Change Your Room For The Season

Just a few minor tweaks can give you a winter wonderland feel, JUST DON"T OVER-DO IT!

A standard living room with basic decor (except for that great chandelier((had to do it!)), can transform with subtle changes! BEFORE PIC

Hace frio! At least it is everywhere else. I live in AZ, and I guess we would say it was freezing here too, but we'd be over-reacting, it's in the upper 70's. We cry like babies when we have to wear three quarter length sleeves! But your poor living room is sad too, sad that it has to wear the same decor season in and season out without a little change to spruce things up when the holidays come. 

So.... some us of tend to go un poco loco with the Christmas decor. You're in the store and you see the cutest little turkey pillow and think "hmm, that would look great on my couch." Then, across the same aisle you see little pilgrim statues and "ay que lindo, the indians right next to them make you think of the village people." Usted tiene que tener! Before you know it, you've filled your cart with sparkly cornucopia, pumpkin spice scented candles, all of the pilgrims, village people and gingerbread men that you can find (cuz you're already thinking about Christmas!). Ay, yay, yay, your poor living room looks more like a holiday flea market, than a well put together room. While the urge to alter your decor for the changing seasons is right, the approach of more is better is all wrong and us Latinos can't help but want it all- we shop in complete sets honey!

One of the greatest things about the seasons changing is that you can create a new identity in your room for very little money. Here are the do's and don'ts for a sophisticated yet understated transformation.

1. Focus only on the rooms that your guests will see, and even then DON'T GO CRAZY! Start with your powder room and just add a new scent, a tasteful hand towel in the holiday theme- PERO, ES MUY IMPORTANTE that it stays in the same color scheme as the room currently is. Where we start to get tacky is when we throw red, green and gold in a room that is teal or lavender or rusty orange. Don't go there! Stick with a hand towel and possibly a small statue in a neutral tone of cream or silver or gold, not multiple colors of joy.
2. A tablescape is another great way to show your holiday spirit. A tablescape is a grouping of like items on a table, console or cabinet. Si, yo se usted tiene todo el pueblo de Navidad- but that doesn't mean all fifty little houses need to go on your dining room table. If you truly have the space to display them, then do so, but not in an area that gets used constantly like a coffee table or an area where your pets or children/ grandchildren can attack the little skaters on the ice. A good example of a grouping would be a decorative bowl of pretty Christmas tree ornaments, 3 metal mini trees, or 5 small angel statues. Make sure you group in quantities of three or five, never just two items. Also, unless going for a very modern look, do not line these items up like you would do to your village people, no bueno!
3. Change out your pillows- AGAIN NO TE VUELVAS LOCO! That red plaid pillow with the grandma and the snowman is NOT HOT! Here is a real chance to change the overall feel of your room with simple changes. Focus on the color of your room's main pieces- the wall color, your sofa and the accent furniture. Remove your current pillows and accent your room with a new fur throw in snowy white and maybe a few throw pillows in cream or white with white shimmery or silver snowflakes. If your room has blues or teals, incorporate the white and blue combination or even purples for your bold Christmas decor. If your room has more of a neutral palette- tans, browns, camel colors- use white, cream decor, red decor or golds. If your room has a cooler neutral palette- the trendy grays or blacks, go for whites, blacks, shimmery silvers, reds, teals or purples. To sum up, a bright white snowy look will work with any palette. If lost- go for white!
4. Have fun, not too much fun! Be practical- this is a space you will use constantly. If you see the room above, replacing just a few small items makes the room ready for snow- even in a warm climate like AZ or FL, where you just won't get any... There are also many pieces of trendy current decor that can be interpreted to have a holiday theme (like the crown pillow). You can always work that into your room later on in spring.

Free Fixes For Your Home...y otras mentiras!

Hola mi amigos. I have been gone for a while. After nearly thirteen years of unwed bliss, me and my non-husband Jay became marido y esposa! It was a beautiful day and I am swimming in happiness, but I've been a little neglectful of my blog, with all of the planning I was doing for my wedding... and for that, I am truly sorry.

