3 Finishing Touches for Your Home that Make a Huge Difference

One of the things I get the most questions on is readers or friends asking me the best ways to finish off their homes. They have furniture but don't know how to put the exclamation point on the end of the sentence, so to speak ;) Another question I get asked often is about how to infuse personality into your space? Well, my answer to both of those question lies in this post. They're both great questions and can often leave homeowners feeling overwhelmed, so hopefully this helps!

1. Rugs.  Rugs do a lot of things visually, but some of my favorite functions they have are how they zone off spaces and naturally create conversation areas, warm up your home and bring texture to the space. The thing with rugs that's important to remember is that they are laying on the floor, horizontally positioned, often with at least some furniture placed on top of it. This to say, it's a great place to bring in pattern and color to the room because it's not going to be overly bold being on the floor. 

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I'm not saying rugs don't have power or impact, because they sure do, but I am saying it's a great place to experiment with design elements you're afraid to put on the walls or curtains! Rugs can take furniture that looks like it's floating in the middle of a room and bring it together, creating a cohesive and purposeful room design. 

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You might be thinking your room has carpet in it, so that negates you from being able to use a rug in your space. FALSE! As long as it's a low pile carpet, you shouldn't have a problem layering a rug over it. I did this in my "Bachelorette Pad" and it worked out great.

via I wrote this informative post about how to choose rug sizes for your home here + then gave you tons of my favorite rugs. 

I get asked a lot about where to buy rugs, so here are my favorite places:

Lulu & Georgia*
Pottery Barn
West Elm*
Crate & Barrel*
Restoration Hardware*
World Market
Home Goods
Nordstrom- especially the Dash & Albert line*
Wayfair
Joss & Main
Rugs USA (for cheaper rugs, but that don't last as long)
Target Annie Selke Overstock
* Favorite, best quality

KIDS:
Crate & Kids
Pottery Barn Kids
RH Baby & Child
2. Curtains.  What DON'T curtains do for a room is the real question?! They add height by moving your eye upward (especially important if you have standard ceiling height or are trying to draw attention to an architectural detail), make the room feel bigger (via adding height), draw your eye to a pretty view outside by framing the windows, cozy up the space and make it feel lived in and polished, and of course, it's yet another way to add texture, color and design elements to your room. 
That's a lot of really good stuff, which is why I never think a room is finished unless it has curtains. 

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via And curtains that TOUCH THE FLOOR, mind you. I'll never forget when I was designing a builder's home and he thought it was actually wrong to have curtains touching the floor...HA! I started laughing immediately (don't worry, that wasn't unprofessional of me because that's just how he is and he knows it. He was laughing too!) I told him it was one of my top design no-no's and he thought that was hilarious. So we DID end up getting him the appropriate length curtains. The issue with short curtains is it actually does the opposite of what you want them too, which is to ADD height. 

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Things to remember for curtains: to find the length needed for your room, measure from the floor to the top of your window molding. That will tell you the very MINIMUM measurement. Then you want to account for hanging your curtain rod as high as possible above the window, or at least halfway in between the top of the window molding and the ceiling.
The standard width of curtains is 50" wide. If you want to fully close your drapes to block light, be sure to measure the width of your window and determine how many panels you'll need.
Of course, there are other options for window treatments as well. You have fabric roman shades (love!), roller shades, woven roman shades, and can dress things up with valances.

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A few of my favorite resources for curtains: Pottery Barn Target Ikea - nice and simple (usually you have to hem these as they come really long) Crate & Barrel Ballard Designs Custom fabric for curtains: Caitlin Wilson, Rebecca Atwood, Robert Allen, Schumacher Custom Curtains: Martha & Ash
3. Art. Art really helps give your home personality and that cherry on top of everything else you have going on! Filling wall space can be challenging; there are only so many options. You have gallery walls (collections of artwork or photographs in a cluster), mirrors, canvas art, wood signs, single photographs (from your travels, family photos, etc.), clocks, metal or woodwork, etc.

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It's sometimes hard to identify your art style and taste. But what I've found is usually people can see something and know if they like it or not, so what I always suggest doing is starting a board on Pinterest just meant to file away art styles you love. Search for wall art and pin anything that catches your eye. After pinning around 30-50 images, take a step back and ask yourself what those items have in common. Did you pin a lot of abstract pieces? Landscapes? Photography? Florals? Collections of art hung together? You'll also pick up on frame style and color that you gravitate towards as well. 

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One thing I've also noticed about art and filling wall space, in general, is that some people tend to go overboard. I'm here to tell you that not every wall needs something. This can feel cluttered and then your eye doesn't know where to land. My goal with art is always to find a few really great pieces that we want to stand out and become a focal point!
Some of my favorite places to shop for wall art:
Minted World Market Target Ballard Designs Etsy- House of Belonging and Between You and Me for wood signs Feather & Birch for cut out wood words and art
Favorite Artists (love supporting artists first before big stores!): Chelsea Michal for incredible and colorful animals and florals, Hollyhocks & Hydrangeas for farmhouse flowers, Wildfield Paper Co. for florals and nature watercolors, Simply Jessica Marie for pretty calligraphy prints and custom watercolor paintings, Bree Maden for beach photography, Lily & Val for chalkboard art prints, Rachel Wadlow Art for Abstract, Parima Studio for abstract, Emily Jeffords for landscapes.
*** So there you have it-- 3 design elements that will really help finish off your house and make it feel like a cozy, inviting, and personality-filled home!
  What do you think makes the biggest difference in your own house or apartment? xoxo

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