Upholstery Spot-Treating Tips

"New Couch" by Reed Wiedower is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

We all have our accident-prone moments, from spilling red wine on the white couch or dropping a pen on the good furniture. When these tiny accidents happen, you don’t need to call in a professional cleaning company or try to use your stain-remover pen. Just follow these steps from Apartment Therapy and you will be on your way to stain-free upholstery!

Vacuum: Upholstery should be vacuumed frequently to keep the fabric in good shape and prevent dust and crumbs from settling into the body of the furniture. In the case of an old stain, it's surprising how much a simple vacuuming can help the fade the stain. It should always be the first step in dealing with this kind of damage, you don't really know what you're dealing with, or how bad the stain truly is until all of the loose particles have been sucked away by the vacuum.

Assess: Check your furniture for its cleaning codes. This gets you on the right track of how to best tackle your stain. Some pieces can be cleaned with water, others will require moving directly into various solvents. If your furniture lacks a cleaning code, which is often the case with vintage and antique pieces that have been modified over the years, do a simple spot test on a hidden piece of upholstery. I like to test water, vodka, and vinegar because they're always my first choices for cleaning, before getting into the more heavy-hitting chemical stuff.

Steam: If your furniture can be cleaned by water hitting the stain with a bit of steam loosens it up and makes the stain more responsive to treatment. I typically just grab my iron and and use the steam button for this application, I don't find it necessary to drag out the steamer to deal with small areas.

Clean, Phase 1: This is the phase where you cross your fingers and hope that a simple solution is all that's needed. If your furniture can be cleaned with water, mix a little dish soap with cool water, and using a wrung out sponge blot the stain with the soap mixture. Take care not to rub at the stain, at this point it's unlikely that the stain will set in deeper, but rubbing can weaken and pill your fabric. Rinse the sponge and use just water to blot out some of the soap mixture. Press dry with a cloth or paper towels. If your furniture cannot be cleaned with water, use vinegar or vodka on a cloth to blot the stains. The smell of both vinegar and vodka will disappear when the area is dry.

Clean, Phase 2: Time to go heavy duty and break out the cleaners. Any cleaner you choose to use should be spot tested in a discrete place on the piece of furniture. Some people swear by Resolve, or Tuff Stuff, and Jenny Komenda of Little Green Notebook has had some truly remarkable results with Folex. I'm fortunate that my stains came out without having to venture into this territory, but on several separate occasions when an entire glass of red wine or a mug of hot coffee has spilled Wine Away has been a real life saver. It managed to entirely remove red wine stains (caused by an unfortunately placed glass being flung across the room by an exuberant hand gesture) from the two brand-new cream side chairs in my living room.

Repeat: If your stain has survived this entire cleaning process, you are dealing with one stubborn stain. As exhausting—and possibly irritating—as the process can be, doing it all over again can give you the result you're looking for. The previously mentioned wine on white chairs situation took two full passes before the stains came out. I really thought when I entered Phase 2 for the second time that there was no way these stains were going anywhere, but perseverance paid off and the stains disappeared!

Celebrate: The seemingly impossible to remove set-in stain has been conquered! Hooray! Feel free to share your accomplishments with friends, so long as you offer to help out if they ever have need of your stain removing powers.

Prepare: Just in case a spill happens in the future that you can take care of immediately, here are some tips and tricks for how to spot clean upholstery stains that have just happened.

Happy cleaning!

Furniture Arranging 101

Have you ever arranged a room (and strained your back) to find that something about it just doesn’t flow? If you want to make a change in the feel of a room or want to switch things up for the current season, moving furniture around is a completely free way to do so. Consider these tips from Apartment Therapy as you rearrange your space.

Dining Room:

• Distance between the walls and the dining room table: Ideally, provide at least 36″ between the dining table and any walls or other furniture on all sides to allow seats to slide out easily.

• Distance between a dining table and an entrance: Provide around 48″ between the table and an entrance to allow people to enter and exit the room with ease.

• Vertical space between a dining chair and dining table: Chairs and chair arms should be able to slide under the table with ease. Leave about 7″ between the chair arm and apron of the table.

• Distance between chandelier and dining table: This is one of the more flexible topics. Low hanging lighting sets a more modern tone, but even so, it should never interfere with the ability to make conversation— no need to duck your face down to the table just to see your dinner guests. However, a light hung too high will detract from the cohesive feel of a room as well. A good rule is to hang lighting between 24″-32″ from the table.

• Area rug and dining table: A rug should span about 36″ wider on all sides of a dining table to allow chairs to pull out easily without catching.

