5 ways to add a splash of citrus to your home

Who doesn't love a splash of sunshine in there home? Whether it's lemon yellow or lime green, these are happy colors! So why not add a touch of citrus to your rooms, even if its just in the laundry room  (couldn't we all use some happy in there?).

I am going to show you five ways to do it, so lets get our citrus love on!

 1. Add pops of yellow with your accessories. Yellow Lamps are easy to come by these days and are easy to change out when you are ready! (Try HomeGoods they have fun colors for great $$$)

2. Quick and cheap way to get new pillows in the color you want is to buy 20" napkins and sew 2 together and slip cover your existing pillows. (Target has a great selection)

Find a Great Yellow Fabric or Just Add Flowers

3. Recover a tired piece of furniture with a beautiful yellow fabric to give it a fresh new look!

Citrus Spritzer

4. Fresh flowers are a great way to add a pop of color with out much committment. I love hitting the grocery store weekly for the 3 for $12. Buy like blooms and cut them in a large bunch and place is small vases around the house.

(Cool off with friends with this easy and refreshing drink! 1 part Pino Grigio, 1 part lemon/lime soda, add frozen lemon/lime slices. Enjoy!)

Use Actual Lemon and Limes

5. Lastly, and most obvious, is to use actual lemons and limes to create a great centerpiece for your table or counter tops. Gather a bunch on a tray or in a bowl. Use them to fill a series of tall glass vases to add a splash of color in the kitchen. They are inexpensive and can be used throughout the week to freshen your drinks!

Three-way Thursday, Ottomans!

Use multiple ottomans for more versatility!

Maybe you are not aware, but there is a piece of furniture that I feel is a workhorse for the home. Creating family friendly environments is my goal for my clients and rarely do I not use an ottoman some where in the design. I counted and I have 7 ottomans in my home! So what makes this piece so multifunctional? Well, lets just see. First, do we not usually put our feet up on the coffee table? I can remember getting yelled at for doing it! Use an ottoman and you have built in comfort. If you think you need a hard surface, use a large tray for a place to put books and drinks or even a simple vase of fresh flowers.

Look at this comfortable and stylish family room!

Need another reason to choose an ottoman, over it's hard surfaced counterpart? If you entertain on a regular basis, then you know how important seating can be. So, in a pinch use your ottoman as extra seating! Just remove the tray and pull it to the outer side of the room and you have a conversation pit and room for two more guests! This family room is perfect for gathering and you can add a punch of personality to the room at the same time.

Another reason these work great in a family room is there are no hard surfaces for little heads to hit. I don't know about you ,but my kids can get a little rambunctious and as a Mom I know that they are safe! I do, however, recommend leather if you have small kids, it's much easier to clean!

They are great in bedrooms, too!

Finally, believe it or not, ottomans are not just for living rooms.You can use it in other rooms, too. I love using it in a bedroom as a bench at the end of the bed or on a wall next to the closet as a place to put on your shoes and socks in the morning.

I could go on and on at how functional and versatile this one piece of furniture is. So, if you are in the market for a coffee table, more seating, and a safe piece for the kids - think ottomans!

Color me happy! Opposites Attract

Opposites attract attention, that is. In other words, contrasting colors create a more interesting room! What is contrast you ask? It's the designer's trick to making a color pop! If you want to go bold with color think about opposites on the color wheel. For instance blue is a great color and can be very relaxing, but add orange and all of a sudden you have drama! The same can go for many other colors, like greens and reds. Just look at the room above and imagine it with out the pops of orange, it just wouldn't be the same.

 If you want to kick up your color palette a notch, let the color wheel be your guide and use contrasting or opposite colors in a room. How awesome, would it be to have a room that you don't want to leave and makes your friends say "Wow!"? That's the power of color and using it the in just the right combination.  So, if you are stuck with a boring room, pick one of the colors and pop in it's opposite to give it drama!

Create Restful Spaces

Leave it to HGTV and Sherwin Williams to help us out!

It's the end of a hectic day and all you want to do is retreat to your room and relax. So how do we create a room that quietly invites us in to sit and let all the chaos melt away. There is a way and believe it or not its as simple as picking the right colors!


