How to make your guest feel right at home making your home not only a pretty one but a gracious one. There is so many times that we end up with guest over the holidays, summer breaks or even a surprise visits that having a pretty simple list of essential will make it easy for you to have a welcoming home that makes your guest feel right at home every time.

From my experience as a designer and home owner who has many friends, and family visiting, I have found that these tips have always work for me, not only makes it a comfortable stay for my guest but it makes it easy for me to entertain without worrying that my guest have everything they need. I am sure if you follow these steps prior to having visitors, you will have many visitors wanting to come back for a visit.

1- Stock guest rooms with good reads. Small essentials make a big impression, such as a light for reading, bottle water with a glass, an alarm clock and a box of tissues.

2- Everyone looks and feels better in low lighting, consider installing dimmers on fixtures and overhead lighting.

3- Give visitors an obvious spot to stow coats and bags.

4- Arrange furniture for conversation, this encourages people to talk.

5- Anticipate the need to set down drinks by placing small side tables around seating.

6- Extra blankets ensure a good night sleep, place a warm throw or two at the end of each bed to prevent guest from having to search or worse ask you!

7- Everyone loves fresh flowers and they add a cheery touch to bedside tables.

8- Provide a handy surface for toiletries or better yet have a drawer in the guest room with small toiletries that your guest could use.

9- A gracious guest room includes a place for suitcase, such as a bench where folks can also sit when removing shoes.

10- The key to a casual cocktail party? Drink stations. Invite friends to be their own bartender by setting out a tray in different rooms and stocking each one with glasses, liquors, mixers and snacks.

11- I have a few air mattresses that could be blow up for last minute sleepovers.

12- Stock all the bathrooms with plenty of towels, toilet paper and soaps.

13- I always ask all my guests to strip their beds before they leave and get clean linens that they could put in the bed before they leave and we are ready for the arrival of any new guest. Guest are happy to comply since you have made their stay so comfortable.

14- Always offer bottles water and a few snacks that they could take in their drive back home.

I want it to be inviting and comfortable, but I also want it to have an exciting edge and be infused with color. I learned not to fear color but to embrace it. Some people think it is sophisticated to banish color. It is not.

It is important to see how they live, to know their likes and dislikes, because that tells you more about them.We create an environment that is uniquely appropriate for the client. My company is not short of ideas and all of our projects are custom- tailored to our clients.

Clients today want something looser, more comfortable, not so tight. The ability to instantly email photographs from buying trips is one of the main changes in technology. All small details of any project helps make the space feel really special.

Initial meetings are spent defining their dislikes, whether their thought processes are technical or artistic, how they interact with family and friends and the possessions (music, books, art) that surround them. An understanding and integration of all these factors into a design determine its success.”

Life is complicated and we want our clients to come home to something fresh and crisp and clean but at the same time, lots of little touches add warm feel to the place.

Home is where life HAPPENS.

The secret to creating a dream home is all about having the confidence to express your personal style. Homes should reflect the story of your life, not just your sense of style, not that there’s anything wrong with that! But our goal has always been to help you get a home you love to share with family and friends, and to make it easier for you to relax and enjoy life.

Here’s to a happy and healthy 2011!

We loved the time spent with family in Brussels and all the fabulous chocolate we got to taste. Brugge was impressive with buildings dating back to the 1600’s, as if you step back in time to the renaissance era. Amsterdam was a city full of life, with beautiful water canals, amazing architecture, and diverse cultures. We liked the idea that the main source of transportation are bicycles and most people simply walk or ride their bikes for their everyday activities.

Tasting the wines and touring the wineries in the Mosel River was so much fun. That region borders Luxembourg, Germany, and France along the river with small quaint towns with beautiful scenery. We got to sample some of their local foods and wine and had fabulous typical dinners in both Luxembourg and Germany.

Spending a night and two days with my husband in Paris alone was one of the highlights. We have both been to Paris prior to meeting each other, but experiencing it together was great. We got to walked, shop, and just simply sat at outdoor cafés, while we sip on wine and people watch.

During our European quest and exploration we had so many favorite times and if I had to summarize my two weeks travel in Europe one thing that resins in my mind is the European lifestyle, were they believe that you must cherish your family time, dinners must be savor, and holiday travel are essentials .

As a designer is a inspiration paradise as a individual looking for life balance is a great example.

Since design tendencies generally reflect our social and economic mindsets, some key factors influence the current trends for 2010, and they include: an interest in ‘going green,’ global connectivity, and our economic climate. Our environmental focus, preserving the past, a return to family and casual comfort all converge to create an eclectic and inspiring design scheme for 2010-2011.

One of the most obvious ways we see this theme playing out is in the global influence of the color palettes across the world­­—mixing earth tones of browns, grays, and greens, with vibrant uplifting global accents of pinks, blues, oranges, yellows and purples.

