An Extension, Retreat or Enhancement

There are two main themes often used when decorating. The first is to view your home as an extension of the environment around you. So if you lived in the mountains, your home would reflect that landscape in the decor. But not everyone lives in the mountains, at the beach or on a beautiful vineyard in Italy, which is why the second way of decorating emerged: to decorate your home as a beautiful retreat. When you do that, your home becomes an escape from your environment. So if you live in a busy city, your apartment might be decorated to feel as if you live in a quaint farmhouse in Nebraska.

Both of those methods of decorating are wonderful. They allow those with a perfect view to exploit it and those with a horrible view to escape it. But what about the people with an okay view?

I believe there is a third option, which I've deemed enhancement. Your home can be an enhancement of your natural surroundings. Think of the décor in your room as makeup, and your view as your eyes. Your eyes may be beautiful on their own. But every woman (and man -- we know you like how it looks) knows the magic of an eyelash curler, a coat of mascara and a hint of eye shadow. When applied, the mascara and eye shadow don't cover your eyes - they enhance your eyes' natural beauty.  

Your home decor can do the same thing. Rather than covering or hiding your view, if you choose wisely, the decor in your room can enhance your view. All you need to do is employ a bit of imagination.

Pretend your window is not a window, but a famous painting on your wall. It's not much of a stretch. I've seen gates, rows of houses, suburban scenes, even skulls painted and considered beautiful. So the view in your window must have some potential. The trick is knowing what to look for and how to make it shine.

For starters, look at your view and make a list of the textures you see. Maybe a house across the street has a cast iron railing your tree has wonderful bark. Whatever those textures are write them down. Next write down the colors you see.

Once you have those two lists, you're halfway there. You'll want to incorporate some of the textures you see outside your window into your view - but rather than choosing something similar, choose something more beautiful. So lets use the cast iron railing as an example. Rather than getting a boring piece of cast iron, choose something gorgeous. Maybe a beautiful cast iron table, a striking cast iron mirror. Use the cast iron in an unexpected way. The same goes for the colors. Don't use the exact colors from your view. Use similar colors that are more beautiful. In some cases that might mean more vibrant colors, in others that may mean duller colors.

When you're finished, the painting on your wall, your window, will look like a glimpse at an exotic retreat - an enhancement of your reality.

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Seasonal Decor, Not Just for Homes

As the start of Season Two gets closer, we've been updating the decor around the Web site. We wanted a fresh look for the new season.

So the video, article and checklist pages underwent a massive makeover to make viewing the videos and reading the articles a much more pleasant experience. I hope you like the changes.

But I'll be honest, I'm way more excited for the new videos. Luckily the wait won't be too much longer...

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Armoires or Closets -- for Your Boxers or Briefs?

I've found that people are either armoire people or closet people. Occasionally you'll find the odd few that are both. I fall into that category.

I like closets for my clothes and armoires for my linens. It's a strange combination, but it works for me. I like the fantasy of walking into a large closet for my clothes, and the romantic notion of pulling fine linens from antique armoires.

But more than the feelings each one brings, I like the combination for the way it adds variety and character to a room. Having an armoire in a hallway or a bedroom provides a wonderful focal point. But too many makes a room look cluttered. So by combining the two types of storage you can give your rooms character and provide extra space for essential - and not so essential - items.  

Before purchasing a new home or remodeling a room, think about which type of storage you prefer. Selecting the best type of storage for you -- the type you actually like using -- makes it much easier to stay organized and keep rooms nice and clean.

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Stagnant Suitcase Syndrome

We've all suffered from it. There was even an Everybody Loves Raymond episode about it. We enjoy a wonderful trip, we come home and then we leave our suitcases out for weeks until we finally have to unpack. It's a common side effect of traveling. But why?

I myself suffer from it. I've been back from California for over a week, and just finally unpacked. And I can't even blame it on my luggage being lost, because it wasn't.

