Thoughtful interiors, practical repairs, and better ways to care for your home
Welcome to DecoratorAdvice — where every home is considered, not simply maintained
My background in interior design shapes how I write about everything from water heaters to living rooms. At DecoratorAdvice, home improvement is approached with clear priorities, realistic budgets, and practical decisions that make a difference.
Good rooms are quiet about the work behind them
Design-trainedInterior Design and Business Media, Ryerson University
Studied in TuscanyItalian architecture and design, on co-op in Italy
Writing for AmericaPractical home improvement, room by room
The categories
Six areas of home expertise, one consistent standard
I organize the site the way I would organize a project file: the systems that keep a house working, the spaces that make it worth living in, and a running blog that ties them together.
Blog
My running notes on homeownership in America — seasonal checklists, cost breakdowns, and the thinking behind each project I take on or research.
Plumbing
Clear guidance on the system nobody sees until it fails — what to handle yourself, what to hire out, and how to judge a quote with confidence.
Roofing
Materials, warning signs, and fair pricing for the most consequential surface of the house — written so homeowners can hold their own in any contractor conversation.
Gardening
Outdoor space treated as a designed room: planting plans, soil fundamentals, and low-maintenance choices that look intentional in every season.
Home Improvement
Projects sized for real weekends and real budgets — planned like design briefs, priced honestly, and finished to a standard worth photographing.
Decor
Where my training does its most visible work: composition, proportion, and restraint — the principles that make modest rooms read as considered ones.
My approach
Every topic gets the designer's questions first
Every repair, upgrade, or room makeover starts with a few essential questions: what does the space need to do, what will the work realistically cost, and will the result stand the test of time? That design-led thinking guides every DecoratorAdvice article, from small plumbing fixes to complete room refreshes.
Reader favorites
Helpful answers readers seek on DecoratorAdvice every day
These are the questions that bring most visitors through the door. Each one leads into a category where the full answers live.
Behind each article
How we bring each DecoratorAdvice article together
Publishing about someone's home is a responsibility. Every piece moves through the same three stages before it reaches you — no shortcuts, no filler written to fill a calendar.
Step one
Research like a project brief
I start from primary sources — manufacturer specifications, building practice, and current American pricing — and read them the way I was taught to read a design brief: for what actually matters.
Step two
Cost-check against real budgets
Every recommendation is weighed against what it truly costs to do well, including the line items most guides forget: prep, disposal, tools you'll only use once, and the price of doing it twice.
Step three
Review with a designer's eye
Before publishing, I ask the question my training never lets me skip: will this choice still look intentional in five years? If the answer is no, the article says so plainly.
About the writer
Meet Skyla Javier, the voice behind DecoratorAdvice
I'm Skyla Javier, a home and interiors writer with a design-focused approach to everyday improvement projects.
A lasting interest in architecture, materials, and proportion informs how I look at home projects, helping connect practical decisions with spaces that feel cohesive and comfortable.
Today, I cover home improvement topics for American readers, bringing a design-aware perspective to both technical fixes and everyday spaces. A home should work well and feel good to live in.
- Formal training in interior design and business media
- International study in Italian architecture and design
- Coverage grounded in American homes, codes, and costs
- Every recommendation held to a design standard, not just a repair standard
Common questions
decoratoradvice, answered
The questions readers ask most often about the site, the writer, and how to use both well.
What is decoratoradvice?
decoratoradvice is an independent home improvement resource covering American homes across six categories — plumbing, roofing, gardening, home improvement, decor, and a running blog. Every article is written with a designer's discipline: real costs, clear trade-offs, and choices that hold up over time.
Who writes decoratoradvice?
DecoratorAdvice is written by Skyla Javier, whose approach brings together interior design principles and practical home improvement. The site focuses on useful guidance for American homes, from everyday maintenance to considered design choices.
Is the advice on decoratoradvice American or Canadian?
I'm based in Canada, but the site is written for American homes: the costs, materials, seasonal advice, and contractor practices I reference are grounded in the United States. The design principles behind them — proportion, material honesty, longevity — travel anywhere.
How should I use decoratoradvice for my own project?
Start with the category that matches your problem, read the planning guidance before the how-to steps, and treat my cost ranges as a sanity check against local quotes. When an article says a job belongs with a licensed professional, it means it — knowing where your part ends is half of doing a project well.
How often is decoratoradvice updated?
New articles are added regularly across all six categories, and existing guides are revisited when prices shift or better methods emerge. Nothing on the site is published once and forgotten — a guide that has gone out of date is worse than no guide at all.
Start anywhere
Start with a room, a repair, or a new season — find your next step here
Whether you are tackling a leaking pipe or rethinking an awkward living room, you will find practical guidance shaped by thoughtful design.
Begin with the blog