Design For Sleep

There’s nothing quite like plopping down on your bed after a long day for a well-deserved, good night’s sleep. There’s also nothing like being incredibly tired and not being able to fall asleep. To design your bedroom for optimum sleep, follow these guidelines from Style at Home. Every little bit helps, right?

Photo courtesy Mazzali

1 Neutral colours

From the colour of the walls to the sheets to the rug underfoot, your room’s colour palette can make a big difference when it comes to ensuring a good night’s sleep. Keep things serene with pale, neutral hues and cool colours in the likes of blues, violets and white.

2 Comfortable mattress

If there’s one investment you can make to ensure a good night’s sleep, it’s choosing a mattress that works for your body. Everybody has different preferences when it comes to what they sleep on each night – spring, foam, firm, soft, feather-top – so make sure you go into a store to test before buying. Tip: Don’t get distracted by low prices – a good mattress should last you 10 years, so look at this purchase as a quality investment for recharging your body.

3 Lavender spray

Having trouble falling asleep at the end of a long day? Adding home fragrances to your space, like relaxing lavender can help with those sleepless nights. A dab of essential oil on the pillow case or a light room spray can make all the difference to your sleeping patterns, not to mention make your room smell incredible.

4 Cool temperature

There’s nothing more uncomfortable than waking up in a sweat from a bedroom that’s a few degrees too warm. Take the temperature down a notch before climbing into bed – the cooler air will regulate your body temperature, allowing you to sleep through the night.

5 Blackout curtains

Those sheers might look great with the mid-afternoon sun shining through, but when you’re aching for a sleep-in on a Sunday morning, they become your bedroom’s worst enemy. Opt for another layer of window dressings and hang blackout curtains to ensure that the only thing waking you up on a lazy weekend is your body’s internal clock.

6 Simulated sunrise lamp

The startling buzz of an alarm can erase any deep sleep you had throughout the night, provoking you to grumpily hit the snooze button rather than start your day feeling great. Wake up to the sunrise no matter what time you plan on getting out of bed by trading in the alarm for a simulated sunrise lamp. Philips’ Wake-Up Light uses light therapy and sound to wake you up in a natural way, easing into the day after a well-rested night.

7 Quality bed sheets

Investing in quality bed sheets isn’t just good for the appearance of the room, but can have a positive impact on your sleep patterns too. Choose a silky sheet set with a high thread count for a restful sleep that won’t have you waking up in the middle of the night with itchy skin.

8 Dimmed lighting

You know that feeling of serenity you get at the spa when the lights are low? Recreate that in your bedroom by installing dimmer switches. Relax in bed with the lights dimmed for 10 minutes before tucking in to sleep – the low glow will help to rest your eyes and steady your mind.

9 Soundproof windows

City dwellers and suburbanites alike fall victim to outside noises interrupting a good night’s sleep, from wailing sirens to barking dogs. Upgrade your windows and install double-paned glass in your bedroom to keep the external disruptions to a minimum.

10 The perfect pillow

Too often we shop for pillows without taking the time to try them out beforehand, leading to stiff necks and sore backs that make it difficult to get a solid sleep. Take the time to choose the perfect pillow, testing it for firmness and checking to make sure its filling is hypoallergenic if you’re prone to sneezing – your body and sinuses will thank you!

Try Something New!

Photo courtesy Texas A&M University-Commerce Marketing Communications Photography

Whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert, stepping out of your comfort zone and trying new things can be a challenge. Say you just moved to a new city or recently split from your significant other, how do you meet people? Here are some methods and ideas from Apartment Therapy on how to make new friends and create new memories!

Gather all the information

Knowing as much info as possible — like how early to show up to your event or class and what to bring — will help cut down on the nerves.

Pay ahead

Knowing that you've already plopped down dough for a class or activity will make you more likely to show up.

Drag along a buddy

A friend by your side might make finally taking that yoga class a little less scary!

Brag about it beforehand (publicly)

Then you've got to do it, if you've Facebooked about it!

Below is a list of ideas just to get you started — we'd love to hear in the comments below your favorite activities in your city that are worth joining in.

