Repurpose Your Dining Room

By Forschler's

You bought a home with a formal dining room. Nothing wrong with that. Problem is, you can count on one hand how many times you’ve actually enjoyed it. So you haven’t turned into the gracious dinner host you thought you’d be. Why reserve that valuable space for “someday” when it can serve you so much better today.

5 Alternative Uses For Your Dining Room: 

Homey Home Office. Already have a rectangular dining room table? Take away all but one seat, or remove them all and replace with a sumptuous accent chair. Boom, the perfect desk arrangement loaded with surface space. A desk and underlying rug at an angle might be even more dynamic. And that chandelier? Looks just as good over your desk as it did over the table. If you do invite dinner guests, return the chairs for a quick fix.

Homework Area/Playroom/Craft Room. Dining rooms easily make the grade as homework areas, playrooms and craft rooms, too. Very on trend, tables with heavy distressing make it easier to hide the occasional slip of a crayon or marker. You can bring in couple of stylish bookshelves for cubby space or use your existing buffet or server for storing supplies. They’re not just for plates and silverware anymore!

Breakfast Bistro/Cafe/Sitting Room. Imagine your dining room as your favorite neighborhood cafe, complete with a bistro table and chairs (in lieu of a dining room table) and a lounge seating area, maybe with a wall-mounted TV. What a perfect place to sip your morning coffee, check your email and get yourself perked up for the day. When it’s time to unwind, your cafe serves as your wine bar.

Pool Hall/Bar Lounge/Party Central. Love the thought of having people over but dread having to cook and serve? Break from the ordinary. Turn your dining room into a cool hangout space, complete with a bar, pool or ping pong table and wall-mounted TV. A few swivels chairs will really keep the conversation flowing.

Music Room/In-Tune Space. Maybe you play the piano or guitar, or perhaps your little ones are budding musicians? Turn your dining room into a music room with instruments on display, fun seating, music-themed artwork and your music collection. Or, stretch the possibilities by turning the space into a yoga or dance studio, if that’s what really moves you.

Have better ideas for an underused dining room?

Content provided by: +Tailbase & Ashley Furniture

www.tailbase.com

HOMEWORK STATION IDEAS

by Forschler's Home Center

With school in and the kids hitting the books, you’ll be asking, “Do you have homework?” If they do, you’ll need a game plan for after school studying. Here are some tips on how to get started on a homework station that fulfills your kids’ needs.

Pick the right spot

Choose a location in the home for work and study. It needs to be a quiet escape. Ideally, it could be their room, but a den, basement office, attic office or even a secluded kitchen nook all can serve the purpose handily. Ask your kids what their ideas of a perfect homework station are and incorporate as many of them as possible. This will help get their buy-in so they’ll use it more often. Include favorite colors and posters, as well as educational items like maps, globes, books, art supplies, computers, printers, chalkboards/dry erase boards and calendars.

Get it together for comfort

Clean up the clutter. Remove toys and items they’ve outgrown. Paint the study area their favorite color. Up comfort levels by putting down an area rug. Get cushiony chairs with ergonomic features. An afghan rack with throws is another great idea, so they can keep warm during long winter nights. Lighting is very important, too. Use floor lamps, pendant lights and desk lamps to illuminate the area. These help prevent eyestrain and headaches.

Furnish it

Set the scene with a desk. The bigger the better―kids need lots of room to work. Add bookshelves, file cabinets and storage bins for keeping all supplies organized and within reach. Decorate the walls. Include a wall clock, decorative canvas prints and a corkboard for pinning A+ work, photos and more. You can accent the work surface with a desk clock, photo frame and a favorite souvenir.

What’s next?

Once the homework station is ready, turn your focus to the next project―an area where you can keep organized. Get a desk and a comfortable chair. Wrap around desks are ideal because they give you more room to work. Don't forget to get a file cabinet. It's the perfect spot for keeping important papers and supplies you'll need to access throughout the school year.

Content provided by: +Tailbase  &  +Ashley Furniture HomeStore 

www.tailbase.com

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Back To School Tips & Ideas

by Forschler's Home Center

Back-to-school is for many of us synonym of supplies, lunch, home works, mess and lunch again! When this time of the year is coming, we start to stress, to be tense and we are trying to be organized (which is not that easy sometimes!). Here are some organizing tips to help everyone being more relaxed at the back-to-school:

Make a space for children’s backpacks

In the lobby or anywhere else, take time to make an exclusive space to put the backpacks when child come back from school. It could be a storage bench, a wall shelf with hooks, a big basket or a large storage box.

Create a study area

To facilitate the productivity and reduce the homework time a study area is a must. Ideally, it should be a quiet place without any source of distraction like TV, video games, tablets, cell phone or any toy. The room could be filled with bookcases, a bench and/or chair, a work desk and maybe comfortable furniture where to read and study like a small sofa or a recliner.

Prepare in advance

To save time and avoid stress in the morning, preparing in advance is a good thing! The day before or even during the week-end, we can prepare lunches, sport clothes and organize backpacks for the upcoming week.

Choose outfits the night before

If we are still lacking time in the morning, choosing the outfits the night before could make the difference!

Content provided by: +Tailbase 

www.tailbase.com

Home Office & Guest Room In-One

by Forschler's Home Center

So you don’t have all the space you desire. What you lack in room, you make up for in economy. If space constraints mean a multifunctional room—such as the all-too-common home office/guest room—maximize it by taking a minimalist approach to design and make your office space work twice as hard for you and your guests.

Tips for maximizing your multifunctional space:

Lighter and brighter. To make a multifunctional space feel more open and less crowded, start by “opening up” the walls with a light, bright paint or soft neutral shade.

Crisp, clean lines. Nothing streamlines the look of a room like clean-lined, straightforward furniture with no muss and no fuss.

Work a major modernist look with sleek, linear furniture in a chic and crisp white.You can still enjoy the homier touch of rustic finished furniture, just keep the lines clean and lean. This desk’s return can be placed on left or right for maximum flexibility, depending on room layout.

Plenty of zzzs. When it comes to home office/guest room bedding, you’ve got quite a few options.Love vintage? A daybed loaded with pillows can double as a quaint seating area and a comfy bed. One with storage underneath comes in especially handy.

Going for less is more? Try a flip-flop sofa/futon on for size. Nothing like that beast of a futon you might have had in your dorm or first apartment, these sleek little numbers are a cinch to adjust.

You could invest in a wall-mounted Murphy bed, but given how they’re heavily bolted in place, they’re quite a commitment. And once you pull them down, you don’t tend to want to fold them back up every morning. 

You might say the same about sofa sleepers, but at least they offer the promise of inviting seating space once you tuck away the inner mattress. Advancements in sofa sleeper mattresses (some now with memory foam instead of innerspring) make them a sound choice for many a home office/guest room.

Content provided by: +Tailbase 

www.tailbase.com