For the last few weeks I have been searching many home improvement websites, only to find that many of them tend to pull your leg with the information they deliver. Mentirosos! The largest offender I found this week was Better Homes & Garden's site www.bhg.com, which claims to give you tips for no cost decorating- 26 examples of it too! And, while I am a firm believer in lost cost, but don't call a chancleta un zapato!

One of their ideas is to add height to your room by raising your curtain rod close to the ceiling. this is one of my favorite designer tricks and really does work to expand your room, but what it isn't... is free. Sure, to remove the curtain rod and then reinstall it a little higher is nothing but labor, provided that you have spackle near by to patch up the former holes in the wall. Then you have to put the curtain on the rod. Oh, what's that you say? Now it's too high off the floor? Of course it is! Now you have to buy a new curtain. And longer curtains, though they will look better in the room, will cost more money because they use more fabric. I have already known someone who tried this themselves but didn't think about the consequence...shopping!

So, if you are crafty or a good sewer and have a few yards of leftover fabric that just so happens to coordinate with the rest of the furnishings in your room, you can always add the new fabric to the bottom hem of your old curtains for a color block effect. This doesn't always work well. Your room has to be more contemporary in style for it to look like you meant to do it; definitely don't try this in a more traditional styled room. I have done this before, on purpose and it looked fantastic. But it just might be easier to explain the whole truth to the reader, cree que si?

Last week I truly did do a "free" remodel. My 6 year old son, whose room was going to be designed in a motorcycle theme came to my husband and I and requested that it now be army style. I asked him what we would do with all of the motorcycles and he said, "mommy, there are military motorcycles". Well, excuse me... We had one gallon of a deep gray paint for three walls of his room and hadn't yet bought the red that was going to be for the last wall. This gave me an opportunity to do one of my most favorite things...recycle. I always save the old paint from past rooms and am pretty good at mixing colors. I used the minty color that Walmart messed up in my hallway, added some purple gray from my last home's living room (seen in a past wallpaper blog post), added a dash of bright white that I use for all of my trim and a quarter if a can of lime green from my daughter's room. I mixed it all together and created an army green that looks great against the other three walls. Jay (my husband) likes it because I got rid of some paint from the garage. Jaidyn (my son) likes it because he got his dream fulfilled. I (me) like it because I was too tired to go to the store! And, it was really free.

Now, I'm not saying that anyone can do this. You have to experiment with proportions and combinations of colors, but it can be done and it's better for the environment whenever you can use existing products versus buying new, especially when the item contains chemicals!

As soon as mi hijo cleans his room, I will post a picture to show you the new color scheme. I hope to get back into the war zone to finish decorating my drawing figures on his wall to tie in the theme. I will post those as well. It's always a work in progress, but so rewarding!

My next post will be answering questions from homeowners across the country. If you have a question for me, please email it to fashionhouseinteriors@gmail.com. I will do my best to answer it this Friday. Bye for now. Besos!

Erase The "Ghetto Mentality" to Beat The Minority Stigma With Your Business

Hola Todos. I love my blog because it allows me to speak frankly, directly to my people. Today I wanna talk to you about something near and dear to my heart- Minority Owned Business. You know, I just recently found out that there is a Puerto Rican Chamber of Commerce in AZ. I'm excited to know this because it means that there are enough viable Hispanic owned businesses within my community to warrant a club! I love to work with and know of other minority owned businesses, not just Hispanic owned, but Black as well. Throughout the years I have seen many Blacks and not so many Hispanics start businesses. Nearly all are no longer standing. Con la gracia de Dios, mine is still here! But one thing that always plagues me about our businesses is how little thought, time and money we invest in making them strong companies that are respected by the community. Many average people just don't take us owning a business seriously and we perpetuate the stigma by making these "ghetto fabulous" little stores, salons, barber shops and restaurants that no one, other than people of the hood would truly want to visit. Our appearance is everything! It is the key to having a successful company. If you want to walk the walk, you must talk it first!