Take dance lessons

Nothing will break you out of your comfort zone faster than learning how to salsa. And getting a move on things is always a way to have fun and forget that you were essentially terrified to join up.

Try that Pilates/spin/yoga class

Tired of doing the same machines day in and day out at your gym? Join the enthusiastic group of gym-goers who know the secret to a good workout and a good time — take a workout class! Or find an outdoor yoga class or one that meets at an art museum to get a sweat on and see a part of your city from a new perspective.

Go see a movie or eat out at a restaurant by yourself

If you haven't yet enjoyed the pleasures of a solo trip to a movie theater or a restaurant by yourself, I highly recommend it. And leave that phone at home so you don't use it like a lonely crutch. You'll be surprised by how much more you notice when you don't have a screen or a conversation taking up your attention.

Learn how to do something with your hands

Finally learn how to use that sewing machine that's been gathering dust on a shelf in your closet by taking some classes! Or join an informal knitting group at a coffee shop to finally make a sweater. Go to your local hardware store and learn how to fix something around your home.

Join a meet-up group

The Meetup website is where you can find photographers getting together to improve each other's skills to hiking groups to cavers. Never met an unfriendly person through this site.

Improv comedy

The most welcoming — and funny — folks in your city are probably hiding at your local improv comedy club (or possibly at an open mic at a coffee shop if your city doesn't have an improv club). Consider signing up for classes (most give you a first class free) or go to a night where they're just playing to see how it's done. It's a great way to meet new people.

Don't forget about volunteer opportunities

Always wanted to learn how to do something or try something but they don't teach classes in your area? Look for volunteer or apprentice opportunities. Just offer to do the work for free to learn — from being a pastry chef to gardening, if there's something you've always wanted to know more about, do it! And use your beautiful city as the backdrop.

Quit Procrastinating

Photo courtesy CollegeDegrees360

“I’ll do it later.” “Maybe tomorrow.” “I just don’t feel like it.” Sound familiar? Sure, we all have things we don’t want to do, but we probably spend more time thinking about doing things than it would take to actually DO THEM. Real Simple offers some advice on how to quit thinking and start doing.

Do the Worst Thing First
Maybe this is the last suggestion you want to hear. But there’s a good reason to start with the tough stuff. “We have a limited, depletable supply of willpower and resources,” says Piers Steel, Ph.D., a professor of human resources and organizational dynamics at the University of Calgary and the author of The Procrastination Equation: How to Stop Putting Things Off and Start Getting Things Done($26, amazon.com). Attack the hardest task when your energy is fresh and you give yourself the strongest chance of success. Doing otherwise can have a damaging domino effect. “Putting off the dreaded item on your list saps your strength,” says Eva Wisnik, who conducts time-management training for lawyers and corporations in New York City. Ultimately all your other tasks suffer—stressing over that worst thing “makes you not completely present with anything else,” says Wisnik. So identify and get started on the most heinous project, which is not necessarily the biggest job but the baddest. “Checking it off will make you feel super-productive,” says Wisnik, thus infusing with you with gung-ho, it’s-all-downhill-from-here enthusiasm.

Start Your Day Over at 2 p.m.
What’s more irritating than witnessing your morning fly by without having dealt with your to-do list? Watching your afternoon roll right along with it. Combat this by implementing a reboot: “At 2 p.m. every day, assess how much you’ve accomplished, remind yourself of what’s critical, and alter your plan so you can tackle the most important thing,” says Wisnik. In other words, grant yourself a second morning in the middle of the day (complete with your caffeinated beverage of choice). And if there’s a new project that has become high priority, you still have the time and the energy to start it at 2 p.m. “If you wait until 5 p.m. to evaluate your day,” says Wisnik, “you’re out of time—and in crisis mode, putting out fires.”

