We just love reading Re-nest for their great home ideas, and they recently published two fun ones. We wanted to share these with you, since they are great re-use ideas for things that might otherwise be thrown away. And what can be more green than saving old objects from the trash by making them into something useful?

The first idea is a laptop stand, perfect for resting on your legs when you’re using your laptop and want to boost it up a little. All you need is a shoebox, a ruler, a box cutter and tape. It’s simple and ridiculously cheap. Check out the post which gives images in more detail.

Re-nest also featured a cool table idea: using an old ironing board for a side table. It’s perfect to use in place of a console table, and can be squeezed into narrow spaces. Just grab some paint and make it over!

What other household objects have you re-purposed? Let us know in the comments!

Images courtesy of re-nest

One of the most fun things about redecorating is studying all the latest trends. When it comes to execution, go lightly, though: Go too far and it starts to look like a newbie designer did your living room.

MSN Lifestyle recently listed some trends they think have gone too far. They include:

• Antlers and taxidermy
• Inspirational sayings
• Buddha sculptures
• Ghost chairs
• Poufs
• Accent walls
• Boutique hotel chic
• Black chalkboard paint

Does your home have any of these “passé” trends? We say that, in and of themselves, none of these are wrong. If you like it, go for it! It’s your home and your space. You should like what you look at. But one (or maybe two) at a time, please.

Consider context, too. Antlers and taxidermy will seem more in place in a rustic hunting lodge then they might in a suburban home. Chalkboard paint can work well in children’s bedrooms and on kitchen doors (somewhere to write the grocery list!), but is probably out of place in the dining room. And as the article notes, Buddha statues are religious pieces, not eclectic home decor.

Tell us in the comments if you or disagree with these and what decorating trends you choose to skip.

Photo courtesy of jawcey on Flickr

Whether you’re looking for fashion or function, area rugs can do wonders for a room when used effectively. Here are some simple tips about doing just that.

If you want an area rug to serve as a stylish focal point in a room — adding a pattern, texture or color — make sure it’s up to the job. Go bold. That is, after all, the point. This can work well in an otherwise understated room, perhaps with white or otherwise mellow-colored walls and the like.

Choosing a rug to fit within a finished room is fairly straightforward: Choose a rug with colors and a style that matches the room. An oriental rug, for example, might not look appropriate in your sleek, modern living room. but think about going the other way — using a new rug to dictate the style and coloring of a room you’re looking to refresh. Find a rug with a set of colors and a style that really gets your attention, and pick out of it colors for your walls, your furniture, your accents like throw pillows and so on.

An area rug can also serve specific functional purposes, as well. Rugs can help hold together a space within a larger room, serving as a centerpiece among a set of seating and a coffee table, for example. Pay attention to the size of the rug. If you’re trying to define a particular space within a room, you probably want the rug to be completely surrounded by your furniture — not tucked under couches, for example — or to have your furniture completely within the bounds of a large rug. Something in the middle — with an area rug tucked partially under some furniture — can look awkward.

Of course, an area rug can also be used for the simple purpose of protecting the flooring underneath, saving wood from scratches, tile from chips or installed carpet from wear and stains. Still, don’t skimp on style.

Be sure to check out eHow.com and This Old House for more tips on choosing rugs for your home.

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Don’t get caught in the trap of thinking bold colors and strong contrasts are the only way your interior decor can look sophisticated or make a statement. That’s the lesson learned after reading a post by the Centsational Girl in which she shares the detail of her recent dining room makeover.

She explains:

My dining space has always been tricky to decorate because it stands in the middle of a major freeway between the garage, family room, and kitchen.  We don’t have a formal dining room – there is simply no need for our laid back family of five to have anything other than a casual dining space for evening meals.  We nibble in the kitchen most of the time, don’t you?

However, I do like the idea of our dining space being dolled up for holidays or special guests.  After all, it has a beautiful set of French doors and a view that leads to the rear yard.  So a few weeks ago I decided to upgrade by adding some new window panels and a bench for additional seating.  I’m returning to the peaceful calm of white because I find it so fresh and uplifting.  Also, cream and white are such a nice contrast to rich dark wood, so I kept a purposeful neutral palette in our dining space.

She’s not the only one signing the praises of neutral settings. A quick search of the photo-sharing site Flickr turns up neutral-color design inspiration ranging from soft and simple to sleek and modern to unique and stylish. Interior-decorating blogger Teri Larsen writes:

Varying tones of gray and white will be the hot neutrals during the coming year. These grays vary from warm putty to cool steel gray. However, gray is not used alone; instead it is paired with warm, buttery yellow or deep taupe to add spark to the palette.

Speaking of gray, this writer, though speaking more about Web design than interior design, opines on the versatility and usefulness of the neutral hue’s varying shades. And DoItYourself.com has some tips on choosing a neutral color scheme for your home.

