There is no room to expand, so I have to find new ways to make the most of my space. Many like me who live in apartments or even small houses have the same problem, and they are always looking for new ways to get some storage space without cluttering up the counters with things that don’t need to be within easy reach all of the time.

Those looking should be on the look out for a really great bakers rack. Not only are they functional, they look good too. This tip was sponsored by Bridgesan for more tips and advise please visit Bridgesan and take part in the ongoing topics and new, Discover Something New every day!

Decorating a dining room can be a lot more challenging than you may expect. I really underestimated the task until we moved into our new home. Our old apartment had an informal eat-in kitchen. The area was vast and open and the space was perfect for small gatherings. This dining area was easy to decorate because the elements and colors in the kitchen flowed right into dining room decor.

When we found a new home with a formal dining area to decorate, I was thrilled and I thought I was ready for the challenge. However, decorating a dining room that is formal in nature poses some great challenges, especially if your furniture and decor is casual in nature. Finding a way to segue from the kitchen to the new area was very difficult for me.

The appliances in my kitchen are kind-of eclectic. We bought the large kitchen appliances from scratch-and-dent store that had prices we couldn’t pass up. My refrigerator is stainless steel. My stove is black and my microwave is white. Decorating a dining room around this mix is kind of hard because I am really drawn to reds for the area.

Red is an excellent choice for decorating a dining room because the color stimulates the appetite. The problem I have is I still have an eat-in kitchen that is perfectly suited for my new kitchen space, which is black and white. My dishes are black and white as well as my eating utensils. I found that the red color in the dining room just didn’t work.

At first I thought decorating a dining room in red was great but then I dressed the table with the black and white dishes and utensils. My wise-cracking brother said, “What is black and white and red all over?” It looked awful and I was at a loss of what to do about it.

I tired to pull the red elements of the new formal eating area into my black and white kitchen. This worked pretty well. The red made great accents for the area. However, I still had trouble decorating a dining room in red, black and white. For now, things are staying as is.

Once I find formal decor for decorating a dining room in these extreme colors I will make some changes. Until then, I may just look into purchasing some red dishes to create some balance between the two rooms.

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Whether you are buying a new home, moving into a new place, or just looking to spice things up in your current home, you may be looking for new and exciting bathroom decorating ideas. Inspiration for a new look or fresh design is probably closer than you may think.

For renters, you are somewhat limited in what you can do. You probably need your landlord to grant you permission to do anything too drastic to your apartment or house. You can still find some simple bathroom decorating designs that are fun and interesting.

Inspiration for bathroom decorating ideas can come from the simplest of places. Look through a few home magazines or interior design magazines for ideas. You may be struck by a particular color or combination of colors. The rest will come to you as you shop.

For a fresh look to an old bathroom, homeowners have wider options and your bathroom decorating ideas can be bigger and broader if you want a drastic change. Along with home magazines, take a trip to local home improvement stores to browse through the displays. You may find that a particular fixture or item will grab your eye and spark all sorts of ideas.

For those building a home from the ground up, your bathroom decorating ideas are boundless. You have a blank canvas to work with, and you can make your bathroom as elegant or as simple as you wish. Let your personal taste dictate your decorating ideas.

One great starting point for bathroom decorating ideas is finding the perfect tile. Tiles come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Chances are, you will find something you will fall in love with, and you can build your bathroom around that particular tile.

If you have a rather large bathroom, you have room to add touches that cannot be found in smaller bathrooms. Find a piece of furniture, such as a stand or towel rack that you simply love, and your bathroom decorating ideas can form around that piece. Craft stores are another inspiration spot.

Many craft stores have ready-made flower displays. You don’t have to buy one, just look for one with a mix of colors that is immensely pleasing to your eye. Some colors look amazing together, but you may never realize it until you see them side-by-side.

For other bathroom decorating ideas, draw from friends and family. If someone you know has a bathroom you have fallen in love with, there is nothing wrong with you using that room as inspiration. You may not want to copy the look entirely, but you can use it to build on your own ideas.

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The aim of this article is to pass on some professional tips and suggestions on making wooden house signs so that, with the aid of visual references such as sign-makers websites (including our own) you will be able to undertake the very satisfying project of carving one in the traditional manner. Even if you don’t need one yourself wooden house signs make a fantastic present for a relation or friend and, though it may be a challenge, you will have something really special to show for the effort.

Tools required

* Mallet, chisel and gouges. For the lettering you will need a large V tool and three or four gouges between a quarter and half an inch wide with slightly differing gentle (almost flat) curves. For any carved motif you will in addition need one or two with tighter curves.

* Cramps or holding device of some kind. (for example you can screw a piece of wood to the back of your work and put that in the vice)

* Plane / sander / sandpaper for smoothing the surface and making a chamfer on the edge.

* Bandsaw / jigsaw / coping saw for cutting out curves and regular saw for straight lines.

