Using Mirrors in Your Home Design

Mirrors have been a part of home interior for a long time, they’ve never been just used to do your hair,. Mirrors had decorative purposes even when they were used in castles and were used to personify light in a room. Although it’s widely known that mirrors can add to the light and balance of a room, not to mention make it look bigger and give it wider dimensions, the fact is that few people know how to use them in their home décor.

Mirrors can work two major effects in a room. It can make a confined space look much bigger than it is and it can increase the light in a room.

Some of the most common uses of mirrors in home décor is to use mirror panels in confined narrow halls. The effect is amazing. The mirrors can easily make the hall look and feel twice as wide as it is. Mirror doors are also used for bedroom closets. They not only save the space that would have been taken up by a full length mirror and they make the room wider. If you have a huge bed in your bedroom and you feel the rooms gives an overcrowded sense, then using mirror doors for your closet will help lighten things.

Another common decorative use of mirrors is on the fireplace. A framed decorative mirror is often used above fire places to personify the light in the area. As opposed to cluttering your fireplace with millions of ceramic decoration pieces, a simple elegant mirror well framed will give a rich effect to your room.

Mirrors can be paneled between small windows to make them look larger. One of the more contemporary uses of mirrors are mirror room dividers. They’re just like your ordinary screens only the mirrored surface can give a much more dramatic and open effect as compared to a plain furnished or fabric surface.

What wood works for your Kitchen floor?

One of the least frequently remodeled room in a house is the kitchen, people will redo their bedrooms and closets three times over before even thinking about the kitchen because once a kitchen been designed and eaten/ cooked in a few times, it develops a certain feel. You never change things around because a place where you cook or eat needs to feel familiar as opposed to new.

But that doesn’t mean that kitchens are never remodeled, they are and more often the budget for a kitchen remodeling is bigger in proportion to the budget for any other room. Kitchen changes are big like putting in new floors or new cabinets though there are small scale ones involving painting kitchen cabinets a new color or changing the knobs.
Should you decide to put in a new floor or new cabinets for your kitchen, a new wooden floor, here’s a breakdown of which wood works best for what.

Maple wood works best for kitchen cabinets because of it doesn’t stain easy and can hide most stains. You can get a rich range of colors in this wood and depending on the quality, you can several excellent finishes. The wood is durable stuff and works for most cabinet types. The best part is that maple is easy to work with so if you’re looking to fit in some design with your new cabinets, this wood should be your top pick.

Cherry is the wood you prefer if you’re looking for truly elegant and long lasting kitchen design. The wood weathers really well and as time goes by it tends to change hues. This is the wood to use if you’re looking for a nice rustic red color in your kitchen. The wood isn’t cheap though and is generally going to be used in a more upscale kitchen.

Oak is what you should use if you want something sturdy and durable but nice to look at. This wood has a fairly good finish and something close to 200 types of oak exist. This wood doesn’t swell up from moisture or humidity as much as other woods do.

Bamboo is becoming popular because it’s environmentally friendly, people who like to live green find it easier to use this wood because it grows faster than any other kind of wood and can be quickly replenished. Unfortunately the wood isn’t thick enough to be cut into planks and has to be more as a covering over stronger wood types; which makes it expensive to use.

Mahogany is the best wood when it comes to sleek and finish, it’s also expensive and not as strong as most other woods. It’s more suited for decorative purposes.

A Beach Wedding in Your Backyard

With summer and summer weddings in full swing, I’ve been trying to plan my life more around ‘save the dates’ then around my everyday work. I’ve been to some really great and some really weird summer weddings but there’s one that really stands out and I’m sharing the idea here for anyone crazy about the beach.

My friend (who got married last year) had always dreamed of a beach wedding and had everything set for a Florida beach ceremony when her flight was cancelled because there was a hurricane warning. Needless to say it was extremely last minute and she couldn’t so much as find a caterer in the time she had left. Her family really pulled through to give her, her dream wedding… in the backyard!

