Designing your home is a fun task but it can also be overwhelming. The key is to find the right balance of form and function. Here are ideas from the pros when it comes to how to design and decorate your home.

Use Your Wall Space

Many designers today are taking the rug off the floor and adding it to the walls of a home. A beautiful rug can accent the wall behind a sofa giving a living space a warm and colorful design. ELLE Decor designer Sheila Bridges also uses rugs to add color to any space. In her home, she uses an emerald green sheepskin throw rug draped across a bench to add texture and color. Laura Sartori Rimini of Studio Peregalli in Milan uses wallpaper to give a bedroom in a Milan apartment a wow factor. “We created the missing parts—the plinth and the ceiling frame—to depict an Italian capriccio, a fantastical and bucolic landscape with architectural features,” says Sartori. Another designer-inspired idea is to use curtains as a backdrop for art.“Curtains just create a great, calming energy in which you feel very shrouded and comforted, making for a luxurious and restful environment,” says Kelly Framel, creative director, stylist, and founder of online magazine The Glamourai. “And being able to put a really great pop of artwork in front of that textural colored backdrop has a lot of impact.”

Go Bold

A great idea anyone can use is creating a bold gallery on a wall. A gallery of eye-catching artwork can make a bright and bold statement in a room. Adding color to the floor can also brighten a space. A great example would be to use a bright blue rug in a nice all-white living area that looks out onto the ocean. If you have a small space, go bold. Graphic prints can give a small room a major impact. Sara Ruffin, a New Orleans designer uses Ellie Cashman floral wallpaper in a small powder room.

Experiment with patterns

Christene Barberich, former Refinery29 global editor-in-chief, says to layer patterns to create visual interest in a room. She did this by layering patterns in a range of styles and scales in a bedroom. She put black and white pillows with green chevron bedding to add this look. “I think a room balances out better when you have different levels of price and craftsmanship,” she says. “It helps you notice the statement piece more,” Kate Reynolds, co-owner of Studio Four NYC. Emilie Munroe of Studio Munroe says to play with texture. Use shiplap but instead of installing it horizontally, install it vertically in a room with high ceilings.

Use Color in A Hallway

Most of the time, home owner’s choose a neutral color for the hallways of their home. David Hicks used Vigorous Violet, Sherwin-Williams in a small hallway and added an art collection to the walls making it a beautiful space. He recommends using a bold color for a hallway giving the space an unexpected look.

Display Collectables and Antiques

Using collectibles and antiques can give your room a perfect look. Every room can benefit from accessories with a history. Showcasing your collectibles on a table instead of a shelf will maintain a sense of balance in your display. In order to make sure your display does not look kitschy, group your pieces by color according to Rebecca Robertson of RR Interiors. Another great designer tip by Kathryn M. Ireland, a textiles and interior designer, is to “mix things up with old and new.” “Bringing a touch of the old world into the mix creates a home that will never feel dated,” designer Alex Papachristidis explains of the art-studded Manhattan apartment he designed for a family friend. Acclaimed chef Ludovic “Ludo” Lefebvre’s home a designer used floor-to-ceiling shelving to hold his collection of over one thousand cookbooks. Floor-to-ceiling shelving never fails to add character to a room.

Designing your space can be done as many times as you want. Remember to invest where it matters and do your homework if purchasing an antique piece for your home.  A good rule of thumb is to maybe switch out a couple of pieces with new pieces once a year.

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The Gloriette, the new restaurant in the Southern Hotel in Covington, opened just after Mardi Gras. Amy and Jeffrey Hansell, who owns the Thorny Oyster, in Mississippi, opened the Gloriette which takes the place of Oxlot 9. The restaurant glorifies local Louisiana cuisine and offers drinks at the bar, Cypress Bar which is connected to the restaurant.

The new restaurant has a “theme of garden verdure” which compliments the old oaks outside of the hotel. Hence the name the Gloriette which means a garden pavilion in French. Patrons can view these oaks through the dining room that is lined with windows. The restaurant has white tile floors with baby blue walls and lattices. Among the walls are murals of blooms and garden scenes.

A veteran of the local culinary scene, executive chef Steven Marsella has an amazing way of creating dishes from local French cuisine. Marsella is from Providence, Rhode Island where he completed culinary school and began his career “at one of the city’s most ambitious seafood restaurants.” In New Orleans, he helped open Emeril’s Restaurant and recently was the corporate chef for Creole Cuisine Restaurant Concepts.

The French-inspired menu has many dishes that the chef himself created. Dishes include pork and clams Alentejana, crab gumbo, oyster stew, steak tartare and steamed mussels with Calvados, fried oysters with brie fondue, and a crawfish tagliatelle and lank of flounder thickly encrusted with crab and torn morsels of brioche. There are also fabulous desserts at the St. Tammany restaurant. These include apple galette and strawberry trifle.

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Monica Bourgeois and Neil Gernon, a New Orleans couple, decided to purchase Pontchartrain Vineyards last November after they visited the winery’s Jazz’n the Vines events featuring Charmaine Neville. The wine spot was put up for sale last summer.

“You could see every star, it was one of the most charming things I’ve ever seen,” Bourgeois said.

The couple will plan to reopen the vineyard under the new name Wild Bush Farms & Vineyards. They love the vineyard but want to put their own stamp on it. They have painted the tasting room walls and replaced the furniture. That will add a ping pon table, frisbee golf and a movie screening area. The couple will keep the traditional Jazz’n the Vines events every spring and fall.

“It’s going to be this really cool viticulture playground out here,” she said. “There are hardly any wineries in Louisiana and I don’t know anyone that’s trying to do what we are going to attempt to do out here. We’re going to do the style of wines we would enjoy drinking from around the world: thoughtful, honest, sustainable wines and that’s what we want to focus on, building an ecosystem, producing things of nutritional value that are beautiful.”

Monica and Neil are no strangers to the wine industry. Both worked in the wine distribution and retail industry on Magazine Street in New Orleans. In fact, in 2009 the couple, along with a vineyard owner in Napa, founded Vending Machine Wines. The results were nice red blends with California grapes and Louisiana flare.  There was a Double Shotgun, a Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot blend, and a Cabernet Sauvignon called Crooked Mayor, which she said “speaks for itself.”

“We’ll have a lot of different offerings for a lot of different people,” Bourgeois said.

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Selling a home and moving are some of life’s most stressful events. It is hard to schedule a closing for your new home and current home in order to move in one and out of the other. Flyhomes, a real estate brokerage, says to consider purchasing a home before you sell the one you are currently living in. Here are a couple of reasons to purchase a home before you sell your old one.

It gives you time to find the perfect home

Getting an offer on your current home is exciting but can be stressful because that means you have to find a new home to move into before your closing date. Rushing to purchase a new home will only make you more stressed with the process. A way to take off some of the pressure is to purchase a new home before selling your current one. You will be able to take your time and purchase the perfect home. This is another way to avoid extra expenses from moving and storage and temporary housing.

It can make your offer more competitive to sellers

Many times a buyer has a home they have to sell when making an offer on a new home. It is a competitive market and a buyer has to pull out all the stops. Having a contingency to sell a home on your offer puts limits on it. If you purchase a home without selling your current one, your offer will be much stronger.

Remember using a professional sales agent is a must. If you want to take this approach, choose a Realtor who can help you through the process.

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