A small room can be either the bane of your life or the special place you retreat to when you need to escape from the world into your own private haven. It’s not so much the lack of floor space that makes small rooms feels cramped as it is the size, type, colour and arrangement of the furniture and accessories you bring into it. If you’re battling with small-room blues, see if these few tips can’t help you get the most out of your private spaces.

Choose Furniture Wisely

For small bedrooms, choose a slightly smaller bed. Beds come in a large range of sizes these days, so you’re not restricted to either standard singles or doubles.

Lose the oversized, old-fashioned items that were popular in bygone days. Choose modern furniture with clean, simple lines that don’t create eye clutter through too much ornamentation. You can buy white bedroom furniture online, which makes choosing and buying a breeze.

Make furniture work doubly hard by doubling up on uses. In the bedroom, if you can store both clothes and shoes in one large piece, you’ll free up floor space that would be lost through having two smaller storage units. In the living room, a coffee table that opens up to reveal storage can hide away remote controls or games.

Back in the bedroom, under the bed storage is great for all those items you need but don’t access every day, such as spare blankets or pillows.

Consider wall shelves. They’re up off the floor, look sleek and modern and provide a great area for books, DVDs, ornaments or personal effects.

Use Colour Sparingly

As the fashion for brighter, bolder colour takes hold, it’s tempting to fall for the large patterns that abound in modern wallpaper. If your room is small, try to avoid an overlarge pattern in your wallpaper. It will make the wall draw in and give the room an even smaller appearance.

Choose one wall as your accent wall and indulge your love of bold patterns on that wall and nowhere else. The feature wall will draw the eye, lifting attention from the small floor space.

Neutral colours are always in fashion and it doesn’t have to mean beige. Paint your other walls with a gentle, complementary colour that’s light and refreshing. It will push those walls back, giving the illusion of greater space.

Remove the clutter from small rooms. Avoid having too many small things littering your surfaces by having storage boxes or baskets on shelves. Keeping surfaces clean and clear creates a restful atmosphere.

Put attention where you want it by creating a focal point. This can be a favourite picture hanging over the sofa, a bright spray of flowers in a colourful vase on the dresser, or bold curtains pulled back from the window. The idea is to remove attention from problem areas and instead direct it to an area that’s more pleasing. Although the focus is one area, this somehow manages to lift the whole room.

Small rooms needn’t be cramped and uncomfortable. With a little forethought for how the room is used and which furniture items are needed, you can create a space that not only seems spacious, but is also restful and pleasant to be in.

About the author:

This article was contributed by John, a freelance blogger, who is writing on behalf of Archer Sleep Centre.

As early preparation to build our house we decided to removed the trees that will hinder the  construction.  One of those is the star apple tree or caimito tree, it was saw and cut to pieces but the stump still remains on its location. Just this month we hired someone to remove and it took him few days to do because of bad weather, typhoon to be exact. The ditch is keep filling up so he needs to remove the water all the time he wants to dig deeper.

As it feels like the stump was already hard to remove he decided to call someone who owns a sawing machine but it turns out it can’t be saw anymore because the stump has a stone between the roots and it will damage the machine it they continue to do so.

Well with the help of two other people they are able to remove the stump with the use of axe, bar and shovel.

These are the hollow blocks at home that we are going to use for our house construction. They are not complete yet,  we still need more hollow blocks and other things to start building our house. Little by little we are trying to save money so we can start it as soon as we have complete materials so far all we need are cement and different kind of steels.

My father said we should have the money soon because the hollow blocks are not getting any better when the day passed by. They will broke and get older.

If there’s one thing you will admire on my grandmother’s house that is her orchids. They are healthy and flowering, the stems are big and mighty. Her secret, every morning she will water them with pee from her chamber pot. No less, no more! You can also try this on your home if you want your orchids to bloom like this. 🙂

When I was still a little kid I have learned from her that watering the orchids with the water waste from washing the rice beforre cooking is healthy because it will help the orchids to have more roots. I have proved it but the problem though, there are rice grain sometimes so the ants are having a feast on our drift woods.

[ Tagged In ] Flowering Orchids, White Orchids

Every building requires central heating and with so many different products available it can be hard and time consuming to choose the right products.

Piping, heating elements and fixtures are also required for industry and as this will often require equipment designed to withstand extreme temperatures it is important that all of the equipment used is specific for the function required of it.

Photograph of New York in the snow by Debbie O’Donnell

Firstly, it is important to buy products from a company that has expertise in this field to ensure the products you are buying are of a good standard. This will also ensure that advice can be sought on the products if needed. Flexelec have been providing their expertise and research into heating elements to bring the best products expertly designed for various needs for over thirty years. They are also in operation across the globe and have staff available to assist you throughout your project. Their on-going market and product research help to make them the go to experts in the field of heating.

Secondly, you must consider the type of building that you will be working with. For example if the building will need to have underground pipes to connect it to the main supply then pipe tracing for winter needs to be considered as during the cold winter months the water within the pipes can freeze. This often results in the expansion of the pipes that can lead to further damage which is often unnoticed until flooding occurs. Replacing underground pipes is obviously very expensive and time consuming and should be avoided at all costs. Electric trace heating cables are a great way to avoid this. These cables regulate the temperature of the pipes to prevent them freezing despite external temperatures.

