Weekend Decorator- Quick Hacks To Bring New Life This Summer

Decorating Your Home Doesn't Have To Take Months! 

Do you ever get the itch to redecorate, but you don't want it to be a drawn-out process? You want something new and different in your home, but you're not willing to have everything up in the air for weeks or months at a time. Sometimes, you just need a quick weekend project to change things up and give yourself an entirely different feeling. Best of all, unless you want it, the projects don't have to be super expensive. Let's go over 10 easy projects you can do in a weekend.*

- Add pattern to your walls 

Who says that patterns are just for your tiles or fabrics? Not us! Find a pattern you love, whether it's a stencil, a wallpaper, a removable tile, whatever, and toss it up. The easiest way to make this look 'right' is to split your wall into thirds horizontally. Then decide whether you want to do the pattern across 1/3rd of the wall or 2/3rds. From there, go for it. 

- Choose a bold design you love

Artie Lotus Floral - Wayfair

When it comes to bringing in new things, go for something that's you. Some people say, "Go bold or go home," but what's bold for you (say... giant florals) might not be bold for your visiting cousin (who just adores polka dots.) So make sure that it's something that fits you and the space you're working in.  

- Use molding in the same shade as the painted sections to create a crisp divide between different sections. 

If you want to really class it up, reach for some thin molding. Remember how we said to choose whether you're going for 1/3rd or 2/3rds? Now use the molding all along that divide and paint it the same shade as the painted section. This gives you a really neat divide between the two sections and makes it look all the more stunning. You can do this no matter what you've added to the wall, wallpaper, paint, tile, whatever. 

 Bring in a cute border with a scalloped wall edging.

If you've got a room that you really want to bring some pizazz to, check out a scalloped edging along the top or bottom edge of the wall. 

- Grab a bowl or saucer to make yourself a template (with 3-5 repetitions so that you can get it done faster) and cut it out of cardboard. So, trace the bowl side by side, so you get a curved equivalent of this ^^^^^ on your cardboard. 

- Use a ruler and level to create the line at the curved edge of your template where the pattern 'ends'; use a pencil to trace the pattern along the entire wall or all of the room, depending on your preference.

- Grab a paintbrush, throw on a podcast and go at it. 

-Take some photos as you go so you can show off your creative genius. 

-Draw attention to something you love.

-Do you have something in your home that you adore? Maybe you've got a fireplace that's rough and rugged, a staircase that's carved beautifully, or a period door. Frame that with a pop of contrasting color and show it off. Take a ruler and set it out about 3-4 inches from what you're highlighting, and frame it in an eye-catching color. 

-Bring wallpaper into the kitchen 

Forget using an expensive backsplash. Since one of the trends of the year is for forgoing upper cabinets, why not bring in some wallpaper instead? You can bring it in in "windows" that you frame out with paint, or just do the whole of the kitchen, whatever speaks to you. 

     Forget an expensive backsplash. Since people are foregoing upper cabinets, why not use that space for wallpaper instead?

- Turn those tea towels into art!

Every Christmas, someone gets a chef a tea towel, possibly several, or an entire hand-sewn set. And that's great! Those tea towels serve a bundle of purposes in a kitchen that's used regularly. Sometimes though, you don't /want/ to get them ruined. You want to protect them without having to just stash them in a drawer somewhere. So why not turn them into art? Use a frame that's painted the same as your kitchen cabinets and hang it up. You can even frame several this way and rotate them out throughout the year. 

- Give an old desk a new outlook on life.

People throw away old desks all the time, and you find one that speaks to you. Or you might have one that you've had for eons, and it's beaten and battered, but you can't stand to get rid of it. That's when a bit of sandpaper and some chalk paint come to the rescue. You can even use it as an excuse to bring in the color of the year (remember, it's Very Peri right now) without having to redo everything in your home. 

-Another easy change is to swap out your curtains. Winter is over, and it's time to bring in the light! (Cue the MaMa Odie) Swap out your thick thermal curtains and replace them with something lighter like cotton. Not only will you bring in plenty of light, but by adding a second layer of bright blackout curtains, you can use them to block out the worst of the heat of the day and keep your home cool, only opening them to enjoy the beginning and end of the day. 

- Give your kitchen a warm glow by bringing in touches of brass. 

Brass ladels by Stux

Not only is brass a material that disinfects itself after 8 hours, it's got a lovely warm glow that looks great in your kitchen. You can use it to replace drawer knobs, pulls, latches, sinks, and even your light switch covers if you want. All that's going to take is a few hours to choose what you want and then an hour or so to swap it all out. 

-Create a curated gallery wall that you can mix up at any time! 