Choosing the piece of timber

I almost always use oak as it is so durable, attractive and good to carve though anything durable and close-grained is possible, but avoid knots and wavy grain. Depending on your method of cramping the wood, you may need a piece considerably larger than the sign.

Shape of sign and style of lettering

My favourite shapes are oval, rectangular, or a rectangle with a curved top. A hump- backed-bridge shaped top provides a nice visually framed area for a motif or number while the house name goes across the bottom. Ovals often have a motif in the middle but rectangles are often best without. Take a look at some existing signs if you need inspiration. Carving even the simplest letters is not easy so I suggest that you choose a straightforward font such as Roman capitals, or capitals and lower-case for a less formal look.

Getting ready for carving

Use a pencil for the sign layout and take great care – this bit of the job is important. You will find a centre-line useful and measure everything twice! It is usually best to cut the shape of the sign after carving it, using the extra wood to cramp or screw the workpiece firmly and it can also be an area to practice carving before you start the real thing.

Carving the letters

1 After drawing out all the lettering use the V tool to take out a proportion of the wood staying well within the outline of each letter.

2 “Set down” vertically along the bottom of this V cut using the chisel on straight lines and suitable gouges on the curves.

3 Cut the sides of the letters with a sliding movement to finish off (this is the difficult bit!) The direction of cut is very important here or it is like stroking a cat’s fur the wrong way – the point of the tool must not go into the grain but slide on the back of it.

Carving the motif (if any)

Apart from any artistic considerations the technique is still the same; don’t dig into the grain but slide on the back of it. Some people work from a photo or existing sign and you are, of course, welcome to copy any of our motifs. For exterior signs bold is best and round shapes are easiest – don’t try carving holly for example as the points of the leaves are very difficult.

Cutting out and smoothing-up the sign

When you are content with your carving do any smoothing to the surface while it is held firmly and then cut the outside shape of the sign. I suggest you put a chamfer on the edge with a hand-plane chisel or sandpaper.

Painting your sign and fixing it

Dark colours or white are usually most effective if you want to paint the carved letters, and metalwork or enamel paints are what I recommend. If colouring the motif I dilute the paint to let the grain show through. If left untreated and exposed to the weather oak will turn an attractive silver grey (any paint will be unaffected) but if you want to put a finish on your sign then garden furniture oil with UV filters is a good product. If you use screws or other metal fixings make sure they are brass as steel reacts with the tannic acid causing staining.

Good luck! All the effort will be worth it in the end because your house sign, whether professional looking or not, will certainly have great charm.

Rob Eyley has been a professional woodcarver and lettercutter for over twenty years and, together with his partner Andrew George, makes house signs and fire surrounds in Bath UK. On their website: Wooden Signs where there is more information many useful illustrations. You are welcome to copy or publish this article for free if you include this link. Sindicateable.

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In order to create a harmonious, convenient interior in one’s own apartment, firstly, it is necessary “to plan” a living space on paper. As experience shows, drawing up of a design-project is better to divide into a number of stages, taking into account some general rules at that.

Organization of space is both the most complex, and the most interesting stage where an inventor and a designer should awake within you. And the less the metric area of an apartment is, the more actively the inventor’s idea should work.

For example, if there are small rooms in an apartment, it is not necessary to block them up with wardrobes – it is better to move all the wardrobes to the corridor or the hall, and use mirrors and local lighting in addition to the basic one more actively in the rooms.

While planning the living space of your apartment or house, it is necessary to arm with a pencil and paper and make up a detailed plan with the exact sizes of rooms, door and window apertures, height of walls, etc, otherwise, a bought sofa or a chest of drawers can simply not blend in the space intended for it. The next stage is a color solution.

It is necessary to take this question just as serious. Skillfully using a color scale in decoration of the dwelling, it is possible to achieve a good psychological effect, positively influencing on a condition and mood of visitors and members of the household.

Paints bear certain energy – color can comfort, stimulate, inspire and even heal. Before making a final decision as to the color, pay attention, what cardinal point the windows are oriented at:: if to the north it is recommended to use a color scale in warm color tones, if to the south – then cold ones. The next stage – determination of style, texture and light.

Generally, in design of interiors elements of a rather a large number of “historical” styles are used. It can be the baroque, rococo, classics, pseudo-Gothic, the Victorian style, the modernist style, art dec?, constructivism, minimalism, hi-tech and, finally, eclecticism. It is clear, that the baroque, rococo, pseudo-Gothic are appropriate for country houses or spacious apartments with high ceilings.

The baroque and rococo are characterized by wide and volumetric floristic stucco moldings, painted ceilings, gilt details of decor, fabric wall-papers, a marble mosaic of floors, armchairs and sofas fitted with silk, a refined color scale which is characterized not by “basic” colors rather than their complex tones. Creating a “Gothic” interior, it will be correct to upholster walls with oak panels with carved slats and decorate one of the walls with a Gobelin tapestry displaying a stage from hunting or, say, a performance of troubadours.

