At the height of Seattle’s real estate market in 2003, when Leah and Chad Steen bought their first home, the property was far from picture perfect. “There was no landscaping; the previous owners even left us a note about the sad-looking Charlie Brown tree in the front yard,” says Leah, who owns Revival Home & Garden (revivalhomeandgarden.com), a shop in Capitol Hill. “But the house had tons of character, and there weren’t holes in the ceiling, like other places we’d seen.”

Inexpensive mingles with high-end Mix high and low Inexpensive furniture mingles with high-end touches in the living room: Ikea curtains hang on plumbing pipe behind a $1,200 chandelier from Leah’s shop; custom pillows sit atop a bargain (at $579) settee from Urban Outfitters; a hand-painted chinoi­serie coffee table rests on an old Pakistani rug ($85 on eBay). How to decorate in a global style

High class with a couple of coats of paint Update secondhand furnishings

A $10 framed mirror from Goodwill reads “high class” with a couple of coats of high-gloss red paint. Decorating with second-hand finds

Just $2! Find treasures at thrift stores

This large oil painting was just $2 from Second Use (seconduse.com).

 

 

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