Home Decoration Help from 2,600 Miles Away

There's decorating you do casually, and once in a while – that's me. Then there are interior decorators like my friend Jennifer Myers, who is decorating someone's home every week. Decorators have lots more ideas from all the houses, stores and websites (our decorating board on Pinterest) they see every week. That's why you sometimes want to get home decoration help from a pro.

That's why I asked Jennifer to help me redesign the accessories on my coffee table, to incorporate the new ceramic artwork I found at the Fountain Hills art show. We had finished deciding which hurricane lamps to group with the red vase (see the transition from ocean blue to red and orange). About fifteen minutes later Jen sent a text message suggesting we replace the candles with cactus.

For Home Decoration, Shop Where the Decorators Go

The timing was amazing, as I'd just discovered Ceterra Interior Designs the week before, and admired all the cactus accessories which I haven't seen anywhere else in the Phoenix area. I showed the folks at CeTerra what my hurricane lamps looked like online, and they showed me all sorts of cactus they thought would work. They also let me take all sorts of cactus home, so I could try them out in the hurricane lamps.

When you're decorating a room, it can be really helpful to take pictures of the space you're working with and any furnishings or accessories you want included. You can do this with a blog or upload your photos to Pinterest where you can quickly look at where you're starting from. Of course you can organized your photos on your phone but it's not as easy to collect ideas from all over the web, so you can show them to anyone at the store.

Auditioning Cactus & Other Home Decor is Common

So out came the candles, the sand and the seashells (my last house was on the Atlantic ocean in New Hampshire). I laid out all the cactus (yes, they're not real as I travel too much to worry about watering them) and realized I should start with the taller cactus, to see which one fit the tall hurricane lamp best.

… and of course I'm able to narrow my choices, but afraid to make the final selection on my own. That's because you've done this for me long enough, that it's easier to let you decide … and using cactus rather than candles was your idea.

So I decided with two hurricane lamps, one should have a tall cactus, and the other one should have a short cactus. Then it seemed to make sense to start with the taller cactus (for the taller hurricane lamp) because there were fewer choices. In fact there were only three larger/taller cactus and one of them was too big. Here were my two choices …

And the winner, the thin tall leaves seemed to match the hurricane lamp well.

Home Decoration Means Making Decisions

Then the fun started as I had a lot of smaller cactus, and had to pick just one of them for the shorter hurricane lamp. There were a few that I could discard right away, leaving me with five to pick from … so here they are, so share your favorite in the comments section below.

Here's the final design, or at least my best work until Jennifer gives me more ideas!

Jen liked everything I did (whew), and asked if the tall cactus could be shorter so here it is.

Home Decoration: Move Accessories From Room to Room

If you read my earlier article, Why is Picking Coffee Table Decor So Hard?, you know there were three hurricane lamps. The biggest one got evicted from the coffee table to make room for the lovely red artwork. But it didn't go far as it's moving to my master bathroom which has a huge countertop.

The cactus I picked looks simple and elegant in the larger hurricane lamp, where it was too big for the smaller lamp. So here are the before and after photos (had to head back to the store for more stones).