Youngsters can go on a “Missouri adventure” in the Doris I. Schnuck Children’s Garden at the Missouri Botanical Garden. The Children’s Garden teaches kids 12 and under about the interdependence of all nature – humans, insects, animals and plants – in a variety of ecosystems.

If you want to know anything about growing herbs in the Midwest, talk with Mary Hammer. She’s a member of the St. Louis Herb Society and chairman of the group’s upcoming Herb Sale at the Missouri Botanical Garden April 27-29. The effervescent Mary can fill a book just off the top of her head when she taps into her knowledge of how to grow, use and harvest these stars of the garden, kitchen and even the medicine cabinet.

Designer Stacy Hillman’s motto is straightforward: “The more color you use, the easier it is to decorate,” she says. When her clients were ready to put the finishing touches on the 4,689-square-foot villa built in 2015 by Benton Homebuilders, Hillman incorporated Moroccan and Indonesian elements for a bold but sophisticated palette.  

Christa and Dave Guilbeault’s home was roof-to-foundation traditional when mother-and-daughter design team Shirley Strom and Katie Marvin of S&K Interiors first set eyes on it last spring. And then the Glen Carbon, IL, couple proposed a lower-level redesign that was right up the designers’ alley.

Following World War II, the television set procured a place of honor in most American family rooms. The original cathode ray tube (CRT) set, though luxuriously expensive enough to warrant a prime location in any den, was an eyesore of protruding antennae and exposed wire. And though TVs have certainly become sleeker—and for some, sexier—since then, the same in-your-face nature of the things still plague those wanting the focal point of their interiors to be something besides a hulking square of plastic, wire and glass.

It’s time to break the bedroom rules by scrapping the serene color schemes for a bright, bold look. Homeowners need not fear color when it comes to their private space. Choose a color you love and your bedroom will forever be your sanctuary.

ONE: Teen bedroom, by Heidi Dripps Design Services. Photography by Whitney Wasson. 

TWO: Cheery yellow bedroom, by JMA Interior Design. Photography by Ron Rosenzweig.