Qolture Blog

Humans are happiest when surrounded by nature. Dotting your home with wood finishes and stone inlays brings in elements of the outdoors, but nothing springs your home to life like decorating with flowers.

Here are ten creative ways to freshen up your space with living ingredients.

Unique Vases

Think outside the vase. Instead of going for a run-of-the-mill flower vessel, get imaginative with a unique container, one that can handle flowers and water and/or soil. Try your favorite wine bottle, a custom-painted glass bottle, tin cans, old bowls, or even a rubber boot by an entryway.

This Chic Bamboo Vase is worth a look-see.

Perpetuity with Perennials

Fresh flowers from the local farmers market can fill your space with tantalizing smells and an outdoor ambiance for about a week. But a hardy perennial not only looks great—they’ll last as long as your diligent green thumb does.

Contrast with Color

What pops out against white bathroom tile? What colors will create a harmonious balance in your kitchen, calming you as you mow through piles of dishes? Study your surroundings and strategize appropriately with a specific floral palette.

Space it Out

When arranging a bouquet, separate larger buds with leaves and sprinkle greens between flowers instead of piling them all together. Frame your flowers attractively to showcase the main event by having some greenery draping off the vase. Have a fan of leaves enclosing the blossoms from behind.

It’s Alive... Again!

Have a bouquet that’s on its last leg? Wilting flowers can spring back to life in a number of ways but changing direction is more fun. Remove the stems from the buds, fill your favorite big bowl nearly to the brim with water, and let each bud float atop the water. Watch as the buds happily extend their lives for a few more days.

Scrumptious Succulents

For those who aren’t the best flower moms and dads, succulents are your answer. Create a living wall, alternate pot colors, or simply litter your home with these hearty little guys. Make a visible succulent garden by layering rocks, moss, potting charcoal, and soil in clear mason jars, and plant your succulent on top. Repeat 20 times and spread across your home.

Paper Flowers

What if you want to enliven your home with flowers but are even killing your succulents? If standard artificial flowers don’t excite you, here’s a new craze to get behind as well as a fun project to dive into: paper flowers. From paper spider mums to roses, check out this tutorial to get your design ideas flowing.

Food Coloring for Painted Water

Clear vases aren’t just for holding boring ol’ water and a few flowers. Add a few drops of food coloring to a clear vase for themed parties or to liven up a dull countertop. Mix up colors with multiple vases or match water colors to the color of your flowers.

Plant Hangers

Pots sprouting from your floors can infuse your space with a foresty feel. But what about plants hanging from your ceiling? Adding hanging plants to an interior adds new layers, breaking up your space with living features. 

Be Vivid With Vintage

Vintage décor brings a timeless atmosphere into the folds of your rooms. Get crafty, mixing flowers with vintage holders—old tin cans, wooden crates, rustic planters—even an old birdcage can be used to house part of your interior garden.

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Mindful marketing funnels a crowd of people into your home during an open house. But it’s what’s hiding behind the curtain that’ll ultimately get your property sold.

An elegantly arranged open house is not just a factor in selling your home, it’s the factor. Here, you have the chance to tastefully showcase your home in its Sunday best, and proper, well-dressed rooms following a precise formula can make you the shiny diamond in a handful of pebbles. Here are six tips to create a memorable impression.

Time for Elbow Grease

Minute debris, such as a bit of dust on the windowsill or a splotch of juiced dried into the floor, however small, subconsciously adds negative tallies to a prospector’s checklist. When you’re preparing for an open house, one of the first things on your to-do list should be to clean like you’ve never cleaned before (or outsource this to a few cleaning wizards). This includes windows (inside and out), carpets, ceiling fans, even food in the fridge—it all makes a difference. 

Don’t Get So Personal

When walking in to buy a home, you want to envision your feet propped up on the couch and your pictures displayed across the walls. The same goes for potential buyers walking into your home. 

If visitors are overwhelmed with your personal items, such as family photos, religious insignia, or political material, this takes away from their ability to imagine the accompaniments of their own lives. Clear walls, shelves, and tabletops free up room for their imagination. Consider a few calming art pieces, too.

DeClutter

The same story rings true for clutter. If you’re already prepping for a move, now might be the time for a Goodwill run or a temporary storage unit. Loose papers, an overwhelming number of pillows, and general items that give any lookie-loos clues that the space they want to live in is still inhabited is a deterrent.

Freshen Up With Paint

One coat of paint goes a long way when it comes to an open house. If you have standout accent walls, it’s best to shield them with a creamy white tone. Furthermore, a bright white paint reflects light off the walls, creating a harmonious balance that makes your home a bona fide bright spot for shoppers.

Furniture: Less is More

An overcrowded open house will send people packing, and retaining onlookers involves having ample space to move around. This makes furniture choices the most important factor in staging an open house. While some may think it counterproductive to make large purchases to try and sell something, packing your old furniture up and investing in complementary furniture adds value to your presence and can be reflective in multiple avenues, cutting down the time it takes to sell and adding monetary weight to potential offers.

Does your house boast a modern appeal? Try this Contemporary Leather Sectional. How about adding a resting place to your outdoor oasis? Take a peek at this Cocoa and Light Grey Fabric Sofa.

Freshen the Ambience

Smells induce memorable instances in our life. Pleasing scents trigger happy memories, making for happy people.

Flowers, essential oils or scented air fresheners, baked cookies, and more can add to a good experience for a buyer and may put your home at the top of their list.

