Summer decor
WHITEWASH IT
To immediately bring in a summery feel, paint dark wood or dark walls white or
other light colors — light blue, green or yellow make a house or a room much
brighter. This doesn’t have to be entire rooms or even entire walls; look at trim,
staircases, doors and other smaller areas.
ADD HANGING PLANTS
Bring your garden inside with hanging plants in the dining and living rooms, patio
and other places. Flowers spilling out over the side of a hanging basket provides
a different kind of ceiling decoration than a fancy light and makes a room seem
brighter and more colorful.
ADD A FIRE PIT
You can build a firepit or buy a small metal pit for your backyard, which means
campfires, s’mores, hot dogs and sitting around the fire for hours, an ever-popular
summer activity, right into your space. Adding a picnic table to your backyard, if
you have room, helps to bring even more summer fun into your yard. You can find
the supplies for these easy projects at any home improvement store.
INSTALL A MIRROR
Mirrors make rooms look bigger and brighter. You can set one up on a table near a
window, giving it lots of light to reflect, surrounding it with plants and other decor.
14 | At Home • June 2018
Winter is over, spring cleaning is done
and it’s time to redecorate with lighter
colors and fabrics, flowers and fruit
and all the decorations that make your
house feel like summer inside and out.
House Beautiful offered a list of fairly
inexpensive, do-it-yourself options.
ADD COLOR
Keep fresh flowers in a vase on the table, counter or book-shelf, swap out dark
drapes for light- or bright-colored window coverings, add a couple of colorful
throw pillows to the couch and exchange your bed coverings and towels for
brighter, lighter or patterned versions. Stumped when it comes to color? Visit a
local design or paint shop and see what’s in style now.
SUMMERIZE YOUR FIREPLACE
Once it’s cleaned, you can keep candles, plants, flowers or other summer items in
your fireplace, providing decoration during a season when you won’t be building
fires.
CHANGE UP YOUR FURNITURE
Want to feel like you’re on a boat or on the beach? Change up your upholstery,
either permanently, through DIY reupholstery, or by adding new throws, pillows
and trimmings on the furniture. You can plan colors and patterns with a nautical
or tropical or forest theme, helping to bring a little of the outdoors into your
living room.