Good Bones Stars Use A Low-Cost Décor Element To Add A Finishing Touch To Any Room

Whatever the aesthetics of your home, the smallest details often have a large impact on setting the tone and style of any space. This is particularly true when renovating older homes — especially if you want to make the space feel modern but with a few details that nod to the home's original style and sense of age. In an episode of "Good Bones," hosts Mina Starsiak Hawk and Karen Laine recently showed a dramatic transformation of an older Indiana home. The resulting renovation was a beautiful open-concept home with a soft color palette, featuring a lot of texture and unique details like rubbings of antique wall ornaments, original woodwork, and other small touches that the owners loved. Among these touches were various tinted glass bottles, jars, and vases in soft amber and sea glass colors placed throughout the home. 

The jars not only add vintage flair and a beachy, casual vibe to the new space, but also evoke the older home's previous wash of greens and blues on the crumbling walls. Colored glass containers can be a great element to produce a similar effect in your home, where there are many ways to make them work as a low-budget, but impactful, décor element.

Colored glass accents can add texture and dimension, as well as a pop of color. This is particularly important in otherwise neutral spaces as it keeps them from being too monotone or sterile. Glass is reflective, which means it's an ingenious way to add decoration that does not feel as cluttered, dark, and heavy as more solid objects. Colored glass is also a nod to the past, when softly or brilliantly hued glass bottles were often used for both decorative items and functional things, such as aqua-tinted mason jars and slender green glass soda bottles. 

The jars and bottles can be great for adding levels and heights, especially when grouped together in a selection of coordinating colors. Colored glass ranges from sea glass-inspired pale blues and greens Mina Starsiak Hawk uses in "Good Bones" to deeper, more saturated colors like garnet and cobalt. You can even find them in neutral colors like amber, brown or gray. Large pieces, like jugs and taller decorative bottles can be a statement piece that is perfect for filling awkward spaces and adding a vintage touch.

Tinted glass bottles, vases, and jars are often sold new at home retailers or can be found secondhand in places like flea markets, estate sales, and thrift stores usually for a budget-friendly price. You can also make your own colored glass containers by using a solution of Mod Podge mixed with food coloring or acrylic paint to coat the inside of any jar. This allows you to turn any piece, like a repurposed drinking glass or old marinara jar, into faux vintage décor. 

Use these containers in a grouping on a table as a centerpiece or line them on a shelf or window sill in your kitchen for some beautiful reflected colored light. Get some colored jars and use them as a place to hold bathroom essentials like swabs and cotton balls. They also make great votive holders that create soft ambient light or stunning vases for bouquets of real or faux blooms.