     -We saved our favorite tip for last. You might be like us and have a hard time choosing just one piece of artwork for a room. Well... who says you have to? Say goodbye to that convention and set up a rotating art gallery all your own. Grab some ledges from Ikea and paint them the same color as your wall (or walls), and hang them up. Now you can set your artwork on them, move them around, and swap them out any time you want without having to try and hang them. 

If you're like us and you can't stand having a fixed set of artwork, who says you have to? Grab some ledges from Ikea, paint them the same color as your walls, and hang them up. Now you can set your artwork on them, move them around and swap them out any time you like. 

What do you think? Are you interested in trying out some of these? Let us know in the comments below or over on our Facebook page. We'd love to hear from you and any ideas you come up with yourself! 

If it's not a 'new feeling' you want but maybe something along the lines of 'having a dishwasher that gets everything clean' or "having your freezer properly freezing things," that's where we come in. Appliance Rescue Service will get your home back to running smoothly so you can focus on things that are more fun. You can reach out to us by giving us a call at ((214) 599-0055) or by going to our contact page and setting up an appointment. We'll work with you to find something that fits with your schedule. At Appliance Rescue Service, we're here for you. 

(Maybe not all at once, but you can certainly complete one or two of them. If you want to try and do all of them, let us know! We'd love to hear how you managed it.) 

Five Appliance Trends That Won’t Last

And what to replace them with

Table of Contents: 

Open Concept Kitchens     

The Color of the Year 

Air Sous Vide 

Smart Appliances

Dual Dishwashers In Your Kitchen

Trends are something we love discussing here on Appliance Repair Service. We’ve talked popular ones, new ones, and ones that died miserable deaths. Now we’re taking a look at different ones that are popular here in 2022.  These are things you may be thinking about jumping on immediately, but we’d advise waiting a while to see how these trends play out, so you aren’t spending thousands of dollars on something you’ll hate in three months. 

Open Concept Kitchens

From the early 2000s up until now, the open concept was the most common style of new home on the market.  They’re all about a home being able to serve multiple purposes with very little change or adjustment. Being able to shift seamlessly from one room to another, and having the family together without having to hunt through different rooms. 

With Covid and the rise of people working from home, the open concept plan doesn’t work either in your kitchen or for your whole house. Being able to separate ourselves out, and find quiet during different points of the day is important. You might need to use one area for an office, or another for your child’s school area, and section those off. You don’t want to hear shouts of “hey, where do we have the oregano” when you’re in the middle of a zoom meeting” if it can be avoided after all. 

The Color of the Year 

Going for the color of the year is something many of us want to do. There are hundreds of blog posts, magazine articles, and social media posts all over the net talking about how to best use Very Peri in your house, your kitchen, or your wardrobe. Many of us want to have the most recent colors or designs when it comes to somewhere we spend a large amount of our time. It’s the same as working on the rest of your house, where you might update every few years and bring in either a color you love or whatever the most popular color series is.  In the kitchen, we’re not talking just about painting your kitchen the color of the year. Many companies also will update their ranges, ovens, and refrigerators to come in new and different colors. (This year for example is seeing many companies adding “Mint Green” as one of the colors they offer?) 

But, we have to point out that color trends change. Like we point out every year, colors that were popular this year may not be next year. A better option might be to choose a color palette that you love and work from that in different ways. You might bring in tile with several of the colors that you like. Or paint your cabinets different colors to blend into the overall pattern.  This allows you to more easily change out colors when you want to refresh, but it also means that you’re standing out on your own. 

Air Sous Vide 

Think about the concept of sous vide, if you’ve ever run into it. If you haven’t, it’s a process of sealing food into a bag and boiling it until it’s cooked just right. Air sous vide then, is the same concept, except you’re using air. 

There are too many mixed thoughts on this one and not enough hard reviews about how well it works or recipes that are repeatable. We don’t recommend getting this one until (and if) they manage to solidify the way it works.

Smart Appliances

We’ve spoken before about smart appliances, both the uses of them and the downsides. We want them to be able to do all sorts of things and make our homes more automated so that we can focus on other aspects of our lives. The truth is though, that propaganda is just that, propaganda. Smart appliances might promise you the moon, but they aren’t there yet. 

With this one, we advise keeping a level head on what they can do vs what they can’t. Instead of thinking that your oven will cook you a perfect steak with potatoes and broccoli on the side and a perfect bearnaise sauce on the side.  Instead, it’s able to turn on when you tell it to, alert you when it’s come to the proper temperature and let you know when what you’re cooking has finished cooking. 