• Space between dining chairs: Ideally provide about 24″ between chairs to prevent hitting elbows and to allow people to slide chairs in and out without any collisions or bruised knuckles.

"Living Room Updates" by Emily May is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Living Room:

• Distance between a sofa and coffee table: Allow around 18″ between the table and sofa edge to give enough leg room but to be able to set down drinks or reach appetizers without straining. Coffee table heights vary greatly, but a good rule is to keep the table height and seat height within 4 inches of each other.

• Distance between seating furniture: Aim to provide between 3.5′ and 10′ between seating options to help conversation flow without crowding a room.

• Side table and sofa height: In general, an end table should be approximately the same height as the arm of your sofa or chair. This allows guests to set down or reach for drinks without straining, and it also lends a more cohesive feel to the room.

• Distance between tv and sofa: There should be about 7′ between the tv and seating options.

• Area rugs and furniture: Too often area rugs end up feeling like bath mats. To keep your area rug from feeling random, at least the front two legs of a sofa or chair should rest on the rug.

• Distance between room-size rugs to walls: Allow about 24″ between the wall and room-size rug in a large room, and between 12″- 18″ in a smaller room.

Create a WOW Room

"Gray Blue Lime Teal Living Room" by Emily May is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Have you ever walked into someone’s home or apartment and just thought, “Wow!” as you looked around the room, only to get back home and feel like something is missing from your own space? How can you take your room from “hmm…” to “WOW”? Apartment Therapy shares these tips:

1. The right rug.

There's nothing like a rug to really tie a room together. The right rug can help to establish a room's color scheme, add texture, and unify disparate elements. Think of the rug as being the thing that balances out the other elements in the room. Is your room really colorful? Look for rug in neutral tones. If your room if full of smooth, shiny surfaces, consider a rug with a little bit of texture. Texture is really important. For even more advice on picking the right rug, click here.

2. Plants.

The human eye is naturally drawn to shapes that are found in nature, and every room could benefit from a little something organic. A great way to achieve this is with plants. They make a room more interesting and give it color and life (literally).

3. The right art.

No room is ever complete without art. The mistake that most people make when choosing art is that they don't get enough of it, and the things they pick aren't big enough. Take a critical look at your space: if your art pieces look a bit lost on the wall, or they seem dwarfed by the furniture, it's probably because they are too small. You can incorporate your existing art into a gallery wall, or try out one of these methods for creating large scale art or filling up a big blank wall.

4. Lighting.

Lamps (and pendants and chandeliers and whatnot) are important not just because they make a room look cool, but because the right lighting can make you see a room in a completely different way. Check out our guides to picking the right lighting for your living room, bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen.

5. Textiles.

Textiles are what make a room seem warm and comfy and inviting. Throw pillows, blankets, curtains — these are the things that make the difference between a really pretty showroom floor and a home. If the only thing on your windows right now is blinds, adding at least a roman shade will help your whole room seem cozier and more complete. And pillows and throws are a gimme. Use them to make tiny tweaks to your space. Need more color? A little texture? A little shine? Add some pillows. Bam. Done.

What else would you add to this list?

Proper Place Settings

Pay attention, ladies and gentlemen, because this is some good knowledge to store away! Whether you're hosting a dinner party or are simply setting the table for dinner, it makes a good impression to set a proper table. After all, nobody will notice if you order take-out food to pass off as your own cooking, as long as you put it on the good dinnerware! Here's the breakdown, according to Apartment Therapy:

A Casual Setting

This is the everyday table setting and follows just a few rules that are built on for the fancier settings:

Photo courtesy Maxwell Ryan.

Plate - Right in the middle :)

Fork - To the left at 9:00

Knife & Spoon - To the right at 3:00 with the knife on the inside facing in (so the blade is safely towards the plate)

Glass - On the upper right at 1:00

Napkin - Underneath your forks, though you can technically play with your napkin and place it on plate or outside forks.

A Fancy Setting

Built off of the above, this roadmap allows for all the other utensils needed at a fancy meal and follows the guide that you start on the outside and move inwards towards the plate during the course of the meal.

Photo courtesy Maxwell Ryan.

Plates - In the middle with the smallest stacked on top, so that you have Charger under Entree Plate under Appetizer Plate. In this fashion each plate can be cleared and leave you with a new, clean one below. Bread plate goes to the top left at 10:00 with knife fork ON it.

