Welcome to the realm of interior decorating where every element comes together to form a symphony of comfort and style – your bedroom. In the quest to turn your dream bedroom into a tangible reality, crafting the perfect ambiance is key. Your bedroom is more than just a space for sleep; it’s a sanctuary, an expression of your personality, and a retreat from the world. The ambiance of your bedroom sets the tone for your everyday experiences, from the moment you wake up to the time you lay your head to rest. It’s a reflection of your tastes, preferences, and the atmosphere you wish to immerse yourself in. From the choice of colours that evoke emotions to the carefully curated furnishings that blend functionality with aesthetics, every decision you make contributes to the harmonious whole. Don’t forget to check out the links for our mood board below that will guide you in creating your dream bedroom right in the comfort of your own home.
If you have any questions about shopping this look or adding in some new pieces to your office do not hesitate to reach out. Visit our store Lane & Co. located in Dartmouth, N.S. or online. You can send any questions via email to hello@laneandco.ca or connect with someone on our team on Instagram.
If you are looking for extra support our design team at Staged For Upsell, Halifax’s leading home decorating and home staging company would love to help you out. Connect with us today!
Decorating walls can be tough – even designers can find themselves struggling to fill negative wall space. A well designed room has a balanced proportion of positive (furniture, decor, art) AND negative (empty floor and wall) space. In today’s world of open concept living, it can be challenging to fill negative wall space as you don’t want to have too many competing pieces of art around. These instances call for some creativity and outside-of-the-box thinking to figure out what ELSE you can use to decorate your walls. Here are some of our favourites:
Woven Wall Baskets have livened up a number of our designs over the past few months. We have used them individually to fill a tiny wall, as a small group of three slightly staggered, and as a larger, asymmetrical grouping where they are slightly overlapping each other.
Juju Hats are another piece of alternative wall decor that we have been loving. The softness of the feathers and the texture that they bring to a space adds immediate warmth and helps to fill empty wall space without grabbing too much attention. TIP: Try creating a collage of binga baskets AND one or two juju hats for an amazing display of pattern and texture. We recently completed a project where we did this over a sideboard in a dining room and the finished look is to die for!
Wall Hangings have been around for a while and we don’t see them going anywhere in the near future. They are usually soft and natural in colour which means they won’t steal too much of your attention, and that makes them perfect for filling empty wall space.
Remember to always take a step back and assess your space before committing to too many pieces of wall decor. You don’t have to have every wall in your home covered with art and accessories. Let your walls breathe a little bit while keeping in mind that you need some empty space to balance out the rest of your furnishings and accessories.
Visit our shop to create a little magic of your own.
Your kitchen is often the biggest and most costly room in your home to renovate. However, if your kitchen has good quality cabinets and a decent layout, you can save money by reusing your cabinets (with some minor updating) and making other small, less costly changes that will give your kitchen a refresh without breaking the bank.
Updating Cabinetry Colour
Changing the colour of your cabinets will give your entire kitchen a whole new feel, and, if you are lucky enough to have solid wood cabinetry, then your kitchen refresh just got a whole lot easier. There are a couple of routes you might choose to take with your cabinets. You can either 1) sand down your wooden cabinets and update with a modern stain, or 2) give a light sanding and update your cabinets with a modern paint colour. Don’t worry, if you are reading this and wondering how to update your MDF cabinets, then we are here to tell you that you can still give your cabinets a makeover – you just need to do a little bit of extra prep and make sure to use the proper type of primer and paint.
Door Profiles
Do you know what we mean when we say door profile? It has to do with the detailing of your cabinet door/drawer fronts. A few common profiles are shaker, slab, single or double arch raised panels. There are MANY different profiles to choose from, and we couldn’t possibly list them all here, but they are generally different variations of the three styles above. The single or double arch is now considered dated and typically clients want that profile replaced. Shaker style is very popular and a good choice as they are quite classic.