Dual Dishwashers In Your Kitchen

This one is lovely, honestly. It’s just a matter of what do you need? Do you need to have two dishwashers in your kitchen? Do you entertain a couple of times a week and deal with all of the dishes inherent in that? Or do you have a large family that you prepare food for and you need to be able to wash all of the dishes easily and without leaving yourself exhausted?
If the answer to that is no, then you might want to reconsider whether you want to bring a second dishwasher into your home. While it’s really popular, it’s not always needed, in which case, why bother? Instead, take a look at how much you use your current dishwasher. Would a larger one be beneficial for you? Do you need a different style? Maybe one that can handle larger pots and pans due to the amount of cooking/baking you do now? 

Do you have any of these already or are you looking at getting them? Let us know over on our Facebook page, or in the comments below! 

Don’t forget that we can also help with the appliances you have already. If your dishwasher is refusing to clean dishes or isn’t draining fully, we can help. Call us at ((214) 599-0055) or reach out to us on our contact page.  

Very Peri - The Color of 2022

Red & blue, bright and soothing, a color of contradictions.

Welcome to 2022 everyone! We’re taking a look at Pantone’s Color of the Year and how you can bring it into your home.

 This year’s color is a first for Pantone in their 28-year run. Instead of going with already existing colors, they created a new one. The color of the year for 2022 is Very Peri “Very Peri is a  new red-violet infused blue hue.” Pantone said that they created the color because “Creating a new color for the first time in the history of our Pantone Color of the Year educational color program reflects the global innovation and transformation taking place. As society continues to recognize color as a critical form of communication, and a way to express and affect ideas and emotions and engage and connect, the complexity of this new red-violet-infused blue hue highlights the expansive possibilities that lay before us”.” We think it’s going a bit much for the color terms, but it’s a beautiful color. A beautiful mix between red and blue, and it’s surprisingly soothing, while also making us feel rather playful? It’s a confusing color, but pleasing. We can see it being used almost anywhere, primarily in terms of fabrics and accent walls. We could even see it in a child’s playroom or nursery. 

Pantone

What about the colors that Very Peri pairs with though? No color exists by itself, so what does VP pair with? Fortunately, Pantone has given us several very different palettes. 

The first one, Balancing act, is a very aptly named palette. It’s a balanced palette with both cool tones and warm tones, making each one pop in different ways. There are four neutral roses in the palette that we can see being used for carpets and furniture, with the two greens, very peri and the clay color, being used for different pops of color in a room. Alternatively, we could see the walls being painted in the different roses, with very peri being used for an accent wall. 

Pantone

Our next palette is called Wellspring. This one is full of lush greens, blues, and purples, with the wild card “dirty chai’ thrown into the mix. This one we see not so much for a living room, but for a personal office, although we would say to stick to neutrals for your flooring. Unless you want to do one of these strong colors? Then we say go for it, but we’ll leave it to you.  We love this rich mix of colors, very reminiscent of a day in the garden, which is why we could see it working in a personal office. Use the different colors and their vibrancy to encourage you to reach your max every day. 

Pantone

Our third palette is Star of the Show, and that is exactly what very peri is in this palette. This time we’re looking at a mix of different true neutrals, creams, browns, greys, and black. This palette would work almost anywhere. You would end up using the neutrals of the palette over everything, from the wall, to the floor, to the furniture. Then you bring back in very peri to make everything pop. That color could be used anywhere you wanted to bring interest. A doorway, behind a picture gallery, highlighting the prime focus of the room, whatever. 

Pantone

Our final palette, at least directly from Pantone, is called Amusements. This one is full of bright, eye-popping colors that we think (hope?) is really going to be left to the clothing industry. These colors are so bright that we can see how people are going to love them, but we also are uncertain how many companies will put out items in these colors. (Although we will include a link to our article involving vinyl wraps for your appliances down below.) 

Pantone

So that’s the color of the year for 2022! What do you think? Where do you plan to use it in your homes? Do you like the color at all? We’re still trying to figure it out for ourselves, but we want to hear from you. Let us know your thoughts on the color and its coordinating color palettes over on our Facebook page. As usual, we’d love to hear from you! 

If on the other hand you got lost on our page because you were looking for help with your appliances, you are actually in the right space. We can help you whether you’re looking for someone to fix your washing machine or your dishwasher, your stove, or your refrigerator, we can help. You can set up an appointment on our webpage or by giving us a call at ((214) 599-0055). 

Bringing Color To Your Kitchen

 How and Why You Should Bring Colored Appliances Into Your Kitchen 

We’ve been stuck in our homes for so long that we’re getting bored. We can't speak for anyone else, but we want colorful appliances! We're sick of stainless steel and matte black. It's been the defacto for the last two decades and we want something new. We’ve had neutral kitchens and a lack of color in our homes for several years now. It’s time to bring back color.  After the year we’ve all been through, we’ve come to realize that every element of our homes should speak to us. The colors we bring into them are no different. Yes, you can paint the walls or the cabinets, but why stop there? Shouldn’t your kitchen be just as much an expression of you as the rest of your home? 

