Ce Up Your Home Without Busting Your Budget
ce Up Your Home Without Busting Your Budget
by: ARA Content
Do-it-yourself tips for summer remodeling projects
(ARA) - Ah, summer. Between neighborhood softball games and trips to the community pool, it’s the biggest time of the year for moving and home remodeling.
While many of us turn our thoughts to upgrading our homes, our budgets may already be tapped. Here are some simple do-it-yourself ideas to spruce up your home, specifically the kitchen and bath, without breaking your budget.
Jazz up cabinets with snappy new drawer pulls.
One of the simplest ways to add pizzazz to the kitchen is to install new cabinet hardware, says home improvement expert Don Vandervort of www.hometips.com. “At your local hardware store you’ll find a wide array of drawer pull designs - from painted ceramic or metal knobs, to whimsical designs shaped like knives and forks. Simply unscrew your existing cupboard hardware, replace with the new, and presto, you’ve completed a quick an inexpensive update for your home.”
Pour on the charm: upgrade the faucet.
A beautifully designed faucet can change the look of your sink area and the way you feel about your drinking water. Simple faucet design lines can make a clean and modern addition to the kitchen or bathroom sink, while some faucet models can even improve the taste of the water coming from the tap. “Not everyone likes the taste of their tap water,” says Vandervort. “For those who choose the filtration route, an attractive, yet practical solution is the ClearTap Water Filtering Kitchen or Lavatory Faucet, made by American Standard. It removes contaminants, retains fluoride, and produces clean, good tasting water with the turn of a faucet handle.”
Kids climbing the walls? Try scrubbable paint.
Ketchup, food, scuff marks, mud all these things can just be wiped clean with some of the new high-performance paint finishes available today. “Interior paints have a scrubbability rating, established through standardized testing,” Vandervort says. “Though this rating may not be posted on the can, a paint retailer should have information on the rating.”
“One problem with using a flat paint on interior walls is that it doesn’t take kindly to scrubbing,” he says. “If you scrub it with a damp cloth, you’ll remove the dirt or smudge, but the exposed pigment particles can ruin the finish. To avoid this, choose a high performance paint (not flat), that can stand up to a good washing.”
Expand space with drawer organizers.
Is a small-sized kitchen or bath cramping your style? Try adding drawer organizers to increase your storage space. These days, you can find a nice range of inexpensive racks and slide-in baskets at discount and hardware stores. Whether you store cleaning utensils, Grandma’s vintage pie pans, or your favorite bath salts you can create new nooks and crannies for all of your stuff, and get the clutter off the counter.
Gain a foothold on more attractive flooring.
Flooring makes a huge difference in the appearance of a kitchen or bath. “Oftentimes vinyl flooring is dated and worn,” Vandervort says. “But the good news is that you can go ahead and lie new vinyl or laminated wood material right over the old flooring. Many of the items available today give the look of ceramic tile or natural wood at a lower cost.”
Brighten it up.
For an easy and inexpensive way to brighten up a kitchen, install under-the-counter lighting. A small purchase at the hardware store is all it takes to completely change the way the light hits the surfaces of a room. You can also save energy dollars by choosing the right lighting. “Switch from incandescent light bulbs to highly efficient compact fluorescents, and you’ll use about one-quarter to one-third less energy to produce the same amount of light,” Vandervort says. Another tip: move natural light further into rooms by bouncing it off the ceiling. A window located close to the ceiling works for this, as do louvers or operable blinds that can help direct light.
Make a tiny bathroom look larger.
Even a bathroom the size of a phone booth can look larger with a little ingenuity, according to www.americanstandard-us.com. Try using lighter, cooler colors: they feel airy and trick the eye. Wallpaper with a smaller pattern also helps expand the space. Try some on the ceiling, or emphasize horizontal lines with a coordinating border. Or try installing bath tile that contains a subtle pattern and then repeat it onto the floor. If your bath is really petite, try using a trim pedestal lavatory or wall hung fixtures - both free up valuable floor space. Also, remember to go heavy on the lighting and choose reflective surfaces, such as a shiny marble vanity.
For more easy and inexpensive tips on sprucing up your home this summer, visit www.americanstandard-us.com or www.hometips.com.
How to Remove Negative Memories
There are times that apparently bad things happen. We don’t understand why or what the cause of these events are.
Some religious people will tell you it?s Gods plan or punishment. Others will say we create all the events in our lives even the bad ones.
Still more will tell you it is the divine guidance system of the universe, “the great agenda.”
The point is the why is not important. The how is not important.
The past is nonexistent with the exception of our own minds where we continue to suffer through the visual recreation of the ugly event over and over again.