Flatware - Forks go on the left at 9:00 with the smallest on the outside (dinner, salad and then fish fork). Knife goes on the right with spoons at 3:00 with the smallest spoons on the outside (soup and then fruit spoon)

Any flatware used for dessert goes at the top at 12:00 (dessert spoon and fork)

Glasses - Red or wine (or both) glasses are placed at the upper right at 1:00 with water and/or champagne above that to the left. I typically have only a water and wine glass, but you can provide lots of options here for your guests if you wish and then remove what they don't use.

Napkin - I always like to have the napkin under the forks to the left, but it is proper to have the napkin actually on the dinner plate. Either way, just don't stuff the napkin in the wine glass and try to make it look like a swan.

Plan a Labor Day Bike Picnic

"Ross Eurosport and a Batavus" by Jason McDowell is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Labor Day may be the unofficial end of summer, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make the most of the day off! Your apartment is located close to a lot of fantastic trails and outdoor areas, so why not plan your traditional Labor Day picnic in a scenic spot, and enjoy the exercise and weather on the way there? The Kitchn offers these useful tips for an enjoyable afternoon bike picnic:

Picnic Food Tips

1. Pick sturdy foods. The key to a good bike picnic is bringing packable foods that can survive a bumpy journey. For example, fragile lemon tarts aren't quite as bike-friendly as a dense chocolate cake.

2. Go with variety. As with any outdoor eating menu, I think smaller is better, and having an assortment of small dishes makes the food easier to pack as well as more entertaining to eat.

3. Think versatility. An assortment of good cheese and a loaf of bread will always go far. Throw in some fresh basil and an avocado and you've got yourself the fixings for a lovely picnic sandwich. I also love bring along easy-to-pack things like olive tapenade, as it works well as a spread or as a dip for vegetables.

4. Protect fragile purchases. For picnics that are based off of market foods - think a bunch of fresh fruit and vegetables - just be sure to take a few reusable containers with you to the market. That way, your purchases are easily transportable and won't get crushed and bruised during your journey.

Don't Forget Drinks

You can't have a good picnic without something fun to drink now can you? Beer and wine are easy, just make sure you have an opener with you. If you're in the mood for cocktails, the easiest is to prepare a mixer at home, which you can bring along in a bottle and finish making your drinks on site.

For colder weather rides and meals, invest in a good thermos. That way, you can fill it with whatever you like: coffee, hot chocolate, or maybe even apple cider with a little bourbon?

Essential Bike Picnic Tools

The first essential thing to remember about a picnic à vélo is that you want to be packing things that are unbreakable. That means investing in good utensils and dishes that are lightweight and reusable but won't get crushed when you pack them.

My personal cycle picnic pack includes:

• Swiss Army knife
• reusable cups
• reusable silverware
• something to eat out of
• tea towel for use as a small tablecloth
• lightweight wooden cheeseboard, perfect for serving and cutting on
• if room allows, a blanket or sheet is always a worthwhile item to bring along

Bicycle picnics are the perfect blend of exercise, fresh air, relaxation, and simple but good food. These tips will make planning and packing for your next picnic ride a snap!

Kitchen Storage Hacks

"Kitchen" by jen robinson is licensed under CC BY 2.0

If you have a small kitchen in your apartment, it’s important to get the most efficient use out of the space you have. The coffee pot alone takes up valuable space that could be used in food preparation. To take advantage of the space you have, try following some of these hacks from Apartment Therapy.

1. Pegboards, more like awesomeboards

Pegboards are a utilitarian's dream: They can hold just about anything with the right hooks, can be made as big or as compact as you'd like and can be arranged throughout the year as your storage needs change. How do you keep your kitchen from looking like someone's workshop in the back of a garage? Consider painting it a bold color, and really pay attention to how you arrange elements on the board; make it more like an art display.

2. Tension rods

Why we're not all using tension rods in all the places I'm not sure, but if you haven't yet experienced the organizational wonder of these cheap and handy tools, you should experiment. From keeping your cutting boards from looking like a pile of scrap wood to creating a cozy little space for your cleaning supplies to hang from, your use of tension rods in your kitchen is limited only by your own imagination.

3. Mounted magnetic knife block

Get a heavy duty magnetic block to mount and forever save your counter tops from those standing knife blocks that always seem to take up so much space and kind of always look like they need to be nudged to a slightly different angle. Want to get even more handy? Make a double magnetic knife block and use that side of the refrigerator.

4. Storage on wheels is a go

Hey if you have room for a larger rolling kitchen cart, then you know the pleasures of having mobile storage. But don't discount the helpfulness of smaller rolling storage shelves and carts that can fit in weird nooks, be pulled out when needed and pushed away when finished with.

