Choosing the right paint colour is thrilling, but can also feel daunting at times. It sets the tone for an entire living space, influencing both mood and ambiance. One brand that has been a trusted companion during this decision-making process is Dulux, with select colours available at Empire’s Design Centre. Read on to explore the art of selecting the perfect paint colour and discover some popular Dulux shades that elevate all interior spaces.

Next, discover the best design apps to help you furnish your home and 6 reasons why laminate flooring is making a comeback.

In the world of interior design, there’s one particular style that has captured our hearts, featuring a unique blend of comfort, vibrant colours, and a touch of the unconventional. Welcome to the realm of Boho Chic — an interior design that marries the bohemian spirit with chic sophistication. Designer Jane Lockhart showcases this interior design style in our Belfountain model at Empire Canals in Welland. Learn more about what was involved in the design process and how to replicate the look at home.

Thoughtful Design Choices

Encompassing solid surface countertops and hardwood floors, the interiors of the Belfountain exude the essence of boho chic, with meticulous design elements tailored to meet the diverse needs of its homeowners. An upstairs bedroom was transformed into a spacious work nook for homework and virtual meetings, while an open-concept living room serves as the perfect gathering point. The convenience of a second-floor laundry room adds practicality, ensuring that household tasks are both functional and stylish. The home’s well-designed floor plan creates a natural airiness and fosters a sense of innate spaciousness, bathing each room in ample natural light. This contributes to achieving the boho chic aesthetic and ambiance, even without additional elements.

Designer-Selected Finishes, Furnishings, and Accessories

One of the main attractions of the Belfountain’s boho chic look is its attainable nature. Without compromising elegance, this design embraces cost-conscious choices that are beautiful, functional, and can be incorporated into the home’s aesthetic with ease. The strategic use of paint accents and feature walls introduces colour and texture, infusing the space with warmth and visual interest.

What Makes the Belfountain Unique

What makes this boho chic home special is its harmonious connection between the interior and exterior. Maintaining consistent colour palettes and textures, a cohesive narrative is woven from the outside in. Its minimal but impactful upgrades cater to the cost-conscious homeowner, creating a home filled with immense potential, without the need for extravagant investments in enhancements or furniture.

Looking to Achieve this Boho Chic Look in Your Home? Incorporate These Staple Products

1. Light Linen: Opt for light linen textiles, such as curtains, throw pillows, and bedding. The breezy and relaxed feel of linen complements the boho chic aesthetic.

2. Natural Coloured Wicker: Incorporate wicker furniture or accents to bring an organic touch to your space. These pieces add texture and contribute to the laid-back vibe of the style.

3. Greenery: Embrace the bohemian love for nature by introducing a variety of indoor plants. Greenery adds vibrancy and life to the space, creating a refreshing atmosphere.

4. Medium to Light Hardwood: Hardwood is a crucial element in achieving the boho chic look. Choose flooring, furniture pieces and accessories in medium to light washes to enhance the natural feel of the space.

5. Woven Tapestries or Macramé: Adorn your walls with woven tapestries or macramé hangings. These intricate pieces of art introduce texture and an authentic bohemian touch.

Interested in exploring some of other trending design styles? Take a look at this modern farmhouse in the heart of Thorold, ON, and discover 4 inspiring ways to design rooms to suit your needs.

Designer Helena Da Costa shares expert tips to make the most of small spaces in any room.

Limited space might make it feel like your home’s storage capabilities are lacking, but perhaps those areas aren’t being used to their fullest potential. Designer Helena Da Costa of Toronto design firm Twelveo5 shares her three-pronged approach to make the most of small spaces and live an intentional lifestyle with confidence.

Are there parts of your home that feel underutilized? Not anymore. Before designing a small space, decide what the area will be used for. Install a mudroom at the front entrance as a catch-all for items or convert a spare room into a three-in-one space to work from home, workout and wind down. “Form follows function” is the guiding principle of interior design, and is vital to customizing spaces to meet your needs.

