Author: Amanda Ross

This can be a wonderful area to unwind, dine in or gather with family and friends. It doesn’t require a huge investment of money or time to have a better look. Simple steps can help to make the area clean, comfortable and welcoming. A good upgrade to consider is Glass Deck Railing. Can be used to enhance an open feeling without being distracting to the view. This kind of change can give your outdoor space a new lease on life without overwhelming the space. In addition to a few other minor changes, this change can make your exterior space feel…

I used to paint on the corner of the kitchen table. And I mean the actual corner — the one tiny patch of surface that wasn’t already buried under unopened mail, someone’s half-eaten breakfast, and whatever paper project my kids had abandoned mid-afternoon. My watercolour palette lived permanently next to the fruit bowl. My brushes were shoved into a “World’s Okayest Mum” mug. My stretched canvases were leaned against the wall behind the door because there was genuinely nowhere else to put them. Sounds romantic. It was absolutely not. What that setup quietly cost me wasn’t just mess. It was…

Wall art is always the last thing people think about — and then they panic. The sofa gets picked out in week one. The rug arrives before the paint even dries. But the walls? “We’ll figure it out later.” And then months pass, and there’s still a giant blank space above the couch that nobody wants to talk about. I’ve redesigned more rooms than I can count, and this is the pattern I keep seeing. People treat wall art like a finishing touch that can be grabbed anywhere and it’ll just work. It doesn’t work like that. The brand you…

Moving day cleaning always focuses on the visible stuff. Floors, counters, windows. That’s fine for making a place look move-in ready. It doesn’t tell you what’s actually in the air or buried in a system you can’t see. Here’s the order that actually protects your health and your home, not just the surface. Start With the Air, Not the Floors Every home you move into carries traces of the last people who lived there. Skin cells, pet dander, dust, sometimes mold spores. Most of that ends up circulating through the HVAC system long before it settles on a counter. The…

Flooring takes an absolute beating every single day. Playing children, muddy boots, dropped drinks, pet claws. It all adds up! Even the highest quality floor will eventually begin to look worn out and utterly exhausted. Here’s the big question: Repair it or rip it out entirely? You don’t want to make the wrong decision and spend thousands of dollars. But on bad flooring that still doesn’t look nice. This guide will walk through everything homeowners need to know before making the call. Let’s jump in! Why Flooring Wears Out Faster Than You Think Flooring experiences more wear and tear than…

Trends move fast. Your renovation budget doesn’t. One year it’s all millennial gray, the next it’s checkerboard everything. By the time your contractor finishes the install, the internet’s already moved on to something else entirely. That’s the tricky part about renovating: you’re not designing for right now, you’re designing for the version of yourself who’ll be living in this space in 2036. Before you commit to anything permanent, it’s worth asking: will this still look good once the trend cycle has moved on three more times? Or will it read like a time capsule the second it’s finished? Below, we’ll…

Buying an air conditioner online sounds straightforward until you’re three hours into comparing spec sheets and every unit looks exactly like the last one. I spent an embarrassing amount of time doing this before my first real purchase — researched, compared, read reviews, and still ended up with the wrong unit. I bought something oversized for my bedroom. It blasted cold air for five minutes, hit the target temp, shut off, then kicked back on ten minutes later. Rinse and repeat, all night long. That’s called short cycling, and it’s a direct consequence of buying a unit that’s too big…

Most homeowners spend more time picking a paint color for the guest bathroom than they spend deciding how to sell their home. And that’s not me exaggerating — I’ve watched it happen more times than I can count, and it almost always costs them something. The selling path you choose might be the most financially consequential decision in this entire process. Price it wrong, pick the wrong method, go with the wrong agent, and you’re not just stressed — you’re losing real money. Sometimes tens of thousands of dollars. I want to walk you through eight things that actually matter…

There’s a moment in every design project where a room just clicks — where everything comes together and you stop second-guessing every choice you made along the way. In my experience, that moment rarely happens when you find the perfect sofa or nail the gallery wall. It happens when the windows finally get the treatment they actually deserve. I’m not exaggerating here. I’ve watched rooms completely change when flat, off-the-shelf blinds got replaced with layered window treatments that actually belonged there. I’ve seen open floor plans go from cold and drafty-feeling to warm and pulled-together — just by rethinking how…

A weekend and a few hundred dollars can move a home’s value more than most owners expect. The projects that pay off are rarely the ones that need a contractor. Paint, hardware, lighting, and a sealed building envelope cost little, take a day or two each, and return most of their cost at sale. Well-executed DIY work typically returns 70% to 80% of what an owner spends, and the list below covers jobs a capable person can finish without hiring out. A Fresh Coat of Paint Paint is the cheapest way to change how a home reads. An entire room…