5. Above-the-cabinet storage

Don't decorate with dust-catchers in the small space you might have above your kitchen cabinets; use that as extra storage by incorporating some uniform, enclosed, sparsely spaced baskets or boxes to hold the stuff you need but don't need all the time (we're looking at you light bulbs, batteries and tools).

6. Drawer dividers are delightful

If you're not using drawer dividers yet, consider changing course. Taking an afternoon to add a few bought or DIYed drawer dividers to your kitchen drawers will make them go from "almost junk drawer" to "Martha Stewart would be proud."

7. IKEA's array of affordable organizing tools for small spaces

Take full advantage of the products IKEA offers when it comes to hanging, storing and displaying. Done neatly and with intention, you can cover nearly every vertical surface in a tiny kitchen to add storage to your space without sacrificing style.

8. Pantry risers, small shelves and lazy susans

If it seems like a lot of work to get nit-picky and organize even your smallest spaces into even smaller compartments — well, it can be. But the extra space you'll gain won't just mean you can stuff more stuff into your space, it'll (hopefully) mean you won't forget about cans of food for months at a time (because you can't see them).

What small-space tips do you have? Share them with us!

Decorating Myths Debunked

We’ve all heard the famous “no white pants after Labor Day,” but there are plenty of myths floating around about home decor, too. Ultimately, your decor is your choice and should be a reflection of you and what makes you happy. However, if you’re curious about some common interior design fact and fiction, Elle Decor (courtesy of House Beautiful) will give you the truth.

Photo courtesy William Waldron

MYTH: Throw pillows must appear in odd numbers only

REALITY: It's more about what you feel works in the room. Here, in a Long Island home, designer Robert Stilin alternates two pairs of pillows in a similar color scheme for a look that's perfectly serene and symmetrical.

Photo courtesy Simon Upton

MYTH: Trends should be incorporated only in the form of small, replaceable accessories

REALITY: If a trend—say, metallics—speaks to you, you should feel full license to use it with abandon. Here, Jean-Louis Deniot's hammered silver kitchen cabinets show that going big on a trend you love can end up being the most show-stopping part of a home.

Photo courtesy William Abranowicz

MYTH: Collections are only meant to be decorative

REALITY: A collection can be something as simple, beloved, and downright useful as a stack of magazines, as seen here in Eric Hughes and Nathan Turner's Malibu apartment.

Photo courtesy William Waldron

MYTH: Choose one pattern to be the star of the room

REALITY: Through artful pairing you can feature two, three—even five!—fabulous patterns as long as you keep the color scheme similar, and get creative with scale.

Photo courtesy William Waldron

MYTH: Your ceilings must be white

REALITY: A dramatic color can actually draw the eye upward, plus it gives you an extra surface to make a major impression, as Richard Mishaan illustrates in a Westchester home.

Photo courtesy Eric Piasecki

MYTH: All 4 chair legs must be on (or off) the rug

REALITY: It's more important that the space can morph and adapt to however guests configure themselves. In Michael Leva's Manhattan apartment, a flexible seating arrangement is constantly in flux to make room for everything from cocktail to dance parties.

Photo courtesy William Waldron

MYTH: All "ugly" architecture must be hidden

REALITY: Even something like exposed ductwork, as seen here in a D.C. apartment decorated by Nestor Santa Cruz, can be embraced for what it is. "It gives a rhythm and movement that flows through the rooms," says Santa Cruz. Something to consider before taking on a massive cover-up process.

Photo courtesy Richard Powers

MYTH: All artwork must be at eye level

REALITY: Art can live wherever it feels at home—to your eye, at least. In Susan Hable Smith's Georgia home, a piece tucked up at the top corner of the room offers a moment of surprise beauty, while silk screens and drawings add pizzazz even from the floor.

Photo courtesy Richard Powers

MYTH: Once is enough, when it comes to a busy pattern

REALITY: If you truly love a pattern, why limit it to only one surface? In Alex Papachristidis's Manhattan apartment, the same cotton fabric covers the walls, sofa, canopy, and curtains...and still looks fresh and modern thanks to the artfully-chosen prints that balance the entire room.

Photo courtesy William Abranowicz

MYTH: The most expensive piece in a room should get pride of place

REALITY: It's the piece with the most character, not highest price tag, that deserves the spotlight. For example, this chair, in William Abranowicz's entry hall, was found in the dumpster!



What other myths have you heard? Do you believe them to be true?