Back in mid December, I had purchased a poinsettia table runner for my buffet that houses the microwave I moved out of my tiny kitchen. I am generally happy with the table runner and it does look very pretty. I just wish I had purchased it later because the price had dropped a couple bucks a few days after I ordered it. I also wish that the runner could be longer so I could drape over the sides of my buffet. It was my fault though because I didn't really look at the measurement of the runner before hand, and neither did I measure my buffet. Overall, I am still quite happy with how my buffet looks right now. I also love the Poinsettia plant I bought from Trader Joe's at only $2.99 (per pot). Thanks to the poinsettia decor, my microwave is now much a less eye sore in my rental's living room.
Notes from the editors: Are you currently living in a small apartment where you only have a small corner to dedicate your holiday decorating? If so, please share your photo and decorating tips with us and we will send you a beautiful shower curtain if we decide to publish your photo and story. Please click here to contact us for photo submission guidelines.
Notes from the editors: Are you currently living in a small apartment where you only have a small corner to dedicate your holiday decorating? If so, please share your photo and decorating tips with us and we will send you a beautiful poinsettia table runner if we decide to publish your photo and story. Please click here to contact us for photo submission guidelines.
In terms of Christmas decor, most of us only focus on our living room and the front porch or yard, but how many of us also decorate our bathroom for Christmas? This festive snowman shower curtain ($14.90) just makes us wonder why we never thought of decorating our bathroom...
Living in a rental, I don't have the luxury to have a mantel for any holiday decoration. But I do have a microwave that I reluctantly relocated to the living room so I can have a small counter space in my kitchen for food prep. The more I look at the blank microwave sitting in the living room, the more it bugs me. So I use double tape and invisible tape to secure a small holiday scene on top of the microwave to make it look less boring. I got the snowman on the swing from a Japanese discount store for $1.50, and I folded a min origami gift box (free origami paper borrowed from my Chinese friend) to store all my loose dimes. My Chinese friend who is into Feng Shui told me that my holiday scene will bring happiness (the happy smiling snowman) and prosperity (the gift box filled with money and the color changing Christmas tree sets) to me in the coming year. I sincerely hope that my Chinese friend is right because I do need the prosperity to move me to a decent home so I can be happy.
Notes from the editors: Are you currently living in a small apartment where you only have a small corner to dedicate your holiday decorating? If so, please share your photo and decorating tips with us and we will send you a beautiful poinsettia table runner if we decide to publish your photo and story. Please click here to contact us for photo submission guidelines.
This is my first time in my life when I decorated for Christmas. I don't know why, I just never had the interest to decorate anything before until I spent months caring for my beloved grandma this year. I realize I'm not feeling much holiday spirits as I used to when I was living with my expatriates parents in a glittering metropolis overseas. I think the fact that my beloved granny has been tormented by sickness this year also makes me feel the need to cheer up my ugly and depressing rental. I need that little holiday distraction from worrying so much about my granny.
I found this acrylic tree sets in a grocery store for only $9.99. I just couldn't resist the price. I immediately knew I wanted to put the trees on top of my microwave when I saw them. I have been very happy with the gradual color changing effect because there is nothing flashy about it. Beautiful colors are changing in a calm, slow and gradual pace that it is just absolutely gorgeous. The photo I am showing above is a fast paced display of multiple photos I took of the trees. It's not the actual color changing speed. I really adore these beautiful Christmas trees. I think they are also available at Amazon.com.
A tall tinsel pre-lit Christmas tree can add a lot of Christmas glamour to a modern living room that is simply furnished with sleek furniture in light color tone.
What do you think of this apartment? According to the New York Daily News, Tommy Hilfiger has been trying to sell this apartment since 2008, asking for about $75 million but the designer hasn't had any luck in finding a buyer. The news article also says that apartment owners at the Plaza generally haven't experienced much appreciation in value for the investments there. For example, the news article points out that in October 2015, Sony Music Entertainment Doug Morris sold his 2-bedroom apartment at the Plaza that he bought in 2007 for only $2,832 more than the $9.9 million purchase price he paid for in 2007. In my opinion, there can be a sizable loss if property taxes and maintenance fees are added up for all these years.
This just to show that, real estate in America, even in prime location like the Plaza in NYC, isn't a guaranteed profitable investment like many Americans, particularly foreign buyers think. I'm sure Tommy Hilfiger's apartment will eventually find a buyer when the designer is willing to lower the asking price. His apartment is after all pretty posh. I would buy it if only I were a billionaire.