The smallest spaces of our homes may be the most difficult to organize, but they’re actually much larger than they appear. Make the most of square footage with simple storage solutions, like closet organizers, which can double the amount of shelving and hanging space. Matching bins and clear containers can help organize pantries and kitchen cabinets, all while creating visual harmony. And for Helena’s most-used tool? “I like to use hand-written or printable labels to add that extra layer of organization,” says Da Costa.

Multi-functional furniture and small spaces are the dynamic duo of interior decorating, reducing clutter by limiting the number of pieces needed in a room. Since most come with additional storage space, these key pieces keep surfaces tidy and streamlined. Ottomans that store kids’ toys, seasonal blankets or board games turn ordinary furniture pieces into valuable additions to our home’s living spaces, and bed frames with built-in drawers are ideal for housing the items we want near but out of sight.

What’s next? Learn more about the 10 decorating tips every design enthusiast should know and check out these 20 designer-approved ideas to refresh your home’s decor.

Our homes mean more to us than ever before. It’s not just where we eat, sleep and live, it’s become a workplace, playground, classroom and gym. With this in mind, Jane Lockhart, Principal Designer of Toronto design firm Jane Lockhart Design, shares how homeowners can make total use of their space by designing rooms to suit their needs.

What’s next? Learn more about the 10 decorating tips every design enthusiast should know; discover the best design apps to help you furnish your home; and jot down these 20 designer-approved ideas to refresh your home’s decor.

*Model home designed by Nancy Rae Interiors. Image courtesy of: Better Homes & Gardens (Shed Home Office).

You may have heard the term “capsule wardrobe” floating around recently — a new concept in fashion that has become all the rage. A capsule wardrobe is a collection of timeless and classic pieces that you can build any outfit around, no matter what style you’re going for (think: a plain white tee, dark wash jeans and a modest blazer). This same logic can be easily applied to home decor. 

If you’re someone that often loves to play around with the layout and style of decor, but don’t want to break the bank every time you feel inspired to switch things up, a capsule home decor collection might be for you. We’ve rounded up a few items that you can use as the base for your home’s design, which can then be styled around trendier decor pieces. 

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When it comes to designing the interiors of your home, we know it can be quite the struggle. To make this process a little easier, we teamed up with our Atlanta Design Team to give you some of their best tips and tricks for bringing your design vision to life with ease. 

We don’t know about you but we’re always searching for ways to improve our homes. When we shop in-store or online for furniture pieces, decor or more general household items, we’re immediately drawn to products that are multi purpose. I mean, why buy a soap dispenser and a tray for your sponge when you can buy one item that has both? Instead of scouring the web looking for one-of-a-kind items that simplify your everyday routine (and shopping list), what if we told you that there’s one company who specializes in smart designs and dual-purpose products? Browse through Umbra’s site during your next online shopping trip or try out 5 of their most clever products yet.

Shop Umbra’s products by visiting their site. Next, discover the best double-duty pieces for your home.

It’s not uncommon to find yourself spending a lot of time and effort decorating the rooms in your home, but sometimes your vision doesn’t always translate the same in reality. Maybe that sofa you’ve always wanted is too large for your space, or the antique lamps you’ve been eyeing end up clashing with the rest of your decor. Design errors like these can spoil and throw off the balance in any room, which is the last thing you want. We’ve put together a guide to help you avoid common decorating mistakes and create a well-balanced space that you love.

For even more design tips and inspiration explore our articles on trending accent walls you should try to the best neutral paint colors for every room in your home. 

If you’re someone who loves to change their home decor on a whim, you’re probably aware of how expensive that can become over time. But what if you could turn regular items lying around your house into the cool and trendy items you see in stores without the hefty price tag? Read on for a few tips and tricks to breathe new life into pieces that were once old and worn. 

Once you’ve finished transforming your ordinary household items, explore a few design apps that’ll help you lay out those pieces in your home. 

