Before and After: Urban Scope Transformations in Real Homes

We here at Urban Scope Designs take pride in our ability to transform blank rooms into well-appointed and unique living spaces. We take a customized approach to home decorating, and consider several aspects in terms of making your home reflect your personality. Visit our website to see our full range of services, as well as to view some of the spaces we've transformed. 

Decorating Your Kitchen on a Budget

Photo source

Among all the rooms in our home, the kitchen is the most used, abused, and loved. Inevitably, we spend a lot of time in this part of our house, preparing meals for ourselves and our loved ones. So certainly, it’s worth spending a little time trying to make this room look pleasant and nice.
But how do you do it if your budget is limited?

1. Warm up the walls with paint. A can of paint doesn’t cost much. So choose a nice warm color – orange, brown, tan – and bathe your kitchen walls in it. Save the whites for places like the living room or your bedroom, where peace and quiet belong. A good kitchen is active, and your colors should reflect that activity. Besides, with all the spills and splatters a kitchen is subject to, white walls would simply stain and age too fast.

2. Get matching utensils and linen. Kitchen utensils do not need to be very expensive, and when they match, they tend to give your kitchen a unifying theme, a classy touch.

Now if you’re on a really tight budget, you could get matching tea towels, potholders, and tablecloth instead.

3. Add a lamp. As we’ve said, kitchens are busy places – but not always. Sometimes, we like to go to the kitchen in the middle of the night for a quiet snack. At times like these, we don’t want the glaring brightness of the bright kitchen lights; we want something softer, quieter – like a lamp. Is this a decorating tip? Why, yes. Try lighting your kitchen with a lamp and see how much nicer it instantly looks when some of its imperfections are hidden by the shadows.

4. Put a fruit basket on the counter. This adds charm, color, and a breath of freshness to your kitchen. It also encourages kitchen visitors to take a bite out of something healthy and immediately accessible rather than rummage through the fridge for some sugary cake or a glass of soda.

How to Create a Picture Frame Display

Photo by Martine de Luna

Our pictures tell the stories of our lives, and so we like to look at them and show them to others as well. The best way to do this, of course, is by putting our pictures in frames and displaying them to the world.
Sounds simple enough, right? But there is an art to displaying our pictures so that they gain their rightful attention without detracting from the attractiveness of the room we put them in.

1. Choose your pictures carefully. We cannot display everything we print out. We need to choose pictures with poignant or striking images. We want pictures that draw people in, tell a story, and give an insight into the life and thoughts of the people who live in our home.

We don’t want studio pictures of people with so much make-up and hairspray, we could hardly recognize the person at all. Posed group pictures in front of some landmark are often boring. Pictures with celebrities are simply not classy, period.

Candid pictures, on the other hand, are often interesting. Images of people at work or at play are good. Close-ups of people displaying real emotion are nice.

Incidentally, for framing, choose pictures that capture as much of the subject as possible. This is what makes close-ups exceptionally good framing candidates. On the other hand, pictures with huge backgrounds and tiny subjects are generally not good for framing.

2. Get frames that blend with your furniture. Your frames should blend with your home’s design. If you’ve got vintage furniture, stainless steel frames will simply look out of place. Of course, if your home motif is brown, that does not mean you cannot have red frames – but you probably will have a hard time with blue frames.

It is safest to stick to frames in one color only. Not to say that different frames with different colors can’t work – but it will certainly take a whole lot more effort to make them look good together.

3. Choose different frame sizes. It’s safe and classic to have three identical frames all lined up on a wall. But for picture ledges and picture walls with more than three images, it’s more interesting if you have a combination of big frames and small frames, placed high and low, but arranged in perfect balance.

Some people like to take their different sized frames and arrange them like a puzzle on the wall so that their outer borders form a clean rectangle. A row of four or more identically sized frames is simply too boring.

Making Room for House Guests

If we accept a guest in our house, we owe them at least the most basic levels of hospitality – a comfortable place to sleep at night.

So how do you make your home guest-friendly?

A place to sleepIf you have a guest room, this is easy. Just clean up the room, make sure the mattress is firm and aired and in general good condition, beat the pillows, and replace all the sheets and pillowcases with fresh ones.
Now if you don’t have a guest room, your guest may need to stay at the sofa or a portable mattress. Whichever one you provide, make sure it is comfortable to lie on (lie on it yourself to check). If you have an inflatable mattress, make sure it has no leaks that will lead to its deflating through the night. Provide fresh sheets and pillows.

If you can afford to get a divider, it’s nice to get one for your guest, to provide a small amount of privacy. If you can’t afford a divider, you can improvise by hammering a two nails into opposite walls, attaching a clothesline to the nails, and hanging up a curtain that your guest can draw at night.

The bathroom
Make sure your guest knows the way to the bathroom and where the light switch is. If possible, put a night light near the bathroom so it’s easier to find.
Provide soap, shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrush, disposable cups, towels, and hand towels for your guest. Make sure your guest knows these things are for use and not for display only.

Small stuffGive your guest a drawer or small cabinet to keep things in. Provide a small bench or table for resting the suitcase on. You may also want to provide a bag for used clothes, in case your guest forgot to bring one.
A night light, an alarm clock, a music player, slippers, and a trash can are nice, thoughtful touches. You may also want to leave a carafe and water glass, and maybe even some packed snacks that won’t attract ants, for your guest.

Teach your guest how to operate the temperature controls for the room he or she is staying in. Provide extra blankets, in case your guest gets cold in the middle of the night.
Teach your guest how to access your broadband Internet connection, in case he or she wants to surf online rather than read before going to bed.

All these little things can go a long way towards making a guest feel truly welcome in our home. Then, perhaps, this will also show them the right way to treat guests when it is our turn to stay overnight at their house.