This Holiday season I want more serene feel in my home and in my life and I am decorating my home with white and silver for Christmas. I’ve been scouting for inspiration and can’t wait to get my home all decked up.

Read more:
Several homes decorated with white for the Holidays.
White Doves and other white Christmas decorating products.
Scandinavian home decorated in white.

I can’t resist adding tons of photos of the H&M’s Home line of crisp bedding, colorful summer towels, Scandinavian style kitchen accessories and everything else for your home – for unbeatable H&M price of course.

The look is unbeatably Scandinavian, easy going, simple, crisp white with bold accent colors, and neutrals that go with anything. While the H&M doesn’t really offer anything new and spectacular, it pulls together the essentials of Scandinavian home well. These pictures look like they could be from any Scandinavian home deco magazine from any year from the past ten years.. And I am saying it with no sarcastic tone, just meaning that the H&M Home products look unmistakably home to me, and makes it easy for anyone to bring a little Swedish design in their homes.

FROM BLAH TO SPRING SOPHISTICATED

I am so excited to share my bedroom makeover with you. I turned my bedroom from blah to sophisticated with the inspiration from Better Homes and Gardens and a budget of $500.

Even better – I am able to offer one of my readers and mini-makeover! Read the details on the bottom of this post to win your own Better Homes & Gardens home make over!

It took me a few visits to Walmart to gather all of the products from the Better Homes & Gardens product line, and one day to put together my bedroom. You can also see what my fellow bloggers, Sheena of Mommy Daddy Blog and Colleen of Classy Mommy did for their living rooms and kitchens by visiting BHG.com.

$500 BUDGET

My challenge was to actually to try to spend the whole $500. In addition to bedding, curtains and lighting, I bought some green bowls from kitchen section and garden lights from garden section to bring little details to the room.

My Better Homes & Gardens products from Walmart:

Wall Scones & Candle Holders with candles 70$
Curtains with curtain accessories 60$
Bedding $125
Lighting $52
Picture Frames $40
Book Shelf $75
Bowls $10
Total: $432
(Prices are approximate with taxes)

In addition I got fresh flowers from 1-800-Flowers.com and printed out photos with my printer, and used some items that I found from our home.

BREAKING THE DESIGN RULES AND GOING WITH ASYMMETRY

Originally I bought two of the bookshelves – I know that in interior design it is all about symmetry, and I wanted to have two bookshelves on both sides of the bed as side tables. I like to have books, somewhere to lay down my laptop and other things for the night, but our bedroom is so small, that we couldn’t fit two bookshelves in the room. I decided to forget about traditional rules of design, and decorate my room with less symmetry.

I made my own side table with a few photo boxes and added some height with a third box and added a lamp. Note that even my lamps are not matching – but they have the same color lamp shades and are at the same height. I like the idea of having black and white photos, but I mixed it up little bit even in the photo frames. I used black and white photos, color photos of flowers (to match the decor) and a few pictures with a color pop up.

My plan was to bring spring and garden in our bedroom. I wanted to have green as accent color, but ended up added shades of fuchsia and pink, the colors that I found in a Better Homes and Gardens “Garden Room” rose pillow. I even used different colored candles in the wall scones and in the candle holders on the bookshelf to give some contrast.

Notice also my curtains, which look perfectly symmetrical at the first look, but when you look closely, I added garden lights as a tie back on the other side. The ribbon was holding the cream colored bedding together when I bought it, so talk about using your resources! To add a little personal touch, I tied three old fashioned keys to the ribbon tie back. I repeated the number three many times… three candle holders, scones, keys and three flowers on the window, bowls on the shelf, three boxes stacked as night table.

So.. What do you think? How did I do?

YOUR TURN

Spring is perfect time to think of decorating and something new to your home. I am so happy to give one lucky reader a mini $100 make over of your own! Enter to win a $100 Better Homes and Gardens room mini make over.

ENTER THE GIVEAWAY – EACH WAY = ONE ENTRY

1. Leave a comment which room you would like to decorate with the Better Homes & Gardens line from Walmart.
2. Blog about this giveaway and tell me what you would get with $100. Leave a link here.

RULES:
Deadline for comments/above: May 7th midnight EST. US only.

This post is also published at BHG.com.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I received $500 worth of products to do my room make over and a payment to blog at BHG.com. I also received flowers from 1-800-Flowers.com.

