Hello! I’m Molly from The Nesting Game and I’m happy to be writing for Design OCD today. Congrats to Jae on her 150th post! Jae asked me to share my thoughts on simple changes that can make a BIG impact in your home, so I thought I’d show a couple of changes I’ve made in our home that I absolutely love!
1. Window treatments. Not every window is created equal. For example, our family room looks out over the woods, without another house in sight. So, when it came time to choose window treatments for this room, the curtains I bought actually were a total bust! They made a dark room darker and they weren’t needed for privacy. So the big impact here actually took no work at all! Gotta love that.
But in our dining room, we needed a dramatic statement. The room is fairly small, and the pink curtains create a great focal point. We hung them high and wide. In fact, the pink curtains barely cover any of the window at all.
2. Dark Paint. Choosing a dark color can be intimidating, but I’ve found that I much prefer colors in their extremes, either very light or very dark. Our guest room is a deep navy (Hale Navy by Benjamin Moore) and we painted a dark chocolate accent wall (Behr’s Bittersweet) in our bedroom so that our white antique plates will stand out. Try it and you’ll be amazed at what a difference it makes. I find white accents are the best to pop off the dark color.
3. Custom Pieces. Break out the paint brush and turn a thrift store find or family cast-off into a piece you’re proud of! It never fails that people always comment on the pieces that I’ve painted or re-done in some way. It’s as if your time, effort and love radiate through! You’ll get a unique piece at a low price and have the pride of knowing you did it yourself! I was never a very crafty or artistic kid, so it’s been especially satisfying to unleash my creativity through furniture! For example, I repainted a pair of campaign nightstands I found at a flea market. And my husband and I extended our existing kitchen island by adding a large butcher block top and legs.
I hope you found a little inspiration through some of these ideas! Thanks again for having me, Jae. Congrats on such a milestone!
-Molly
Thanks so much Molly, your big impacts are beautiful. I especially love the dark walls with pops of white!
-J
images 1) wikipedia 2-6) the Nesting Game