A table in the “Gothic style” should be rough and primitive, a bed – in the same vein, with a baldachin and carved columns. But the most important thing here is a free, through and dashing space, elevating force of emptiness which is spiritualized by stained-glass windows. For those keen on the English classical style, The Victorian interior – a mix of classicism, Roman motives, gothic styles, rococo, the empire style, Oriental arabesques and Asian exotic will be very interesting.

The English feeling of measure has allowed to consolidate all this variety which is shown in subtleties of semitones and color scores. In such a house a spacious hall looks as a “high-grade” room with a monumental carved table, a mirror in a carved frame, a large chest of drawers – pier-glass table, a striking long-case clock, a sprawling hat tree with iron hooks, “a cell” for umbrellas and newspapers.

Walls are planked with panels from either mahogany or oak, and the ceiling is decorated with a floristic stucco molding. A visiting card of a Victorian house is a drawing room with its sofas and armchairs and a dominant rococo. Onto the fireplace porcelain vases and decorative dishes are usually placed, walls are decorated with pictures, family photos, diplomas and letters.

The most poetical and fairytale interior style is the modernist style. ? Copyright 2006-2007 www.builderstown.co.uk

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How to Detect Damaged House Siding

Most people are unaware of the extent of damage to the siding on their homes. Water and moisture infiltration can cause house siding to expand, mold, deteriorate, warp, buckle, etc. However, many problems can be remedied if caught early on.

Routine inspection is essential. Here are some tips to get you started:

Look for sickness.

Damage occurs most commonly around chimneys, nearest the ground, where roofs dead end at walls, and where gutters are present, so check there first. Inspect the bottom edges of your house siding. Dew tends to settle on the bottom edge and absorb into the entire panel. If you see cracks (“edge checking”), chipping of the laminate (“delamination”), or rot (“fungal degradation”), moisture has entered your house siding.

Compare thicknesses.

Inspect the panels up under the eaves and then compare with the panels nearest the ground. When siding absorbs moisture, the panels thicken or swell. This is referred to as “thickness swell.” This may occur along the edges, joints, around nails, or throughout the entire panel.

Thumb pressure test.

When no visual damage is present, you can simply push on the house siding with your thumb. If the siding indents at all, there is damage.

House siding damage is usually due to moisture and/or poor installation. Siding can start to deteriorate within 5 to 10 years; however, damage occurring as early as 2 years is not uncommon.

When purchasing siding, make sure to keep the receipt. If you need to replace damaged house siding, note the brand, style, finish, and dimensions of the existing siding so you can find an exact match.

John Pawlak is the President of ClaimSourceOne Inc – http://www.claimsourceone.com

ClaimSource One is a claim service firm that specializes in assisting property owners recover cash settlements for damaged building products such as Masonite, Omniwood, Weyerhaeuser, ABTco & Stimson installed on their real property.

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Make It A Ritual!

If part of your household maintenance plan does not include cleaning dryer vents then it should. Every year there are over 15,000 home fires caused by dryer fires with over 300 injuries and leading to 30 deaths. Not cleaning dryer vents also causes 90 million dollars in damages in the United States alone.

Based on these statistics, it is important for every homeowner to be aware of the recommendations and procedures for cleaning dryer vents that will keep them safe and comfortable in their home for years to come. Take a look at these important questions about cleaning dryer vents and facts to consider when you are deciding how to do it, when to do it, and who should do it.

What Are Clues Your Dryer Vent Needs Cleaning?

If your dryer is taking longer to dry a load than it used to, then the vents may need cleaning. As a general rule, dryer vents should be cleaned every six months. A simple reminder is to start cleaning dryer vents the same day you change your clocks for daylight savings.

What Is The Purpose Of Cleaning Dryer Vents?

As your clothes dry, they produce lint, and the lint trap doesn’t catch all of the lint that goes through your dryer. By cleaning dryer vents that are outside of the lint trap, you are removing this excess lint.

Where Are The Dryer Vents?

When cleaning dryer vents, you need to make sure you clean the vent located at the rear of your dryer, as well as the route of the piping to the outside of your home.

Should I Clean My Vents On My Own?

You can easily hire someone, or if you are comfortable and willing to purchase the proper tools, you can easily clean the dryer vents yourself. You can find tools at hardware and home improvement stores, or online made specifically for cleaning dryer vents. When cleaning dryer vents, you will need a circular or horizontal brush that is on the end of a plastic/metal pole or durable line. Ask a professional to help you find the best tool to match your dryer’s needs and shape.

Take this simple step towards fire prevention in your home that will go a long way toward keeping your family safe.

Margarette Tustle writes for home and family. Find more information about dryers at dryerltd.com

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