CasaSugar

What You're Wanting: A New Kitchen For Peggy

CasaSugar — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 15:00:42 -0700

I love Peggy Olsen, the junior copywriter on Mad Men. She's tough as nails, fascinatingly complex, and a genuinely good person. While I have some hope for her personal fashion changing a bit since she's been hanging out with openly gay and Euro copywriter Kurt (he made a vast improvement to her hair), I'm not sure if I'm so hopeful for her apartment.

For this latest What You're Wanting, I want to know how you'd improve Peggy's kitchen. As you can see from this photo, it's pretty dull. What would you do to improve the look? Would you change the paint color? What accessories would you add? Any furniture that could dress up her Brooklyn walk-up? Add all the finds to your ShopStyle Living stylebook, and create a look tagged with the phrase Pegg's Mad Men Kitchen. Private message me if you have any questions. Oh, and as extra incentive, I'll give some Sugar schwag away to my favorite look!
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What You're Wanting: A Dashing Dining Room

CasaSugar — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 14:00:24 -0700

This dining room, which could be yours if you have $2.45 million to spare, has great bones, but it needs a little fleshing out. How would you decorate this room?

For this week's What You're Wanting, I want to know how you'd decorate this room to highlight its architectural features while also keeping your style in play. What table would you use? Would you add modern or traditional chairs? A new chandelier, perhaps? What dishes would look best on this table? Curtains, perhaps? Add all the finds to your ShopStyle Living stylebook, and create a look tagged with the phrase Dashing Dining Room. Private message me if you have any questions. Oh, and as extra incentive, I'll give some Sugar schwag away to my favorite look!
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What You're Wanting: A Dashing Dining Room

CasaSugar — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 07:00:16 -0700

7 Steps to Becoming Your Own Decorator, Step 4: Take Inventory

CasaSugar — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:00:33 -0700

I'm back with more tips on becoming your own decorator. Unless you have absolutely no furnishings, or the budget of Bill Gates which can afford you to start from scratch, you'll need to take inventory of what you already own.
Want to learn how to take inventory? Then read more.

Before you pull out your credit card, start by shopping in your own home. See what stays and what goes. Now that you've figured it out, keep your design style in mind and be on the lookout for furnishings that just need a little makeover.

That silhouette that's just not your style? Sell it on eBay or donate it to Goodwill. The Venetian mirror you adore? She's a keeper! That hand-me-down dining chair? Paint it in a perky color and do some DIY reupholstery to give it a face-lift. That watercolor in an Ikea frame? Reframe it in something more ornate to make it shine. Go through everything in your home, and see what category it fits into: donate, keep, alter, or toss. It may help to take photos of everything you're keeping or altering so that when it comes time to actually design your space, you'll have a visual reminder of what you own on paper.

How-To: Find an Apartment on Craiglist

CasaSugar — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 09:00:07 -0800

Apartment hunting is a necessary evil. It's not fun, but you can't fake it either - unless you actually like crashing with your parents. Short of throwing money at a broker, there aren't too many secrets to apartment hunting; you've just got to search the local papers, classifieds, and online agency listings, cruise the neighborhoods you like for signs, and of course, scour Craigslist in depth. I'm sure you can handle most of this, but there is a method to the madness of Craigslist that you may not all be aware of. It doesn't guarantee you a dream pad for the price of a shanty, but it'll at least get you in front of what you're looking for. If you're looking for tips on how to up your credit score for a prospective landlord, you'd better check out SavvySugar. To hear my tips, read more.