I think we don't like unpacking because it's unrewarding. There's nothing to look forward to. We're not heading anywhere exotic. We're home. We can finally relax and rest after an exhausting trip, and unpacking is the last thing on our minds. That is until we need something out of our suitcases. And if you're like me, you just dig around for it and leave your suitcases sitting there for another two to three days.

But while unpacking my suitcases yesterday, I kept thinking about how nice it would be to stop living out of my suitcases the minute I got home. Of course, I'm not very disciplined so my method of unpacking would have to be very easy - which is when it hit me. The reason we have trouble unpacking is because we put our suitcases in the wrong spot.

When we come home, we normally put our suitcases in our entrance halls, on our stairs or even worse, in our bedrooms. That means we have to lug our luggage full of dirty clothes all the way back to our laundry rooms, which is normally far from our rooms. So we don't do it. But if we took our luggage straight to our laundry rooms first, and dumped out all of the dirty clothes - even if that's on the floor, then we wouldn't waste a trip and unpacking would be much easier.

So my new travel ritual is the minute I get home to head straight to my laundry room and dump out all of the dirty clothes. It will be therapeutic to get them out after being gone for so long. Then I'll take my suitcase up to my bedroom, dump out the rest of the items on the floor, put the suitcase out in the hall and get in bed. The next morning I'll deal with the piles. After all, half the battle is just getting everything out of the suitcase, and I'll have that part done all before falling asleep.

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The Break-In Blues

On our last day in California, my viodeographer, Brent, and I decided to go to the Golden Gate Park in San Francisco for a little exercise. We drove our rental car to the park (Yes, I know. If we really wanted exercise, we should have run. But I would have only lasted two blocks from our hotel and turned around. So we drove...) and parked in a very public spot. After a lovely 2 hour walk, we returned to our car only to find this:

Yes, our car was broken into. It was the middle of the day, and dozens of people were around. Yet someone was able to break the driver side window, steal our Garmin GPS and walk away with the car alarm going off without anyone stopping them. You could say we were in shock.

But what I really was, was panicked. Being an idiot, I had left my cell phone and wallet in the middle console thinking they were safe because the door was locked. So immediately, I checked to see if they were still there. With a sigh of relief, I realized they were - how lucky, and we proceeded to call the police.

This is where the story turns south. The police told us we had to drive the car to the closest police station. When we told them there was glass on the seat and we were from out of town so naturally we don't know where any police stations are, let alone the closet one, they said be careful and they thought there was one on 6th or 5th street. Very helpful.

So Brent sat on the broken glass and cut his hands making every turn while I used the Internet on my cell phone to find the closest police station. From that point on, we received resistance at every point. The police were uncompassionate. The rental car company was hard-to-work with. And that was when I realized that if you're in trouble you can't count on others for help.

Most of us go through life assuming that if something bad happens others, especially the police, will come to your rescue. But that doesn't always happen. Sometimes there are bigger problems happening to other people. Sometimes people just don't care. Either way, you end up having to pick up the pieces and figure out how to rescue yourself.

I for one now know that I should always have a pair of glass-proof gloves and a glass proof mat in the car in case of a break-in. I also should never leave important items in a car, and most importantly never leave things of value visible in a car. After all, locks don't keep someone from getting in your car. They just keep them from opening the door.

But what about your home? When we finally returned to our hotel, I kept wondering,  "What if it had been my house? What if I had lost the things I value most? What if the police didn't care? How could I have stopped it?"

Breaking into a car is violating enough, but the home - that's sacrilege, and it's up to each of us to keep it from happening to our home. The common ways are to install high-quality door locks (You can watch a video about how to find them here.) and turn lights on at night. If you're really worried, you can install an alarm system and turn it on religiously. To top it off you can remove any big bushes that block your door.

But as I learned, even a car that is locked, with an alarm, that is out in the open can be broken into. So if you really want to keep things safe, hide them in a place where the burglar won't have time to look. Not where they won't think to look, but simply where they won't have enough time to find it before getting caught.

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