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How to Decorate an Entry

Every home has a point of entry to welcome its guests. Some are small and require creative ways for big impact and others vast demanding key pieces to cement style and grace. No matter which you possess both require five key ingredients to command order for good reception.

AB HOME Interiors entrance

1)   Color- Every home should have flow and your entry sets the stage for what’s to come. Wow your guests with an enticing backdrop that shows you and your personality off. Are you calm and elegant or bold and eclectic? What ever your style it all starts with color!

2)    Art- I’m a huge advocate for art. It is what I consider to be the “wild card”. It can be abstract, traditional or somewhere in between. Choose pieces that you love and create conversation. If ever you invest in art this is one place that calls for quality.

3)    Console-If you have an entry that is plentiful in space, always include a console or side table. It is a great place to dress up your entry with my next suggestion: lighting. It is also a great place to set keys or mail should you need it along with other favorable decorative items.

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Ready to get your room started? Need some help? Contact us. We offer an array of services to meet your design needs whether you live in our area, or out of state. Click here for more info!

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Posted: October 24, 2012 by Amanda Gates |Filed Under: DIY | Design trend | Interiors | Scale and proportion | TIPS | accessorizing | art | candles | choosing paint | clever ideas | design | design 101 | design basics | design strategies 101 | design tips | design tricks | elements of design | entries | focal point | hallways | hanging art | home decor | interior design | lamps | paint | , , , , , , , , Leave a Comment
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Designer Do’s and Don’ts

I would like to thank DefySupply for featuring me as one of their experts for their latest sales infographic. If you are looking for furniture they are the place to go! As one of their favorite designers they stroked my ego by including me in their latest ad. So thanks defysupply, you rock. But honestly, I am pretty great so listen to what I recommend, it will change your life-promise!

Design Do's and Dont's

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Posted: October 22, 2012 by Amanda Gates |Filed Under: Bedrooms | DIY | Design trend | Feng Shui | Interiors | Simple Luxuries | TIPS | art | bathrooms | blogging | cleaning | clever ideas | color | decorating a guest room | decorating for the seasons | design 101 | design basics | design education | design strategies 101 | design tips | design trends | design tricks | elements of design | family rooms | home and garden | how to's for accessories | interior design | linens | living your best life | luxury | , , , 1 Comment
AB Homes Interiors Blog


Style and how to get it in 3 easy steps

When it comes to style decorating, sometimes homeowners get overwhelmed.(OK a lot overwhelmed!)  They obsess trying to make their homes look like the magazines, or that TV show. But the warmest, most charming homes, are those with personal mementos that show your personal style off. (Won’t find that in a magazine.) In fact, I attended a magazine staging for Better homes and gardens last December and the entire shoot focuses on how the room looks through the camera lens. Flowers adjusted, lamps tweaked, and furniture placed just right. Literally everything is just so! Now I am a huge fan and reader of BHG. Their style is relaxed, easy and accessible to the everyday homeowner, however, remember that people don’t live in those pages.

How do you get that room from the magazine, but put your personal style in it? Here are three of my favorite tips.

1) Family photos

Family

There is nothing more personal than family. And who shares the best memories of happiness, love, sadness, and humor with you? Your family does! Turn them into your best decor and show them off. Nothing uplifts and supports you like family, honor them by making them a show piece in your home.

2) Color palette

Color

Nothing is more personal than color. Sure there are always those colors that are considered on trend. But most people have a color that they love, and while the intensity of that hue may change over the years, most homeowners stick to it. For anyone who has taken my design class, I talk about my mother and her love affair with mint green.

Mint paint. Moms FAVORITE color

Everything in our house when I was growing up centered around this color. Everything! The house trim, the tile in our kitchen, the floors…. Even today she has mint green bowls, dishes, a Kitchen Aid mixer, furniture, all of it mint green. Mom has never veered from the mint green ideology. If it’s mint, she loves it! When I SEE mint I think of her. That’s personal style! Color is intrinsic to who we are and it inspires us and our homes.

3) Art

Personal art

You have heard me say it before, I love art. And nothing is more personal than art. The art that you like, may not be what I like, and vice versus. Art is one of the best ways to add personal style to your home. Art inspires you and is uniquely you. A great way to show off your style, and make your home special.

