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August 31, 2007
Buying Pet Furntiure
Your choice in choosing the right type of pet furniture for your dog or cat is important when you are decorating your home. These descisions are missed when most people are redecarting a room.
Normally what happens is after you put new floors in or buy new furniture your dog and sometimes the cat get banished from the newly decorated room. This usually happens in the living room and family room. Large dogs and wood or laminate flooring don't usually get along together, but if you buy the right colored designer pet bed this problem can be solved. Color matching is different for pet furniture like beds or blankets. Normally you want furniture to co-ordinate, but not necassarily be the same color as your flooring. With pet beds and other furniture this is not true, you want them to match as close as possible so they are not noticed.
Cat furniture is a little different because it is much nicer looking. Basket styled beds should be colored coordinated the same as your home furniture. The reason for this is most of the time cats won't be in there so you want it to look like accent furniture. If your cats like to sharpen their claws on the back of your couch the only thing you can do is place a scratching post as close to the area they use the most. If the scratching post is too far away from their regular path to where they like to sharpen claws or scratch they won't use it.
Crates and indoor houses should be left out of the livingroom and placed in either the kitchen area or family room. What I have done in my home is, I left the door off of the crate and placed a small tablecloth overtop with glass the same size as the dog crate and use it as an end table tucked into a corner. You hardly notice it at all.
For controlling dog and cat hair, you are limited to brushing your animals regularly and using machine washable pet friendly slipcovers.
- For more details on pet furniture or other pet products go here.
August 24, 2007
Carpet runner installation
Installation tips for installing a carpet runner.
Just in case you are looking to buy a carpet runner for you laminate or wood stairs go here to get more information first -Stair runners
Back to installing a carpet runner
Tools needed will be a carpet knife, hammer, pencil, masking tape, staple gun, carpet stretcher. The last two should be rented because unless they are a higher quality they won't get the job done. You will also have to buy underlay or padding and enough tack strips for all the steps, these hold the carpeting tight agains the riser edges.
1. Lay out the runner and subtact the width of the carpet from the width of the stair. Divide by 2, this gives you the distance on each side of the runner. Mark this spot with a pencil mark or masking tape all the way up the stairs.
2. Cut and tack strips 2 inches shorter than the width of the carpeting. These should be about 3/8 of an inch from riser edge or the back of the step. Nail inplace so the tacks point inward.
3. Cut a piece of pad the same length of the tack strip and 3 inches wider than the stair tread. Staple this in place.
4. Cut a square end of the runner, it also must be sealed with a latex seam sealer so the ends don't unravel. Use a square to make a clean straight cut.
5. Roll the carpeting up about three stairs, following your lay out lines.
6. Staple the bottom in place, after you double check that it is inbetween your guide lines. If you are out even a 1/4 inch it will be misaligned at the top by about 2 inches.
7. Place over first tack strip and stretch with the knee kicker you rented. Start in center and work outward, you only need steady pressure you don't have to slam your knee into it.
8. Tuck the runner inbetween the tack strip and the riser. Use a carpet tool or very dull and blunt steel edge. On each side staper the runner into the corner where the riser meets the tread.
9. Now staple the carpet to the riser about 2 inches above tread (bottom), now after pulling up staple this to the underside of the top or stair nosing, every 3 inches.
10. stretch carpeting over the riser onto the next tack strip and repeat, stretching and stapling as you go.
The end or top piece can stop at the top of the last riser if you are connecting to more carpeting or continue a foot or so if meeting wood flooring. You still need to cut the end square and seal. Make sure you are checking your widths with your guide lines every couple of steps as you work your way up the stairs.
Posted 10:20 PM | PermalinkAugust 21, 2007
Furniture for dorm rooms
It seem to be that time of year again when most college students phone home and say "mom I need dorm room furniture". True as this may be it does require careful planning and buying the right type of furniture that fits into a dorm room. These areas are normally quite small and need careful furniture placements.
Starting with the bed which should be a futon bed that you can use as a couch for seating. Then a storage trunk coffee table to maximize a small storage area. Then a small round kitchen table and chair set that the stools fit underneath. The best size would be the same as you would a small studio apartment.
- You can read more about small kitchen tables for an apartment here usually counter heights are a good choice.
- storage trunk coffee tables are on this page.
- To buy cheap futon furniture that will fit nicely in a dorm room go here.
Students don't need a lot of furniture in a dorm room, they just need well organized furniture that works and looks good. If it can be repainted at the end of the school year all the better. I have had three teenagers go through college and have found this selection in furniture to be the best. It lasts for a long time and they can use it after they graduate for decorating their first apartment.
Student computer desks are just about obsolete now with everyone having a laptop, all they need is a table to work on. The storage trunk coffee table was my daughters idea and worked very well. My husband made a lock for it so she could store things in it with out worrying about them being stolen.
August 16, 2007
Solar screens
What type of window covering do you use if have a nice view and don’t want to cover it up? This can be a problem, especially if you like the view from your kitchen window or like to see into your backyard.
The problem is the sun is too bright and you need a blind or roller shade to filter some of the light out. Solar screen or shades are the style of blind that you want to use. Solar window screens are ideal for when you want to see outside but still like a bit of privacy.