Just recently a friend of a friend- my friend to the second power, asked me to help her with her salon. She is seeking to attract a slightly more upscale clientele and want them to feel welcome and take her business seriously. The locale of her place is in the midst of moderate income, but she does have the occasional higher end client in to get a cut or style. Her place had become the typical shop where people come and wanna hang all day watching TV and chillin. Having people occupying that space for hours on end does not make her money and she knows that. The problem came when she asked for my help to upgrade her space. Now I don't say this to diss or call her out in any way, because I like her- she's a hard working, strong black woman making her way with two businesses. I want to see her do well and would love to help her get there; but after spending nearly two hours with her going over her visions and perception of her future space, she looked at me and told me she could devote around $500 a month to fixing up her place. My heart sunk when she said this. I first wanted to say "seriously?", but I can't blame her. If you have never done any real renovation work, you might have no idea whatsoever how much it can cost. The mistake usually comes from a situation very similar to hers. What mainly needs to be done is cosmetic, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't cost, it just doesn't cost AS MUCH as it would if you did a full blown remodel. Many of our people buy full living room sets for $599, so when you explain that an average waiting room chair can cost $300 or more, they can't compute. Spending $300 on one waiting room chair might sound crazy, but it is on the lower end of the spectrum. The average is between $400- $700.

The appearance of high quality in your place of business greets customers with the comfort of a "stable company worthy of their patronage". Just think, for a second. You're looking for a home in a great neighborhood and are hiring a real estate agent. Two agents come to your home. One pulls up in a beat up 89' Corolla, dressed in jeans and a wrinkled t-shirt. The second drives up in a 2010 Nissan Maxima with nice rims and steps out of the car wearing nice work attire. She's not stepping out of a Mercedes with a power suit that says "I cost a million dollars to hire, but she's also not stepping out of a piece of crap that says "I'm not very successful at what I do because if I was I'd have a way better car!" Who would you trust to find your dream home? Our business' earning potential is directly affected by the face that we put on to the public.

I take a long time and use these examples because BRANDING is such an important part of making people "believe" our business. So many minorities try the do-it-yourself approach to opening up their store. They underestimate the start-up costs. They say- "I can pick some colors, throw up some hanging racks and open up a clothing store and they will come if I have fly gear" or "if I throw up a few flat screens I will look more upscale". They never think that certain colors will attract more buyers within their target market. Perhaps cramming ten cheap looking plastic tables and used chairs into their restaurant might not be the best floor plan for the ease of your customers and traffic flow. Yes, being proud of Puerto Rico is great, but throwing up murals of palm trees and tacky flowers and the flag might not be the best decorating choices to attract a more universal customer. Sometimes we think so much about ourselves that we don't understand who our customer is or SHOULD be.

Why can't we have beautiful, successful businesses? Why can't we invest the money it truly takes to show our best face to others? Last year I had a NFL football player and his wife come to me wanting me to design and build a fabulous space with a "rock star" feel. They wanted it head to toe extravagant because they would have mostly "baller" clientele and wanted a high end look to go with what they would charge their clients. The place was a former salon that already had it's own distinctive look. When it came down to investment- they wouldn't spend any more than the cheesy $20,000 they got for build out money from their property owner. Just a new floor alone in that amount of space was going to run $13,000. In the end they settled for a low end remodeling company who did nothing to make the place look any different than what it did originally. Such a shame that money wouldn't even spend money to make money!

