7 Tips to Make Painting Stress-Free, According to a Designer

Walking into the 2024 Real Simple Home, you are immediately greeted with stand-out hardwood floors, beautiful decor, and the stunning original accents of the home—and this is all in just the entryway and first room. 

Cheese: -lvinst-; Campfire: Botina Inna / Getty Images | Design: Better Homes & Gardens

In an ideal world, we’d all have an interior designer on hand to help us shop for beautiful new home decor each season. Lucky for us, we have the second-best scenario. 

Mums are a popular fall flower—they come in beautiful fall-inspired hues from rusted orange to sunset red. They also start to bloom in fall, when all the summer flowers disappear.

Whether you travel often, are convinced that you don't have a green thumb, or simply do not want to worry about maintaining live plants day after day, you may wish to incorporate some faux green friends into your home. Today, there are so many incredible, realistic-looking fake plants on the market, making it easy to enjoy a natural feel in your space without having to worry about a watering schedule.

Olympic gold medalist Shawn Johnson East and her husband, former NFL football player Andrew East, lead very busy lives: they’re both retired athletes raising three small children while juggling speaking engagements and, in Johnson East’s case, even being an Olympic correspondent. 

Collaborative post

It can be tempting to whip out some paint to refresh an old piece of furniture that's been sitting around your home, however, it may be better off left alone than painted. We asked pros to share what types of furniture should never be painted, so you know which ones to avoid giving a quick DIY makeover to.

Pruning Lavender

Weeds are party crashers—they are not invited, take up space and resources, and are not dressed for the occasion. However, some are extremely useful in the garden. You don’t have to empty your wallet on pricey plant food when you can use these weeds that make good fertilizers!

Whether you call them woodchucks, whistle pigs, ground pigs, or groundhogs, these large ground squirrels can be a real nuisance in your yard and garden. “Groundhogs eat whatever is available and most nutritious,” says Sheldon Owen, PhD, wildlife extension specialist at West Virginia University. “They consume large quantities of herbaceous vegetation, especially fruits and vegetables. But they’ll also eat clover, bark, and landscape plants.”

It’s not your imagination—fall and Halloween hype is starting earlier than ever this year.