We here at Glam love Apartment Therapy so much we were jumping up and down when Lisa Brand, founding editor of the Apartment Therapy: San Francisco, agreed to ante up a guest post featuring 10 tricks for transforming your living space.

The San Francisco-based design writer, creative director, yoga teacher, and mommy recently left to do her own thing. Meanwhile, she reminisces her Apartment Therapy past with these superb tips. –Erika Lenkert

Lisa Brand

Ten Easy Tricks for Transforming your Living Space
by Lisa Brand

Not all of us have the proverbial room with a view, so to keep things lively on the inside, here are ten easy tricks for transforming your living space:

1. Repaint, with color: Like music, color can work some major mojo. Generally speaking, warm shades (reds, oranges) are energizing and cool shades (greens, blues) are calming. Don’t stress about whether you’ve got the exact right shade; you won’t really know how a color makes a room feel until you lived with it for a while. If you decide it isn’t right you can always paint over it. Or, limit the color to a single wall, playing it off the neutral white of the rest of the room. Some paint collections that take a bit of the guesswork away: Yolo, Martha Stewart/Lowe’s, and Devine.

from Martha Stewart and Lowes

2. Throw away as much as possible. Clutter is the undoing of many a wonderful space. Cull through your stuff and have no mercy. If you have trouble deciding what to get rid of, make a dated list of the items you’re unsure of, stash them in a closet or basement, and keep the list on your fridge as a reminder. Anything you’re not pining for after a year should be freecycled or offered up on craigslist.

3. Add wheels: Mount your furniture on wheels so that you can reconfigure a room on the fly. Casters come with a wide variety of mounts and in a wide array of styles, materials and colors. Some great sources: the House of Antique Hardware, Cool Casters.com, Mockett.com. and Closet-Masters.com.

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from CoolCasters.com

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4. Play with light: Add plug-in dimmer attachments to fixtures so that you can dial the mood down at night. Add atmosphere with a light sculpture like Adam Frank’s Lumen Tree or Bitters Co.’s Basket Lamps. And if the room has a flat-panel TV, make it work double-time by tricking it out with a screen that will turn the picture into a dancing pattern. Try TV2Art.

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Bitter Co’s Basket Lamps

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5. Organize artfully: make sense of paper, magazines, and odds and ends by organizing them in open bins that are attractive enough to keep out and at hand. Give a prized collection its due by devoting some wall or shelf space to it, and then light it well with spots. Some attractive organizers: Mio SoftBowls, Ikea’s Knuff Bins, and Umbra’s Crunch Baskets.

6. Think outside the frame: there’s nothing like large-scale art on your walls to add drama. You don’t need a month’ salary for a huge canvas: try blowing up a photo or illustration using The Rasterbator (the cheap way), or photo2canvas (the more expensive way). Or, get inspired by the amazing creations of the UK’s Surface View, and add a mural. Make it easier by using stencils (try Stencil1 or The Stencil Library), removable vinyl stickers (try Domestic Wall Vynil), or a combination.

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Surface View Stencil

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7. Slipcovers: To add color or the energizing splash of a print to upholstered furniture, use a staple gun to re-cover chair cushions. Very high quality upholstery fabric in remainder sizes for small projects can be had for a song on eBay. For larger projects, use custom slipcovers made by a local tailor or off-the-shelf Bemz (if you have Ikea upholstery). Another cheap trick: a collection of throw pillows in interesting textures and colors. A good online source: Pillows and Throws.com.

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Bemz Slip Covers

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8. Add living things. Instantly refresh a room by bringing in potted trees, easy-to-care-for succulents, and bowls and vases of fresh flowers or leaves.

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9. Make a single bold move. A room filled with many small items like pillows, knick-knacks and photo frames can create a feeling of internal mayhem. Anchor the room by creating a single focal point out of something that you love: a huge mirror, a vintage find, a large- scale piece of art (see #6), or even an accent chair upholstered in a very strong print or color. A bold gesture will focus the eye and infuse the room with warmth and new personality.

10. Lighten up the floor plan. Can you move about the room easily? Is there room for quick little dance if the mood strikes? Scale down both the amount and size of your furniture. Empty space gives us room to breathe.

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