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We’ve all been to places where what we hear sounds better—a concert hall where a whisper is musical, a high-ceilinged old room where the clink of a teacup rings like a bell, or a bathroom where running water is as glorious as a waterfall. So why do we so rarely take acoustics into account when we arrange our living spaces?

Acoustics matter, not just in the ability to hear music but to hear sounds in everyday life—from the high trill of a child’s call to the deep boom of our home entertainment systems. Here are some simple ways to elevate the acoustics of any room.

Get Sonic, Part One: Inside

Make an assessment. Acoustics 101 tells us that sound can do four things with the surfaces of a room: be absorbed and diffused or reflected and transmitted. Think of your furniture and flooring choices like you would an audio equalizer on your stereo. Carpeting, or even a thick throw rug, absorbs and diffuses; wood or tile floors reflect and transmit.

If you desire clarity of acoustics, you need to give the sound waves a place to play, to bounce, and not get muffled. Or maybe it’s the opposite—the room is too loud and transmitting way too much sound, causing the click-clack of high heels across the floor or the shrill edge of a toddler’s wail to slowly but surely drive you out of your mind. The key to everything, in home acoustics and in life, is balance.

Tools of the Trade: Interiors

Obviously the way we cover flat surfaces in a room is one of the biggest ways to change a room’s sound. But there are ways to alter acoustics beyond stripping and installing new carpet. Throw rugs represent a middle way if you have hardwood or tile floors. A particularly sneaky sound sucker is a big poofy sofa—it may be great for those afternoon naps, but be aware that it’s also got the ability to muffle the whole room.

You can use a sofa to soften a room’s sound or get rid of one to open it up, or you can find a minimally cushioned sofa with more reflective surfaces, such as real or faux leather (see an array of couch choices here). Another less obvious tweak is the way you use shelving. A large bookcase shrinks a room acoustically, while smaller shelves spread apart in different areas opens things up (again, there’s no shortage of choices, take a here). 

Get Sonic, Part Two: Outside

Ah, yes, that pesky problem literally outside your room. That is, the great outdoors, which may include streets, sidewalks, houses, cars, and all the noisy scurrying about that (other) people get up to. We love big windows to let the light in, but look out—here come some sound waves, too.

Here’s a simple thing to remember: Not all curtains are created equal, soundwise. Get thicker fabric curtains if you want to insulate your room from outside and soften things up inside. There are even vinyl-based acoustic curtains on the market if you want to go pro regarding sound. The other thing to look at is how well anything that opens to the outside shuts. How well do your doors and windows seal away outside sound?

The Great Rearranger

Finally, maestro, take a step back and consider your orchestra: the home entertainment system. Which way is it pointing? Toward the more significant part of the room with more surface area for bigger sound, of course, but also consider the effects of wall mounting. (higher is louder) That big couch? That’s your tuba player or bassoonist (yes, there is such a thing as a bass flute). Put them where you want sound lowered.

Every piece of furniture has a role to play. Experiment. Move things around and listen. Consider it aural Feng Shui. That beautiful low hum you hear is the sound of your room harmonizing.

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You walk in the door from an exhausting day of work, pop your shoes off, throw your feet up on the couch, and instead of simmering in relaxing silence, you’re surrounded by clutter that seems to be shouting at you from every crevice. It’s a familiar story, and we’ve all been there in one room or another.

Clutter is stressful and burdensome, but taking the time to clear it up will bring harmony to your home and your mind. Say “ahhh” with these eight tips for clearing your clutter. 

Make a Home for Everything

Every item you own should have a distinct resting place—mail, loose papers, pens, purses. Even candles need a well-planned nook. After everything is in its rightful place, unnecessary items will start to show their faces, and you can begin to pile up and remove anything that doesn’t fit.

Don’t have a lot of room to work with? Buy items like the Mesa Storage Cube for multifunctional furniture.

Say Goodbye to Clones

Some of us have two, three, or 10 of everything. It’s okay to keep a few spares of something in case it breaks, but if your extremely durable items have a twin (seven HDMI cables and three toasters are a few too many), odds are you can part ways.

1, 2, 3… Bags

If you’ve got a lot to sift through and you’re having trouble deciding what goes and what stays, put three large garbage bags in different areas of your home and make a goal to fill them all up in an hour. After loading up, say your goodbyes and take everything that makes it into the bags to your nearest donation station.

One Room at a Time

Tackle your clutter situation room by room. In your kitchen, evaluate just how many bowls, spatulas, or coffee cups you truly need to operate. How many sets of sheets are crammed away in your linen closet? Don’t skip the bathroom toiletries or makeup, either.

Plan Better When Shopping

Many find themselves at checkout with a cartful of items, only to return home with things they already own! Before shopping, make a list and check your house—twice. Be sure you’re not replenishing stock that doesn’t need to be replenished.

The Three Big Questions

Ultimately, every item in your home should face a simple test. Consider evaluating the necessity of each item by asking three simple questions:

1. Do I love this item/is it extremely memorable to me?
2. Do I ever use it?
3. Will I ever need to use it?

Go Digital

We all have a closet or storage area we avoid because it’s piled to the brim with old papers, documents, and records we’ll need for the future. The truth is, the important items such as social security cards, immunization records, and the like typically fit neatly into a single folder. Consider taking an entire day to scan old documents, photos, and anything else you don’t need a hard copy of.

If You Can’t Bear to Part With It, Store It

Lastly, if it’s just too difficult to part with something in your home, but you’re still feeling like a clogged drain, invest in a storage unit. You can lighten the load on your living area while keeping your items, and who knows? Years down the line, you may pony up for a bigger space where the rest of your stuff will find a happy home.

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