They pulled about a million strings (with time being so short) and managed to find construction sand, lots of it and had the entire backyard covered in it (after placing a tarpaulin under it). It was pretty convincing. What they needed next was the sea and that actually proved more difficult than the sand. They fiddled with using a large kids pool but it wasn’t convincing and the sand kept spilling into it. Instead they got some old foam (one with lots of holes and stuff) and painted a nice sea rock color and set up a waterfall with the help of an extremely handy local plumber, they added the painted foam rocks for effect. The aisles were outlined with wine bottles and instead of chairs; they used huge cushions, picnic umbrellas and beach towels to seat the guests.

The whole thing was encircled with candles that were sunk in the sand and the archway where the couple was to marry was made out of more foamy props to look like moss covered stone. It was then covered with different shape and sized shells and pieces of glass that had been rounded off.

The end result was a very happy bride and a beautiful wedding! They managed to find a caterer after all but had to bake the cake themselves.

Outdoor Wedding Decoration Ideas

In the moths of June and July, summer isn’t the only season in the air; there are also weddings and you may as well call it the wedding season. The next best thing to getting married in a church is getting married outdoors and while most people dream of somewhere next to a stream or in an apple orchard, they’ll have to settle for places like open fields or sometimes even their grandparents’ backyard.



Here are a few ideas for a nice outdoor summer wedding. They might not be a complete wedding plan but they’re bound to help you sort a few things out.

Wedding aisle
You can try renting trees to mark the start and end of the aisle and to frame an archway where the couple will get married. Use lights to mark the aisle (much like the landing strip for airplanes) using fun lighting options. It’ll work best for the weddings that are held after noon. Make sure you add a runner, don’t leave the aisle bare. If you’re really in the mood for colors, you can scatter flower petals down the aisle. The only problem with the idea is that it doesn’t leave much to do for the flower girls. Balloons are never really a good idea because they can pop or even charge someone’s hair. You can mark the end of each row by using either low flower stands or making small bouquets that can be pinned to the chairs and wrapping some string lights around them.

Center stage
The place where the couple exchange vows is center stage and it needs special attention. One of the best ways to combine color and elegance is to use drapes over the area either with or without arches. If the wedding is in an open field where there are few trees, you should rent some trees to mark the area. It’s best if you can get an arch though, ordinary and possibly ugly arches can be covered in fabric and flowers to look spectacular. A fun thing to do with the arch is to put lights on the inside and then cover it with fabric to give it a glowing look.

The center pieces
Center pieces may be a small part of the wedding in retrospect but a lot of thought goes into making them. One of the best things to include with the center piece is a personalized message from the bride and groom. After that you can use anything from seashells and marbles to flowers and floating candles. A fun idea would be to make edible center pieces from either fruit or chocolate.

A Backyard and Porch for Every Day of the Year

Summer is undoubtedly ‘the’ time for parities, sure you have your end of year holiday parties but they’re all meant to be had indoors and summer is a time when you don’t need an excuse to go out and enjoy your backyard. It’s time like that when you’re grateful for any and all gardening work that you did in spring. So while the landscaping that you did will work wonders for the outdoor parties you plan on having this summer, you might want to consider doing the following for to make the partying even more fun!

A theme
It may be outdoors but that doesn’t mean it can’t have a neat design and theme to it. You can decorate your porch to match your garden. You know what flowers are going to be blooming so find fun some cushions for your lawn chairs that match or try painting your wood or wicker chairs a fund color like bright green.

Something fun
If you’ve got some cash to spare and are in the mood of really giving your backyard a fun factor, add an archway or a trellis to it. It makes the perfect entrance for the party guests. You can plant a vine or climbing ivy (these plants grow fast), and before you know it, you’ve got a beautiful archway. If you already have (and most people do) it would be a good idea to repaint it. If you’ve got ivy climbing up the archway already, give it a nice trim. If it’s been there for a few years, cut it off and let it grow all over again. It keeps the arch from being damaged and prolongs the life.