When warmth and elegance matter, think purple. We have been secretly dreaming about pasting our landlord's cold white walls with purple floral wall paper.
I just ordered this beautiful poinsettia table runner to add a little holiday color in my small, plain and cheap looking rental apartment. ($11.99 & Free Shipping). I am now eagerly waiting to put this on my buffet in the living room where I house my relocated microwave. I will post an updated photo here once I receive the table runner.
Notes from the editors: Are you currently living in a small apartment where you only have a small corner to dedicate your holiday decorating? If so, please share your photo and decorating tips with us and we will send you the above poinsettia table runner if we decide to publish your photo and story. Please click here to contact us for photo submission guidelines.
My kitchen in my rental is tiny with very limited counter space. After putting my microwave (which I use all the time) on the kitchen counter, there is absolutely no space for prepping food for cooking. It used to drive me crazy. I've been putting up with it for years though. After returning home from caring for my grandma, I decided life is too short to not change the unpleasant element of my tiny kitchen. So I bought a buffet with stainless steel top ($366 + 49.83 assembling fees + free shipping) to put in my living room where I am putting my microwave now. There is a version that has wood top which is only $290.59. But I like stainless so I splurged on getting the stainless steel top. I also paid for the assembling service because I am not strong enough to lift the pieces alone and also assemble the buffet. My buffet is just like the product photo except that mine is rather plain looking now because I have yet to put pretty bowls and wine bottles in it. Moving the microwave to the living room really frees up space in my tiny kitchen.
Notes from the editors: Do you live in a small space and have a photo of your microwave placement that you want to share with us? If so, please click here to contact us for photo submission guidelines. If we decide to publish your photo and story, we will send you a beautiful floral arrangement gift.
I had discovered Kalanchoe at Trader Joe's recently. Missing the dainty Fleurette mums that I left at my grandma's home, I couldn't resist to pick up a dainty pot of Kalanchoe at Trader Joe's for $5.99. The plant has been blooming very well since I brought it home more than a week ago. I had not done anything to it and hadn't watered it all this time, and yet the plant just keeps blooming. I really like this plant because I realize if I go to visit my grandma again, I don't have to worry about leaving it unattended at home for a week. Below is the photo of the plant when I first brought it home more than a week ago. A lot of flowers had opened up since then without me doing anything (compare the above photo with the photo below when the plant was first brought home), which is cool. I think this is the perfect decorative plant for busy people like myself who live in a tiny rental apartment and who don't have either the space or the time to garden.
After spending months away with my granny, I finally got to return to my apartment now because my mom is now finally back to the USA to take her shift in taking care of grandma. The problem is a few months ago when I left my home, I had turned off my gas water heater because I had heard that I was supposed to turn it off when I'm away for vacation. I hired some handyman service to turn it off because I had no clue on how to turn a gas water heater off. I was charged $95 for that.
Tonight I just got off the plane and I had no patience to schedule an appointment with handyman service to come and turn my gas water heater back on. It's late and the night is cold now and I desperately need a hot shower. I just can't wait for a handyman to come tomorrow afternoon. Thank God there is a video on Youtube that teaches people how to relight a gas water heater. My water heater is a hand-me-down from the 90s, and it's a lot older than the water heater shown in the video, but they are similar enough in the logistics and the general design that I was able to follow the video and relight my gas water heater. I have to admit that it's quite a scary experience. I think I lighted a match only a few times in my entire life and I had never lighted any gas appliance before. Tonight is my first time. I feel mentally exhausted by reading my water heater's big scary label with lots of scary graphical warnings. I wasn't able to really understand what exactly I needed to do by reading it. There were lots of texts and I had to shine a flash light in my dark closet to read them, just to realize I didn't quite get it.
The video I found made me see how it was done, so after watching it at least half a dozen times and lying on the floor and staring at the burner layout a dozen times, I finally gathered up my courage to give it a try. Lying down with one hand pressing down the pilot light and the other operating the Bic Lighter is not that easy for my wimpy hands. But I did it. And when the burner underneath my water heater finally roared, I was actually so startled I jumped away. I don't remember hearing such a roar before. I think I just never paid much attention to the inside of the closet until tonight. I do feel a sense of accomplishment now, not only because I saved $95. But I did something that I never did and never thought I was capable of doing. Besides, I feel a lot more educated than before. I feel really proud of myself! Wait, may be I shouldn't think so highly of myself yet, I should at least wait until after tomorrow when I'm still around without being blown up by a gas explosion, or without being gased to death by carbon monoxide.