Why continue to allow your negative memories to ruin your present experience? If you were free of the reoccurring negative past, only then can you truly begin to see the present world you inhabit un-jaded.
When you live in your mistakes and bad memories, you are seeing every new miraculous day through the dirty filter of your past.
That makes it hard to just be happy doesn’t it? Even when the stars are bright and everything is going your way.
You just can’t escape the memories that become the basis for the comparison of every new and beautiful experience.
First give yourself clarity, just know that it doesn’t have to be this way. You can be free, you can be forgiven.
Admit that you don’t want to feel this way. You?re tired of feeling wrong. Tired of feeling angry. Tired of feeling sad.
Just know you don’t want to feel this way anymore.
Here is a very simple “visualization” exercise to be rid of the negative memory forever.
Remember this so you can close your eyes to get the full effect and focus.
1. Find a quiet spot to sit or lie down
2. Close your eyes and take a couple very slow deep breaths (deep relaxed breathing is one of the most ancient and effective ways to stay healthy)
3. See the empty blackness of the back of you eyelids, feel the closeness of this comforting and restful darkness.
4. Pull your mind back slowly imagining the blackness becoming larger around you.
5. Now picture a television, one of the old models with knobs (if your old enough to remember _)
6. Think of that bad memory or event and see it playing itself out in real-time on the small television in front of you. All the people involved and just small characters on the little screen.
7. Now i want you to reach out and grab the tuning knobs, feel your fingers grasping the small circular knobs that control the vertical, the horizontal, the static.
8. Turn the knobs; distorting the picture of your negative memory on the screen. Stretch it. Fade it. Change the hue, the speed, the pitch of the voices.
Something that has helped me is tuning the knobs until there is nothing left on the screen but empty static.
Give it a try.
It is easy for those around us to say, just let go of the negative memory. Get over it, and move on.
But for those of us in the experience? attached to it? reliving it for years. It’s not like we want to feel that way, at least not consciously.
Make the decision to change the way you feel.
Now you have at least one method to be free of the past negative memory. I hope it helps and you find freedom, and peace.
Namaste
I am a sixth year internet marketer with my wonderful husband Jason. We have 2 little irresistable noise makers, and #3 is scheduled for March. I have a life-long background in acting, music, and writing. I have written a salesletter that generated a quarter of a million dollars in less than two weeks. Also I put a product in the genius book of world records as the highest price auction ever ran on ebay. To visit The Healthy Marketer see: TheHealthyMarketer.com
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Great Bedroom Storage Ideas
Storage is the most important element in a bedroom after the bed. Here’re some bedroom storage ideas involving bedroom furniture to put essentials and objects where they can be easily reached and yet make best use of available space.
Bedroom Storage Ideas for Clothing
Different styles of clothing require different storage solutions. Here are some basic guidelines for general dimensions:
* Long coats and dresses require a considerable amount of full-length hanging space, usually calculated at a maximum height of 5ft 3in (1.6 m);
* T-shirt, jeans, sweaters, shirt, hats and handbags need either many shallow shelves or drawers measuring 1ft by 1ft 10in. Deep shelves tend to result in piles that fall over.
* Wardrobe depths should be at least 2 ft (60 cm) to hold a full-sized coat hanger complete with clothes handing on it.
* Wardrobes heights up till ceiling are recommended though you think you won’t need the space. It’s guaranteed that these will soon be filled with bulky, awkward things.
The Wardrobe as Bedroom Storage Solution
Free-standing wardrobes can be challenging to integrate. This is because they take up a large amount of space and are rarely designed to work with your particular clothing problems.
The obvious alternative is a fitted wardrobe, or a combination of cupboards and wardrobe. You may break the wall of doors up with color, architectural details and carefully chosen knobs.
You may also have fitted cupboards with staggered units of varying depths. The doors can be furnished with large and striking handles for a sense of drama.
Alternative Bedroom Storage Ideas
Although shelves, hanging rails and drawers are the most conventional forms of storage, there are other bedroom storage ideas, including boxes, baskets, free-standing rails, and even bags. And storage solutions do not necessarily have to be expensive - shelves divided into different section, for example, can provide a good basic system, as can different heights of hanging rail, perhaps screened from view by a curtain or blind.
Storage space can extend beyond the confines of a single dedicated unit:
* Beneath the bed - the space that can be used, either shallow containers or built in unit.
* Under stairs, sloping roof or obscure corners - shelving
units
* Spare bedroom, corridor, hall - the space can be annexed to include a walk-in wardrobe or dressing area
About the Author
Web: www.unique-home-decor-ideas.com/bedroom-decorating-tips.html
Email: lester@unique-home-decor-ideas.com
Valli & Valli Door Knob - Privacy with Large Stainless Steel Rosette - K5301-RPS-PCY
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