Make the Job Smaller
It’s natural to get overwhelmed by the size and scope of certain tasks. Joseph Ferrari, Ph.D., a psychology professor at DePaul University, in Chicago, and the author of Still Procrastinating? The No-Regrets Guide to Getting It Done ($16,amazon.com), says this is a case of “seeing the forest and forgetting that it’s made of trees.” His advice: “Cut down one tree. And if you can’t cut a whole tree, cut three branches.” Instead of being disheartened by how much you can’t do, look at how much you can. If you have 12 boxes of clutter to sort, do only one. On the other hand, if you simply have to get it all done, think about this: Sometimes shrinking a task is aboutquality rather than quantity. Says John Perry, a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Riverside, and a cohost of the radio show Philosophy Talk: “Ask yourself, ‘How good a job do I really need to do?’ Some things are not important enough to warrant perfection.” It makes more sense to do top-notch work when updating your résumé, for example, than when drawing up flyers for a block party.

Create an Audience
It’s easy to blow things off when your commitment to yourself is the only thing at stake. But make yourself accountable to a friend and suddenly potential embarrassment becomes a powerful motivator. It’s “positive pressure,” says life coach Cheryl Richardson, the author of Take Time for Your Life ($14, amazon.com). Just as you’re more likely to exercise when you’re meeting a friend at the gym, you may be more apt to fill out critical paperwork if you have a partner looking over your shoulder (even virtually). Fear of letting someone down might be the perfect motivator. Call a friend or a sibling (not the warm-and-fuzzy kind—the tough-nut, no-excuses kind) and tell her what you plan to get done. Ask her to check in and crack the whip at an appointed time. Then let the fear of disappointment work its dark magic.

Race the Clock
Having trouble even beginning a burdensome project? Try the old trick of setting a timer for 10 minutes. Work in a focused, perhaps even frantic manner for that short stretch, and watch what happens. “Anyone can do 10 measly minutes,” says Debbie Mandel, a stress-management specialist in New York City and the author of Addicted to Stress: A Woman’s 7-Step Program to Reclaim Joy and Spontaneity in Life ($23,amazon.com). “You may get engrossed and end up working even longer.” Once a sense of satisfaction replaces the dread you felt before, there’s a decent chance you’ll continue. Another trick to moving past that initial paralysis is to create what has been called an “implementation intention,” says Pychyl. Instead of simply identifying your goal, establish how and when you’ll actually accomplish it. For example: Saturday morning at 11, get the kids to figure out exactly which printer cartridge we need; go to Staples at noon.

Don’t Interrupt Yourself
If you get pulled away from tasks by every ding, whistle, and ring on your digital devices, well, you’re like most of us. But keep in mind that other people aren’t interrupting you; you are interrupting yourself. (This is tough love, folks.) The way to break free from technology is, ironically, to employ it: There are a slew of applications you can download to block electronic distractions. Freedom (macfreedom.com, $10) disables all roads to the Internet for an allotted amount of time. And cheating isn’t easy—to sneak back online early, you have to reboot your computer. RescueTime (free, rescuetime.com) tracks your every online move and provides easy-to-read, painfully revealing charts. Seeing your wasted time in pretty graphs is a bracing slap in the face. (That’s how many hours I spent on Facebook yesterday?) And LeechBlock (free, addons.mozilla.org) works with the Internet browser Firefox so you can block certain sites—or all of them—either perpetually or during specific periods. If you have an addiction to those online sample sales with new offerings every 15 minutes, you can use this app to take away temptation. Same principle as keeping your favorite cookies out of the house.

Plan an Unprocrastination Day
Gather your most neglected tasks and a no-nonsense companion and head off on an odyssey of productivity, vowing not to return home until your long ignored to-do’s are done. 

How to Make a Small Kitchen Count

Photo courtesy of Carrie McBride

If you have ever lived in an apartment with a tiny kitchen, you know the struggle of balancing creating MORE space with creating YOUR space. Here are some tips from Apartment Therapy’s Carrie McBride on how to spruce up the kitchen that even your landlord will approve of.

1. Over-the-Stove Cutting Board: small kitchens are a challenge not just for storing things but for actually cooking. To gain a bit more usable counter space I purchased this bamboo cutting board that fits across two burners. If you don't use your stove much you could leave it there most of them time. Or, of course, you can just bring it out when you need more surface area to work on. I used it for an easier quesadilla assembly line recently and it was a great improvement. If you're curious, the one I have is by Lipper International and available through Amazon, Wayfair, Bed Bath & Beyond and more for around $23.

