Bedroom Inspirations and Designs
Let’s talk a little about bedroom designs, of all the rooms in your house, your bedroom is the last space you would visit before you retire to take a good night sleep. It is where your body lies in deep solitude as it relaxes and rejuvenates the lost energy for the day. Hence, it is important to come up with a relaxing mood when conceptualizing bedroom design decorating ideas, here are a few pictures with bedroom designs that will help you to make an idea of how you want to style your bedroom.
A great bedroom is a place to relax and recharge, a stylish and peaceful retreat that’s as versatile as it is welcoming.
Sometimes your new bedroom decorating simply needs a change of atmosphere to make it more comfortable. Maybe you have a bedroom design that is immaculate, modern, and beautiful. But is it comfortable? It’s important that a room still feel like home, and an easy way to achieve this is by adding some creature comforts. Some personal bedroom decorations add individual character to a space and make it more relaxing. Here is bedroom inspirations for you that I’ve taken from http://freshome.com Read more…
Living Room Decor
In the past, living room or the parlor was the place with formal settings to welcome the honored guests. With times, it has evolved into a multifunctional room meant to welcome guests, sit and relax comfortably while reading a good book or watching TV, spend some time with the family, chat and gossip with friends and for entertainment. The most common furniture pieces found in the living room are sofas, love seat, sofa with chairs in different combinations, coffee table, end tables, ottomans, benches, shelves and perhaps a desk and bookshelves. If the living space is also used as a family room, you can also find TV and entertainment center in the room along with accessories, lighting, art and crafts on display and may be carpets.
An extra large living room may accommodate a piano, eating area complete with dining table, tennis or billiard table or even a number of plants, if your living space receives lots of direct sunlight. You may also shift am armoire to make use of the extra space for storage purposes. Living room can use maximum number of furnishings and it is a challenge to fit in all the desirable furnishings and accessories and coordinate them with carpeting, wall color, crown moldings, lighting style and window treatments among many other things. Usually, sofa or the entertainment center is the largest piece of furniture in a living room and since, placement of sofa will decide the view and focal point for the people seated in the living, room, use it as the starting point for living room decor.
Express your personality, your personal taste and decorating flair in the way you decorate your living room. Remodeling or decorating your living room doesn’t just mean to throw away items and add furniture pieces to the living room but how you arrange what you already have in the room. Arrangement mistakes can ruin the look of your room. Do not go wild with imagination. Some of the rules and traditional ways of keeping things and proper design must be followed to keep things sane. Creative and unusual living room decorating ideas should be limited by the comfort and usability of the room to make the living room more inviting.
Designing in innovative ways that ‘break the rules’ can be tricky, so is best left to professionals. Ensure that you maintain visual balance and harmony while displaying your accessories and should not look chaotic. For budget decorating, try to use what you already and then only opt to buy new things that you think are absolutely necessary. See, if rearranging furniture and accessories can achieve the effect you want. For a dream living room, it is not necessary to start from scratch. Make sure that you do not let your precious collection of art lie wasted or ignored just because you didn’t think of placing them correctly.
While decorating a living room, one must pay attention to the natural focal point of the room, lifestyle of the family members, functional placement of furniture, creating well-defined traffic patterns, creating close grouping and intimate conversational areas, visual balance, ambient lighting, color scheme of the room and fabric patterns of the curtains, window treatments and the upholstery. You must also watch out for organizing things, display of accessories, camouflaging architectural elements that are ugly, hanging art and wall groupings, proportion and scale of decoration, unifying factor of your decoration and most importantly, when to stop.
Small Space Living Tips
For efficient small space living, you have to keep in mind the area available at all times and need compact multi-functional furniture pieces and furnishings that optimize usable space quite effectively. Here are some tips from us:
* An elevated loft bed is a great item to make use of vertical room space while open shelves instead of chest of drawers can be used to accommodate more books and magazines.
Display your handmade quilts and throws that make the bed look warm and elegant at the same time.
* Fashionable bright-colored washable slipcovers can make your mismatched furniture pieces look coordinated and in harmony with each other.
