We are certainly guilty of posting photos of spacious, sprawling kitchens. For a lot of homeowners — especially those who live in older homes — that’s just not reality. But that doesn’t mean you can’t make your kitchen feel bigger.

We stumbled upon some greats tips from Lisa Frederick on Houzz that help create the illusion of a bigger kitchen. And here’s the good news: You won’t need a sledgehammer! Here’s a few ideas we highly recommend:

Replace solid cabinet doors with glass ones. Frederick nails it: “Glass fronts lighten the look of cabinetry and allow the eye to travel through to the back, which helps the kitchen seem more expansive.” But this doesn’t mean you should cram your cabinets full, Frederick warns. “Don’t clutter the interiors with bric-a-brac — you’ll defeat the purpose.”

Choose furnishings with a small footprint. Two common casualties lost to a small kitchen — counter space and room for seating. But that doesn’t have to be so, Frederick writes. “Select petite islands, slim chairs, streamlined stools and narrow tables that don’t eat up valuable floor space.”

Recess storage. This is easily the biggest space saver and it can create some major functionality to your kitchen. Frederick writes, “Tuck a pantry, shelving or cabinets flush with the wall to keep from obstructing the kitchen’s flow.”

To see more great tips for making a small kitchen seem larger, check out Frederick’s article on Houzz. We highly recommend it!

Check your local movie listings and you would have a hard time finding a ticket for less than $10. Over the past few years, movie night has become absurdly expensive.

At the same time, media rooms are becoming more popular as home-theater systems have not only improved in quality but become easier to plan a room around. (Remember those bulky big-screen TVs from the late 1990s? Oy vey.)

Whether you’re finishing a basement or you’ve included a media room in your new home, planning includes more than a visit to your nearest home electronics retail store. Here’s a list of tips from Houzz to create the perfect media room for your home:

• Include storage and shelves for all of your favorite books and movies
• Have fun with the paint scheme. Go with a mural like a star-speckled sky or dark, rich colors to accommodate dim lighting
• Prioritize comfort when choosing furniture
• Create theater-like acoustics by using sound paneling or wall upholstery
• Include a bar or kitchenette to serve as your at-home concessions stand

Do you have a media room in your home? What’s your favorite feature?

[Photo from Deep River Partners]

In the March 2012 issue of Architectural Digest, actress Brooke Shields admits she’s a sucker for older homes. (Who isn’t?) Of her and husband Chris Henchy’s relentless real estate search throughout Manhattan, the actress said, “Our shared ideal was the sort of confident old house that has been lived in for generations.”

Eventually, they found it in the form of a four-bedroom brick townhouse built in 1910 and located in posh Greenwich Village. A self-proclaimed “real-estate romantic,” Shields teamed with decorator David Flint Wood to outfit the home with many classical elements blended with modern sensibilities.

Dark woods and monochromatic paint schemes are contrasted by white baseboard and crown molding. Elegant fireplaces are located in the living room as well as the kitchen, which also includes a custom dining table just feet from the stove top — a perfect arrangement for any foodie.

You can see more of Shields’ gorgeous townhouse here.

Mill around on Pinterest long enough or flip through the latest issue of Elle Decor and eventually you will find a brilliant home library complete with dark-stained shelves holding hundreds of tattered hardcovers, along with a cozy leather chair and an antique floor lamp. Sounds nice, doesn’t it?

HomeDesignFind.com asks, “Is the home library dead?” It’s a good question. Fact is, while most of us would love a home library, they have typically been reserved for the very wealthy whose sprawling homes could allow such a limited-use room. Cost aside, other factors threaten the future of home libraries, as well.

• The rising popularity of e-readers means fewer books to take up physical space and storage. (A blessing and a curse.)
• Modern design favors open floor plans and multifunctional rooms. (No one ever accused a home library of being versatile.)

The HomeDesignsFind.com article (linked above) shares some helpful tips for integrating the more practical elements of a library throughout your home. The gist:

• Find a quiet, out-of-the-way corner of your home and dedicate it to reading. Make sure your seating is comfortable and the lighting is right.
• You can’t go wrong with adding bookcases, whether in your office, bedroom or living room. And even if you’ve quit buying books since you purchased an e-reader, several websites actually sell “faux books” to fill your shelves. (We’ll keep it a secret!)

[Photo from HomeDesignFind.com]

Are you looking for a multi-person seating alternative to the couch? Have a dream of “swimming” in cushions? Do you really love birds? Then this seating option might be for you!