The old red, white and blue
One thing that I always love seeing on a porch is the American flag. With the 4th of July coming up in a few months and Memorial Day around the corner, it’s that perfect thing to have on your front porch.

Homemade lights
You probably have a lot of wine bottles lying around from those winter parties, and even if you don’t you can find them easy at local stores or recycling centers. You can have the bottom cut out and wire small florescent lights through it or cover a bottle completely in paper and then peel it off some places to give it a fun look.

Stepping stones
The good thing about stepping stones is that they never go out of style and you can make them in any shape or color you want, if you have kids, this can be a fun summer project. Stepping stones don’t necessarily need to be used to mark the way to the back yard or the front door, you can make them in smaller sizes to outline flower beds. If you’re making them at home, add marbles (whole or broken)in fun colors that match the color you’ve painted your porch.
Summer parties take a lot of planning and even more decorating because even if they begin indoors, they’ll end up outside and you need to provide a relaxing environment to your friends.

Downsizing Your Living Space- How To Get The Sofa Through The Door

Moving out of your parents house and in to your own place can be exciting; it brings the kind of independence that only living on your own can but it can also create problems for you if you’re moving in to a living space that’s smaller than the one you’re used to

Being independent and finally getting to live on your own in some place other than your college dorm is one of the pinnacles of adult life. You never forget your first apartment because it’s the one you work the hardest on. You measure your success by the quality of your living space so you work hard to make it just right. Unfortunately not everyone manages to make their apartment in to a comfy cozy place to live in for the next five years but here’s some helping tips to give you a good start.

Measure everything:
Measure the space you’ve got to decorate before you do anything else and if there’s a room that has a slanting roof or other odd angles, decide how you intend to deal with them instead of just stuffing the room with furniture and hopping it’ll all turn out to be a good fit. One thing that you need to measure is the door, all the doors, so you know just how wide a sofa (or any other furniture for that matter) can fit through.

Furniture should be practical and comfy:
As opposed to chic and overly expensive designer furniture, your emphasis should be on practical pieces of furniture that’ll help you avoid clutter and organize your things better. What few people realize is that good design has a lot to do with a clean look. Using the room measurements that you’ve taken make sure that everything can fit comfortably in the room. Make a room map to be accurate and if the rooms are small, don’t buy huge pieces of furniture.

Find a focal point for every room and find the dark spot:
For every room, find a focal point which will determine what direction the furniture will face. It might be the window or the part of the room with the best light. It could be an ordinary wall where you put up fixtures and frames or just your TV. As for the dark spots, they’ll be areas that you don’t want to attract too much attention to. Decide how you’re going to phase them into the background either by using less lighting in the area or by concealing it with furniture. This area could be the odd angled wall that I mentioned earlier.

Don’t forget; you need to be able to move around
Don’t fill every space you’ve got with furniture. Whether your rooms are small or big, the space to move around conveniently will have to be planned out. Make sure you’ve got a good flow of the traffic and the functionality of the room isn’t affected in any way.

Three basic functions:
Your living space should provide you with three basic rooms for three basic functions. A bedroom and bathroom, a kitchen and a living room, to sleep, cook and eat and entertain your friends. Don’t clutter the rooms with additional functionality if you haven’t got the space for it.

The Basics to Decorating a Room

How to get started with an empty space and build it into the room of your dreams

What do you want the room to be?
Always think about the functionality and use of the room you’re setting out to make. You may know that it’s a bedroom or a living room or a dinning space but that isn’t enough. You shouldn’t buy furniture based on the general purpose of the room. Let’s say you like a nice bookrack and think it’ll look good in a bedroom but there’s a possibility that the book might never be used. It will depend entirely on the person who uses the room. Just buying pretty furniture will never help create a functional room. It’s more likely that the furniture will take up useful space instead of giving the room the look you want.

Make an outline … and stick to it
Decide in advance what you plan on getting for the room. This means you decide if you want paint or wall paper, a carpet or a rug. Decide the color scheme before you go out to buy furniture. The color scheme shouldn’t be based on the furniture available in store but rather on the size and amount of light in the room as well as the purpose of the room and the person who’s going to be using it.

