When those bright spring greens and colorful flowers start appearing after a long, gray winter, we naturally start thinking about freshening up our own gardens. We pore over bulb catalogs, stock up on planters, and head to our local garden centers for seedlings, soil, and supplies.

In the midst of all the garden-planning frenzy, take a moment to think about how the dream garden you’re visualizing relates to the exterior of your home. Two extreme examples from France will give you the idea: the formal gardens of the palace at Versailles, perfectly in keeping with the formal style of the building and its interior, and the riotous tumble of colors at Giverny, the final home of the Impressionist artist Claude Monet, where the interior colors of the house were chosen to harmonize with the gardens already in place.

Image via: Kim Parker Interiors

Just in case you don’t live in chateau, let’s take a look at how you can create and apply an inside-outside design concept to your home and garden. How do you start? An easy way is to focus on a current trend in interior decor, then find ways to translate that trend in your garden.

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Interiors ideas from the garden

Color-blocking is not only a key trend for spring (in fashion as well as interiors), but it’s also one of the easiest ways to give your interior a fresh new look! Martha Stewart has some bright and colorful ideas to get you started, from table settings and shower curtains to painting shelves and tossing pillows.

Image via: PHX Architecture

Outside home – garden inspiration

Next, think about outside your home. Does the view of your plants, lawn, and trees from, say, your living room, harmonize with the colors, shapes, and scale of the interior? It’s useful to think in terms of visually extending you view, from the inside of a room outwards, to include exterior architectural features like a deck, and beyond, to your lawn and garden. But how do you take the idea of color-blocking outside?

Your lawn is a great place to start, especially in early spring, when it’s just starting to turn green. (This is also the perfect time to consider a commercial lawn care service, to encourage healthy growth and color after the winter doldrums.) Once the lawn is in good shape, you can focus on adding blocks of color to that lovely expanse of green, with bright, early-flowering annuals, dark green shrubs, and small trees, like Japanese Maples, with a variety of foliage colors and variegation.

After your garden-renewal projects are well underway, you might want to think about changing exterior elements of the house itself; this can easily add a completely new dimension to the idea of outdoor color-blocking. Take a look at these exterior spruce-up ideas, ranging from a new color for your garage door to enhancing your entry.

So the next time you’re out taking a walk or exploring a public park or garden, take color inspiration from whatever attracts your eye — daffodils, new leaves, wet buildings, the sky — and create your own unique color palette as a jumping-off place for your fresh-for-spring color-blocked home, inside and out!

For more gardening tips on Stagetecture, click here.

Today we continue Stagetecture’s feature. ‘Olioboard Inspiration‘. Last week you enjoyed Steven Gluth’s  – ‘Sexy Chocolate Valentine’s Home ‘ and this week I bring you Tabitha Loudon, a member of the Facebook Olioboard Fan Room. I asked her to show us great inspiration for turning your winter home into a spring inspired home. We are all ready to get out of the cold, and Tabitha did a great job of showing you how to instantly bring warmer weather into your interiors this Winter!

If you’re interested in being featured see details here: How to be featured on Stagetecture’s Olioboard Inspiration‘ series.

Olioboard Inspiration #5

‘Brightening your Winter Home with Spring Ideas ” – Tabitha Loudon

Suffering from the winter blues? Don’t worry, spring is around the corner! Today I am going to show you how to get ready for spring by adding some sunshine into your winter home and it all starts with color! Color is what we see in everyday life, and when I look at nature, I’m always inspired by the colorful aspects of it. When spring is about to begin, green leaves start forming on the trees as well as patches on the ground. The flowers begin to bloom, and it can really bring out natures true beauty! Nature is a healthy, important aspect to our needs. Life would not be the same if we weren’t surrounded by the beauty of nature. Also, being around plants and flowers can really make us happy! So when we are decorating for spring, using bright colors, natural aspects, plants and flowers are important to this theme.

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How to bring spring into your winter home

When using bright colors think about what colors are in nature. Do you see greens, yellows, oranges, and pinks? Think about softer tones. Nature is comfort, being outdoors is like seeing a beautiful painting, it makes you feel good, and in a relaxed state. Spring is about relaxation so having colors that are too vivid or dark won’t work in this scheme. When we think about spring what comes to mind?

Bring in natural elements

Birds, flowers, rain, Easter; all these things could make us think about spring so add little touches of things that remind you of it. You can add flowers to the pillows or find baskets to place around the house. Also, when decorating for spring think about adding some plants to put in your window, fill your vases with fresh flowers or bring some flowers from the garden to use for a table centerpiece.

Bring in natural light

Another tip to think about this coming spring, is to make sure to keep the sunlight in your home, it can really brighten up the darker areas. So, open a window or some curtains and let the sunshine in! Now you see how nature can really play a big part in decorating for spring. It’s time to enjoy that time of year where we can go outside, and enjoy the beauty of spring, and bring it into our homes. Also, if you are heading outdoors don’t forget to bring an umbrella, because you may just need it.