Photo courtesy of Carrie McBride

2. Vertical, Affordable Recycling Holder: Do you recognize this piece? It's from the kids' section of IKEA and is mainly marketed as a toy bin. I use it to hold recycling and it's just big enough to hold nearly a week's worth for my family of four. It's a TROFAST frame ($29.99) with two TROFAST storage boxes ($5/each).

3. Mini Dust Pan & Brush Secured to Fridge: Tired of getting the broom out of the closet every time there was something small to sweep up in the kitchen (like a bit of flour, coffee grinds, etc.) I had the idea to get a very small dust pan and stick it on the fridge. See below for an adhesive method that did not work - what did work was Scotch brand fasteners (adhesive on one side, Velcro-esque on the other). The mini dust pan is by Oxo ($6) and they also make a similarly small, but differently shaped one for a buck more.

Public Service Announcement: I first tried to hang the dust pan on the fridge with glued-on magnets. I don't know if the glue I was using wasn't up to the task (Gorilla Glue Super Glue) or if the plastic surface wasn't porous enough, but this method only lasted a few tries before the magnets came off and stuck to the fridge instead of the dust pan. Maybe you can make this method work, but I recommend skipping the frustration.

4. Double Magnetic Knife Holder: I wrote at length about this space-saving improvement recently and included some purchasing and DIY options. I'm still happy with this small, but effective tweak which freed up some wall space, which I used instead to add...

5. Vertical Shelving: With my knife holder off the wall, I had a few feet to use to put up some shelves (in this case, some very cheap IKEA shelves, the Ekby Laiva shelf with Stilig brackets). I haven't maximized the storage potential yet, but so far I'm using them to hold some canisters of grains and paper towels (remember, I caved and started buying them in bulk?).

6. Attractive storage baskets: I included this tip in a post about my small home. Adding stylish baskets above my cabinets has been the happy medium between underusing the space (with the benefit of an uncluttered appearance) and overusing the space (with big and visually heavy storage bins). My baskets are holding things I rarely use like cookie cutters, plastic easter eggs and extra light bulbs.

Photo courtesy of Carrie McBride

7. Cookbooks above the fridge: Yes, no 
space is sacred in a small kitchen. I've whittled down our collection of cookbooks considerably, but prefer to have them close at hand in the kitchen if possible. Why not above the fridge? I turned a galvanized steel bookcase we were getting rid of on its side and it can hold most of our cookbooks. I'd like to whittle down even more so there isn't overflow on the top, but I'm getting there.

8. Microfiber drying mat: My small kitchen doesn't have a dishwasher and my dish drainer doesn't hold much more than a meal's worth of dishes. This is especially bothersome when I'm cleaning up after having company over and we have twice as many dishes to wash and dry (I know, I could hand dry as I go, but I prefer to let the air do my work!). When I purchased a microfiber drying mat to use under my drainer, I decided to get two for when one was in the wash. But I've also found it's great to pull out for overflow dish drying.

9. Simple pot lid container: This tip isn't just for small kitchens. My uncontained pot lids were making me batty and taking up much more space than they needed to. I researched, I pinned, I plotted, I planned. And found many terrific ideas and products. And then I just happened to see this simple plastic tub that was the right size and shape and solved my problem in perhaps not the most elegant way, but in a quick, cheap ($9), efficient way. It is actually intended to be a pull-out container but there is a lip (not pictured) on the bottom of this cabinet which would make that tricky so I decided, for once, to make things easier on myself and just forgo that functionality and simply use the bin to contain my pot lids. Nothing fancy, but it does the job just fine.

10. Magnetic Hook: This is such a tiny thing it barely warrants mention, but I wanted to give a little shout out to my new magnetic hook which I use to hold a kitchen towel. All my life I've hooked a towel around the fridge door handle because it was easy and it was there and I just didn't give it much thought. This gives the fridge front a more streamlined look and is another easy way to use the vertical surface of the fridge. This one cost $7 (from Amazon) and they also sell a double hook version.

So, there you have it, 10 ideas from my own small kitchen, maybe, to yours.