I think that every home should have a little bit of red in it. Whether you want red in a bedroom to make it sexy or red in a kids’ room to make it bright, the color just brings a kind of life into the house that you don’t get with the other colors that you might use to decorate your space.

I’ve had red in different homes of mine and used it in different ways. One of my dining rooms was a rich maroon color which served as a great backdrop for different art and photos and was terrific as a gathering space for friends and family. One of my kids’ room was a bright red and blue in honor of the AZ Wildcats basketball team which my foster son adored.

My red today is a bit subtler. I have red velvet curtains that hang on the French doors separating my bedroom from my living room and a super plush red blanket that I adore. The rest of my house is other colors – yellows and oranges mostly in one room and a pink/black/white/grey theme in another.

How do you use red in decor in your space?

Tags: color, decor, decorating, houzz, Interior Design, red

One of the things that I really think is important in life is to find those little things that make your every day a bit more special and to indulge in them. One of those little things for me is having fresh flowers in my home. Yes, there are good reasons to get house plants instead. Yes fresh flowers could be seen as a waste of money. However, I enjoy the whole experience of going out to find the right flowers for the week, arranging them in empty wine bottles and setting them up throughout my house. I also enjoy seeing and smelling them whenever I enter certain rooms. To me, this experience is worth the cost.

Of course, not everyone wants fresh flowers in their home. Some people would rather decorate with flowers in other ways through putting up floral wall paper or having flowery furniture. And for other people, flowers just don’t do anything at all. I’m not saying that having flowers in your home is the way to enjoy life. What I’m saying is that you should ask yourself what your equivalent is of the every day joy that flowers are for me and you should aim to bring that into your life on a regular basis. In the end, it is these little things that brighten our days that add up to a life worth living.

Tags: creativity, decor, floral, flowers, fresh flowers, home, Interior Design, life

I don’t have a good mirror in my home. I have one standard bathroom mirror that was here when I moved in and I have one cheap full-length mirror that hangs on the bathroom door so that I don’t leave my house without getting a glimpse of how I look. However, I think that mirrors can be really great pieces of a home’s design as well as great tools for assessing your own look so I’d certainly like to have a better mirror.

Some of the things that I’m taking into consideration before choosing a mirror include:

• Where the mirror will go. I can’t make too many other choices about the mirror until I know how much room I’m working with.
• The shape of the mirror. I’d like to get one with a unique shape instead of one that’s just rectangular.
• The size of the mirror. It needs to be at least full-length but should it be even bigger?
• The color and design of the mirror. I want to get a mirror that has some unique artsy look to it whether that’s through the color or through some sort of ornate framing.
• The quality of the mirror. The ones that I have now are poor in quality so my reflection isn’t really accurate and I want a good one to replace them.
• The cost. After all, I don’t want to spend a fortune on the mirror.

What else should I be thinking about when choosing a mirror?

Tags: home design, houzz, how to choose a mirror, Interior Design, kathryn vercillo, mirror, mirrors

A topic that I’ve only recently started to read about in the last year or so is the topic of home decor. I always just kind of did whatever I wanted to do in my home without much thought to what people do for home design. I still kind of follow my own tastes in my personal space but I’ve also started to get interested in reading about what techniques there are for various types of interior design. I’ve become a big fan of interior design blogs and magazines.

One of the things that I’ve been reading more about lately is how to choose and use tile in a home. There are so many different choices here! The size of the tile that you choose, the colors that you pick, the way that you lay the tile out in a pattern and the rooms where you choose to put tile are all factors that can significantly alter the impact that a tile design choice has on the home’s overall feel and appearance. I don’t even have much tile in my place and I still find this really fascinating.

I’m particularly interested in learning about mosaic tile designs that are used in homes. I think that there are a lot of cool pictures and murals that can be made using tile if you are willing to get creative with what you’re doing. I haven’t learned a lot about this yet but it’s the next thing that I’m planning to research as far as tile work in the home goes.

Tags: home decor, house, houzz, Interior Design, kathryn vercillo, tile, tile work

A friend was over at my place recently, seeing it for the first time. We were seated in my living room, having a conversation about whatever, when he suddenly realized that there was a fireplace hidden behind my couch. It’s a horrible design choice and one that happened only because of the strange layout of my apartment.

You see, I live in one of those weird San Francisco apartments that used to be a house and then got chopped up into smaller bits. I have great large rooms that are made even larger by French doors that connect the living room the bedroom. I love being able to open up the doors between the two rooms during the day so I can flow through the house.

However, this limits the places I can put a couch in my living room. This is further limited by the strange shape of the room which has a circular section where the Bay windows are. Ultimately, the only thing that made sense was to put a couch in front of the fireplace, blocking it off. The fireplace doesn’t work anyway so it doesn’t really bother me.

Nevertheless, I know this is a design faux pas and eventually I intend to rearrange things in there. I’ve been thinking about all of the ways there are to design around a fireplace to make it cozier and I’ve started to come up with some ideas for that room. It’ll get there eventually.

Tags: cozy home, design, fireplace, houzz, Interior Design