About Tabitha Loudon

Tabitha Loudon is mom and an aspiring designer who lives in Baton Rouge, La. She plans to take classes to earn a degree in interior design, but in the meantime she raises her three year old daughter. Her dream is to become a successful designer and work with the rich and famous. Follow Tabitha on Facebook, on Olioboard, and on Twitter.

If you are a person who loves to update the home with the changes of seasons, spring brings a great occasion for you. However, if you are not interested to change the whole decor of your house, as it will be costly too, you can choose to focus on the living room. Here are ideas to bring spring color into your interiors.

Image via: Decoist

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Give an Organic Touch

Fruits and flowers are the two integral parts of spring. So, bringing some bright-colored, fresh flowers and fruits inside the living room is not a bad idea. For example, take some water in a glass vase and place some yellow tulips in it with some kumquats at the bottom half of it. You can think of some other color combinations with different fruits and flowers. Place the vase on the coffee table or on the dining table and see how it changes the air in a moment.

Bring Spring’s Spirit with Colors

The most common way to bring spring inside your living room is to replace neutral colors with bold, vibrant, and vivid ones. To match with the spring’s happy-go-lucky theme, you can bring bright yellows, vibrant pinks, greens, and blues in the living room. Bright colored flower vase, draperies, coffee table, or paintings against the backdrop of milky white walls will inject a spring zing into your space instantly.

Image via: House Beautiful

Renovate the Fireplace

Instead of discarding some items that were essential during winter, you can renovate them according to the seasonal theme. You can create an airy feel in your living room by lighting up with a number of candles in transparent glass hurricanes. Fill the room with fragrance by placing a container filled with flowers in front of the fireplace opening.

Replace Fabrics

Change the draperies of windows with some floral printed fabrics. The dreary sofa can be mixed up with some bright colored accent pillows. You can also use floral printed slipcovers to add a brand new look to your sofas. Duvet covers can also be used instead of slipcovers, as they are available in fabulous paints and patterns. To give perfection to sofa renovation, place a vase of fresh flowers on the center of the coffee table.

Image via: Apartment Therapy

Wall Display

Give the living room a new look by adding ready-made ceiling rosettes. They will serve as an impressive wall display. Being available in different shades, these discs can easily add grace and style to your living room. They are lightweight, easy to hang, and are affordable.

In most of the houses, living room is treated as the hub where people relax and spend times with family members, friends, or guests. So, giving this place a spring makeover will certainly uplift the appearance of your whole living space.

For more home decor ideas on Stagetecture, click here.

With the footsteps of spring at our door, many of us may feel the urge to shed the heavy winter decor from our living space and refresh it with a clear, straighten look. If you have that urge, look at these affordable ways to give your home a fresh spring appearance.

Image via: Apartment Therapy

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Add Colors

Coloring the whole place will drain out your wallet for sure. In this case, you have to be a bit tricky to drop the winter look. Add spring accents to the whole house interior without paining the walls. Give a fresh spring touch to your all-white bathroom by placing turquoise blue towels in it. Consider a bowl brimming with lemons or limes on the kitchen table and changing up winter-weary chairs and sofas with celadon or pale yellow slipcovers. Enliven your dining room with napkins, placemats, and table runners in uplifting colors like yellow, coral, or apple green. Use colorful flower vases and change the pillow covers in eye-catching prints.

Change or Clear up to De-clutter

Change the graphic patterns of the room by adding an organic touch. The heavy area rugs that were comfortable during winter months have to be replaced now. Nature-inspired objects or patterns can be perfect for this time. Items like a floral cushion or a branch table lamp can be a great nod to the outdoors. You can add the seasonal touch to any of your rooms by keeping budding branches in large, clear glass vases.

Apart from that, cleaning up some old books, newspapers, magazines, and old mails is not a bad idea at all. Keep what you really need and discard the others. Store the saved paper stuffs in bookcase or magazine racks to give the place a neat look.

Image via: Ron Rosenzweig

Treat Your Windows

The windows remain closed during the winter months. As a result, they become filled with dirt, dust, and pet dander. So, it is a good time to remove the heavy, dark draperies, wash them, and store them till the next winter. Replace your window treatments with lightweight fabrics in dazzling sunny prints. It will allow your place to shine in sunlight. Apart from window treatments, you can use dimmers and reinstate light bulbs. A great difference in the feel and look of a space can be brought by arranging for good lighting.

Re-arrange

It is a renovation way that demands no cost at all. Just some pushing and lifting can bring a great change to your interior. Think what does not feel right at a certain place and try to move it to a suitable place. For example, if the seating arrangements combining with a couch and two chairs lined up around the centerpiece in your living room is rarely used, you can change the placement by moving the chairs with their back to the entrance and opening up the passage to the couch. It will surely create more inviting seating arrangements.

Image via: D Randolph Foulds Photography

These renovation ideas will not break your bank but will certainly give your home a comfortable air during the warmer season.

For more home decor ideas on Stagetecture, click here.