Whether you stay true to a purely neutral theme or use neutrals as a foundation for making accent colors truly pop, it’s certainly true that well-applied neutral colors are far from bland.

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Underground House in Seoul
Dwell
“Architect Byoung Soo Cho’s Earth House is quite possibly one of the classiest dugouts ever built. Set amid peaceful woods and rice fields an hour east of Seoul, Korea, the subterranean structure consists of six tiny unadorned rooms (kitchen, library, two bedrooms, and a bathroom) and a 23-by-23-foot courtyard. Cho describes the house, dedicated to Korean poet Dong-joo Yoon, as a place for self-reflection…”

“Wine Infusion” Hardwood Flooring from Reclaimed Barrels
Luxury Housing Trends
“If you’re a wine enthusiast, why stop at drinking the stuff? You can remodel your home to enjoy hardwood floors made from reclaimed barrels and tanks.” Rich texture and tones, great rustic style from these slabs of repurposed wood.

5 Easy Ways to Go Green this Spring
Curbly
“This spring, forget DIY. It’s time to GIY!! Green building guru John D. Wagner shares with us 5 easy ways to Green It Yourself when faced with this season’s remodeling projects. Here’s the lineup…”

25 Kitchen & Bath Posts You Might Have Missed
Re-Nest
“We’re at the end of March, and that means the end of Kitchen & Bath month. But we’ve had a good run, and featured a ton of great product roundups, tips, and tricks — from the best Energy Star dishwashers to sustainable kitchen flooring, from our favorite bathroom colors to DIY toilet tank hacks and the best bathroom plants. Scroll through the list to see if you missed anything!”

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We write a lot about plants and gardening here at MLuxe, mostly thanks to the great contributions from regular guest writer P. Allen Smith. This morning, a piece from Elle Decor about hip houseplants caught our eye — and inspired us to pull together this collection of basic ways houseplants can jazz up a room or space easily.

Even the simplest plants can add a touch of liveliness, energy and style to a room:

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When chosen carefully, and put in the right sort of pot, plants can complement the design of the room:

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And of course, some nice flowers will add color — complementary, contrasting, subtle, bold…whatever the room needs — and fragrance:

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Sometimes a simple plant can let a stylish pot bring the style:

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If you want something that looks neat but is easy to maintain, try a jade:

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To really push things into the realm of funky and interesting, bring in a cactus — believe it or not, your friends will actually hae trouble keeping their curious hands off!

[photo "Cactus on a dark surface" courtesy of Robert Nunnally via Flickr]

Home and interior design inspiration comes from many sources. An oft-repeated piece of advice is to keep some sort of a file with inspiring images–pages ripped from magazines or photos you took of a house in a nearby neighborhood that speaks to you. Inspiration comes from many places though. And if you are a movie buff, why not mine those depths for your perfect home look?

Design*Sponge has an amazing recurring feature called “Living In” where they do just that. They take a film and based on scenes and the overall “feel” they come up with home objects (and the occasional clothing) that evoke the movie. Whether it’s the sunny Greek isle of Mamma Mia!, the New York of Annie Hall or even the fantastical Labyrinth, you’ll be amazed at how you can style your home to evoke your favorite movie.

Check it out and make sure to think about how your favorite films can influence your home design and inspiration. Don’t forget the popcorn!

Image courtesy of Vlastula on Flickr.

Many people interested in interior design and home decor are familiar with the cool, modern style depicted in the photos you find in the likes of Dwell magazine. They often show off gorgeous, stunning examples of home design, but they don’t often reflect the reality of a kid-filled household.

The DIY Maven at Curbly explains the opposite problem: a home taken over by kids.

Is kid stuff taking over your place? Do you feel as if you’re living in the middle of a Toys R’ Us? Does it look as if your decorator is a seven foot tall yellow bird? If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, you might want to check out these very inspiring interiors from Design is Mine. They’re proof that you CAN keep your stylish sensibilities while living the kid-centric life.

Neither extreme — a potential kid-unfriendly ultramodern home or a messy kid-overrun home — is desirable. These tips might help you balance your desire to make your home (or at least the kid-oriented parts of it) fun, safe and stylish for your children.

For starters, consider this article on basic principles for kid-friendly design from Home re-Design Kaleidoscope, including this interesting observation:

Furniture for young children should be interesting for them. Their furniture should be safe, stable and relatively light to provide the opportunity for kids to perform various manipulations and transformations. For example, chairs can be transformed into cars and a bed can become a boat, etc. Easily transformed furniture helps develop kids’ imagination.  Kids like to dream of space voyages and adventurous driving trips.

The article also suggests leaving an “open corner” in a child’s room to allow plenty of comfortable, uncrowded space for playing with toys and giving school-age children a quiet space to read and do their homework.

