If you’re looking for quick ways to add a little pizzazz to your palace, check out the new title from Sunset: Make it Your Own Paint & Color: 50 easy weekend projects. For the most part, they mine familiar DIY veins; but some of their projects are eye catchers. All of them are well illustrated with step-by-step instructions. These are some of the things I liked the best:

• A painted stair runner pops some colour to the climb and coordinates with the area rug at the foot of the stairs.
• A pretty, girlie room has a floor painted with broad pink, rose and mauve stripes.
• The blackboard wall is a staple that is more or less attractive depending on what has been chalked onto the surface. Here they offer a formula for creating a chalkboard with any colour of paint and show a lively chalkboard wall in soft green-gray.
• A simple leafy branch is stenciled onto a plain white roller blind.
• Maps cover a wall like wallpaper in a patchwork pattern. (I’m always attracted to projects featuring maps.)

I’ve said it before and I still believe it: happiness is a can of paint and a brush.

- Jane