I need some advice from anyone of you guys who has a sense of decorating. I live in a small condo, about 1200 sq ft, with a pretty nice layout. Its older and I have been here for half its life about 6 years now. It badly needs a refreshing but I am terrible at this stuff.

So this is a brief description:

I do not want to spend a lot of money but would like to update it. Carpet is pretty new leather couch is hunter green, a big light color wood map coffee table, open floor plan where from the kitchen there is a L shape counter that looks into small dining room and large living room. There is a fireplace in the middle of one wall and the other two living room walls have very large windows. All the walls throughout the condo are this puke puddy tanish flesh tone color. The moldings top and bottom are white.

I do own some art but I've never hung any of it up. I do not have any plants or accessories to note.

Any ideas greatly appreciated.

I turn to the "pros" at HGTV when I need decorating inspiration. There are tons of shows there that feature remodels, ranging from a few hundreds of dollars to many thousands..

Hi James,

I always suggest; choose a style and don't mix two styles. A style can be "classical" , "modern" , "art deco" , etc. etc. etc. You don't even have to name the style you like, just don't mix two totally different styles.

You can have several pieces of furniture in one room, each blessed with immense beauty, but put together in one room it can look like a garage sale ...

I wish I could write you more, but I wouldn't know what. I seem to be blessed with a taste for it. If I buy furniture, carpet, blinds, or anything else, then somehow it automatically matches what I already had.

Oh, I always hide the cables from electronic equipment as much as possible as I find cables incredibly ugly.

Redecorating a place can be fun, good luck with it!

Best, Anton.

First thing to do is establish a color scheme. You have a hunter green sofa and nothing else it seems so it should be easy to create a palatte. Find something which has an appealing color to you. For example I found a tee shirt with teal grape and pink in it and I really liked the way they looked together. I used those and black accents for the design of my office. Once you have the colors, go to the paint store and get the color family cards. That will give you variations of the colors you have picked. Now if the colors are vibrant than you may want to go with vibrant walls and a neutral furniture colors. If the colors are neutral, a more vibrant patterned material might be used. Most of the interesting things I have were bought at thrift shops and yard sales and repurposed. If you are walking though a thrift store and you find yourself idly picking something up, consider what attracted you to it. If it is inexpensive, buy it even if you seen no apparent use for it. It attracted you and you will find a place for it. Look beyond the obvious.

Hope this at least gives you a place to start. You might ask some friends whose style you like to come with you and offer an opinion. FriendlyFred

You need Anna in the movie, Leap Year. She is a stager and works on a studio apartment in the beginning of the movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPFfFHD_OI0

I ask my female friends of their opinions. They do much better job decorating a house than I do. Why don't you invite your friends over and ask their opinion?

Thanks to you each for the suggestions. It gives me some direction now how to update the condo's look.

I'd start by looking through some of the many home decor magazines on sale at every supermarket.

Find a look you like and use that as your starting point.

I just thought I let those know who gave suggestions how things turned out. I went to HGTV site and did find some nice ideas. I gave myself a budget of $2,500. and purchased a two new pieces of furniture, some accessories, framed a few paintings and had several walls painted. The total cost was slightly higher but I'm very happy with the refresh look of my place. Thanks for the ideas.

Nice! It sounds great to me! Thanks for letting us know.