Are you someone who loves to read? Many book lovers find books taking over their homes and their lives. While books are a lovely addition to a home, in excess they stop adding charm and start feeling like clutter. If you’re in this situation, here are some suggestions to help you manage.

Read and release. Set a box in an unobtrusive spot in your home. After you read a book, ask yourself if you will ever want to read it again. If the answer is no, place the book right in that box. Once the box is full, take it to a used bookstore or donate it to a library or thrift shop.

Share with other book lovers. If you have a friend or family member who loves mysteries as much as you do, make arrangements to pass along your books once you’ve finished with them. They will be grateful and you will have fewer books.

Schedule a book review. With several boxes handy, look through each bookshelf and remove any books you won’t want to read again. Distribute those books among several categories: donate, sell, or give to friends and family.

Separate your reference books. You may have books that you use regularly for your work or hobbies. Separate those from other books and keep them organized in one place. That way you won’t be constantly passing over them when deciding which books to donate.

Add shelves. If you have sorted and removed all the books you can and you still have piles around the house, consider adding either purchased or built-in bookshelves. You don’t want your books to be clutter. Instead, create a way to enjoy them and let them add personality to your home.

Fresh flowers are a wonderful touch in any room in the home.  They can add a beautiful fragrance to a room as well as color and pattern.  A small bunch of flowers in the powder room or next to the bed in the guest room is a wonderful way to welcome guests.  Little touches like fresh flowers can add a lovely accent for not a lot of money. Here are some of our other favorite little touches.

For the bathroom, put lotions, q-tips, cotton balls, and extra bars of soap in glass jars.  Display these on a shelf or on the counter. It will make your bathroom feel less cluttered to have a uniform look to the storage.

For the kitchen, organize flours and pastas into glass or ceramic storage containers. You can keep these on the counter or shelf, if you have room, or in the pantry cupboard.  Use fruits and fresh vegetables in a bowl on the counter to add a pop of color to the room.

By the front door, or kitchen door, place a tray for boots and wet umbrellas. This will save your floors from moisture and dirt.  This way guests will know to remove their wet shoes and boots rather than track mud and water through the house.

If you are having guests over, place a few snacks on the Kitchen Island or coffee table for them to munch on when they arrive. A pitcher of ice water and glasses on the counter invites them to serve themselves if they are thirsty.

Many people have a season they prefer over all others. For some, fall brings to mind the magic when trees first change colors and then lose their leaves and the weather starts to snap. Others love winter with the opportunity to ski and play in the snow. Spring has its own magic when trees blossom and spring flowers bloom.

For those that love the summer, with lots of sunshine and weather that ranges from warm to warmer to too warm, this room helps carry the season with it all year round.

The first summer choice comes from the bright yellow paint on the walls. Yellow is a really tricky color to get right. You want it to remind you of flowers or sunshine, but with the wrong choice your room can look like the inside of an egg yolk. Take the time to test out several choices on your walls before making your final choice. Remember, an entire room of yellow will look darker than a small sample.

This couple chose white for the fireplace, bookshelves and molding. A white ceiling is also a good decision. With yellow and white together, this room looks even more like summer. The mid-range color on the wood floors also helps to create a fresh look. A dark floor would bleach out the look of the room, and too light a floor wouldn’t provide that much-needed contrast. If you want to go with yellow, think about that color choice as you select flooring and other permanent fixtures.

A neutral couch and clean-lined coffee table let the yellow stay the focus of the room, and a few casual yellow elements bring the wall color throughout the space. Spots of green and red – added in a natural way with fresh flowers and plants – echo the summer theme. With the right color and design choices, you can have a summer home all year long.

As we meet up with our puzzled homeowner again, he is considering two paint options – the left option on the fan is actually a very dark gold. You can see the color’s origin when you look at the lighter shades and they appear almost yellow.

His second choice is among selections one, two, or three on the other visible color row. He doesn’t want to use the darker choices because they would blend in too much with the fireplace opening and the black trim on the windows.

This is a good first step, but if he heads right to the paint store and orders one of these, he is almost guaranteed to be disappointed for two reasons. Paint chips are printed and the dyes on the paper don’t match the dyes that make up the paint. This means that the color you see on a chip will not exactly match the color of the paint you buy.

The second reason comes from how the light comes into your home. Everything from the direction of your windows to the shape of a room will affect how a paint color will look on a wall, and different walls will make the color look different – sometimes darker or lighter, but sometimes even a different color. To see this, look at a corner where two walls and the ceiling meet. It’s likely that you will see three different tones, even if everything was painted the same color.

So our guy has to go to the paint store and pick up samples of the colors he’s debating about – and maybe a couple of others that are similar, along with an inexpensive foam brush for each color. Then once home, he needs to paint each wall with at least a one foot by one foot square of each color – leaving some space between the colors so they don’t reflect on each other. (If this bothers you, paint some white poster boards and tape them on the walls.)