Change the Hardware
Hands down, the EASIEST way to change the look of your kitchen is to change the knobs and pulls on your drawer/door fronts. There are hundreds (thousands?) of options out there and you can often find some for reasonable prices at your local hardware store. Since hardware is so easily replaced, you can have some fun here and not worry as much about whether you will be happy with your decision five years from now. The main thing to consider here is the scale of your knob or pull compared to the size of your cabinet door or drawers. They are definitely not one size fits all, so you might need to grab the same style in a few different sizes.
Update the Lighting
One of the best ways to update your kitchen is to add lighting. Many outdated kitchens only have one light fixture in the centre of the room, and that is just not enough! Your kitchen should have a combination of general lighting (such as evenly spaced pot lights), task lighting (like lighting over your sink, stove and under your cabinets), accent lighting (to showcase what is inside glass cabinets or on floating shelves) and most importantly pendant lights over your island. Honestly, we sometimes encounter homes that don’t have lights over the island. Remember lighting is the jewelry in your home!
Update the Countertops
Changing out your kitchen’s countertops will have a HUGE impact on your kitchen’s style. Our favourite material to use in a kitchen is engineered quartz. It is a mix of natural stone and man-made resin, which comes in hundreds of different colours and patterns. It is highly durable and typically is what you will see in today’s new home builds. As pretty as marble countertops are, they are just not practical in a frequently used kitchen as they stain easily, and acidic foods will remove the polish resulting in certain areas looking matte instead of glossy. When it comes to granite, although it is a beautiful and durable natural material, it still requires regular sealing. It also chips easier than quartz and it is harder to hide the seams where the fabricators and installers join the pieces together. All in all, quartz is more durable than granite or marble, and there are endless colour and pattern options which make it hard to beat.
Change the Backsplash
Last but not least, to give your kitchen a new vibe, update the backsplash. Like countertops, there are hundreds of options to choose from and many different materials. It is also not uncommon today to see the countertop material continuing up the wall for a clean, modern look. That might not be feasible if you are on a budget, but the good news is that backsplash tiles can be found at extremely affordable prices and makes it one of the best ways (along with new hardware) to update your kitchen for a low to moderate cost.
These homeowners were on the market for the majority of a year. We had a consultation and recommended a paint colour for the main floor, going with a lighter more neutral colour (Benjamin Moore White Dove OC-17).
We also suggested that the lower cabinets and island get painted out white like the rest of the cabinets which would also blend better with the counter tops.
When the painting was completed the homeowners moved their stuff out to their new home and we staged the property. They sold in approximately a week after staging!
Adding a hanging light fixture over your dining table can have a huge impact on your dining room’s design. When placed properly, it adds an ambiance to the room that just can’t be achieved with a fixture that is flush to the ceiling. The tricky part is knowing how big the fixture should be in relation to your table, and how high it should be above your table’s surface. We deal with this often, and through our experiences we can provide you with some guidelines to follow when picking out and hanging a fixture over your dining table.
First, consider the scale of the fixture compared to your table. A fixture that is too small will feel underwhelming, and a fixture that is too big will take over the room. Also consider how big your dining room is. You can get away with a larger fixture if you have an open concept room. A small room might mean you need to go slightly smaller with the light fixture. Typically, the diameter of your light fixture should be about 12 inches less than the width of your table. So, if your table is 36 inches wide, then your fixture should be about 24 inches in diameter.
When deciding how high the fixture should be, the rule of thumb is for the bottom of the fixture to be about 30 to 36 inches above the surface of your table. If you have a really tall ceiling, you should add a few inches to that distance. This is a guideline only, so do what feels best while you are standing in the room. A few points to consider are that you don’t want it to be too low and shining too bright into your eyes while you are sitting at the table, but you don’t want it to be so high that it is not providing adequate lighting.