* Keep things you want to hide away from view in containers that can be stored under the bed.
* Make your tiny bedroom look comfortable and inviting by adding soft pillows of all sizes and shapes.
* Maximize the use of vertical wall space by adding bookcases and shelves.
* Nail some hanging wall shoe pockets at the inside of your closet door, where you can keep your shoes, socks, gloves and even your handkerchiefs.
* Use bright colors and make use of fabrics complimenting your bed linens, throws and pillows, to add a romantic touch to your tiny home, apartment or dorm Decor.
* Use filing cabinets and decorated stackable crates as a cheap option for keeping your place organized.
* You can also use your large storage trunk as a table.
* You may like to add a personal touch to your tastefully decorated tiny home by selecting a color scheme for your walls, furniture and furnishings beforehand.
* You may utilize space underneath the loft bed by accommodating your entertainment area or work desk underneath it along with a beautiful floor lamp and ottoman to rest your tired legs. Even this ottoman can have the storage area to hide away magazines and bills to be paid.
* You may want to add a small futon for an additional seating area.
(Taken from “Small Space Living” at http://homedecor.iloveindia.com)
Dining Table Designs
With all of the many different prices, sizes, and styles of dining tables available everyone should be able to find a design that they can incorporate into their decor and space. Dining table designs include contemporary, casual, modern, rustic, and various other styles. Prices range from high end designs to budget friendly options for the frugal shopper.
These come in round, square, rectangle, and oval shapes. This makes it easier to find the perfect fit for your space. A large room can easily accommodate a large rectangle table with six to eight chairs. However, if you live in an apartment or town house with a small area your best choice might be a drop leaf dining table. The benefit of this table is that with the leaf out or turned down you have more space for walking around the table. One style that works well for those with a serious space issue is a wall mounted drop leaf table. When this is not in use it only extends a few inches from the wall.
If you have absolutely no area in your home, there is still a table option for you. A convertible table offers a workable solution for you. Once you raise the coffee table to dining table height you can seat several people around the table. A convertible table may cost more than a standard table but they are both beautiful and functional.
Table designs allow them to be a multi-purpose piece of furniture. If you cover the top to protect the surface it can serve as a craft table. It makes a good place for playing family board games and works well as a homework station.
There are many amazing dining table designs. To further compliment your dining room consider a black iron chandelier. These can look amazing with your design theme.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Thomas_G_Gray
Organizing Shoes in Your Closet
Shoes anywhere. In storage bins under the dresser, in a storage drawer and mostly all over the floor. All the closets are stuffed. Moreover the rooms are small. Any suggestions for how to organize everything?
Before tackling your shoe issue, you should first clean out your closets so that they aren’t stuffed. Walk over to your master bedroom closet and take a fearless peek inside. Ask yourself these questions:
1. Do I have items here that don’t belong in a closet?
In general, let’s say that clothing is the only thing you should find in your master bedroom closet. This isn’t the place to store hundreds of family photos in search of albums. It isn’t the ideal spot for holiday decorations. Gift-wrap and bows shouldn’t take space away from suits and dresses. You catch my drift.
2. Is the closet bursting with clothing I haven’t worn in a long time?
Perhaps you harbor full wardrobes from various sizes. It’s time to clean everything out and keep only what serves you now. A charity or women’s shelter is waiting for your things and wants to give you a tax receipt!
3. Is everything separated into categories and organized by color?
If your closet isn’t at least divided into categories (blouses, sweats, skirts, slacks, etc.), every time you think of an item you’d like to wear, a battle to find it will ensue. It does indeed take a few hours to organize a closet. Over the course of a year, however, you’ll save twice that time.
Now let’s consider those shoes. I once organized a famous actress who had a huge shoe collection. She kept 89 pairs that I organized by color in stacks of clear acrylic boxes. (”If you can’t see them, you generally don’t wear them” is a good rule of thumb to remember.) And even she parted with 40 pairs! If she can give away 40 pairs of Manolo Blahniks to a women’s shelter, I know you can weed through your collection. After you pare down your shoes, divide your collection by type. For example, it’s nice to keep day shoes, sport shoes and evening shoes separate. If you live in a climate with four distinct seasons, you may have a winter and summer selection. Here are some common shoe storage solutions:
