There are days when I look around my apartment -- cluttered, disorganized, and half-decorated -- and think, "There's no other home as crappy as mine." Then I log on to Ugly House Photos, a Phoenix-based website that displays real-estate sale photos that should never have been uploaded ... and I feel a tiny bit better.

Before you judge me, you’ve got to see the hilariawful images (and snarktastic quips) of one Mr. Leif Swanson. He’s a realtor himself and couldn’t believe the dumb mistakes homeowners made when trying to sell their homes. "The first impression is ruined by a bad photo," he says. In other words, if your dog is pooping on your front lawn ... wait 30 seconds before snapping your picture. Trust me.

Ogle some of Swanson's best (er, worst) and see if you don’t find yourself snickering as much as I did.

I realize this is partially because I have small children, but let’s be honest: Even before I had kids, I was a klutz and a clutter-magnet. I do love to talk about good home décor, but when it comes to my actual home, well ... let’s just say it’s a work in progress. Early in the progress.
 
Which is why I am amazed every time I hear there is this thing called a “tabletop accent.” It boggles my mind: People have free space in their homes, not to mention free money with which to buy otherwise useless objects?
 
I posted this on Facebook, and my friends took up the challenge to list their homemade tabletop accents. Which kind of homemaker are you -- a tabletop-accenter, or a tabletop-clutterer?

While I know it would be fun to fill my home with amazing designer finds, the budget doesn't always allow it. That's why I love coming across projects that give the designer look without the designer price. Danielle Thompson fell in love with the Eames Hang-It-All coat rack but couldn't quite justify the price, so she came up with a way to make a similar looking one herself. See some photos and details from her project below: 

This is hard to admit, but I feel like I’m not alone here: When I take my toddler and 1-year-old on play dates, I often feel like I can’t have the people over in return. For various reasons, we live in an apartment that’s pretty small, with no backyard. To make matters worse, neither my husband or I are particularly good at de-cluttering or cleaning. The result is that my home usually doesn’t look good enough for company, and I’m embarrassed to have people see that we pretty much live like college students.

But I can’t keep offering to meet people at the playground. Part of friendship is reciprocation. A huge re-haul is not in the cards: we don’t have the time, the money, or the energy. What, I wondered, could I do if my home didn’t feel ready for prime time?

These lucky triplets got a bedroom makeover!Celebrity designers and parents to seven kids Cortney and Robert Novogratz are back this weekend when Home by Novogratz premieres Saturday, July 16th at 10 p.m. ET/PT on HGTV. In the new season, Bob and Cortney will take on new design projects and create more totally unique spaces, using their smart, funky, downtown-chic aesthetic.

Here's a peek at one of the Novogratz's recent room makeover projects -- a stylish and well-organized bedroom for the four-year-old Sternick triplets, who live in Hell's Kitchen, New York with their parents. Keep reading for more shots of the bedroom makeover, storage tips from Cortney, and a sneak peek at the season premiere of Home by Novogratz.

Ever since Julia Child and her famous kitchen became a fixture of American TV, I think everyone has not only looked at cooking differently, but the use of pegboard too. Before it was maybe just something used to hang tools in the garage, but once Julia's husband Paul lined their kitchen with it and used it to display all those gorgeous copper pots, there was a bingo! moment where people realized they could use it in other parts of their home as well.

Although some may still think it looks too industrial or cheap (it is happily inexpensive!), take a look at these following uses. I think you'll be surprised to see its functionality and visual interest.

Yesterday, I needed a rubber band. Knowing I’d stashed a few in our silverware drawer, I reached for them and found ... nothing. “Why do you hate rubber bands??” I texted my husband.

He walked in from the other room. “I don’t want the silverware drawer to become a junk repository,” he told me.

“This kitchen looks like a hurricane hit it, and that’s what you get fussy about?” I asked.

He fixed me with that look. “You don’t have a rubber band to stand on.”

He’s right. When it comes to ridiculous little details that Must Be Just So in the middle of the chaos that is our home, well, I’m the duchess of dork. Here’s what I mean:

Have you ever heard of GTD? It stands for Getting Things Done, and it’s a geek-friendly system of time organization and project management that has been taken from the boardroom to the playroom by moms and dads hoping to impose some kind of order on their chaotic homes.

So far, we're just a plain-old WTF family. Hope springs eternal, though, and I’m always downloading helpful lists from places like FlyLady that, if I can just use them correctly, promise to get us in line, little by little.

But these lists ... they defeat me before I can even get started.

For instance, this cleaning checklist from Real Simple. I printed it out, and then just had to laugh. Clean your house in 30 minutes? What world do they live in? If I were able to do any of these tasks in the time allotted, I wouldn’t need the freakin’ list!

For your reading entertainment, here’s the online-organizer tip ... and my real-world experience.