A home designed to your taste that makes you happy regardless of the source of the furnishings and decors. Do what works for you as long as you follow this simple rule, no clutter and no hoarding.

Anonymous wrote:Mature/established Landscaping, trees, shrubs, hardscape, etc

In addition to landscaping we've done, it surprised me how much more grown-up our house looked after we purchased small cosmetic items: nice new trash cans in a color that complemented the house (replacing the mismatched battered ones that came with it), an inexpensive new mailbox, contraption to house/coil the hose etc.

Anonymous wrote:Mature/established Landscaping, trees, shrubs, hardscape, etc

+1

Lack of clutter. Overall I think we have a nice home by the standards on this thread including nice furniture, inexpensive but original artwork and so on. Not high end, but nicely put together, except that DH thrives on clutter.

Rather than put his keys in the bowl by the front door, he leaves them on the counter, his wallet on his dresser and his sunglasses somewhere else. We keep the dog's stuff all in one place, but he wants to keep spare leashes and poop bags by every door in the house so that it is more convenient. I've bought storage containers for the multiple tools related to his hobby, but he doesn't make an effort to put everything back when he's done since in his words "it's easier to just have it all there when I need it rather than putting it away every time". When he's done charging his phone, rather than putting the charging cord back in the drawer he leaves it sitting out since he's sure we'll need it later that day. He claims I want a house out of a decorating magazine. I just want a house that looks put together and not with crap on every surface.

That's my input to this thread, polished and grown-up requires some level of neatness.

Mature/established Landscaping, trees, shrubs, hardscape, etc

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Drapes can make a huge difference of done right. If they are too short, it looks terrible.

Talk to me about this. We have high-quality white wooden blinds on all of our windows on the first floor. Would we put drapes up in addition to these? This is always been unclear to me.

This is a personal choice.

If the windows are not framed out, curtains would be a real plus in addition to the blinds. Sheer curtains can be lovely with blinds because they allow you to enjoy lovely filtered sunlight that you cannot get with blinds.

Anonymous wrote:Nothing at all wrong with having IKEA or Target. You have to know what to buy just like anything else.

I also get area rugs from RugsUSA. They have good sales, and it's not necessarily the same exact rug that everyone has from Target. I have a toddler, so spending money on a quality rug just isn't worth it to me right now.

Anonymous wrote:Drapes can make a huge difference of done right. If they are too short, it looks terrible.

Talk to me about this. We have high-quality white wooden blinds on all of our windows on the first floor. Would we put drapes up in addition to these? This is always been unclear to me.

Decent blinds, not the stock plastic ones that come in rental apartments. We got the basic wood white blinds from Home Depot and they were more than I wanted to spend (~$100 for our living room that has two large bay windows and two smaller Windows) but they make me feel "at home".

Anonymous wrote:Floor covered in legos and My Little Pony toys.

Ew. No.

I think mixing fabrics - mixing colors and prints in a cohesive way. You can do that well with target stuff and other stuff mixed in and make it look nice and put together. Mixing things and coordinating in a non matchy matchy way is what always shows me that the person who lives there knows what they are doing and is more polished.

Rugs, window treatments, real art that isn't a stock photo in a poster frame from Ikea or a reproduction of a famous print. Occasional accent pieces, but not an overabundance of them. (like 3 coordinated things on a mantel.) Furniture that isn't 100% matchy-matched, but coordinates.

Nothing at all wrong with having IKEA or Target. You have to know what to buy just like anything else.