My bottom lines are many. Let's stop giving others a reason to talk about us as lower class business owners. There is nothing wrong with trying to go it alone when planning your business hub to a certain extent, but a truly successful commercial space involves many "tricks" that are known only to true Interior Designers that deal with this type of design. This doesn't necessarily mean that you will have to drop $30,000 to remodel your business interior, but perhaps hiring a designer to work with you on even a few design improvements is a worthy investment. Allow him/her to design a plan for you that will work with a budget that is one you can eventually save up for, if you don't have the money now. Don't think that just changing one or two things like paint color and accessories might give your business an entire style overhaul. Commercial spaces are not as easy to upgrade as a room in a home. There are codes to consider, lighting issues, space constraints, traffic patterns, ergonomics, different moods of client, themes for branding your company. Designing a space is a well balanced combination of science and art. Non-minority business owners care enough about their companies to invest in opening well done restaurants, offices, spas and stores. We can do it too! Let's stop giving them reasons to call us ghetto! Let's put our businesses on the path to recognition and success...

picture from : djhuppatz@blogspot.com

The Mothers of Recycling... Hispanics

Hola todos,

How are we all on this beautiful day? Of course, with Earth Day so fast approaching, everyone is talking about doing for the environment. Being socially responsible, being green... don't they know Hispanics are like the mothers of all recycling? Sheesh, we've been repurposing for hundreds of years; mami's couch, abuela's coffee table, tia's knick knack collection of good luck elephants, prima's capia collection. Even our teenage daughter's collection of roses from her boyfriend, all dried up- but they won't dare throw it out! lol. We do it out of love, we do it out of necessity, but we need to realize that we are also doing it for the environment. Whether we realize it or not, hand me down furniture keeps it out of landfills, off street corners and junk piles. It might have been born out of necessity, but we are still helping to save the planet, in our own backwards way.

Now, just because you have that old piece of furniture doesn't mean it has to stick out like a soar thumb from the rest of your home's interior. Your old pieces can become just as stylish as that newer leather sofa you just bought. (Just please tell me you didn't buy it in red! Red is sooo outdated!!!) If it's an old beat up sofa with faded cushions- go to Target and spend under $100 to get a nice slipcover. They are not all vieja looking anymore. They come fitted and some have great little straight edge skirts. Contrast it with different pillows for a newer looking piece for under $200.00! If it's an older coffee table, there are two ways you can go with that. The first is to darken the stain. I know, we are not all talented in the D-I-Y area, but while sitting in front of the TV watching novelas you can spread out an old sheet, put the table on top of it, sand the top and legs with a fine grit (220 grit) sandpaper to scuff the top layer of sheen off and use a rag dipped in an expresso stain to bring the table back to life. Just make sure you use a small can of stain and sealer in one (for less work!) The second suggestion- when all else fails, go silver. Metal colors are always a timeless alternative for decor and they go with everything!

If you are tired of the dried flowers, create a small compost pile under your sink for your avocado plant. (You know, the one you made out of the pit, sitting on the kitchen counter!) I bought a small composting pail from Marshalls for $14.99. I put all veggie scraps, egg shells and occasionally shred some paper and stick it in this pail. It slowly composts the material to use as fertilizer in my lawn and for my house plants.

I know I have kinda rushed through these ideas, but I get so excited at the thought of recycling! It's not a new thing and Hispanics ARE socially conscious, we just might not have known that our passing down things from one family member to another was actually the act of recycling. We all need to be praised for our actions, every now and then! El trabajo bueno, mis personas!

Want to learn more ways to help? Are you finding no family members to pass things onto or are you just tired of your old furnishings and household products? Consider donating them to St. Vincent de Paul, The Salvation Army, The Goodwill, Big Brother/ Big Sister or my personal favorite- Habitat For Humanity. My company donates my client's old furnishings and appliances whenever it can, so they go into homes of those who really need the help. One persons trash is another man's treasure, and it's just another form of recycling...

To contact these organizations and do your part-

Habitat For Humanity http://www.habitat.org/

The Salvation Army http://www.salvationarmyusa.org/usn/www_usn_2.nsf

St. Vincent de Paul http://www.svdpusa.org/

The Goodwill http://www.goodwill.org/

Big Brother/ Big Sister http://www.bbbs.org/site/c.diJKKYPLJvH/b.1539751/k.BDB6/Home.htm

Let's make a difference in the lives of others, while making the planet better for ourselves and our families!