 There is a formula for every room and the formula for a bedroom should equal  calm and serene. What does that mean? Well, the first part of the formula comes from creating a functional and organized space. If you find you are throwing your clothes all over the room and you have no where to put your stuff, you have to address that issue first. So my solution would be create more storage. Messy doesn't equal calm. Maybe it's time to do a closet clean out to create more space. Now lets address the formula of color to use in a bedroom. In the design world we use the term shades of a color differently than you. To us it means how much black and white, or gray, is added to create that shade of blue or green. Spa blue is simply a blue/green color that has been shaded with gray to quiet down the intensity.  It creates a softer and more livable version of the color which means it's perfect for a bedroom.  Check out these colors From HGTV HOME for Sherwin Williams called Neutral Nuance perfect for any room you want to create a soft calm environment. And you can use them in any combination throughout your home.

The next part of the formula is contrast. That basically means light versus dark in the room. For instance lets look at black and white the highest of all contrasts. The combination of the two colors creates a lot of drama, not calming at all! So think about that when you are picking your colors, don't go to bold with the level of values you use in the room. Keep the contrast low and quiet. However some contrast is good and keeps the room interesting. Like, I love to use a combination of warm and cool for contrast instead of light and dark. I love the warmth of the wood tones mixed with the coolness of the grays and blues. Also, use contrast in the mix of textures on the bed linens. Soft sheets with a quilted coverlet with linen pillows keeps the bed from being boring! So here's the Formula:

No mess + Shaded Colors + Low Contrast = A Restful Space

Although my room is not finished, I thought I would show you the start of my restful bedroom.  My walls are still builders beige, so I will be painting soon. I was thinking of using SW 7609 Ethereal Mood or the Escape Gray on the walls (see above). The name itself says it all! I will show you a picture when it's finished.

My Master Suite - Still in Progress!

Creating Home, What it Means to Me

My Home! My kids are my art!

Well, I guess I want to start by introducing myself and why I have created my business. My name is Shannon Handley and I am a C.I.D, a Certified Interior Decorator. I also have a degree in Psychology and worked in Special Education as a Program Director for UCP for several years. With my first pregnancy I decided to make some sacrifices and become a stay at home mom. At the time, my family lived in Florida and we were in our first home. It was a difficult transition from working to being at home all day with my little girl (well, just the being at home all day, I loved being with her!). However, it was very important to me to make my family a priority. With that choice, as you may know, comes some challenges. I kept feeling this need to make our house a home, especially now that I was home more. I think it is an instinctual need that most women and maybe some men have, but I needed to feather my nest, if you will. I wanted to create a warm and functional home for my family. The challenge was that, as a one income family, there wasn't much of a budget for decorating. So I had to be creative. So I started creating my home using creative budget friendly and family friendly design ideas.  

So since then, I have been helping friends and family for years with their homes, they would come into my home and say "Hey this looks great! Can you come and help me?". I love that I got the experience and I was really loving the process! I became obsessed with design and subscribed to every magazine I could and watched design shows on HGTV. Then it hit me, I could do this for a living and get paid to do what I love, share my ideas and help other families create beautiful homes.  So I got certified as an Interior Decorator and set out on a mission! My belief is that everyone deserves a home that makes them feel good, regardless of budget!

Yes, aesthetics are very important to me, maybe its the Virgo in me. My friends always joke that I would be ready to entertain at the last minute, because everything is always perfect! I know that most people don't live that way, let's be real between kids and pets, now-a-days I need at least a 30 minute warning! No seriously, I do feel that, just because we have a family, now two beautiful kids, a girl and a boy running around, it doesn't negate the need for a beautiful home. So that's where Creating Home was born, and no, I am in no way saying we should live in a model home! I look at the homes in the magazines and I can't relate to most of them, but I can be inspired by the design and make it work for real life. My belief is that our homes should reflect who we are and how we live. I hope that through all the avenues we now have, I can reach out to thousands of frustrated homeowners with the practical and family friendly design advice. I want to help you create a beautiful, yet livable home for your family! 

