The long-awaited home décor bible by the beloved design blogger

“Thank you,” wrote a reader to Design*Sponge creator Grace Bonney, “for teaching me that houses don’t have to be frumpy and formal. They don’t have to be matchy-matchy or rigidly modern.” They can just be comfy and unique and reflect who you are, no matter how small your budget or space.

That reader is one of the 75,000 unique daily visitors to Design*Sponge, who make it the most popular design site on the web. The site receives 250,000 pageviews every day and has 150,000 RSS subscribers and 280,000 followers on Twitter. Design*Sponge fans have been yearning for the ultimate design manual from their guru, Grace, and she has finally delivered with this definitive guide, which includes:

• Home tours of 70 real-life interiors featuring artists and designers

• Fifty DIY projects, with detailed instructions for personalizing your space

• Step-by-step tutorials on everything from stripping and painting furniture to hanging wallpaper and doing your own upholstery

• Fifty Before & After makeovers submitted by readers of Design*Sponge—real people with limited time and realistic budgets

• Essential tips on modern flower arranging, with 20 arrangements

With over 700 color photos and illustrations and projects that are customizable, relatable, and affordable, this is the democratizing design book everyone has been waiting for—and all for only $35.00!

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A Project from Design*Sponge at Home

Bleach Pattern Tea Towels

Designers: Derek Fagerstrom and Lauren Smith

Cost: $20

Time: 1 hour (plus drying time)

Difficulty: 1 star (out of 5)

Resist-dyeing, like batik or tie-dye, is a lot of fun, but can be a mess—especially for those of us completing projects at home. Design*Sponge editors Derek and Lauren discovered that bleaching a pattern onto pre-dyed fabric using a gel bleach pen is a much easier, cleaner way to achieve a similar effect on a limited budget. So the next time you pick up a bleach pen to work on your bathroom tiles, consider trying your hand at faux batik dyeing using inexpensive, colorful fabric.

Materials:

• 4 tea towels or cloth napkins

• Plastic drop cloth or aluminum foil

• Clorox Bleach Pen (2 pens should be enough for 4 towels)

• Rubber gloves

Instructions:

1. Protect your work surface with a plastic drop cloth or sheets of aluminum foil. Wear work clothes in case the pen brushes against you, and open your windows for ventilation. Lay the towels down on the work surface and draw patterns on the fabric with the bleach pen. We like the look of free-hand, slightly wavy lines, but you can also draw your desired pattern onto the fabric beforehand using tailor’s chalk and trace over it with the bleach pen. Let the finished towels sit for 30 minutes.

2. Wearing rubber gloves to protect your hands from the bleach, rinse the towels in cold water. It is very important to rinse off all the bleach in order to avoid smearing.

3. Let the towels dry, and give them a final wash before use.