 We know, change can be intimidating. There are lots of ways to do it though and they can range from purchasing new appliances in the color of your choice, to fixing panels to them, to getting a custom vinyl wrap. Let’s take a look at some colors that have been popular for this year, and are expected for next year first though. 

What Colors Are Popping Up

One of the few bright spots of many of us staying at home this year is that we ended up rediscovering our love of color. The 2020 colors as predicted by Pantone and other top color companies were ochre, magenta, creams (in all shades), navy blue and dusty teal. We definitely saw these make a comeback this year,  and we hope they're going to  stick around for several years to come. 

Going into 2021 colors are expected to pop even more as people get bored of being home. We're expecting jewel tones, aquamarine and neons. We can't say what the world is going to look like next year, but we can say it will certainly be colorful, and hopefully that will include your kitchen.  One of the companies we’re going to talk about, Blue Star, has already gotten on board with the aquamarines. 

If you’re starting to warm up to the idea of a color in your kitchen, your next question is going to be ‘how do I get them?’  You’ve got three choices. You can purchase them from a company, and hope that they offer a color you like. Many do offer custom colors, but that still takes time to get it just right. You can put panels over the appliance, but then it’s not exactly the appliance that’s colored, it’s the walls around it. We like this one if you want your kitchen to have a very organized and contained feel.  Or you can go with a custom vinyl wrap, which while it does mean finding someone that’s willing to do it, means you can get really crazy in color, patterns, anything your heart desires. 

Companies With Color 

If you want to purchase from a company, we have a selection of them.
You have Blue Star, with their focus on professional quality cooking. We love their suite for 2021. They let you customize how your stovetop is going to be laid out, colors and finishes, the colors of the knobs, handles and details as well as how your doors are laid out. You can craft your ideal kitchen suite and know that it is entirely your own. 

Admittedly American Range is more focused on restaurant level cooking gear, but they do offer a residential line for those of you that swear by them. They come in a wide range of colors, both matte and gloss finishes. The one draw back with your oven is that they only paint the doors and the kick plates. The control panel has to remain stainless. 

Unlike the previous two brands, Capital has both preset models and configurations, with a selection of colors that they have on hand, as well as offering custom color and configuration options. They focus on luxury residential appliances, but the only one they offer custom colors on is your range. 

Dacor is much like Capital. They too focus on providing luxury kitchen appliances, but they only offer color options for your range  

Out of all of the brands we’ve looked at, Ilve is, to us at least, the most detailed and luxurious. However, since  they only make ranges,  they still aren’t a perfect fit if you’re wanting all of your appliances to be a single color. 

The problem with buying colored appliances is that even if you want to keep the same color in 8-12 years when you replace it, you might not be able to. Many brands will only keep colors for so long as they’re producing sales, especially if it's a full suite. 

Paintable, Replaceable Panels

What if you have a brand you already love and you don't want to replace it? Then you might want to consider installing panels. You can do that on your own, or you can have someone else apply them. The upside is that you can paint those as many times as you want. You can make the panels match your existing cabinetry and have a very sleek look. The downside is that if you love the shape of your appliances, or don't like everything being square and cabinet-like, this might not be for you. 

Go Wild With Decals 

Or you can use custom vinyl decals . Elise  of A Beautiful Mess figured out that you can get vinyl decals of your preferred color installed, if you’re willing to look around. She ended up going to a custom vinyl shop, which usually does cars, buses and the like. They were more than willing to help her out though and even installed the wrap professionally. As Elise points out “I’ve worked with big surfaces of vinyl before, and it’s very tricky to avoid wrinkles completely. I valued the polished look more than saving a bit more $ in this instance.” The vinyl is removable, easy to clean and heat resistant up to 900* F. All of which mean it’s great for any of your appliances in your kitchen. Just think, you could change it out every other year if that’s what you’re up for. Or add additional decals for different holidays throughout the year. We love this idea the most because it makes your appliances a full extension of you and what you want them to be. 

We’re thinking that custom vinyl wraps are going to become very popular soon, once people realize just how versatile they are. What about you? How are you going to color your kitchen? Are you going to go with a company like Blue Star? Or do you like how panels look in the kitchen? Or do you want to do something insane and personal  with a vinyl wrap? Let us know in the comments below or over on our Facebook page. We’d love to hear from you. In the event that you end up having issues with one of your appliances in the meantime, we’re only a phone call or click away. 

Disclaimer: The images used herein belong to their respective companies.