Valentine's Day Gift Ideas Under $50

Looking for Last Minute Valentine's Day Gift Ideas? Get your Special Someone a stylish gift for under $50 this season.

Cleanser, Tie Clip, Candle, Copper Mule, Beer Caddy

Earrings, Candles, Book, Bracelet, Makeup Bag 

Key elements to create a master retreat room

When decorating a master bedroom in your house, you want to incorporate few key elements that sets a tone for your room. If you are looking to design a room with a spa-like feel, check out the rules to follow:

Rule 1: Light paint/wallpaper

We went with "Blue Sky" Kelly Moore wall paint and "Spa Grey" for the ceiling in our master suite. I like how the colors contrast in a daylight, while at night, the room transforms to a lush retreat my hubby and I aimed for.

Rule 2: Soft lighting
Keep your light soft by selecting lighting fixtures that will create a pattern reflection on a ceiling. Chandelier guarantee to set the right mood in the room, and will make it look and feel luxurious. For rooms with 8 feet tall ceiling, you can find semi-flush chandelier lighting options these days. If you are working on the budget, the cost of flush and semi-flush chandeliers starts at $600 and if having the most Fab lighting fixture is not your priority, then you may consider other gorgeous lighting options to add to your room. My husband and I set a budget of $400 for the master room overhead lighting and allocating most of our budget for the bed frame.

We did consider the following options:

Option 1, Option 2, Option 3

Rule 3: Soft material bedding
Choose bedding with comfort and style in mind. It has to compliment the look and feel you are going for: for relaxing rooms select soft colors and discrete patters in complimenting colors; to add a bit of drama to your otherwise "bland" room, go for big patterns and NOT bright colors.

Rule 4: Pillows and more pillows
You can never have too many pillows in your bedroom. The minimum number of decorative pillows should be 3, but the standard number designers use is 5. To look like you have put much effort into your design, go for different pillow shapes and sizes, that will add dimension to your overall room design.

Rule 5: Candles
Add a candle to your room and adjacent bathroom. It is amazing how your room will immediately transform to a relaxing retreat!

Source

Happy Decorating!

10 rooms to inspire you

Happy Friday! I am really excited for another week to end and can not wait for tonight's Olympic opening ceremony. I'd say it will be over the top production that will leave us breathless, but we will find out in few hours. For now, let's have these fabulous room designs take your breath away and inspire you to create a unique room design of your own.

Source 

Source

Source

Source

Source 

Source 

Source 

Source 

Source 

Have a fabulous weekend!

How to create an inviting living room space

It takes a village to renovate a house, as many people would usually say. When my hubby and I purchased our first house last year, we had not idea what we were getting ourselves into. Neither of us have ever owned a house, nor have rented one to understand responsibilities that come with managing, remodeling, and taking care of a large property. Up until that point, we were fortunate enough to live in nice rented apartment communities where everything was well taken care of by leasing management companies, and we never imagined how much work we would put in to make our house feel like home for us.

As all people looking to own a property, I became obsessed with HGTV and DIY shows  and really thought that we would be able to tackle all home renovations ourselves... well, we quickly discovered home shows make it easier than it really is in real life. 

All project that would have an estimated completion time of 2 hours would take us a full day, or a day project would take us almost a week. We had to rely on family help, YouTube (Thank God it exist), and long list of online resources to help us finish our projects. Our house was full of bad surprises that we or other house inspector didn't discover before we closed on the property, and when we moved and begin the work we had days filled with challenges and surprises (on this one will write later), but in the end of the day, we were Really Happy to have a save and up-to a code house for ourselves. 

Below are pictures of our living room that had a complete transformation (as all other rooms in the house). 

This is how our house looked like before we bought it. Dark beige walls, an exposed brick fireplace that desperately needed painting. And limited natural light that was blocked by a carport roof that we took down shortly after we moved in. It is amazing how bright and airy the room is now without the carport roof!

The first thing we did after getting the keys- painting every inch of the house. When selecting a paint color for the rooms, I knew I wanted to have grey interior that will later be matched with vibrant colors of accessories, distinct patterns, and bold hardware. We ended up going with Kelly Moore painting and have chosen "Gadsburry Grey" color for main walls and "Sophistication" Beige for the window accent wall. 

This is how the colors look after we were done painting and finally moved in. Pardon the mess!

For a while this room has been empty and used as a storage while we were working on a remodel of bathrooms and bedrooms, but as soon as we finished the remodel, we began to furnish and decorate the living room space. This is what the room looks like today with all new furniture that we purchased from Bassett, while the accessories came from variety of stores ( gold tray from here, candle holders on a mantel here, curtains similar here)

I will be looking to add pillows in fuchsia and cobalt blue colors, and add a contemporary art in blue, black and white tones.   

A year of opportunities and growth (CONTEST)

Time flies really fast in SmartChicLiving world and I have a lot of catching up to do on this blog to bring you up to speed on our home renovations and all exciting findings I came across in the last few months. First things first, hope 2014 has started off right for everyone and you are too keeping up with your New Year Resolutions.

Photo Credit: Gwillim Lakes by Steffen Sauder

I'd like to share two of my biggest resolutions for 2014 that I set for myself:

Resolution 1:  I'd like to take my creative business to the next level, and finally concentrate all of my energy on helping others to fulfill their dreams- be it a dream event (wedding, bridal shower, baby shower, etc) AND/OR a dream of having a beautiful house that they can call home. I've spend countless hours studying and practicing design with the most creative and well-known people in the industry, and after conducting intensive research on the upcoming trends, unique products and ideas, I would love to share this knowledge with all of you. This year will be creative and fulfilling in so many ways, and I hope to make Dreams Come True for as many of you as I can.

CONTEST: 

And to start of this year with creativity and inspiration, I am offering FREE Design Boards for one room in your house that needs most interior design help. One person will receive a Design Board featuring a room make-over along with a comprehensive itemized list of interior design items to keep you on the budget. In order to enter the contest, you must leave me a comment below with the following:

1.What is a primary use of the room that you wish to re-design? (ex. Living room)
2.List 3 most important functions you would like to see in our design board? (ex. Rustic style entertainer living room that is also family friendly) 
3.How will  the room re-design change your and your family home enjoyment?
4. What is your budget for the room make-over? (Design elements will be selected based on this answer)

The winner of the contest will be selected based on their story and notified by February 16th.

Resolution 2: Leaving life making healthy choices for body and mind. And what I mean by this is to eat healthy, exercise regularly and surround myself with positive and motivated people. So far I have began to juice regularly (will have a dedicated post on juicing soon), and have established my weekly exercise routine which was not very easy to do for a person whose foot has not stepped in a gym in a LONG-LONG time. I am particularly excited about my inner-growth opportunities in a search for answers, harmony, piece and happiness. I will be attending a talk with Dalai Lama next month, which I am extremely excited about and will share with you on the secrets to "Finding Your Own Happiness" in his words.