This year’s overall trend is about mixing it up and an “anything goes” attitude. In addition to mixing bold accents with neutrals, by mixing and matching colors, styles and textures, you create a more unique design that better reflects your personality. In our quest for simplicity, we strip down the traditional, replacing formal fabrics with casual, less complex, textured fabrics; and use distressed wood finishes to reflect a feeling of the past. The “less is more” approach creates the simplicity we seek out, without losing the glamour.

This year, we will be looking for bolder design decisions, in the form of bolder prints—geometric, botanical and paisley, effectively used in pillows, curtains and rugs, but which also work nicely with traditional pieces. Additionally, there is a strong interest in artisanal works, whether one-of-a-kind, handcrafted, or handmade pieces, rather than the all too homogenous looks of the past. The yearning is for more warmth and comfort and more natural materials to be brought into the home.

Layered flooring and wallpapered are among some of the design trends that resurfaced recently, and intended to make your room feel cozier and more intimate. By overlapping several lightweight rugs with similar patterns and complimentary colors—several of the same rugs layered for uniformity, a bold print over an existing carpet, or a blend of similar prints and colors with varied placement, they add richness and warmth to a room. Wallpaper adds visual interest as well, you will find the traditional designs patterns updated in modern color combinations.

As our strong eco-awareness continues into 2010–2011, we seek out natural materials, and organic and environmentally friendly products for the home, such as non-toxic paints and natural fabrics—and with this trend, comes the natural imperfections of these materials, whether in the patina of woods and metals, or rust, water marks and natural distressing. This wear and tear on these pieces adds tremendous character, as well as tells a story.

With all the focus on natural materials, you can bet that texture will be big, with lots of unusual techniques, woven, crocheted, inlaid and recycled materials to create rich textural interest. You will see these techniques incorporated into furniture, accessories, curtains, rugs, fabric and even lantern lighting, another big trend this year.

Found objects, vintage pieces, and antiques are key elements for the home this year. As our fascination with industrial modernism grows, it allows us to reinterpret a seemingly unuseful historical piece and give it a new twist.

All in all, this year is about embracing the mix of key elements. It’s about diversity, contrast, color and texture, and how when combined, make you feel good and bring you a whole lot of comfort.

By hiring a professional designer, you will get their seasoned advice and guidance as well as access to all of their resources that would otherwise be unavailable to most consumers. A designer’s ability and knowledge will prevent costly mistakes and provide solutions to the challenges that often present themselves in every project no matter how big or small.

Some Pros of Hiring a Design Consultant:

• Will help you see the ‘big picture’ and suggest ideas that you may not have thought of, in other words, bring a different dimension to the design.
• Has relationships with professional craftspeople and vendors to refer to you (painters, cabinetry makers, fabric workrooms).
• Would properly schedule and mange the job, so you don’t have to.
• Uses an analytical problem-solving approach to the project that identifies your needs both aesthetically and functionally.
• Experience designer know who to contact to execute the job; they have the leverage to get things done on time and within budget.
• Many times couples have different taste and style. A designer will act as the liaison to work though the challenge by offering design solutions that will please both.

Things to Watch Out Before Hiring a Designer:

• Is the designer a experience professional with a website that showcase their work.
• From the beginning is the designer too busy and isn’t giving your project the level of attention you need her/him to.
• Fails to prepare and present a detailed letter of agreement to you and doesn’t understand the scope of the project.
• The chemistry between you and the designer is just not working well.
• Is the designer pushing you into a style that does not feel right for you.
• Is not flexible and is not willing to work with some of the preferences you would like for the design.

Color’s power to shape the way we feel about a room is almost magical. Consciously or unconsciously, very often it’s the first thing we notice. Going on step further and using decorative finish adds a whole new dimension. A dry brush can produce a look of raw silk, faux finishes can simulate everything from marble to fine woods and something as simple as an over scaled stencil design to a series of stripes in contrasting colors can fool the eye and create interest.

But of course, faux and decorative have their practical aspects as well. An elaborate color grid distracts the eye, a mottled glazed might camouflage a damage surface and wood graining give inexpensive material a look of something far more precious. But at heart decorative painting is not all about solving problems but about the simple pleasure of creating something beautiful by hand.

Color has the power to add character to a dull space, soften a harsh one, makes a room feel warm or cold intimate expansive. Is by far the most economical way to transform a room. Any successful decorative finish begins with good colors. “Good Color” is highly subjective, but we’ve provided some guidelines to help you arrive at some of your favorites. Then we have gather the best colors that inspired us and have been successful applications on some projects and the most popular from our clients.

In the step by steps, we give instructions tips and specific colors for techniques that are building blocks-used separately or in combination, they will enable you to create a huge array of looks. But, in the end, decorative painting is as much as craft and best mastered by hands on practice. How much color you mix in the glaze or how you apply it to the wall varies from painter to painter and the results vary correspondingly. Sometimes the mistakes turn out to be happy ones. Ultimately, the best approach is to pick up a brush, experiment and discover the power of color and decorative painting for yourself.