1. Hang a canvas shoe rack over your closet door and keep your sport shoes there.
2. Like most women you probably don’t use your evening shoes too often, so they can go into clear acrylic shoeboxes on a high shelf in your closet. (You may want to have an extra shelf put in if you see a huge space between the standard shelf and the ceiling.)
3. With your closet organized, you can introduce a shoe rack. The metal expanding shelf variety works really well. You can also use a cedar shoe rack if you have the space and protect your woolens at the same time!
Tips to Choose the Right Wall Paint
It’s not easy to choose the right wall paint for your home. Standing in the paint shop looking at that giant wall of paint chips can seem overwhelming when trying to choose the right paint color. There are so many different colors and finishes to choose from that you might be tempted to not paint at all. Learning how to choose the right paint can make that dreaded trip to the paint store a little less confusing.
Never buy paint based on how it looks in the store because it will always look different at home. Grab as many paint samples you can find in the color you’re interested in. Choose shades that are both darker and lighter than what you think you might want because you’ll be surprised how different they’ll look when you get home. If you have an inspiration piece, coordinating fabrics, or wallpaper that you’re trying to match, bring those with you as well to compare to the paint chips.
Spread out all of your paint chips out in your room to get a general idea of which ones work and which ones don’t.Immediately eliminate the ones that don’t, set them aside, and don’t look at them again. Trust your instincts and keep moving forward rather than backwards. Tape the remaining samples to the wall and stand back to look at them. Study them over the next couple of days at different times. Look at them with the lights on, lights off, curtains open, and curtains closed. Look at them at night with various lights on. Eliminate colors as you go until you get down to your top three choices.
Go back to the store and buy small sample sizes of each color. Most paint stores now will mix a small tester size and some paint brands are even selling prepackaged tester packets right off the shelves. Take these testers home and paint a large square of each on the wall to see how they look over a larger area. All paints darken when they dry, so they’ll look slightly different. Analyze them again over the next couple of days in different light.
Once you’ve chosen a winner, you’ll need to decide on the finish. Interior paints come in five finishes: flat, eggshell, satin, semi-gloss, and glossy. Flat finishes have no shine, a rough texture, and are great for hallways or rooms that don’t get too dirty. Eggshell finishes have a slight sheen, like an eggshell, and can be used in bedrooms with light traffic. Satin finishes have more shine to them, a smooth texture, and work well in most rooms, especially kitchens or bathrooms because of their durability. Semi-gloss finishes are very reflective, easy to clean, and work best in kitchens, bathrooms, or kids rooms.
Always make sure the wall surface is flawless before you paint with semi-gloss because it highlights imperfections. Glossy finish is the shiniest paint you can get, so it’s rarely used on walls. Glossy paint is best used on furniture, cabinetry, or trim.
Choosing the right wall paint may be affected by the type of paint you have to use; for example, paint that are specifically designed for use on rough exterior wall come in a limited range of shades, while there is a huge variety of colors to paint a room, available for use.
Decorative painting patterns do have one thing in common: because they are all carried out by hand, the finished result will always be absolutely unique, giving the surfaces that you decorate a personal touch. The way you manipulate the glaze, with plastic or rags, and with subtle or bold ragging technique will determine the final texture you create.
Choosing the right wall paint creates a unifying backdrop to harmonize an eclectic group of furniture. Use a contrasting white for the furniture and artwork to let individual pieces stand out and take on greater importance. When used together, soft beiges, tans, whites, and grays will never clash.
Paint, colors to paint a room cost as little as ten dollars a gallon and as much as one hundred dollars. The success of your painting project depends greatly on the care that goes into selecting the paint and tools and preparing the walls. With a little creativity and some decorative painting patterns you can make a masterpiece for your home.
Choose the Right Kitchen Sink
While the look of your kitchen does matter when choosing a sink, you should also think about what your needs are. See our guide to the sizes and styles available.
With so many styles available, here’s what you need to know how to choose the right kitchen sink:
Ceramic
Ceramic sinks are chemical, stain and heat resistant, but can chip easily and should be dried after use to avoid limescale marks. Many come in the Belfast style (below).

