From Coral Nafie,
Your Guide to Interior Decorating.
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When the days are long and the air is warm, you want to throw open your windows and enjoy the days of summer. Bring the fresh look of summer into your home with some quick an easy additions (or removals) of color, style, and accessories.

Not everyone has the luxury of moving to the lake or mountains to enjoy the "lazy days of summer." But most everyone can bring the look of summer into the home they do have.

It's not necessary to change every room or throw out all the old furniture, but there are lots of ways to lighten up and freshen up your home for a wonderful summer seasonal change. You may even feel like you've moved away for the summer.

Why not try some of these simple, easy changes to "summerize" your home?

• Restyle
  Take out any dark accessories like velvet pillows, wool throws, and even that dark leather club chair and ottoman. Don't worry! You can bring them back in when the weather changes.

• Repaint
  It won't take long to put a fresh coat of summery paint on a hallway or on a wall of a drab room. Choose a fresh color scheme of lemon yellow, apple green, or sky blue.

• Revive
  Toss out leggy, brown plants that you're trying to nurse. Bring in fresh, flowering new ones and welcome summer!

• Make
  Try sewing a simple slipcover for the back or seat of your kitchen or dining room side chairs. The look will soften an all-wood chair and freshen the look of an upholstered seat.

• Redo
  Add fresh flowers and plants to your guest room or bedroom. Enjoy colorful, cheery, summery new flowered bed linens.

• Add
  Nothing brightens up a room like white. Add it wherever you can. How about frothy, light curtains, fresh white trims, or a painted chair or table?

• Renew
  Lighten up drab bookshelves. Paint the back wall (and even the side walls) with a bright, summery color. The books will really "pop out" against the contrasting color. How about lime green in dark wood shelves or sky blue on yellow. Choose a color that complements your rooms decorating scheme.

• Add
  Frame some simple botanical prints or landscapes and set them up on a bookshelf, bureau, or table top. Or hang a series of summery flower pictures down a dark hallway.

• Display
  Use simple plate holders to hold pretty floral plates. Set them on a table or buffet.

• Think
  Nothng says summer like "casual." Use wicker, rush, iron, or painted white garden furniture in place of heavy upholstered pieces. Add colorful pillows.

• Renew
  Remove the dried logs from your fireplace and replace them with an impressive artificial fern or a gurggling fountain. Replace your brass fire screen with painted hinged shutters or a piece of rusted, painted iron gate.

• Go sheer
  Layer sheer, frothy fabrics on tables, over a shower curtain, as a second layer on a bedskirts, and even make a sheer pillow cover for a dark pillow Add a touch of whimsey with embroidered sheer fabric.

• Find
  Shop at flea markets, garage sales, and discount outlets for architectural artifacts, garden ornaments, flowery china plates, ironstone pitchers, and other accessories to add to your summer decor.

• Focus
  Choose a summer theme, either fruits, flowers, insects, or nautical, and decorate around it. It makes the transformation easier if you have focus.

  Next: Add Summer Color

  More: Summer Style

  Even More: Fresh, Summer Accessories

  All Decorating Articles