Sunday October 5th, 2008 Decorating on a Dime

One of the season's benefits of spending more time indoors is the delight of inexpensive decorating on a dime! It's easy to associate the term interior decorating with the possibility of spending exorbitant amounts of money. In the throes of making our living space more esthetically pleasing, going over budget can be as natural as the sun coming up! To help you make some excellent design decisions, and to kick start your creative flow, the Thunder Bay Public Library abounds with material to assist in inexpensive and practical ways to spruce up your indoor zones.

There are many reasons why you may want to change the interior look and feel of your home. I recall reading at my kitchen table last fall and as I glanced up, I caught a plastic hockey puck before it hit the wall. Plastic pucks reduce the possibility of injury for youth playing mini-stick hockey indoors, however; they wreck a great deal of havoc on a paint job. As I followed the trajectory of that plastic puck, the target was yet another paint chip that needed fixing. My eyes then averted to all the paint chips in my kitchen and I resolved to clean upby painting and color coordinating everything at the lowest cost possible.

Walking through retail stores to obtain color ideas, and bringing home paint swatches from paint stores can be helpful. This can also result in an overwhelming desire to hire an interior decorator, seamstress and painter because all the sudden my belief that Martha Stewart or Debbie Travis have nothing on me has hit the wall! I developed an
amazing imitation of the lady in the home depot commercial that flails her hands a lot when she's trying to explain to the sales associate what she's attempting to do. At this point, I return to my step by step practicality and organization skills which are of great assistance while working in the library, and much to my relief are very beneficial to employ for creating less-costly and coordinated decorating.

I believe the approach to decorating needs to be as methodical and logical as it does creative and whimsical! To start the brush stroking I began by researching some excellent resources such as: Roney Carley's 2008 brand book called [The Nest] Home Design Handbook: Simple Ways to Decorate, Organize, and Personalize your Place, Heather Paper's latest book Decorating Ideas that Work: Creative Design Solutions for Your Home, and another recent volume by Carol Spier, The Apartment Book: Smart Decorating for Spaces Large and Small. I found the guidance and images in these books to be exceptionally beneficial in helping me make decisions about use of space and color.


With the frequency in the change of color trends, it can be difficult to choose combinations of colors that will maintain a classic appeal yet also go with the trends of the time. With this being my goal, I started collecting material that would contribute to deciding on a lovely medley of palette blends. Better Homes and Gardens New Color Schemes Made Easy is a brand new book available that is full of fresh ideas blended with classic simplicity that will make you want to pick up a paint brush! Amy Wax's Can't Fail ColorSchemes is also a new resource to help in this zone of the decorating world. There are some amazing paint techniques to give old furniture a face lift or to add appeal to an accent wall and we have the latest resources at the public library to show you how to pull the artist out in you!
Lesley Riva can show you some fun and innovative ideas in her book, Paint Style: the New Approach to Decorative Paint Finishes, which is again a brand new resource which could be right at your fingertips.

From audio books on Tuscan decorating ideas to surfing our virtual databases for many of the top ten decorating periodicals for decoration inspiration you're bound to find something that works for you! If you would like to create beautiful window treatments, slipcovers and pillows we can suggest many new publications that will help you put the finishing touches to your new look. Whether you're changing one room, your child's space, or all your living areas, come and see the multitude of items we have to kick start your plans!

Raegan Rocco, Library Technician