Let the Decorating Begin!

Six tips to get you started on outfitting your first home

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Use color to tie everything together.
If you've moved into your first place with furniture that spans from the 1960s to now, don't worry. The easiest, most economical way to overcome this seemingly insurmountable problem is unifying through color.

An example: That jewel of a $125 estate-sale sofa has a perfect shape but shares only one thing in common with the furniture in the rest of your living room: a tiny bit of the color in the fabric is the same as the less dominant color in the rest of the room’s upholstery. Solution? Play up that similarity and make it your living room’s unifying wall color. If that’s too much hard labor for you, then find curtains, rugs and/or accessories in this common hue and see how the pieces begin to complement each other.