The Giant Birdsnest by O*GE is “a prototype for new and inspiring socializing space, which can be seen as a morph of furniture and playground.” It looks like it could be used as an unusual sleeping space in addition to seating. Think of the great conversations you could have while in this nest!

Would you ever put something like this in your family room?

Image courtesy of O*GE

We recently attended the annual Minneapolis Home & Garden Show and came away impressed by a number of fine craft artists in the Twin Cities area who produce interior goods.

Deirdre Hjelle creates mosaic art that can be used on any vertical or horizontal surface (see example above). She works with a technique called “opus sectile,” or “cut work,” seen in the image atop this post. Each piece is cut by hand from a stone slab — most commonly granite, marble, travertine or slate — and then fitted together like a puzzle. She puts a backing on groups of pieces so that larger installations can go together in just a few slabs.

The cabinets shown in the photo at right were built by Dan Jaskowick, who has an impressive portfolio of kitchen, bath, media and fireplace cabinetry. Jaskowick has been in business for 30 years and offers a lifetime warranty on his work.

Finally, a company that we like for its innovation, quality and heritage of family ownership: Cambria USA. Cambria uses engineered stone made from 93 percent pure quartz with 7 percent resin and binder. Shown in the photo below, it’s non-porous, stronger than granite and requires no sealant. We’ve seen some amazing things created with Cambria.

How about you? Been to any home shows this year? Got any products to share?

While we all yearn to own the perfect home, is it possible we’re overlooking the perfect spaces that already exist? It might be a quiet breakfast nook, a tucked away computer desk or even a comfortable reading chair with just the right light for reading. Whatever the case, those perfect spaces are worth celebrating.

If your home is without one of these perfect spaces, it’s time you created one.

Samantha Shoech over at Houzz has photo inspiration for creating standout spaces in your home. They can be as simple as a wall organizer or as complex as a reading den (like in the photo above).

If your home already has one of these spaces, what is it, where is it located and what does it mean to you?

[Photo from Susan Jay Design]

A Whole Different Animal
Houzz
Your home  doesn’t have to be country or rustic to incorporate animal inspirations. (You don’t need to shop for a leopard-print rug, either.) See how some homeowners have added character to their home by bringing barn animals indoors.

Green & Affordable Prefab Home Debuts in Palm Springs
Dwell
Imagine living in a brand new, stylish, LEED Platinum-certified home in Palm Springs for a cool $180,000. Imagine no more. The LivingHomes C6 might be a prefab, but your jaw will drop when you see this slideshow. Vacation home, anyone?

Piles and Piles of Tile
Centsational Girl
CG is in pursuit of the perfect tile backsplash as she takes on an ambitious hallway bathroom remodel. Turns out selecting the perfect tile isn’t for the faint of heart.

Tour the Art-Filled, Luxuriously Appointed Gramercy Park Hotel
Casa Sugar
Need a little color inspiration? The Gramercy Park Hotel in New York City employs a bold Raphael-inspired color palette that fearlessly blends colors from the across the spectrum. (The photo at the top of this post is from the on-site Jar Bar.)

Today, we have two very cool DIY fiber arts ideas, both via Curbly. If you want to add some personalized flair to your home, consider these!

First up is this duvet cover featuring doodles. It’s a bit labor intensive, but the end result is very cool. You’ll need whatever drawings you’ve doodled. After photographing the drawings, the creator of this duvet cover traced them on to fabric. You’d probably want to buy a solid-colored duvet for this. Lots of work, but you end up with a duvet cover that no one else in the world has.

The second DIY idea is also a great way to reuse old clothing. Using old pairs of jeans, cut into whatever pattern you like, you can make some fun wall art. Just sew on to a fabric back and voila! Jeans and art on your wall.

What do you think of these ideas? What’s the coolest DIY fiber arts project you’ve ever done?

Here’s a new thing that can be recycled and re-purposed: stuffed animals! Tree Hugger tells the story of an artist, Augustina Woodgate, and her rugs made out of the “skins” of stuffed animals.

To make the rugs, she removes the animals’ heads and the stuffing from the bodies and uses the skins, together with other stuffed animals’ skins, to create a rug that looks almost like no other rug you’ve seen before. Its trippy look could work well in a family or living room (we’re picturing it in a mid-century home) or even a child’s room.

What do you think? Weirdest rug material ever or ingenious use of old materials to create usable art?

Photos courtesy of Tree Hugger.