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Homestyle

The Designer’s Bookshelf: Wise Words for Makeover Mavens

 

Design for Play
By SALLY FARHAT Special to the Tribune
If you’re ready to change your rec room, you’re in the right place. We talked to interior designers across the country to get a pulse on the trends in adult playrooms. Whether you’re remodeling, rebuilding or repositioning, these 10 ideas will get the party started.

Counter Intelligence
By CHUCK ROSS Special to the Tribune
If you’re shopping for kitchen counters these days, chances are you’re seeing a lot of granite. In the room where plastic laminates once ruled the roost, natural stone, especially granite, has become the hands-down leader, leading kitchen designers say.

No More ‘Matchy Matchy’
By BEV BENNETT Special to the Tribune
Buying furniture by the set is convenient and easy. You don’t have to worry about whether the armoire goes with the bed’s headboard, because someone else did the thinking for you.

SPA WANTED, No remodeling required
By BARBARA BALLINGER Special to the Tribune
Stay in a fancy hotel with a glamorous bathroom or spend time at a swank spa and you’ll come away feeling relaxed, rejuvenated and ready for your own lavatory haven.

Meet the Designer: Nate Berkus
By MARY BETH KLATT Special to the Tribune
As a child Nate Berkus would help his decorator mother rearrange the living room furniture. By the time he was 8 years old, he knew all about furniture scale and used his allowance to buy things for his bedroom.

READ THIS! Books Smarten Up Your Room
By JESSIE MILLIGAN of Knight Ridder Newspapers
Books are so popular in home decor that even people who don’t read acquire them. They buy volumes by the yard at Half Price Books. They send orders off to a California book decor specialist who ships Danish language books by the foot.

How to Develop Your Design Eye
By BEV BENNETT Special to the Tribune
Some people have "the eye," that canny ability to look at a room and tell how to decorate it. Or maybe they can spot an object, such as a weathered window frame, and know it will be a smashing addition hanging in the sunroom.

Fear Not Fuchsia!
By MATTHEW M.F. MILLER Special to the Tribune
Forget the ridiculous "girls-only" stigma; pink isn’t reserved for fashionistas and pigtailed tykes. Both sophisticated and elegant, pink’s myriad shades add soft, yet colorful depth to traditionally masculine browns and spark nostalgia when paired with 80s neon.

AVOID Contractor Chaos
By MATTHEW M.F. MILLER Special to the Tribune
Horror stories abound: swindled by scam artists, burdened with shoddy craftsmanship, crippled by blood-boiling delays. When homeowners turn their property over to a contractor for a spruce, it’s often a leap of faith that the work they want will be done how and when they want it – and for a reasonable price. There are several steps any owner can take to remove the guesswork and ensure their contractor is on the same remodeling page.

Work it out! The Quandary of Home Gyms
By LISA BERTAGNOLI Special to the Tribune
Mindy Miles Greenberg has witnessed a certain decorating tableau so many times that it no longer piques her curiosity.