Minority Development, Positive Latina

Si, si, si...yo se! I've been gone again. I'm trying not to do that, believe me. Pero, I've got a lot going on. Design now has become 90% research and marketing and 10% actual design. No bueno, but I am trying to turn that around. I've missed you guys, and my outlet...

On the thought of research and marketing, I've been living and breathing networking. I have a few women in Arizona that I love- strong, black women who are always moving positively forward. They have formed a group called Sister CEO Networking Group. It's a wonderful group of minority women (yes, I know it says sister...but I'm Puerto Rican and if you know your history- we do have African American running all through our heritage!) who get together once a month to teach and inspire each other to grow their businesses through positive stimulation and information. Our inaugural event had a wonderful woman who had my ear from the second I walked in the room. A beautiful Latina named Lorena Valencia, who owns a multi-million dollar company called Reliance Wire. I LOVE POWERFUL, SUCCESSFUL AND POSITIVE WOMEN, but even more... I love it when they are Hispanic. It proves that we can do it, and do it well. There have been many times where I have wanted to fold and it has always been the inspiration of a successful minority woman that has brought me back to my grind. Lorena caught me at a time when I was ready to push forward and gave me the stick of dynamite to shoot to the stars!

Lorena is the Chairperson for the Grand Canyon chapter of the Minority Supplier Development Council. It is a nationwide foreground for minority entrepreneurs to network and do business with large companies, as well as each other. It has the ability to get you in front of major worldwide corporations to promote your small, minority owned business. Whether you sell a product or service, you more than likely have a business that can benefit a little company like Staples or Walmart or one of the other 3,500 sponsoring businesses. And if you don't think you do, think again. These companies are full of hundreds of thousands of individuals. Maybe the corporation as a whole can't use your product or service, but several hundred of their employees can? The MSDC is the most accepted minority business association in the U.S. I tell you about it today, not only because it has impressed me, but because it can offer you and your business or potential future business the opportunity to grow, flourish and thrive in a market where we feel like the underdog.

The Latino community is trying to make a name itself and we have no choice but to continue to strive to be on top. We are rapidly becoming the majority of the world's culture. There are still many stigmas associated with our beautiful people and we MUST break through them to show the world that we CAN be successful entrepreneurs, inventive, creative, responsible, intelligent. There is so much more to us than what the masses read in the paper and see on the news. While so many are caught up in the immigration debate of our beloved Mexican amigos, we are designing superb clothing for our First Lady, we are building award winning architecture in Dubai, we are designing multi-million dollar mansions for athletes and wealthy business owners. With enough of us doing well, they will have no choice but to begin to see our value to society.

I encourage all of you to find a minority networking group. Yes, a plain ole networking group can work to boost your business, but there is nothing like meeting with like minded individuals who look and act and think just like you do. We are a people who protect and take care of our own and that should be encouraged every chance we get. Meet once a month- NO MATTER WHAT ELSE YOU HAVE GOING ON, it's not more important than trying to get ahead for just one day out of thirty. Let's build bigger, stronger companies that provide strong, stable income for our families. Help other Latinos and other minorities by looking to them for their services and products. It helps to reaffirm our worth. Look into the Minority Supplier Development Council. You can find them at www.nmsdcs.org/, to locate your local branch. The cost to join is minor, compared to the benefit. All of the information is on the website. I will begin my process to join this week, and will update you on all of the opportunities that I have found through the various events and connections I make with this group.

I am excited about the future. YO SOY LATINA Y YO SOY UN INTERIORISTA!