I wanted to share a few photos of beautiful modern Scandinavian kitchens with you and some product finds you can bring the same look in to your kitchen. Less is more in Scandinavian design, and the colors are neutral, lots of white, earth tones, stainless steel and selected items bringing a splash of color. The kitchen photos are all from Finland, where I am from, and the styles and ideas here represent the Finnish kitchen styles. All of the following products are not from Scandinavia, but offer the same look and are easily available.

(picture: Irja Koivula)

My favorite feature of Finnish kitchens is a dish rack inside a cabinet, on the top of the sink, tiskikaappi. I have no idea why a brilliant invention like this hasn’t spread around the world, but maybe it is just us Finns that thinks it’s brilliant. The dish rack is just simple wire rack, with open bottom of the cabinet, and you can lift all the hand washed dishes inside the cabinet to drip down to the sink. This leaves more space to your counter and your dishes are hidden behind the cabinet. I have chosen the kitchen pictures in this blog post to include the tiskikaappi.

STORAGE

But if you find tiskikaappi a little odd or you don’t have a cabinet on the top of your sink that you could turn into one, here are a few Scandinavian style storage ideas for you.

1. Alessi Jasper Morrison Kitchen Utensils Set ($115) is Italian, but many Scandinavians love Alessi and this utensil rack is a common sight in modern Scandinavian kitchen. Sleek design, nice deco element, but something that is in use daily.

2. Grundtal wall rack from IKEA ($10.99) is a great small rack you can get the Finnish feel to your kitchen.

3. Domsjö chopping board ($14.99) isn’t really a storage element, but I love it and added it here for its multi-purpose. This chopping board fits perfectly on the top of your sink and you get more counter space – and you can hide dirty dishes under it!

4. Swedish Designs’, Horizontal Skillet Rack Beech ($62.00) is made for skillets of different sizes, but I love the look and have it on my countertop and storage plates on it. Beech always has a Scandinavian feel and if you add colorful plates or skillets to this one, it gives just the right about color to your kitchen.

5. Stainless steel bread box ($39.95) from Crate & Barrel looks something many Scandinavians have. Many Finnish kitchens are small, and extra storage is always welcome. This bread box style is a design element and very functional piece of modern Scandinavian kitchens.

ACCESSORIES

Bring the color in with accessories but keep the style still modern. Use essential kitchen tools, and things you can use every day to brighten the look if you want to keep the uncluttered modern Scandinavian look in your kitchen. Finnish people love designer glass wear, and you can find Arabia and Iittala from almost every home.

1. Marimekko Tea Towels ($25/per set of 2) are linen/cotton mix, and give a nice hint of color to your kitchen. The Pakkanen and Pikkunen patterns are designed by Maija Louekari for Marimekko.

2. Iittala Kivi Votives (starting at $12.75) come in variety of colors – collect one or two colors or get them all and change by the seasons. They are also great for coins etc. small items.

3. Iittala Pepper Mill ($59.50) is the only pepper mill you’ll ever need to purchase. High quality, stainless steel, and looks modern and stylish on your countertop ready to be used.

4. Small appliances you use every day like espresso machine are proudly displayed on the countertop – and they blend in the modern design look. I like stainless steel appliances, but if you are like many Finns, you might opt for white appliances. Alessi Toaster with bun warmer ($198) is a great choice, offering impeccable style and function.

5. Marimekko’s Unikko pattern is a no-fail in Finnish kitchens. There are even people with some sort of Unikko-mania and they have everything with the Unikko pattern from tea towels to bathroom accessories to umbrellas to socks. But seems like the most commonly used Unikko products are the kitchen products, like these Marimekko Oven Mittens ($17), which come in several different colors bringing your Scandinavian style kitchen nice splash of color.

6. Alvar Aalto is the most known Finnish architects and designers and his vase collection is also known world wide – and loved in most Finnish homes. Alvar Aalto Mini Bowl ($20) is the least expensive one, and small enough to bring joy on your countertop in a daily use. If you really want to make a statement, get the largest size and use it as a fruit bowl – and tulips in an Aalto vase is a Finnish flower arrangement I’m used to seeing since I was a little kid.

Kitchen photo sources:
Plaza.fi
Sundsberg.fi
vaasa.tvtalo.fi

READ MORE:

Marimekko Starts a New Era
Modern Children’s Bedding by Marimekko
Artek video from Finland
Why don’t we see any Finnish Innovations or do we?
Alvar Aalto and my home town
Cheap Scandinavian Design a’la Swedish IKEA – part 1
Cheap Scandinavian Design a’la Swedish IKEA – part 2