Category: Homa and Garden

When you’ve been living in an apartment day in and day out, it’s sometimes hard to see the place with fresh eyes. Looking for extra storage space is therefore typically a fruitless task—because if it were there, you’d have noticed it, right? But the following five locations are strangely evasive despite being relatively common. Your apartment probably has one or two of them; you just might not have realized you can stow something there at all. Go forth and maximize your storage options without having to move into a bigger place.
Above the Kitchen Cabinets
Though difficult to know what to do with, that shelf of open space above the kitchen cabinets should be utilized—and not just to stash the party platters you use only once a year. Here are our favorite creative ways to optimize that shelf (think: a big beautiful basket that hides six extra paper towel rolls).
Inside a Windowsill
If you’re lucky enough to have a …

While it is still practice in certain circles to commission original portraits of one’s illustrious family members, and hang them in ye hallowed halls of one’s illustrious family estate, the practice is surely not as common now as in the days of yore. And yet hanging portraiture remains as popular as ever. The good news for anyone without a photogenic aunt (or without the budget to commission original art) is that it’s arguably trendier to hang a portrait of a complete stranger rather than to commission one yourself. They crop up all the time at auctions and estate sales and fleas, where they can be snatched up by any passing hipster with a shallow shelf to lean it on.
Pretty? Definitely. Weird? Yeah a little. (A.k.a. the perfect mix.) Here are some examples of portraiture from our archives—by both famous artists and artists unknown—to inspire the placement of your new stranger friend. And if you want to tell everyone it’s …

The key to a spotless kitchen is a well-organized pantry. These two spaces make a perfect team, with the kitchen doing the heavy lifting in terms of prep and the pantry providing plenty of room to stash tools, ingredients, and serving pieces. While storage is the centerpiece of the pantry and should be the main consideration when it comes to design, the space can do double duty as a bar or a secondary prep area for food and floral arrangements. It can also serve as a showcase for collections of glassware and china, on open shelving, in glass-front cabinets, or even on the wall. See how Steven Gambrel, Barbara Westbrook, Ray Booth, and other designers have created highly organized and beautifully functional pantry spaces.

In the pantry of a Bridgehampton, New York, home designed by Steven Gambrel, a white-oak ladder by Putnam Rolling Ladder Co. makes the tall shelves easily accessible; polished-nickel pendant lamps by Hudson Valley Lighting illuminate the …

“Sometimes I feel like a chef at a farmers’ market,” says decoupage artist John Derian, amid the vast collection of antique etchings, engravings, and manuscripts in his studio on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. “What’s available is what I end up using,” he says of the prints, which he finds at estate sales and flea markets and fashions into his signature creations. For more than two decades Derian has sold his own plates, lamps, and other objets alongside a selection of artisan-made home goods at his eponymous shops in New York and Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Now his favorite images—from delicate 18th- and 19th-century botanical and animal studies to charming children’s drawings—have come out of their storage bins (Hermès boxes and vintage suitcases) and onto the pages of his first tome, John Derian Picture Book (Artisan, $75). “It’s like a self-portrait,” he says of the volume. “These images have been part of my life for so long, they’re like friends.” On the occasion …

Over the last 10 years, Australian local governments have implemented systems like BASIX (in NSW) to encourage homeowners to design and build new homes that are energy efficient as well as thermally comfortable to live in. But what about new homes that seem to slip through the cracks on compliance, or the vast majority of Australian homes that are not new? How can these homes be altered to enhance their energy efficiency, thermal comfort and overall functionality? Well, its actually not that difficult, you just need to follow some important tips.

1. Install insulation
If you can only afford to spend a minimal amount on improving the energy efficiency of your home, spend it firstly on insulation. A house loses heat initially through the ceiling, then the walls and lastly the floor. So always insulate your ceilings first for the most noticeable increase in internal warmth and energy savings.

2. Reduce open plan spaces where possible
Reduce open plan spaces …

There are seven common mistakes that people frequently make when designing their home. These mistakes are often reinforced in home design magazines and television shows. Explained below are the seven most common mistakes and what you can do to avoid them.

This article has been written from an Australian perspective. If you live in North America, Europe, or elsewhere in the northern hemisphere, reverse the north/south orientations mentioned below.

1st deadly sin: Not orientating living spaces north
This is the biggest mistake most people make when designing their home. There is nothing worst than living in a home that is cold in the winter and hot in the summer. But you can have both.

Ideally, orientate all bedroom & living areas to face north. This will provide perfect sun penetration to every room in the house. But realistically this is impossible for most homes that are restricted by the average suburban block. The following rules generally apply for typical suburban …

Designing your own home can be a very exciting undertaking. The design process is a complex juggling act and there are 6 golden rules that you should follow designing your own home.

1. Think in 3D
Professional home designers like building designers and architects are always thinking in 3D when they’re working on a new home or renovation. They are constantly incorporating and taking away design ideas in plan and in a 3D form at the same time. For some people this skill is instinctual, but it can also be learnt over time.

Thinking in the 3D form can be difficult, especially when it comes to converting your own 2D house plans into a well form and aesthetically pleasing building. Weather you have this skill or not it is essential to always think about how your ideas will look as a resolved building form or you’ll run the risk of your building looking like a plan with extruded walls and …

Put down the needle and thread; back away from your sewing machine. DIY upholstery, a simple technique that will have you re-covering chairs, benches, headboards, and even box springs with your own two hands, requires only one tool, and it’s a staple gun. The method is not unlike wrapping a present, and the results are more professional-looking than you can imagine. We spoke with Ana Verdi, the designer at Thompson Fine Home Renovation, to learn what crafty beginners should know before tackling their first DIY upholstery project.
What’s Possible?
Verdi’s rule of thumb: “Anything with straight lines” can probably be upholstered successfully by a beginner. (Side note: Here’s how to know if you’re out of your league.) “Once you get into any sort of curved arm, the process can be trickier if you’re not confident making a pleat,” she explains. The square seat of a dining room chair or a rectangular bench top are the obvious contenders for a first …

In the world of interior design, decorating rules often become so embedded they are second nature—but not for everyone. We’re looking to those boundary-pushing talents to find out the popular design ideas they’re ready to move on from, and what they are trying out instead. First up: Miles Redd, who defies easy labels, bringing his own special blend of glamour and wit to every project. Whether he’s decorating a tropical vacation home or a Texas mansion, the New York designer can always be counted on to defy conventions. We turned to Redd, the former creative director of Oscar de la Renta and author of The Big Book of Chic, to learn which design rules he thinks were made to be broken.

Rule to break: Use color in small doses
“Often when I flip through a catalogue, it would appear we live in a world of beige, a great big bowl of coffee ice cream,” says Redd. The designer prefers to …

Finding a place to live in Brooklyn is hard enough on a crisp spring day, frenzied as hopefuls can be, but interior designer Casey Kenyon didn’t even have that luxury when he found out he’d have to vacate his current rental in the middle of a polar vortex. (Non-Northeasterners, note: These are as no-fun as they sound.) Discouraged by the less-than-charming nature of more industrial, and therefore more affordable, Brooklyn neighborhoods, and a little desperate, he posted on Facebook: “Does anyone know of a well-priced one-bedroom apartment in dreamy tree-lined Fort Greene?” Fortune showed favor. A friend’s cousin’s cousin knew a 92-year-old woman who needed a renter in the top floor of her brownstone. That the space featured twin decorative fireplaces, a picture rail, original painted wood shutters, and “good light all day” from East-West exposures—more “charm” than most people dream of in sensibly-priced Brooklyn abodes—turned out to be the only catch.
In some cases, good things come to those …