Solar screens are not like horizontal sheer shades (which are horizontal blinds, that come in panel strips). They are a roller shade that is semi opaque. These screens still improve energy efficiency by reducing solar heat gain and blocking the bright sunlight.
You can still mount these roller shades on the inside of the window or outside of the window frame. They can be purchased with openings from 1% to 14% openness and are made by Kirsch, Comfortex, Graber, Hunter Douglas and blindsgalore. The best colors for matching your décor and walls are grey, silver, linen and white.
As a privacy window blind they work very well in the living room they are ideal for the kitchen window if you like to see into your backyard.
If you buy these blinds with the reverse roll they don’t block out as much sun because they are further from the window. Standard roller shades always have the fabric hanging on the inside or closest to the glass. Someone decorators do like to use the reverse roll because when the shade is pulled down the fabric is flush with the wall and looks good. It does allow more sunlight to come through, so you would want to buy a tighter screen opening, no more than 5%.
They can be ordered with different pull mechanisms which you can review more details here about solar screens.
The higher percentage of openness the more you can see through the screen and the least amount of light is being blocked. This is one of the main reasons I like these blinds so much. I can buy 10% openness for my kitchen window, which doesn’t get the hot sun but has a nice view and the buy a 1% screen opening for the living room, which gets sun all afternoon. I have even seen creative decorators use these in offices where people want to see out of their office but still retain a certain amount of privacy.
August 11, 2007
Color Schemes
To make any room appear to have more space or to alter the dimensions of a room without remodeling can be achieved by picking a new room colour scheme. Adding a fresh coat of paint allows you to express yourself simply with a new color technique. What you will need is a color wheel to help you pick the shades of paint. You can pick one up at most paint stores for free.
Color has three qualities - hue, value, and intensity or brightness. Hue is the name of the colour, such as yellow or red. The lightness or darkness of a hue is the value. To tint the color slightly you add a white base. For a different shade you add black. To change the basic tone of the paint you would add gray. Intensity is the brightness or dullness of the main paint color.
Basic color schemes from the paint palette that you can work with
Complimentary color schemes are always directly across from each other on a color wheel, in this their are many shades. They are always very different and one is always the dominant or darker. For example burgundy and green.
Neutral colors use grays, beiges or white as the main color and then add a dark accent to add a visual effects. You see this mostly when color blocking, light colored walls with very dark moldings or doorways.
Analogue schemes use two or more on the wheel which are adjacent to each other. This creates a flow that blends together to create a subtle effect.
For a triadic scheme you choose three selections that are equal in distance from each other. Just for an example these would be red, yellow and blue. Painting with this type of style is very striking and takes a lot of care in choosing you main paint color. I have seen blue walls with red and yellow accents that really looked sharp.
To use the same shade or tint in different levels is called monochromatic scheme. This style can make a room look much larger. What you want to do is pick different light and dark shades with different intensities.
This is normally the samples you see at a paint and wallpaper stores, they are sections of the color wheel.
August 09, 2007
Landscaping Curb appeal
A cheaper way to landscape and create curb appeal. You can use these tips for selling your home or just to create a nicer looking front yard.
If you are thinking of putting your home on the market this spring, there is an inexpensive way to add more curb appeal. You can take advantage of the discounts and sales at your local nursery. Now that most people of bought there perennials and annuals, most plant stores are trying to clear out all their stock for the fall cool season and winter. Look for ornamental trees like flowering cherry and crab apple. Shrubs like junipers and azaleas that were expensive to buy in the spring will probably be reduced in price.
When you are selling your home color and texture is everything when someone is driving by just to look. Real estate agents always try to get a lot of color into the picture of your home.
1. If you have a post, lamp posts work the best you can make it into a floral column. Simply by planting a climbing vine like a clematis. They like full sun, but should still have some type of ground cover, at the base to keep the roots cool. Low growing evergreens or junipers work well for this.
To grow evenly around the post you should place thin fencing wire or netting all around and to a height just below the top. If you can't find a clematis plant on sale a climbing rose would work also.
2. Nothing is uglier than a bare or grass border down a driveway, it is not very inviting. It is simple enough to turn this area into a color spectacle. You do need to control the color and when flowers are in bloom they should compliment the color of your home.
An example of this would be, if your siding is white, you only need a few white flowers along the driveway. Too much white blooms will make it look washed out. Add a few purple blooms like flowering catmint, a few yellow daisies and maybe a few clumps of ornamental grass, black and silver. Make sure nothing grows too tall, you are trying to create contrast. Short flowers near the front with the larger ones closer to the grass.
3. For the front entrance containers are best because they can be moved around for different effects. Unless your home is a greek style try to stay with the round smooth urns.
Most of the time you will want annuals in these planters, but you should still have one or two with a perennial planted in it. Boxwood is a very hardy plant that you can grow in a pot that stays green all year round. You can also grow Japanese maples in pots if they are watered on a regular basis.
4. You can dress up your porch and patio area with tall hydrangeas on the corners and boxwood along the edges. Big leaf hostas hide railings really well. If you have full sun on your patio, climbing roses with tulips, crocus and daffodils, will give you color at different times of the year.