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Small touches create a great master bathroom

By Melissa Rayworth Associated Press It’s easy to design a gorgeous master bathroom if you have a huge budget. But with the right choices, says interior designer Gabriel Anderson, you can have an exceptional master bath without overspending. “Having huge expanses of marble is amazing and wonderful, but you don’t have to have that to have an amazing bathroom,” says Anderson, co-founder of the New York design firm Dean and Dahl. There are “little touches you can incorporate that really bring a master bath to life.” We’ve asked Anderson and two specialists in bath ...

Some simple steps toward a healthier home

By Melissa Rayworth Associated Press Can your home help you get healthier? Interior designers say clients don’t just want help creating a more beautiful home anymore. They want to create living spaces where they will cook healthier foods, breathe healthier air and improve overall wellness. Here, three interior design experts — Jon Call of Palm Springs, California-based Mr. Call Designs, and New Yorkers Young Huh and Carolyn DiCarlo — recommend four general approaches to creating a healthy home. 1. CONSCIOUS CLEANING “The first thing I do when I go into a client’s ...

Home costs don’t stop at a down payment

By Sara Rathner of NerdWallet If you’re saving for your first home, there’s no shortage of advice out there — some of it questionable, even if you do have an avocado toast habit. Still, it’s true that your down payment may be the biggest check you ever write. But once you move in, it’s also true that the cash tends to just keep flying out of your bank account like that money-with-wings emoji. If you drain your savings on closing day, you’ll have to delay furnishings or repairs, to say nothing of less-pressing cosmetic changes. A sizable cash cushion makes the cost of ...

Natural light sets a nice mood, and builders seek more of it

By Melissa Kossler Dutton Associated Press The first year that Bob Webb Homes used transom windows in the showcase house the company built for a home tour, visitors described the house as bright, warm and inviting. While few mentioned the windows, company representatives said tour participants were responding favorably to the additional natural light provided by the horizontal windows above the home’s more traditionally placed windows. “They couldn’t quite figure out why our house felt different,” said chief operating officer Scott Shively. “It was all the natural light. ...

Mix-and-match decor: In with the old … and in with the new

By Kim Cook Associated Press An early, painted Swedish sideboard next to a leather sectional. An ornate Italian walnut headboard on a bed dressed in featherweight linen. A collection of colorful 1930s Fiestaware pottery on a Lucite bookshelf. Mixing vintage and modern elements is one of the easier decorating techniques to employ. A little research can help with sourcing quality antiques, but combining old and new is mostly a matter of making sure the fun ``found” pieces or family heirlooms get along with the contemporary components. That introduction may take some tweaking so ...

Choosing the perfect sofa for your space

By Kim Cook Associated Press Ask interior designers what the most important element in a room is and many will say that — after wall color — it’s the sofa. So how do you choose this crucial piece of furniture? Should you go for one big sofa or two love seats? What about materials, arm styles and the all-important question of how to position the sofa in the space? Start by thinking about the shape of the room, says Elaine Griffin , who helms design offices in Manhattan and St. Simon’s Island, Georgia. “In a long, narrow room, place the sofa along the shorter wall ...