the function of every item in the room and you're off to a great start!
posted by Home Decor Experts - Accent Architecturals   

Get Rid of the Clutter!

With colder weather fast approaching, you're going to be spending a lot more time indoors and if you're like most people, periodically you need to take stock of the rooms you spend the most time in and de-clutter them so you can present a more relaxing atmosphere for not only yourself but visitors as well.

If you aren't sure how to start, it's easy. First of all get a box or a basket and walk around your remove and take everything you don't use every single day off the table tops, the shelves, the cabinets, the back of the sofa if that's become a gathering point for sweaters and throws and other knick-knacks. Set everything you gather up in another room and you can go through it after "Operation De-Clutter" is over.

Next, rearrange what is left. Make good use of your corner spaces. Another good addition to a room that will help keep clutter to a minimum is more storage in the form of a bookshelf.

Now, go through what you removed from the room and make two very distinct piles "Use" or "Refuse". If you don't use the item and it has no sentimental value, put it in the refuse pile to be either sold at a garage sale, given away or thrown away-your choice.

And that's a very fast way to rid your room of clutter and if you get told your in-laws are coming for a long weekend visit and you need to clear a room fast - use the tips in this article to get rid of the clutter and leave your room look fabulous!
posted by Home Decor Experts - Accent Architecturals   

Be an Angel

Are you one of those people that looks forward to every season change and holiday with relish because you change around your entire decor to match the changing seasons and holidays?

As an idea for this holiday season - go angelic! You may not be an angel all the time but you can certainly have some wonderful angel-themed items around your room that will lend an ethereal feel to your interior design. As the holidays approach, angels will fit into your decor more than ever. Add a few angel statues around your room. Whether they are marble reproductions or folk art type statues is entirely up to your individual taste.

The Athenian Wing makes a marvelous addition that makes not only an angelic addition but a terrific impact piece as well. The fragment is cast from a demolished building piece and has the great look of an artwork from ages ago.

It is a great sized piece that makes a dramatic addition to any decor. The size is 51"w x 4"d x 30"h; yet this piece only weighs 28LBS as it is made from cast resin. This piece will blend nicely in any type of decor you want to display it in.

This particular piece is so striking, you may want to display it all throughout the year - long after your other holiday decorations are put up and waiting to be used again next season!
posted by Home Decor Experts - Accent Architecturals