As a final step, he needs to live with his choices for a few days, looking at them in the morning, afternoon and evening, and with natural light as well as with the home’s evening lighting. Over a short period of time, he will know which one he will be happiest living with. Paint is a very personal choice. It’s worthwhile to take the time to select what will work best for you.

Tangerine is the first new color to show up in the 2012 color trends, and from kitchen gadgets to these flip flops, it’s getting some attention. Teal appears almost as often as an accent. Since these two colors are at opposite ends of the color wheel, the really stand out when paired.

Although you may not want to convert your home to a tangerine and teal wonderland, you might want to consider adding some splashes of these colors to your home to provide a quick color update. Here are a few suggestions.

If your kitchen or a bathroom could use a brightener, you could add an area rug and some towels in these vivid colors. Look for rugs with a rubber backing that go in the washing machine. These colors need to be sparkling clean to work. This is a low-cost way to make a change.

Look for tangerine and/or teal throw pillows. Brighten up a chair or sofa with these colors and you’ve added an unexpected vivid element to your décor. Teal also stands out in glassware. Look for glass vases or bowls to perk up a bookshelf. If possible, set the glass against a white or light background to help the color shine. Notice how well the teal color works in this photo.

Tangerine works well in large color segments. Teal is better as a color accent. If you’re using both, have tangerine take the lead and let teal serve more in the background. Notice in the photo the tangerine sofa blends well in the room and the teal accents toward the back still have a presence.

Are you ready to take a color chance? How about tackling two of the stars of 2012, tangerine and teal?

The Romans used mosaic as flooring for their homes and bathrooms so we have them to thank for the beautiful tile mosaics still being used in flooring and bathrooms today.  Mosaic is a natural choice to be used as flooring and walls in the bathroom.  It also makes wonderful accents with other materials.

A narrow strip of colorful mosaic tiles add interest to the wall in this bathroom.  The natural stone color of the larger tiles is given a punch with the deeper red tones of the mosaic.  This is also a great example of a more expensive material used sparingly for big impact at low cost.  Adding a strip of mosaic tiles made of tumbled marble or glass adds a touch of luxury to even the simplest bathroom tiles.

Mosaic tiles on the floors and walls can mean a lot of grout to keep clean.  Adding a mosaic tile border around the middle of the floor or stripes of mosaic tiles would liven up a plain floor.  In the shower, mosaic tiles can be used with natural stone tile, ceramic tile or porcelain tiles.  Tumbled stone mosaic tiles would have less impact than a glass or colorful ceramic mosaic.  A single row of mosaic tile used as a border high in the shower or at waist height, or both would work well.

Mosaics can also be used to decorate a mirror and bath accessories. Find a flat plain frame to fit your bathroom mirror and cover it with mosaic tile that you use elsewhere to help bring together the design of the bathroom.

If your child is starting to outgrow a menagerie of stuffed friends, this approach can keep them out of the way without having them totally disappear. Or maybe you have a collection of old friends that you are not quite willing to tuck into a closet but would like to keep under better management.

One appealing solution is to create a set of boxes that permit arranging the stuffed crew in an inviting and imaginative way. Here we have about 22 animals living in peace while looking more interesting and appealing than they would scattered throughout a room

This multiple-space shadow box is the work of an afternoon for someone handy with basic carpentry. To dress it up you could add a back and some wallpaper or contrasting paint inside each area.

The secret to the charm of this display comes from the casual display of various toys, combining some open space with piles of different creatures. You can make the same magic in any room by breaking the balance rule a bit. Maybe you have a side table just perfect for a bowl filled with old coins, or a corner of your kitchen where all of your favorite cookie cutters just fit on one wall. Some small shelves and a few nails and you are reminded of cookies every time you glance that way.

The white paint on these shelves allow virtually any flooring choice, but you may want to go with wood stain instead if you have wood flooring and want to make the two pieces connect. You have unlimited choices if you’ll just think outside the box when deciding how to display treasured possessions.

There is a big trend in design right now that you’ve probably seen. Mixing up different design styles in one room for an eclectic look that when it works feels very personal.  While using just one style, like traditional or Mediterranean, is still popular in new home construction and decorating, we’re seeing more and more eclectic interiors in the shelter magazines and on design blogs. What do you think? Is this a trend you are following?

This picture is a good example of eclectic style working well in a room.  The room and chair are traditional in style, and in the classic neutral color palette.  A club chair like this one can work in many different style interiors and is a great basic chair. The woven pouf, or table, feels much more contemporary and handcrafted.  It is clearly not the same style as the club chair yet works well with the chair and the room. A single piece that stands out can become the focal point. This table almost feels like a piece of sculpture in the neutral space.

By keeping the floor neutral works, the room feels like a cohesive space. A traditional rug or contemporary rug would be too much.  A simple woven rug or natural jute area rug would work best in this space, keeping things neutral.

When mixing styles, keep your eye on line and color to create an eclectic space that feels sophisticated, not just a hodgepodge of found furnishings. Mix in smaller accents from another style and see how they work with your existing pieces until you achieve a look you love.