There are inevitable home items — storage containers, hardware, fixtures, among others — that are necessary to create a functional space. Including these practical pieces in your home helps contribute to an overall comfortable way of living. However, these unavoidable selections don’t need to be generic or eye sores. Below are room-by-room options to improve the aesthetics of these essential home features, without sacrificing style.

After several decades of helping your children plant their roots, it can be hard to believe it’s time for them spread their wings. With kids at college or officially moved out on their own, this is the time to downsize or transform the additional space you now have. Aside from the obvious choice of creating a guest room, use this opportunity to be creative with how you can reinvent parts of your home. Whether it is to explore a new hobby, recommit yourself to previous passions, or rethink your livable square feet, find out how to maximize your home to create a new and improved version.

Maybe you were enjoying a much-needed vacation with friends or family, or maybe you were busy carpooling from one summer activity to the next. Whatever your reason for putting off those home improvement projects, there’s no need to worry. In fact, fall is a great time to tackle your to-do list. Here’s why:

Do you ever feel stuck when it comes to decorating your house? Lately, I’ve been experimenting with inexpensive ways to transform a room. It’s important to stay away from the ‘full makeover’ mindset and start small with statement pieces you may already have around the house.

It’s been scientifically proven that room design affects moods and productivity (I can’t work in my office unless everything is put away). However, it can be hard to design a space you love with personal touches when you’re renting or planning on selling soon.

Today’s post is all about simplicity — we’re focusing on inexpensive and non-permanent tricks that will transform an entire room so you can enjoy it while you’re there and get the biggest bang for your buck when it’s time to move on.

Kids’ sticky hugs, gummy smiles, and belly laughs are the best parts of your family’s home. Their oversized and generally clunky colored gear, however, is not so endearing. Whether you are settling in your new home, or you are staging your house to sell, avoid letting the space become overrun with brightly colored plastic. These tips will help blend your children’s belongings into your home’s aesthetic, without compromising your personal style.

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My kids outgrow toys almost as quickly as they blow through light-up gym shoes and blow out the knees of athletic pants. In the back corners of our closets of shame are stacks of unopened holiday presents, complicated Lego sets, and board books I’m holding on to for the third child I will never have.

While I’m doing a far better job deactivating the birthday gift-splosion, we still have too many corners and bins and storage space filled with itty-bitty baby onesies, once-loved-now-forgotten dolls, strollers no one will sit in and too many toys. It’s time to release the guilt and over-gifting and pass on our bounty to neighbors who are truly in need.

I polled moms on the places in the city and suburbs where they love to donate their children’s toys, clothes, and gear. Here are eight organizations that get their highest marks.

It’s time to find your dream house but there’s just ONE thing standing in your way: selling your old home. So how do you stage your current home to make it photo ready? Glad you asked!

Here are 5 simple tips to make your home full-price listing worthy:

Spring cleaning can either be the best, or worst, part of the new season.

On one hand, who doesn’t love spring weather? Plus, it can feel good to tackle those projects that you’ve been meaning to get to all winter.

But if you’ve recently moved into a new home, you probably already have a laundry list of “to-do” items to turn your new house into your home.

Here are six tasks to tackle these next few months that will add value to your new home…and immediately make it feel more like your own.

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It’s the most wonderful time of year: time to haul 17 plastic bins of holiday decorations down from our 7th floor storage unit and then up to our home in a fourth-floor walk-up.

My family thinks it is Christmas chaos.

I think it is a heavenly host of ornaments beautifully organized by family member and breakableness, each labeled, easy to access and ready to hang.

Here are a few of my favorite ways to keep our baubles securely ordered and stored 11 months of the year.

Find yourself laughing whenever a house-hunting couple on TV lists a mudroom as one of their must-haves? It’s my second favorite bit of ridiculousness on those shows (the first is the absolute need for a guest room when the entire viewing audience knows that no one is ever going to visit the family who just moved a $2,000 plane ride away).

The reality (not reality TV) looks a lot different.

Many city dwellers are lucky to have a coat closet or landing to stash their shoes. And those of us who live in the suburbs or somewhere without shared walls may have the space for a mudroom, but it may be overrun by laundry…or plastic kids’ vehicles…or it’s been turned into an office/gift-wrapping station/storage.

Practical Chicagoans, here are some simple and stylish alternatives for storing and organizing your winter gear.