Classic kitchen workstation, £445, Brass and Traditional Sinks
Stainless steel
Steel cleans well with ordinary detergent - but scratches easily, so avoid scourers and neat bleach. Buffing with a dry cloth after use will help maintain the finish and avoid limescale build-up. Comes in a variety of designs – from circular to square.

VQ40FN sink, £329, Smeg
Composite
Composite sinks are made from rock or quartz crystals and resin, and are resistant to scratches, stains, heat, chemicals and colour-fading. They are easy to clean with normal detergents and water, and come in a range of colours and designs.

Lausanne sink, £321, Astracast
Corian
Corian is a solid surface material that’s stain-resistant and durable. It can be formed into any shape so can be used to create a sink that joins seamlessly to the worktop. Available in over 70 colours, it’s easy to clean with soapy water.

Corian sink, £300 per linear m, Corian
Copper and wood
These are unusual options. Copper sinks develop their own patina with age, but you can seal them to maintain your chosen finish. Teak is the most popular choice for wood sinks as its natural oils repel water.

Etienne copper sink, £1,250, The Eclectica Partnership
How to Choose the Right Shower Tray
If you thought buying a shower tray was simple, think again.
You’ll want as much showering space as is possible to squeeze into your bathroom, but the size and shape of a tray can impact the position and size of other fittings, and can vary in cost depending on what material it’s made from and what sort of screen is required.
Check out our top tips for buying the right shower tray.
SQUARE
This standard shape is a versatile option – sizes range from 76sq cm to a more luxurious 90sq cm – and it can be positioned in a corner, along a wall or even in the middle of the room.
Cast stone resin tray (W76cm x D76cm x H5.5cm), £39.98, B&Q

PENTAGONAL
This tray fits neatly into a corner and is designed to take up as little floor space as possible – the ideal choice if you want to squeeze a separate shower enclosure into a compact bathroom.
LA Genta low-profile pentagonal shower tray (W90cm x D90cm x H3.5cm), £120, Bathroom Heaven

QUADRANT
Thanks to the curved front of this design, there’s a little more showering space than the pentagonal tray but it needs a curved shower screen, which is more expensive than a flat screen.
Quadrant acrylic capped stone resin tray (W80cm x D80cm x H3.5cm), £109, Flight range, Mira Showers

RECTANGULAR
Got a large bathroom? Go for maximum showering space with a rectangular design. They start from around 120cm long, but you can get them the same length as a bath (170cm).
Superplan XXL steel enamel tray (W170cm x D75cm x H4.7cm), £523, Kaldewei

DRYING AREA
A tray with its own drying area allows you to towel off before stepping out of the shower so you don’t need to use a bath mat or duck board – handy if you’ve got the space for it.
Tefeli stone resin tray (W123.5cm x D88.5cm x H18cm), £275, Vogue Bathrooms

LOW-LEVEL
Usually available in square or rectangular shapes, low-level trays are recessed into the floor and are increasingly popular as they create the feel of a wet room without the expense and hassle of having to waterproof the entire floor area. Tile up to the edges for a smart finish.
Sculptures low-level tray (W120cm x D80cm), from £325, Roman
Tips for Buying the Right Shower Tray
Check out our top tips for buying the right shower tray.
Which material?
Acrylic and plastic are common types of tray as they’re lightweight and affordable, but they can chip and crack. An increasingly popular option is stone resin, which is strong, luxurious-looking and easy to install. Corian is also an extremely durable material, but is more expensive than stone resin. Ceramic is hard wearing and resistant to even the most abrasive cleaners, but is heavy and difficult to install. If money’s no object, natural stone gives a spa-style finish, but is extremely heavy and may not be suitable for some floors.
Where can I put it?
Almost anywhere, although obviously it depends on the position of windows and doors. The direction the joists run will also affect where you can put the waste pipe – ask your plumber for advice.
What size tray?
As big as you have space for. Draw a scale plan of your room and try different tray shapes and sizes, not forgetting to factor in the added dimensions of false walls to house pipework for the shower and trajectory of the door.
What colour?
White is the most popular colour, but trays are also available in cream and a pinky colour called pergamon. Some stone resin trays can still be ordered in ‘discontinued’ colours such as champagne, avocado and turquoise – visit www.tubz.co.uk for details.
Are all trays suitable for all enclosures?
Not necessarily. To ensure your tray and enclosure fit well together, buy both from the same retailer.
Storage Ideas for Children’s Bedrooms
Use these tricks to make the most of the storage space in your children’s bedroom.
* Organise their space efficiently. Store toys in a variety of containers, combining see-through plastic crates, trunks and toy boxes with tubs, baskets, over-door organisers and mini-drawers.
* Sort the small stuff. Use clear plastic jars with lids (old sweet jars are ideal) for storing small toys suchs as figurines, marbles, badges and Lego for over three-year olds.
* Choose the right storage. Drawers and shelves are more useful than hanging space, so go for wardrobes that give you all three. Fill the bottom of the wardrobe with plastic baskets for storing socks, underwear, nightwear and shoes.
* Under bed storage. Use the space under the bed for storing seasonal clothing, coats, and extra bedding. Plastic drawers on castors are ideal, or go for soft canvas zip up bags that can expand to fit more in.
* Hanging basket storage. Find storage space you never knew you had by hanging wall-hung baskets by the bed, in a line above a desk and on the back of a door. They are ideal for pencils, pens and crafty bits, and hanging them at kid height encourages them to put things away after play.
