Ready to Ring in The New Year

Are You Ready to Ring in the New Year?

Maybe you are like me, once Jan. 1st hits, I want all my Christmas Decorations to be gone and put away. I can’t wait to get the New Year Started on the right foot. One of the areas of my life that I want to get started with in a new way is always my home. I just HAVE to do something a little different every year. Now, I am not talking about my entire house, but at least one area of my home needs a facelift in order to make me feel like I am truly off and running on the right foot.

This year I started with some window treatments in my home. I know that may sound like a strange place to start, but let me tell you it can make a huge difference in how your home feels, just by changing out the window treatments. Here are a few of the fun things I did that you will find very affordable and easy. First of all, you must know that Mike and just moved into a new home. Would you believe that every window in the house had the same curtains hanging in them? I just found that strange and couldn’t wait to make changes. Now the budget was a little tight, but here is how I handled it.

First I had some great chair cushions for my ladder back chairs at the Island in my kitchen, so I found the same fabric at the fabric store and made a quick little topper for the kitchen window. The cushions were red Toile, so it was easy to find. I was so excited. Then I went to the family room windows which are open to the kitchen. I used the same toile and just sewed a piece to bottom of each plain off while panel and also made a curtain tie back. Now I was cooking!!!!

On to the dinning room. The off while panel looked so blah….so I was going to tie in the family room and kitchen color of red. Hmmm. I found some great solid red napkins while I was out shopping. My wheels were turning and when I got home I laid them across the top of the blah panels at an angle. Now that was pretty cool. I totally different look.

Then I went on to the Living Room. Now, I wanted this area to look a little formal. So what would I be able to accomplish here? Well, I stuck with the off white color of the panels. This time I added a very pretty Table runner that I found that was the same color of off white. Actually I found two table runners. One had some quilted area at each end and the other came to a point at each end with a tassel hanging at the points.
I cut both runner in half. I added the quilted one to the top of panels going the long way with straight pins, I then took the other with the tassel and hung it in the middle with the tassel in the middle. Voila!!!! I had a fun and more formal look.

Now you can tell from this that none of these things cost me a ton of money. I was able to totally change the look of my rooms for just a few dollars in each room. WOW!!!

So while you are out and about at your favorite Country Register shop, take a moment to look at table runners and napkins in a new and different way. Also, take a moment to browse the pages of AtHome America’s website for some other fun ways to change up your home for the New Year. Hears to an AWESOME 2011.

Pat Dempsey, Executive Director
AtHome America
www.athome.com/patdempsey