Style Your Place Like A Home Catalog — All The Tricks

Two things get us excited about spotting home catalogs in our mailboxes. First, the glossy, new products themselves; who doesn't love flipping through page after page of countless slipper-, club-, and wing-chair designs? But, the second reason (since we can fit only so many chairs in our apartment) is scoping the styling in the fictional homes.

Real-life nuisances, like tangled TV wires and paper piles, are notably missing, but there's ample to glean from the curated sets. West Elm's just-released fall lookbook, for example, is a master lesson in creating vignettes with barware and vases. And, the saturated sea-green and blue wall colors seem just as apropos for this week's 80 degree heat as they are for autumn's climes. We've culled 13 tricks straight from its pages that are worth trying now. Weekend guests will be sure you hired a decorator, when all you did was check the mail.