Resolution: Try Some Quick Decorating Touches

The new year calls for quick action and easy decorating fixes to spruce up your home. Here's an assortment of ideas to help make your home fresher.

Place Leviton Everywhere Lights . . . everywhere! Set these little hockey-puck-size LED lights (get them in red, black, or white) on tables, the fireplace mantle, and on your dining table. Surround them with some greenery for a bright centerpiece. This is a cheap and easy way to add light and color, and you'll always use the lights any time of year as uplights for drama, outdoors mood dining, handy closet illumination, etc.

Add some Santa Maria Novella Potpouri in small dishes around your home. You'll have an unbelievable home fragrance to greet your family and guests. This is a real treat, with a fresh-from-Florence pedigree. The herbs and flowers come from the Florentine hills and are collected by hand, soaked in essence in huge earthenware jars, sealed with wax, and aged for months. The fragrance lasts for months and you can release more scent by fluffing up the potpourri on occasion with your fingers. Bella!

Some decorators recommend taking a color that dominates a room and going mad with it. One idea: paint your celing to match that dominant color. A few hours of painting with give you a bold decorating statement!

Go to a home goods store and pick up small baskets or bowls that match. Add drama to your rooms by spreading out these items and filling them with clusters of small apples, pears, walnuts, and chestnuts. You'll get a quick decorating fix with mucho impact when you multiply these accessories over several rooms and place the baskets or bowls on occasional tables, coffee tables, counters, and sideboards.

Find a great wallpaper pattern (like the grasscloth on the left, or a busier pattern, floral, or textural bamboo sheet) and buy several rolls of the same pattern. Measure the back panels of bookshelves, hutches, cabinets, etageres, breakfronts, and other shelving units in your home and cut out gift wrap to fit. Use double-sided tape to affix the paper to the back of shelves and your books and accessories will really pop against this backdrop. Another quick wallpaper decorating idea: wrap the paper around the covers of hardcover books and place a colorful pile on a coffee table.

Select two colorful fabrics to quickly cover and skirt round tables in any room of the house. The fabrics should be different patterns, yet compatible, to provide a layered look (see photo below). If you have time, apply hems and end stitching to give the fabric a more finished look.

Wall sticker companies like RoomMates sell sticker sets to match any decor. Peel off the stickers and affix them to your wall for a simple decorating solution. When you want to get a new look, peel them off your wall, put them away for another time, and stick on something completely different. (Pictured below is RoomMates Cherry Blossom Tree Wall Decal for around $20.)

Many homes are fireplace challenged, yet a fireplace and fire can add great atmosphere to a room. You can quickly add high-impact decorating to area of your home if you get a biofuel fireplace. Look into these stylish fireplace alternatives and find just the right spots in your home for them, with models ranging from tabletop flamers to free-standing units. Many biofuel models add sculptural flair to your decor, too, which is that extra bonus we like from quality home products (see the EcoSmart Fire line below).