1. Set The Tone at The Front Door

If you want your house to make a great first impression, paint the front door,One thing that should go: an outdated screen door. Get rid of it or replace it with a storm door with full-length glass that you can switch out for a screened panel.

2. Paint Wall Colors Light and Neutral

Stick to colors like beige or gray, especially on the first floor, where flow is important. "You want to minimize jarring transitions," . Neutral walls give you the greatest decorating flexibility, allowing you to easily switch up your accessories. And if you have two small rooms next to each other, painting them the same neutral color helps them feel larger. Look at a paint strip and move up or down a shade or two for a subtle variation from room to room

3. Living Area: Make Sure Your Sofa Talks to Your Chairs

Think of a nice hotel lobby: The furniture is arranged in groupings that invite conversation. When you place the furniture in your living room, aim for a similar sense of balance and intimacy.

“A conversation area that has a U-shape, with a sofa and two chairs facing each other at each end of the coffee table, or an H-shape, with a sofa directly across from two chairs and a coffee table in the middle, is ideal,”

4. Let The Sun Shine In Your Kitchen

"When it comes to heavy, outdated drapes, a naked bank of windows is better than an ugly one. Ideally, window dressings should be functional and elegant: Think sheers paired with full-length panels.If your room gets a lot of sun, opt for light colors that won't fade. The most recommended lightweight fabrics for panels are cotton, linen, and silk blends because they tend to hang well

5. Hang at Least One Mirror in Every Room

"Mirrors can make a space feel brighter because they bounce the light around the room,"Put mirrors on walls perpendicular to windows, not directly across from them

6. Scale Artwork to Your Wall

"There are few things more ridiculous-looking than hanging dinky little art too high on the wall," . The middle of a picture should hang at eye level. If one person is short and the other tall, average their heights.

7. Layer Your Lighting

Every room should have three kinds of lighting: ambient, which provides overall illumination and often comes from ceiling fixtures; task, which is often found over a kitchen island or a reading nook; and accent, which is more decorative. "Placing a canister up light or a torchiere in the corner will cast a glow on the ceiling, making a room seem bigger,"

8. Anchor Rugs Under Furniture Feet

Follow these basic rules for an area rug: "In a living room, all four legs of the sofa and chairs in a furniture grouping should fit on it; the rug should define the seating area

9. Call in a Pro to Declutter

The longer you live in a house, the less you see the mess over time. Sometimes you need a fresh pair of eyes. You can manage  bookshelves and closets by organizer, mix horizontal stacks of books among the vertical rows and intersperse decorative objects, such as bowls or vases, among them.

10. Use Visual Tricks to Raise The Ceiling

If your ceilings are on the low side, paint them white to make the room feel less claustrophobic. Hang curtains higher than the windows Most standard curtain panels measure 84 or 96 inches, allowing you to go about 3 inches above the window casing before the length gets too short.

11. Give Old Finishes The Cinderella Treatment

Got dated fixtures? Reinvent them with spray paint and inexpensive refinishing kits. "A 1980s brass chandelier can get a new lease on life with a quick coat of hammered-bronze or satin-nickel spray paint