Ask An Expert: 10 Ways To Update Your Home (and Life)!

I sat down with Alex Brunkhorst, Founder and Editor of Bungalux.com, who always gives me sage advice about my home (and life).  I asked her to give The Blonde & The Brunette readers some wisdom and tips on how she is going to keep her house and life in tip-top shape this Fall!

Here Are 10 Ways I’m Autumn-izing My House (and My Life):

1. Organizing my closet.  I hate doing it more than just about anything.  This year, I took the decadent approach and hired the fabulous Andrea Rapke at Organized Move, who made me throw away lipsticks from high school and my old Guess jeans with the calf zippers. For those of you who want the DIY version, Andrea gave Bungalux some fantastic suggestions for closet organization.  You can take a look here.
2. Adding flowers.  Flowers on my desk make me work harder and write better (or at least that’s what I tell myself). For expensive flowers I go to Floral Art; for less expensive I go to Trader Joe’s.  My trick: I only put one type of flower in a vase and I never use greens.
3. Putting together new playlists.  My summer ones now seem so, well, summery.
4. Experimenting with new recipes.  I’m making myself try out something new every week.  Okay, every other?
5. Sprucing up my bar.  I always recommend everyone has some sort of bar in the living room or library.  Even if you don’t drink, you can put Pellegrino, Evian, and beautiful glassware on a tray.  My recent purchases for my own bar are Tortoise Glassware and Carolyne Roehm’s Water Buffalo Corkscrew.
6. Throwing a birdcage in the mix.  I don’t have a bird and I don’t have space for my total and complete lust, the Restoration Hardware Birdcage Chandelier,  but I got the most gorgeous little steel birdcage for outside.  It goes great with my modern Richard Schultz furniture.
7. Lighting candles.  Here’s the deal with candles: I love votives (I’m using red now) and scented candles.  That said, maybe it’s my Milwaukee upbringing, but I still think they’re decadent, particularly the expensive ones.  Therefore, my “go-to’s” tend to be those that “go to” charity.  NEST Blue Garden Candle for Autism Speaks is a great one.  I also adore Rose Tarlow’s beautiful candles and proceeds to to the UCLA Medical Center to help women with breast cancer.
8. Preparing my outdoor space for fall entertaining with my favorite outdoor lamps and heaters from Kindle Living.
9. Switching up my “inspiration board”.  My favorite part of my home office is my big bulletin board with all of my inspirations for Bungalux.  I think everyone should have an inspiration board.
10. Planning a weekend to get away!  My New Year’s resolution every year is to go someplace I haven’t been.  Because of a particularly crazy work year, I haven’t made it there yet this year. But that’s no excuse.  I’m thinking maybe I’ll visit San Simeon (home of Hearst Castle) to get some house inspiration from one of the greatest estates of the past century.

Thank you, Alex — I needed that!

Alex Brunkhorst is the Founder and Editor of Bungalux.com, the first editorially-curated luxury real estate site of its kind.  Alex still sells high-end real estate in Los Angeles and she combs the globe to find the coolest houses and lifestyle products to showcase on Bungalux.  She writes about everything from the greatest iPod playlist to the hottest Miami pied-a-terre.

– Kathryn, The Blonde