Home Improvement

Many must-do projects, such as caulking, cleaning gutters, adding insulation or preparing emergency kits, will make your home more energy-efficient, help prevent weather damage and make things easier should the power go out.

Koehl, a master gardener from Waller, Texas, bought secondhand windows and doors to construct the building that houses his roses and vegetables. Using old materials saved him money, and added interest to the structure.

Shoppers will hunt for treasures amid acres of used goods. A few will come home with just the right vintage art or quirky piece of furniture to make their home more beautiful.

Clutter, distractions, poor workflow — sometimes a kitchen’s layout can hinder the cooking process more than it helps. Decorating can create similar pitfalls. “We get too caught up in color palettes and soft fabrics, and we over-think it,” said Genevieve Gorder, co-host and judge of HGTV’s Design Star.

Attending the New York International Gift Fair is a little like watching television with a teenager: Lots of eye-catching visuals whiz by as the channels keep changing.

Start with the palette. “Saturated” is a word being used a lot; it means ripe plum hues, intense tangerines, rich indigos, verdant greens, zingy turquoises, hot reds and peppy yellows.

Replacing the doors and covering the cabinets’ remaining exposed parts with a matching veneer can be done for about half the cost of buying new, said Kit Selzer, senior remodeling and projects editor at Better Homes and Gardens. The process is called refacing.

These subterranean spaces present a host of decorating challenges, from low ceilings and limited natural light to never-ending battles with dampness and even flooding.

When decorating our homes, we tend to consider things like beauty and comfort, the durability of pieces we might buy or the image they project. But how many of us stop to consider our energy bills?

When we furnish a room, many of us carefully measure to be sure the couch isn’t too wide or the dining room table too long. We draw a horizontal map, determined to fit everything in without crowding.