Always look at the fixture from various points in your home when deciding on the height. If you have an open concept dining/living area, go sit in the living room and look towards the dining table and light fixture. Also walk out and back in to the room, paying attention to the light fixture’s height and scale compared to the room and dining table. It is possible you will need to make some minor adjustments based on how it looks from all angles of the space.
When in doubt, give us a call and we will be happy to come to your home and guide you through the process. Even the smallest additions to your home come with many decisions, and we are experienced in making them.
There is a specific piece of furniture in every home that wears many different hats – the coffee table. It is a piece you gather around with family and friends. You may use it as a dining table from time to time, a foot rest, a work desk and sometimes even a place to play board or card games. Inevitably it is also common for a coffee table to end up as a catch all for things used on a daily basis that no one quite knows where to put away (like your TV’s three separate remotes and the latest novel you have on the go). Because of this it can be difficult to actually know what to put on your coffee table in terms of decor, so here are our tried and true tips to styling a coffee table. Continue reading “Styling a Coffee Table”
What a year it has been as a home stager in Halifax! We rolled into our fourth year in business in the fall of this year. It was our best and busiest year to date. We owe that to our amazing clients, home owners, realtors, home builders, developers, photographers that make our work look awesome, and our awesome fans!
When I started writing this I thought I might not have enough to talk about for a recap…but so much has happened! Early this year we rolled out our involvement in HGTV’s Humble Home Hunters where we staged an owner occupied home for the show targeting first time home buyers. That was an exciting project to be part of and it was great to finally have the show air and be able to share photos with everyone.
One of our favorite model home staging projects we worked on this year was Armco’s Information Center/model in Indigo shores. Staging it in modern urban cottage style we were able to work with local furniture designers, Relove to bring them into the project to create a reclaimed wood wall and a reclaimed wood headboard. Check out more by clicking here.
Gorgeous great room in the Indigo Shores Information Center.
We were nominated for 2017 Halifax Small Business of the Year. Only being in our third year of business at the time of the nomination it was an honour to be nominated!
During the summer I was approached by Wicker Emporium to work with them as a photo stylist. Trending away from their traditional furniture it was a lot of fun to work with them, and photographer Justin MacDonald to create some cool, trendy styles for their fall collections. We’ve already had a peak at the new spring collections – wait until you see the coastal collection…gorgeous! See more pics by clicking here.
Aberdeen Living Room Collection
I brought on the lovely and talented Stephanie LaRue. She was a perfect fit for Staged for Upsell. Stephanie had experience as a home stager and decorator, and she also has the added talent of being a kitchen designer! I couldn’t be happier having her on the team – just love her! To learn more about Steph click here.
Picking a few of my favorite interior redesign projects of the year…one was a traditional cottage in the Hammonds Plains area and another an aviation inspired man cave:
Traditional Cottage Style Home – Hammonds Plains
Aviation Inspired Man Cave:
Work was plentiful this year, a blessing indeed! We more than doubled our furniture inventory over last year and now carry Halifax’s largest home staging furniture inventory. How much you ask? For example…16 sofas, 17 dining tables…and much more. We will continue to expand it next year to meet the needs of our clients. We had the opportunity to have some interior decorating students work on some projects with us, notably Lindsey King who is finishing her two month internship with us soon. Here’s a before and after video of just some of the vacant properties we staged this year.
Armco Capital’s Governor’s Brook development kept us quite busy late this fall with three model homes, and another we are working on right now. Here’s a few photos of two of the units staged in a trendy fashion targeting first time home buyers.
We started working with realtors, home builders and developers this year that we hadn’t worked with in the previous year. Many of them I now consider friends.
And to end the year, I was voted Top 10 Vacant Home Stagers in Canada by RESA. Very humbling indeed and very special as it was peers in the industry internationally that voted. To read more click here.
Things look bright and awesome for 2017! We’re working on a few exciting things right now that will hopefully come to fruition. Thank you to all our clients, associates and fans for making 2016 so amazing!
Happy New Year!
Joanna Lane, Home Stager & Redesigner
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