Step Ya Game Up- Small Changes That Make A Big Impact

White Moldings

There are so many things we can do to our homes to increase the value and update the look. My favorite of all of them is one of the cheapest things you can do in your home- yes mama, CHEAP! You can truthfully give your walls the look of being freshly painted, simply by painting your baseboards white. It's no wonder why this is the oldest trick in the book when staging a house for sale. Mucho dinero? No! I buy my trim paint from Wal-mart. One quart of their brand of ColorPlace semi-gloss interior white costs $6.97. I always use high quality Sherwin Williams paint for my client's homes, but for trim- a standard quality, well priced paint can do the job. Here's my trick. I paint all of my walls in satin finish paint. It's not as glossy as semi-gloss paint, yet not as dull as flat. It's a nice, wipeable paint, meaing that it's easy to clean. NOW FOR THE TRICK- make your baseboards pop by painting them a semi-gloss or even high gloss white. This takes away the uniform look and makes your baseboards stand out as crisp and clean. Mami will think you've been limpiar la casa! Doing this also highlights your wall color- and you can use it up against any color of paint. Yes, creams and off white trims were the scene for a while, but bright white is back with a vengeance. It's hip, it's fresh and it's a quick and easy way to step ya game up for little dollars!

In the pictures above, notice the difference between the cream colored baseboard and then painting it a crisp, sexy white. The first picture on the top is the baseboard in white, the second pic is the previous color of cream and the bottom pic shows the baseboard in half and half. I still need to do a second coat of white when this dries, so it will be even more dramatic! Try it yourself.

Mi Familia

Hola Amigos,

I am working on my next post, about RED- the best color for the Boom Boom Room like Pitbull likes to call it, but on this Sunday- I can't help but to feel blessed and share a quick story about la gracia del Dios!

When I was younger events were set in motion that caused a huge tear in the fabric of my family. I was like all of you- humungous family of titis (tias)- sorry, in my Puerto Rican family we call them titi, tios, primos, primas. Every Wednesday we would head to mi titi's little apartment in the Bronx and pile in like carne in a pastellio (empanada)- OK, earlier explanation still applies. All one thousand of us would spend all night there. The kids would all squeeze into one room the size of my current closet and play atari all day while the adults talked bochinche (gossip)(chisme) en la cocina. It was my life and my family was all I knew. Then, in the blink of an eye, I lost all of them. The circumstances and what was right and wrong at that time have no matter in my heart. All that matters to me, is the loss that I felt with the absence of all of the cousins that I grew up with. I lost a little part of me and my Puerto Ricanism (in my mind). After all, mi abuela was more into local food than cultural. I would've said American food, but PR is part of America too! She spoke perfect english and it was her language of choice, so we did not have to speak spanish ever, unless around the extended family. Furthermore, I was the only child in my house that spoke or even understood spanish in the first place! When you don't use it, you sure do lose it- a lot of it, but not all. It is like riding a bike. But it was more than the speaking of spanish that made me feel less hispanic for a while. It was the closeness I shared with others, the comradery

with my own that I missed.

A few years later we moved to Massachusetts, much to my rebellion. I went from the city to the suburbs, which felt like the boonies- FOR REAL! Yes, there were Puerto Ricans, but not too many where I lived, and they were no fun! My family was everything a great hispanic family should be- loud, alive, fun, loving, bold. I missed that! I had no idea how my cousins were growing up? What high school was Michele attending? What college was Lenny going to? How did little Monica look with longer hair? I missed all of that- and while stubborn adults thought this was the right thing to do, it took a lot away from the kids it affected- like me!

Every few months I would search on the internet for my lost familia. You know how easy they claim it to be to find your lost loved ones- THEY LIE- it's not! You can find anybody- for a price, but the long list of people with the same name and the possibility that the one I pay for might be the right one was just too much maybe for me.

Well, I found them finally, two weeks ago. Facebook brought us all back together after nearly 20 years and I cannot explain the joy in my heart. Now I live in Arizona, three thousand miles away. I had never been unhappy to live here until I found my family. Mi titi whose apartment we crammed into every Wednesday is now 82 years old and still cooking arroz con gondules every week (on Thursdays now). My cousin Michele is getting married in less than 2 weeks and the others are all doing well in NY and NJ, some with families of their own, like me. I hope that financial success, which I hope will pick up again soon for my company, will allow me to visit frequently to try and establish a new bond with them again. Mi familia is back! I look forward to getting to know them again...