Will you need to add something and are there any constraints?
If you’re renting a space (as opposed to living in your own home/ apartment) you might be faced with some restrictions to the improvement you can make to the apartment. You may not be able to put up more shelves and things like. If your rooms lack storage you’ll need to buy furniture to make up for it. You might also be restricted from changing the flooring and if you choose not to have a carpet put it, you’re floor will influence the room’s color scheme. If you need to put shelves up make sure that you keep in mind how much space they’ll take up (it’s better that you put them up first).

Can it be a multipurpose room?
Is there a chance that the room will serve multiple purposes? A lot of people combine the kitchen and the eating space or a spare bedroom with a sitting room so you need to take in to account if the room can be used for more than one purpose. There’s never anything wrong with using a room for more than one function, most interior designers try and give rooms maximum functionality and buy furniture specifically for it.

What do you need?
Once you’ve got this all mapped out, you need to make a list of some basic furniture that you’ll absolutely need, like a bed in a bedroom and sofas in a living room. Decide what size of furniture will work for the room. If your spaces are small, don’t buy big furniture, it’ll make the room look overcrowded and claustrophobic.

You’re ready to shop furniture!
Now that you’ve got this basic outline in your head, you can start shopping for furniture. If you want a better idea of what your room should look like go online and look for ideas that fit your room. Never worry about not finding the furniture you need in the right color, colors are always out there you just need to hunt for it.

A Hobbit’s Tale… Of Home Making

It isn’t as much a Hobbit’s tale as it is an insight into a diehard LOTR fan’s awesome project. I found the link to this on StumbleUpon and I had to share it. While completely unrelated to home décor, it’s worth spreading to the far (and remote) corners of the World Wide Web for the sheer craft of it. It’s a simple blog by Maddie Chambers who created a miniature of Bilbo Baggin’s home with incredible detail. I'll let her pictures and her blog http://madshobbithole.wordpress.com/ do the talking.

How to Organize your room: Organizing Tips

Simple ways to clear the clutter in your house

Identify your biggest source for clutter
Not all rooms are cluttered for the same reason. Your bedroom may be cluttered with clothes, the garage may be cluttered with tools and projects that you began or planned to begin but never got around to it, the living room may be cluttered with books or magazines. Furniture itself can be a source of clutter, you might have too many chairs or cushions piled in one small space or you might have too many decorative items on the shelves. As much as you like all the funky stuff you have around the house, it still needs to be organized. As far as clothes are concerned, pick them up off the floor and put them where they belong. Reserve a special space for the books or magazines that are creating a clutter and don’t leave old editions of any magazine lying around your living room. The best was to organize a garage is by putting up some shelves.

Use Hidden Storage
In places where it’s difficult to put up shelves, make use of furniture with hidden storage spaces. Even if you don’t have that kind of furniture, use whatever you have to conceal some of the clutter. Take your mess of magazines and put them simple wicker baskets that can be placed behind a couch or can be used as a flat surface for putting stuff.

Elegant shelving
Elegant shelving works best in the bedroom and the family room. If you have too many electronics or books or decorative items all cluttered in one spot, shelves will be a better way to organize them. For things like CDs, its best to go out and buy a CD rack.

Throw away the stuff you don’t need
Not everything in your house has a purpose anymore. There may be tons of clothes that you never wear and books and magazines that you don’t read anymore. There may be CDs that are scratched and unusable or electronics that you think you can fix. Throw them out! If you haven’t fixed all that broken stuff or worn those pair of pants in years, you aren’t going to miss them. A big part of de-cluttering is to recognize the things that don’t have any use anymore and throw them out. another huge part is to change the place of some things. You may have bought around fifty crystal decoration pieces for your living room but they can’t all fit in there, move some of them to another part of the house.

All wires must be tied down!
Although not really a huge source of clutter, but still a kind of mess, wires dangling or trailing from electrons give the tidiest places a messy look. Tie down all excessive wires and try to conceal them as much as possible.