What are some of your favorite tricks?

Ready to get your room started? Contact us. We offer an array of services to meet your design needs whether you live in our area, or out of state. Click here for more info!

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images: The birds papaya, house tweaking, desire to inspire

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Posted: July 29, 2011 by Amanda Gates |Filed Under: Before and after | How-to's | accessorizing | art | bookshelves | clever ideas | color | color trends | design 101 | design education | design strategies 101 | design tricks | home decor | inspiration | style | , , , , , , , , , , , , , 6 Comments
AB Homes Interiors Blog


Design Strategies 101 and Style Blueprint

We are very excited this Monday morning! And we think you will be too! We have teamed up with Styleblueprint, a wonderfully fresh Nashville blog, to bring you a special offer on our famously popular Design Strategies 101 course!

Design strategies 101

Style blueprint deal

For one day only, we will be offering our Design Strategies 101 class to 50 lucky individuals for an unprecedented $99!! So what the heck does that mean, and why are we so excited?

Design Strategies is geared to help you complete your  home projects on time and on budget with easy tips, and simple organization. Our mission is to provide you, the homeowner, the necessary tools and expertise needed to complete the job on your own, with our easy to follow techniques.

Never shop without focus again. Stay on track, on budget and save time all while having fun.  Now, that’s sounds pretty good, huh? We think so.

The StyleBlueprint Deal: The Best of the Best.

Highlights

Design Strategies 101

  • Today’s deal is for the DIY’er who wants an intensive course on home design to learn how to tackle their own design projects or cut back on their interior design bill.
  • AB Home holds boot camp design classes for professional home designers, but today’s deal is specifically for the homeowners themselves.
  • This 3-4 hour course will educate you on the design process and get your creative juices running!

Like doing your own home projects, but don’t know where to start? Tired of making costly mistakes and wasting valuable time? Let AB HOME teach you their award winning Design Strategies to help you achieve design success.

While this course is usually a 4 week intensive, meeting for 2-3 hours each week, today’s deal was specifically conceived for the busy StyleBlueprint woman – or guy!- and made into an intensive one day, 3-4 hour course, with several dates available.  If you wish you could pick up classes at O’More College of Design or could spend days flipping through home decor magazines…. or, conversely, if you are simply lost when it comes to home decor, this is your chance to learn from the pro’s.

Design Strategies 101 is for the DIY’er who wants to learn top tips on how to plan for their next project efficiently and quickly. Learn how to:

1) get started
2) build a floor plan
3) budget
4) accessorize
5) And use color effectively and correctly

We are honored and excited to have been offered this opportunity to give you this incredible deal! If you want to learn easy to follow tips  on home decor in one afternoon, then this is the class for you. Don’t miss out on this great offer. Quantities are limited, and when they are gone, there gone!

Click here to purchase your deal!

Harley kit kat

The best part of of this deal? You get to meet me for free! And I’m pretty awesome…

AB Homes Interiors Blog
Posted: March 14, 2011 by Amanda Gates |Filed Under: Interiors | design 101 | design basics | design education | design strategies 101 | designer bootcamp | , , , , , , , , , , Leave a Comment
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Atlanta Market 2010, by Amanda Gates

Well it is that time of year. I am headed to Atlanta for the Home and gift Market, and I am so excited to meet Dayka Robinson of Meditations of life and style. If you remember, I posted my elation in this post about how excited I am to hang out with this talented, fabulous gal.

I am even more excited about hanging out with her as she chauffeur’s me around Atlanta like the Big D of a designer I am! By the way- She’s taking me to a V.I.P event Thursday night who happens to have as their guest, none other than Jonathan Adler himself!

Jonathan Adler

Jonathan Adler

I have a laundry list of things to do, and see but I will take photos along the way to keep you posted. I will report back all of the upcoming trends, and color movements. I will also be happy to show you this years animal fashions that will be seen everywhere. We’ve seen owls, horses, fish, ducks, penguins, birds, antlers, just to name a few. Market is also a great way to view market trends in spending. If Market is strong, then buying power is up, and this is good for business’ all around.