By the way, the water inside my water heater looks clear and smells absolutely normal, much better than the stinky tap water from my granny's town. I was worried that the water in my water heater would smell bad after a few months being dormant and unheated. There had been various conflicting advice I heard, some people told me I should have never shut down my gas water heater when I was away for few months because my water would stink when I returned. Then there were others who told me I got to shut down the gas water heater so hot water wouldn't be leaking all over my home for months in case something went wrong with my old water heater. I was worried about the high gas bill and the high water bill in case my "old" water heater should leak. In my situation, it turned out that my water looks as clear as it did before, and smells as odorless as it always did, after 4 months sitting in the tank and not heated.
Notes from the editors:Do you have a DIY home maintenance experience that you want to share with us? If so, please click here to contact us for photo submission guidelines. If we decide to publish your photo and story, we will send you a beautiful floral arrangement.
My granny's condo community is very dark at night. I had lived in the city all my life, so I'm still getting used to the darkness in the evening here in the suburb. My granny is never into decorating for Halloween due to her religious belief. But now that I am here, she indulges my desire to add a little Halloween sparkle to her beloved "Christmas Tree". I have no idea what's the proper name of her tree but it just looks like a Christmas tree to me, only it's a living tree and not my plastic one back in my apartment in the city.
I bought this string lights from Amazon for $16.99. There are 40 little ghost lights in one string and about 10 feet long. I really love this string lights because it's powered by AAA batteries and it comes with a remote control that has several timer settings and effect control. Each option of setting is only 1 touch. The cool feature about this string lights is, once I press the button for, let's say, 4 hours blinking effect, it automatically turns off 4 hours later and it automatically turns back on to blink at the exact same time every day as the time I first turned it on. How cool is that! It's so low maintenance and I just turned it on once and it operated on its own for about 2.5 weeks before the need for a change in batteries.
My granny is really impressed by the string lights. I'm going to buy another string so I can loop the entire tree. One string of 40 isn't enough for one 6 feet tall tree. I think 2 strings will be better.
Notes from the editors: Do you have a photo of your decorated front yard that you want to share with us? If so, please click here to contact us for photo submission guidelines. If we decide to publish your photo and story, we will send you a set of the above string lights.
Many of us often have problems with our wall for one reason or another, such as misaligned wall switches, or unsightly nail holes, and yet, we almost find it too painful to think about what to do in order to fix such eye sores. Now, with this instructional video, we hopefully don't have to turn a blind eye to our ugly wall anymore?
We all want that big flat screen TV but for those of us who live in rental apartments, we don't want to buy wide and bulky furniture that will be difficulty to move to our next apartment, or that won't fit in the living room of our next apartment. Narrow bookcase is the solution for our dilemma because it gives us the flexibility in assembling our entertainment center wherever we move to.
My grandma has become ill recently. Being her only blood relative who is in the same country with her, I had since left the city where I had lived my entire life and moved in her condo in the suburb. I'm still getting to know the community and trying to figure out where to do grocery shopping. It was then I discovered this little pot of beautiful Fleurette at $3.99 at Shop Rite. I was never interested in buying flowers and bringing back to my apartment. It was because I was barely home and I always got flowers as gifts from my colleagues and friends on my birthdays. The gifted flowers always died on me after a few days. My boyfriend said I had black thumbs instead of green thumbs. But now that I am spending a lot more time at my granny's home, I am beginning to develop a gloomy mood that when I saw this pretty little pot at the grocery store, it just brightened my day and made me feel that I had to take it back to granny's somewhat depressing home. I love my granny and seeing her sick really affects me. Yet every time when I go into the breakfast nook, the sight of these dainty flowers cheers me up.
I just love the plant's tightly packed clusters of luxurious little flowers that show off such a bright and vibrant yellow color. I've been having this plant for more than 2 weeks now and I hadn't even watered at all. The little instructional tag says I am supposed to water it every 3 days. But somehow I just totally didn't see the tag until today. So I am going to water this plant for the first time in over 2 weeks, but the bloom still looks great despite my neglect. This bloom of joy is really a good buy at $3.99.