First of all, if you're looking for an apartment from long distance, you should be extra cautious, demand to see many photographs and references, and don't sign a lease until you or someone you know has visited it.
Moving on - no pun intended: You should begin looking for a place two months in advance of when you want to move. Most places are listed about a month ahead, and in big cities, apartments will go in a day. But, if you give yourself two months, you'll get a better idea of what's available, what you can afford, what neighborhoods you like, and how quickly things are going.
You should already have an idea of what you're looking for. So write it all down in front of you, and don't be too picky; a penthouse apartment with maid, pool, gym, and ocean and mountain views for $700/month is never gonna happen.
The wonder of Craigslist is that it allows you to add your search terms to your RSS reader. To do so, go to your city's site on Craigslist, click "Housing," then fill in specifics like keywords, rent, number of bedrooms, neighborhood, and whether you need a pet-friendly place. Then, choose "apt/housing for rent" from the drop down menu, and check off "has image." Then, scroll to the bottom of the page and click the yellow "RSS" button. This will bring up the feed and allow you to add it to your RSS reader. Try Google Reader or Bloglines, if you don't have one already. Just so you know, you can use this same method for looking for furniture, cars, or anything else on Craigslist. And, you can download an app to your Blackberry or iPhone for your reader so you can read listings on the go.
If you're open to a range of living situations, neighborhoods, rents, etc., then your chances of finding a place are greater, but that also means you'll need to subscribe to more feeds. So go through the last step again until you've entered all the possible search terms and combinations.
I have 118 blogs in my RSS reader (a lot!), so if I were apartment hunting, I'd want to compound them all. You can combine a bunch of feeds into one with FeedBlendr.
If you're afraid to get dirty with an RSS feed, you can do it the old-fashioned way, by making methodical searches. Peruse Craigslist's various categories (apartments, rooms, sublets) the same way you entered a range of search terms. You never know: a temporary rental could last three years, or a shared apartment could be with someone who travels nine months of the year.
Whichever way you'll be reading the listings, you need to do so routinely. Get up first thing and the morning and then look again every few hours. Set an alarm if you have to remind yourself.
When you see something that you might like, click on the map link at the bottom of the CL page to verify its address (people lie about neighborhoods sometimes). Or better yet, use a Google Maps/Craigslist mashup like MapsKrieg, which allows you to see all the listings for your location on a map.

Stay tuned for tips on actually snagging the apartment you want once you've found it!

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Where's Your Summer Style?

CasaSugar — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:18:23 -0700

It seems as if a few readers are confused as to what they need to do to enter my Summer Style Contest. Since I know you'd all love to win one of the two $500 Crate and Barrel gift certificates I'm giving away, I thought I'd remind you that you need to send in photos of your home's Summer style to qualify to win. You only need to send in one photo, and it can be sent to my TeamSugar inbox, or to the Su Casa group. And you only need one photo to enter!

For instance, here's a photo that would work as an entry. This photo is from the fantastic bridal shower that my sister threw for me this past weekend. She pimped out my backyard with cute tables, brightly striped throw rugs, and cool retro wooden chairs.

To find out more about the contest, read more.

If you're interested in entering this contest, start by snapping photos of your house. To enter, you must log in and post photos of your home, along with a short description of your home's summer style. If you're not already a TeamSugar member, just register here for an account. Then, submit photos to either the Su Casa group or by private messaging me. Contest ends Friday, August 8, at noon (PDT), and is only open to US readers. Click here for official rules.

To join the Su Casa group, just follow this link and click "subscribe" beneath the photo on the left-hand side of the page. Once you're subscribed, click Share in the upper left-hand menu of any TeamSugar page and choose what type of post you want to create. If you have just one photo and some text, create a blog; if you have a gallery you want to share, select "photos."

TeamSugar has a great primer on how to create a blog post, so check that out if you've never posted one before. Here's a rundown of the basic process:

Add a Title and the Body (content for your post). Don't forget to click Check Spelling link and Upload an Image to make your post stand out!
Post this to a group? Click on the dropdown menu and select the Su Casa group. You will only be able to see groups you're subscribed to, so if you haven't joined Su Casa yet, you will need to.
Click on the dropdown menu and choose the Home and Garden Channel and add some keywords (use a comma, if needed!) in the Tags text box. Then click "I'm done" to view your post!