In my blog each week we will be creating a new space in our homes, so one week it may be family spaces and the next work spaces. Then daily I will tackle a different topic.

• Monday is "Color Me Happy", I will offer great color advice or whats hot! 

• Tuesday is "Tip Time", offering practical design tips for your room. 

• Wednesday will be "High Style, Low Cost", showing you how to achieve a high end look on a budget.

• Thursday is "Three-way Thursday", don't get excited, it's just showing you three ways to style something or use something in your home. 

• Friday is "Fantastic Find", each week I will source a great product for your home. FYI, I looooove flea markets and you will see me using items I found and turning them into something great for the home.             

I can't wait to get started and hope you will follow my blog and tell your friends to come along and together we can have fun Creating Home!
This coming week is all about creating restful spaces! My sister is getting married and I wanted to tackle what I consider to be the most important room for newly weds and every couple,  the bedroom!

High Americana Style, Low Cost

Modern Americana!

Red white and blue is popping up in design everywhere you look! I love the idea of using this color palette in our homes. For a while,  Americana was considered to be a primarily country look, but not anymore! How awesome does it look in this modern living room featured in Style at Home magazine. Now, in true Creating Home fashion, let's take it down to a real life design and see how we might incorporate this style affordably in our homes.

I always start with a neutral palette. I say it now and I will continue to say it over again, keep the foundation of your room neutral! If you do this, you can have fun over the years bringing in pops of style and color to keep it versatile! I can't tell you how far my natural wheat colored sofa has brought me over the past 10 years and I tend to change my color story a lot, occupational hazard! Okay, now that I am off my soap box, lets pull in some fun red, white, and blue accents! I found this great source for stylish home decor and I LOVED the prices! http://www.bouclair.com/. Bouclair Home has lots of accessories in an array of patriotic colors and at those price points you can afford have fun!

Lamps range between $40 and $50, Pillows around $30 to $50

Just remember if you want to make a color statement in the room, I always use the triangle rule. Pop the color at least 3 times and in a in 3 different spots around the room where the eye would rest naturally. So add pillows to your sofa, then add lamps on either side and pop in a colorful accessory on the coffee table or mantel across from the sofa. Now you have a triangle of color and the color makes sense in the room. Another way to add a pop of red is to simply go to the florist area of your local grocery store and by a bouquet of red flowers, like the picture above. I like to use carnations for this because they are inexpensive and I buy a bulk. then arrange in a simple short glass vase for a high end floral look.

So, whether you choose to go red, white, and blue for your summer decor or not, just remember to have fun with decor in your home! I think we need to make our home our "happy place" and the best way to do that is to pull in the pieces you love. So go and create your happy home!

Hotel Chic!

Can't seem to find inspiration for your master bedroom, then look no further than your nearest hotel! They offer functionality and beauty all wrapped in one "suite" package.  After my week long stay at the Peabody, Orlando, I have come home ready to make my master bedroom a truly relaxing retreat! So what can we take from our hospitable friends and use in our own spaces? Well first it is a multi-functional space, it offers a place to sit and relax and a space for light working. Many of us now days do multiple things in our rooms, so why not use their cues and create those spaces in your room. I always have a chair in my bedroom with a small table for a place to sit and relax or read a book. If you have  the space, use a small, but functional desk for correspondence and a laptop, this piece can also double as a vanity table. Just don't make it your office, reserve your room for relaxing and retreating at the end of the day. Too much work clutter would ruin the mood!

Another way to look at hotel rooms, is how they create a calm environment. By using calming colors, like blues and greens, and anchor them with whites and neutral, you create a serene restful space.  And let's not forget the bed linens! Create luxury by using good quality linens. I love using whites and creams to give the bed that fresh crisp feeling. I noticed that most of the beds were mainly dressed in white and then they place a folded blanket at the end of the bed in a colorful pattern. Throw on some colorful accent pillows and you've got a "hotel chic" look!  Remember, don't over clutter your space with nick-knacks,  laundry, and, workout equipment! Do you know what a treadmill is good for? Hanging clothes on it! You know I'm right! So follow me as I guide you through the process of taking these elements and creating a beautiful room! Have a great stay!