Images courtesy of: Hydrangea Treehouse (Tea Towel Pillow Shams); The Norfolk Barn (Rustic Bath Caddy); Lamps Plus (Lamp Shade Refresh); Bridal Guide (Teacup Candles).

This month, we collaborated with four designers in North Carolina to create two front porch displays that you can replicate during the spring season. With a few staple pieces, some greenery, and a pop of color or two, your front porch will become instantly refreshed and transform into an outdoor sanctuary that everyone can use. So without further ado, discover some of our favorite decorating ideas to help you showcase your design skills this season. Maestro, cue instant curb appeal.

Meet the Designers

Designers Sarah Howerton and Tiffany Page (pictured, above right) decorated the front porch of our Hadley model home at Empire Oldenburg, while April Gilmore and Amber Quarles (pictured, above left) were the forces behind the front porch design of the community’s Amherst model. We challenged these four designers to create two spring porch designs that homeowners can recreate themselves, and with a little imagination, they showed us how achievable these looks can be. Read on to hear what they had to say about their designs and what sparked their inspiration.

Pictured: The Amherst model home at Empire Oldenburg.

How can people use your ideas as inspiration and create something that reflects their personal style?

“Your design should reflect what you like. Find a palette that complements your overall design style and be confident in your decision making. Don’t be afraid to use bold colors, stripes, or patterns, and play with height too — each of these things can create a totally unique look.”

What are some simple, budget-friendly ways that homeowners can take their design from good to great?

“Identify what you want your front porch to look like and the colors that you want to use. You can always look to websites like Pinterest or take to Google to look up inspiration too. After you know what look you’re trying to achieve, you can source cost-effective furniture pieces from local or online stores. To add some extra pizazz, you can play with flowers, burlap, and ribbon which are budget-friendly additions.”

What’s your favorite spring accessory to use on the front porch of a home?

“We love using black and white stripes, just like we did when designing the front porch of the Amherst model home. We also gravitate to bold colours like pinks, purples, greens, and blues. By using black and white, you can incorporate new colors into your design every season. I have a small black and white rug on the front porch of my own home, and when it came time for the holidays, I mixed in some hints of red.”

Pictured: The Hadley model home at Empire Oldenburg.

How can people use your ideas as inspiration and create something that reflects their personal style?

“First, nail down a general color scheme and then mix in different materials or things that speak to your unique design style. For example, decor pieces like vessels and vases can add texture and volume to a space, while giving off some personal flavor.”

Share some DIY decorating tips that make it easy for someone to stay within their budget?

“Take a simple, decor piece and make it your own. When designing the Hadley model home, we wanted to achieve more of a custom look for one of the terracotta pots we used. Since we had a lot of different textures and materials incorporated into our design, we wanted to create something with more of a geometric look so we bought painters tape and some craft paint — which was less than $2 — and created a handmade design.”

How did you achieve the look that you wanted while staying within budget? Talk through your decorating process.

“We came up with our inspiration, and then we gathered even more ideas while we started pricing decor pieces out. We tried to purchase items that were at lower price points, but with today’s supply chain issues, it created more of a challenge. By purchasing from stores like Target, At Home, and Lowe’s Home Improvement, we were able to stick to the initial design themes we had in mind and stay within our budget.”

Next, learn how Empire’s designers decorated some of our front porches for fall or discover designer-worthy entryway inspiration for your home.

Having the right kind of lighting can transform the look and feel of any room, but getting it just right can take a little bit of trial and error. Worry no more — with the help of Courtney Collins, Britteny Gallagher, Julia Semon, Liz Combs and Lindsey Wooten from our Atlanta Design Team, we’re exploring how you can easily select the lighting fixtures that will best compliment each room in your home. 

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For another dose of interior design inspiration, discover 20 designer-approved ideas to refresh your home, and 10 decorating tips for design enthusiasts.