Notes from the editors: Do you have a photo of your plant that you want to share with us? If so, please click here to contact us for photo submission guidelines. If we decide to publish your photo and story, we will send you a beautiful floral arrangement gift.
The season for roses is over now but it's never too early to plan ahead for a beautiful rose garden for spring. The rose garden in this video hopefully will give us lots of inspirations on creating a rose garden of our very own.
For those of us who prefer to spook the Halloween with flowers, mums are our muses because they come with such beautiful colors that just go very well with the Halloween theme.
8-Piece Fleurette Bedding Set $72.99 (Free Shipping)
Not everyone has the luxury to change the color of their white bedrooms. Very often, many of us are stuck with a white bedroom because it seems it's the "color" of rental apartments and college dorms. Most of the bedrooms in vacant homes for sale also have white walls that are waiting for the new homeowners to spend money painting over. For homeowners who exhausted their funds on closing cost and other repairs, and for those who dread the hassle of a DIY paint job, they are also stuck with the white bedrooms like many of us, the renters.
But white bedrooms are actually a lot easier to re-decorate than rooms in other colors. With a splash of color and a few decorative items, a dreary white bedroom presents countless possibilities for a beautiful makeover.
Just because the weather is getting cooler by the day, it doesn't mean that our gardens can't continue to display the vibrant colors like they did during the spring and summer. In this season, mums are some of our most favorite flowers.
This is such an incredibly beautiful castle. The family that owns it for 700 years is now selling it and its total 350 acres lot for only 6.5 million pounds. This is extremely cheap considering that a much smaller, tasteless and ugly mansion in Los Angeles typically costs much more than this. We aren't Irish, but we feel sad to think of the possibility that such a beautiful and historical castle will end up in the hands of non-Irish foreigners. It will be a tremendous loss to Ireland if only this castle is remodeled in any way that it will be rid of its cultural heritage and historical artifacts. Hopefully, the next owner of this castle will take great care in preserving the originality and historical heritage of this romantic castle. We would very much love to visit this castle whenever it becomes the next Irish museum or historical hotel. If we ever wins the Power Ball lottery, we will definitely buy this beautiful gem.
Smart and space friendly design can turn any small space into a comfortable home. For busy professionals who love the amenities and job opportunities that big cities have to offer, the Murphy Wall Bed can provide the flexibility and advantage of living in the low maintenance small studio in any city.
There is no extra room for that home office? No problem, you can now set up an orderly home office as long as you can spare a patch of the wall. This wall mount floating desk with storage is the ideal solution for the very much needed home office space in any small home. There is even storage on top of the desk for files and folders! But nowadays, storing documents in digital format is the way to go. But no matter how digitized our life is, we will still need that handful of folders around. This floating desk is $156.95, and it comes in the color of White, Expresso and Black.
The beautiful Hydrangea Vanilla Strawberry makes us crave for cotton candy!!! These lovely flowers are said to be able to rebloom from July through fall. These eye candy will give any garden or patio a lovely summer flavor. $47.99 for two gallon containers.
This pretty decorative over the door rack is one fabulous solution to add additional closet space for our clothes, it's also great for tiny apartments that don't have a mud room or any space to put a coat rack. It's only $7.05, a pretty good deal.
These mesh pencil bags aren't just great for keeping pencils, they are great for storing cords of electronics, supermarket and drugstore membership cards, coupons, take-out menus, etc, etc. Items can be organized by color of the bag. The mesh window allows the contents to easily be seen. Cardboard label tags can also be added to I.D. the contents. Put the mesh bags in the cubby of the wall mounted memo organizer and you won't have to go crazy looking for that coupon for pizza delivery again. A pack of 5 bags for $9.99.
We love this memo board that can get our weekly to-do list, schedules, mails, notes and keys, all on one spot up on the wall. We also love that we can easily paint this into the color that matches our home decor. $33.99 & Free Shipping.
In every small home, there is always that narrow entryway or small back end of a narrow hallway that is left empty because it's too small for most furniture. It often becomes the neglected tiny spot in the home. The above blue book shelf ($117.98), when stocked with the following storage bins (2 for $11.69), can provide not only great storage but it can also brighten up that obscure little spot along that narrow entryway or the back end of that narrow hallway.
Whether it's the new year of 2015 or 2012, certain tips of getting our home clutter free always hold true. Here is the home organization tip from the editor of the 2012 issue of the above magazine:
