10 Quick Home Decorating Ideas

In the living room of an Atlanta house by designer Beth Webb, an elm plank table from Clubcu, which often doubles as a dining table, dramatically displays a collection of Chinese porcelains. "The pieces don't have to match, but they do have to play together well," Webb says.

In the kitchen of the same Atlanta house, a linen curtain runs on a track spanning the room and can be pulled "to conceal the mess of preparation," Webb says. Steel-and-glass casements frame views of the pool and garden. KWC Gastro faucet.

"We call this 'the sailor room,' because we went all out with the nautical theme," designer Ken Fulk says of a bedroom in his Massachusetts vacation house. "The mix-and-match nature of the patterns and faded batik prints make it feel like it's a collection of old textiles brought back from a journey at sea." John Robshaw bedding. Antique cage lights hang from an antique metal four-poster bed that belonged to the previous owner.

The guest bath in Fulk's vacation home "feels authentic to the period of the house, but also clean and modern," he says. Pedestal tub and fixtures from Sunrise Specialty.

This Kansas City house's dining room, a former loggia, is "light, bright, and airy," homeowner and designer Zim Loy says. "I accomplished that with lots of white paint." She bought a beat-up old $60 table at an estate sale and gave it a fresh new look by the painting the base high-gloss white. Its curves echo the arms of the Barbara Cosgrove chandelier.

Loy discovered Hackerware on eBay — "there's tons of it, and it's so cheap!" — and started collecting it for the dining room. Covering the whole wall with plates has the same effect as "one big piece of art."

"I had a roll of wallpaper in my office that was left over from a photo shoot we did, and I was about to put it in the trash when I thought, 'No, I can do something with this,' " Loy says. "Then I thought of the vinyl shades in our guest room. So I wallpapered them. You gotta go for it." The vinyl shades are papered in Pierre Frey's Espalier. The canopy bed was painted black to show off its silhouette.

In the second-floor hallway of a California house, designer Betsy Burnham overlaps Turkish runners from Rugs & Art, drawing the eye to a Moroccan-inspired reading nook. The vintage carpets "can transform a plain hallway into a decorated space," Burnham says. "A really faded, tattered rug is instantly Bohemian." The window seat is covered in Tibet woven silk from S. Harris. Pillows by Hollywood at Home; garden stool from Rolling Greens.

"Float furniture away from the walls: It creates more intimate seating," designer Betsy Burnham says. She did just that in the living room of this California house. The console table separating back-to-back sofas is decked with vintage goddess figurine lamps and Chinese monkeys "for a Tony Duquette, William Haines flavor." Sellarsbrook rug, the Rug Company. Rectangular Cocktail Table, Baker.

"Everything in this room has a story," designer Podge Bune says of her Hamptons cottage's living room. "The easy chair is covered in my old dining room curtains, a Designers Guild fabric they no longer make."