Don’t forget to sign up for all our wonderful new classes!
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Posted: July 15, 2010 by Amanda Gates |Filed Under: Atlanta market | color podz | design strategies 101 | designer bootcamp | Leave a Comment
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Design Strategies 101-Professional decorating classes by Amanda Gates

Design Strategies 101 Decorating classes

Do you like decorating? Most of us love to revamp and update our homes and shopping for the perfect items can be a lot of fun! In fact, it’s one of the reasons I became a designer.But sometimes it can become challenging without having the the right tools. I know from my own experience, that when it came to redecorating my own home I couldn’t believe how hard it was to make a decision! And I know the importance of having a plan and I possess the right tools to make it happen.

In early 2007 a small but very productive design club was created. One client told her neighbor about my services, who then told another, who told another, and thus, our club was created. With little structure, but big design plans in mind, all of us would get together on Friday afternoons for a little design pow wow and discuss design. It was a great way for six lovely ladies to pick my professional brain over a glass of yummy Merlot, and we all achieved needed design solutions. Not to mention it also created one of the best design support groups in Nashville, and I got the added bonus of acting as their sponsor.

Well, word traveled fast about our little pow wow and before I knew it everyone wanted to be a part of it. I mean, who wouldn’t want to get together, sip wine and discuss great design topics of the day? I know I did! Unfortunately, there just wasn’t enough of me or time to go around. But I soon realized that the same topics, and concerns kept resurfacing. They were the topics I faced when redoing my home, and they were the same topics everyone else had. And thus, Design Strategies was born.

I built this course for you in mind. After the challenges I personally faced, and the challenges I kept seeing in our pow wow, I realized how difficult it must be for every busy mom or professional trying to find the joy in decorating, while running in circles of frustration! So if you want to learn how to tackle your design project on your own then Design Strategies is for you. Design Strategies gives you simple design solutions at an affordable price, and workshop’s that help you learn how to do it.

So there it is. The evolution of this course, and why we offer it. Had it not been for those six lovely ladies, their laughter and design dilemmas…some would say design emergencies, this course would never have seen the light of day. Because of them everyone can now learn the necessary tools it takes to decorate their homes and it actually has structure and a fancy PowerPoint to boot! Who knew it could be this fancy!?

D.I.Y. Decorating workshops


AB HOME Interior’s Design Strategies 101 course is for the do-it-yourselfer who wants to tackle their home projects on their own.
Our mission is to provide you the necessary tools and expertise you need to complete the job successfully based on the four concerns that are really the reason we are in business!
Classes available:
1) Where to start and finding inspiration
2) Developing a strategy, budget and floor plan
3) Smart shopping and how to accessorize
4) Color for the home
Available DIY classes can be purchased in a half day or all day package. Our annual Lighting course will be offered next Spring! Sign-up now, limited seating available.

A) Design Comprehensive-An in depth, one day crash course focusing on the key points necessary to execute your next project like a pro. Includes a group work shops, experiments and an in-depth education on building a proper decorating tool kit for your next project. Course is typically an all day course with lunch, (5-6 hours), depending on number of students, and is held all day on Friday, or Friday and Saturday. Design Comprehensive $499. All materials, snacks and drinks included.

B) New! Design Comprehensive light-Taking highlights from the design comprehensive course to give you quick, easy tools to get started, all in a couple of hours! If you don’t have a lot of time but need decorating guidance for your home, then this course is for you. Afternoon course is typically 2-2.5 hours depending on number of students and focuses on the key decorating tips to help  you get focused for your next home project. Includes one group workshop. Decorating afternoon course, $199.

Lighting 101- Class focuses in great depth on the principles of good lighting, fundamentals of light and how it works in your home. Most importantly, how to make what you got, work! For more information on this special, once a year course, and when classes will be held, please contact us.


Classes will be held Fridays and Saturday’s



If you would like more information on our courses,  or would like to sign-up for a class please contact us @info@abhomeinteriors.com. You can also contact us by phone @615-750-2763. If you are a Design graduate or Design Senior in our area, and would like to sign up for our Bootcamp workshops, please email Christian at Christian@abhomeinteriors.com. All classes must meet minimum enrollment requirements.Once enrollment has been confirmed classes will be scheduled.
For up to the minute information:

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Posted: July 2, 2010 by Amanda Gates |Filed Under: design strategies 101 | 7 Comments
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