Beyond the function of a space, designing for kids opens up a whole new world in terms of style. Consider a child’s room an opportunity to play with bright and bold colors you might not try elsewhere in your home. You could even add some home-grown design elements — perhaps something like the cardboard playhouse shown in the photo above. And the photo below reminds us that there’s no need to sacrifice true style in the interest of creating a perfect kid’s room.

As a parting note, we’ll leave you with the sentiment of designer Debbie Wiener, who advocates “enduring design” that will hold up to just about anything your kids might throw at it:

A glass door links the kitchen to the family room, which is turned out in a similar ready-to-rumble fashion. “We wanted a kid-friendly room with space to play and furniture and carpeting that’s basically indestructible,” Amy Mauser says. As with many of her projects, Wiener opted for a stain-resistant nylon rug and — her object of obsession — Crypton, an antimicrobial, stain-repellent fabric originally engineered for the health-care industry. “With over 20,000 [choices], ranging from velvet and chenille to damasks and Ultrasuedes, why would I source anything else when budget is a factor?” she asks.

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I have been building and renovating homes for more than 20 years, and the comment I get a lot is how people are so surprised by how expensive remodeling can be. While this is true, the real spending comes after we builders leave and the decorating starts. The furniture, artwork, lamps and the piece de resistance: window treatments.

I would come back to a home that we had built and see these beautiful window treatments with custom valances, and layered shades that cost thousands of dollars. What always irked me was that we spent all the time building or renovating the home and the guy who put up the window treatments got all the glory. Well, that has changed over the last few years. Nice looking window treatments are now available to the do-it-yourselfer and at truly affordable prices.

Now, of course, the sky is the limit as to what you can do, so I narrowed it down to four of the most popular choices, which you can customize them any way you desire. You should consider three things when selecting window treatments:

1. Style: What’s the room’s general décor? Contemporary, traditional or something else?
2. Color and design: Will it blend with the room or become a focus?
3. Function: What kind of light control are you looking for? Do you have safety concerns or want more energy efficiency?

Here is what’s hot these days in window treatments:

Cellular shades. These are one of the most versatile treatments around. They come in a variety of colors, fabrics and cell sizes. These two-sided shades offer great accents to your rooms, or you can match the fabric to the room color to really get that custom look. These shades are also available in cordless setups, which are easy to operate and are a safe alternative in homes with children and pets.

Mini blinds. They continue to be a great choice but more interesting options have been available for quite some time. Larger slat wood blinds were the rage a few years ago but some issue occurred with the wood being exposed to all the sunlight and sometimes warping would occur. So faux wood blinds came along and look great and stay true under almost any condition. They can also be used in moist application like bathrooms.

Woven wood shades. Look in just about any home magazine and chances are you’ll see these window treatments being featured. A rise in popularity has occurred recently that accents textures both in the material and the light that is shown through. Many of these window treatments are actually made from real bamboo reeds and can come in a variety of patterns and colors.

Plantation shutters. This treatment definitely will be a focal point in your rooms. These custom fit units when sized correctly will be an extension of your trim-work and will change the look of your room. These by far are the most expensive window treatment and also expect a lead time of at least five weeks, but boy does it look sharp!

All of these do-it-yourself window treatments have one thing in common: You are the one doing the measuring. This is important because the size you give to whatever company you choose to do business with will be the size they send you. Here’s an overview of some key terms that will come up when measuring a window for new treatments:

Inside mounting: emphasizes the actual size of the window and allows the trim work to be visible; can make the size of the window seem smaller

Outside mounting: lengthens and widens windows and makes narrow windows look wider; might be necessary if buying a stock item that will not fit within the inside measurement or if the window is not deep enough to contain the mounting brackets

Here are some other items you will need to do it yourself and get it right:

• A good tape measure that will stay straight to give you exact measurements
• An electronic stud finder to locate framing behind the drywall or plaster to ensure a strong hold
• A level to make sure what you are installing is level to the rest of the house; laser levels do a great job if you are hanging multiple window treatments in one room, helping to keep them all consistent
• Quality hollow-wall anchors if finding the stud is not available; this is key because there is a lot of junk out there that claims it can do the job

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Window replacement is a subject near and dear to MLuxe. There’s so much to love about new windows: They look great, perform better and are more energy efficient.

The old windows get recycled or discarded, but what if you have a creative side?

Calfinder gives some fun tips on what you can do with your old windows. Remember that not all windows will work for these creative uses. You might wish to consult with your building professional.

Windows among the flowers: Use old windows in the garden as a flowerbed divider or as a background for a window planter.

Windows as furniture: Need a new headboard? Your old window might just do the trick!

If you have a green thumb, you could use your old windows to start a small greenhouse, where light is essential for growing.

Visit Calfinder for more ideas about how to put old windows to good use.

Images courtesy of Calfinder