As temperature control can be maintained by using the correct equipment it is important to use the correct cable for the specific function and heat trace solutions are the perfect way to find the right cable for your specific needs. There are cables designed for refrigeration, hot water or extremely high temperatures for industry use. All of the cables are specifically manufactured to have a reactive core to ensure the temperatures inside the pipes are regulated thus preventing any associated problems.

With the experts at Flexelec on hand to assist you with any problems you come across or advice you may need you cannot go wrong.

While we encourage our children to play outdoors and exercise daily, it can sometimes be difficult when the warmer months of summer hit. Creating a cool and welcoming outdoor environment will enable you children to play safely, even when the sun is at its brightest. If you’re looking for some fun and interesting ways to keep your kids cool this summer, check out these family-friendly activities below.

Go for a Swim

It seems like one of the most obvious ways to cool down, but this activity needn’t be restricted to families with large pools. Children love to play in kid-sized pools and you’ll find that they’ll provide hours of enjoyment. Most parents end up joining in on the festivities, because on a hot summer’s day, taking a dip with your kids is the best fun!

Create a Shaded Environment

Shade is the key to keeping your kids cool and safe in summer. Sunburn and heatstroke are not pleasant, to say the very least, so avoid these nasties by creating a shaded play environment for your children. Erect a temporary shade sail or even take advantage of the natural shade provided by trees, whatever you do, your kids will love playing outdoors in their new, cool environment. You can also check out some of the new home and land packages Sydney has to offer for ideas on the latest shade solutions.

Make a Cool Foods Station

One of the best ways to cool off in the midst of a heat wave is to consume cold food or drinks. Frozen fruit is always a favourite with kids in summer, simply place orange slices or grapes into the freezer for a quick cool down. Take the mess outside and get your kids involved in making some fun treats of their own. Make all natural smoothies or turn your smoothies into ice pops, the choice is yours!

Water Play Station

Now this may sound impressive (and it will be), but that doesn’t mean that it has to be expensive. Creating a water play station will have your children amused for hours and will help to keep them from overheating on a hot day. Purchase a cheap plastic table, fill different sized containers and trays with water and add some water-safe toys – and you’ve got yourself a water play station! The different sized containers and shapes will allow your children to create waterfalls and different sound effects, while cooling off with the splashes of water.

Bobbing for Apples

If you’re restricted by the size of your yard, always remember that you can still have fun while raising your children in an apartment or townhouse. Activities such as ‘bobbing for apples’ will have you all in stitches, while you cool down in the process! One of the best things about activities such as this is that you only need the space for a bucket and some towels to dry off! Don’t worry if you’re limited on space, there’s still plenty of fun to be had!

Your kids will love you for creating their new favourite play space, while you’ll be happy knowing that they’re cool and protected from the sun. For the best summer fun, try out these activities today!

I cleaned the bathroom and kitchen today. The bathroom already looks too dirty for me maybe because the wall and tiles are white so it is easy for me to know it’s dirty, luckily the windows are all open so I was not suffocated with the smell of bleach. Instead of using the bleach for tiles cleaning I used the normal bleach for washing my husband says it is going to be the same effect so I didn’t buy the bleach for bathroom anymore. Using the normal bleach is also cheaper than buying a commercial bathroom cleaner. I was too engrossed while cleaning so when I turn on the faucet little did I know that the shower is on so I ended up with a wet clothes.

Instead of changing my clothes after cleaning the bathroom I decided to clean the kitchen as well. The aroma of the soup we cooked the other day is still lingering in the kitchen so I also used bleach and scrubbed the yellow tiles of our kitchen. I cleaned it thoroughly including the gas range, tomorrow  hopefully I can clean the balcony.

Now a days there’s a lot of different ways to beautify your home and make it attractive. Adding floor fountains can add style and elegance to your house, they are very popular type of fountain and mostly seen on offices and public places like spa, malls and restaurants.

Floor fountains impresses everyone and can provide a very relaxing atmosphere and soothing environment, basically floor fountain is installed on the floor of your house which can also be made into hybrid designs that can create beautiful effect.

There are several types of floor fountains,  Water fountain table, Wall Water Floor Fountains, Floor water panels and Floor fountain lamps.

Bathroom renovation is expensive when you don’t know how to budget your money and know the things you needed the most when doing renovation. There are times we spend more than what we need, we can avoid these if we plan and list the things we need in advance.  Color coordination is also important in doing some bathroom remodeling, the more the color coordinates to each other the more relaxing it is for the eyes and to our senses.  So you should buy accessories like yogitoes towel, mirror, bathroom cabinet in same color.

Repainting kitchen cabinets is the cheapest way to remodel your kitchen rather than replacing them when they are still in good condition. Repainting is not short and an easy process because the old paint should be removed but there are times though to make thing easier some home owners just paint their cabinets without removing the old paint.

Well if you think repainting is too much work, you can hire contractor to do it for you and you might as well think of replacing the cabinets when they are already in poor quality but if not repainting is one of the cheapest option you could choose.