Home Design and Architecture Guide

Home Painting Basics

Did you know that proper home painting reduces anxiety, worries and depression? Painting creates a fresh environment that greatly influences your mood. At a very reasonable cost, you will be able to transform your home and create a fresh environment by painting your home.

Since a home is a place that gets you away from busy, stressful activities you have every reason to improve it in order to get a perfect sense of safety and serenity. Research has shown that what we see, color and affects us psychologically. If your home is dull, then there are various options available to revamp it.

You can do an exterior home painting that involves painting and landscaping the outside of your home. Always choose the best color for your home .For example; you can borrow from nature by making sure the color blends well with the surroundings. Choose neural colors since they appeal more to many people and increase the value of your home. The colors should complement. Make sure the painting is of high quality.

Next, take time and refurbish the interior of you home. The internal appearance is vital, it’s where you live. Worn out paintings implies that you don’t mind about your home. They are simply unattractive. Wallpapers and Bright colors are also unpleasant. Shun them. Select cool and neural colors for your interior home painting. Moreover, the paint should be of high quality.

Painting your home is an advisable venture. Home painting increases the value of your home. It will simply make you fall in love with your home.

How-To Create A Living Roof

It’s a how-to article on setting up a shed roof for growing plants. This seems like an excellent idea for those with limited space and a shed or tiny house. I’ve always been a little skeptical about anything on a roof except roofing material because I grew up in a house with a partially flat roof and leaks. Adding a living roof seems like a good way to invite trouble.

But I must say the idea is definitely worth some research and consideration because of the numerous benefits of a rooftop garden.

* Adds home insulation
* Provides food if you grow edibles
* Attracts wildlife like birds
* Blocks exterior noise
* Utilizes rain water that would otherwise run off

Of course there are some important considerations like can the existing structure support the additional weight of the living roof and the work that’s needed for waterproofing and drainage. But if the right circumstances are in place a living roof might be a great addition to any shed or tiny house.

How to Decorate at Home

Whether you decorate your home on purpose or you just sort of let things happen your home has an interior decorating scheme and that scheme says something about you and your sense of style. If you want to make the right statements use the following tips and tricks from professional interior designers to get the results you want.

Express Yourself

Don’t simply copy something you see in a magazine; your home should reflect your personality and feel comfortable, homey if you will. Look through magazines and find several rooms you like and then try to determine what it is you actually like in the pictures. Once you uncover your style and preferences you can break out of the magazines and develop your own interior decorating scheme.

Edit your Decorating

Too many personal touches can be distracting and looks cluttered. Edit your decorating decisions so you don’t have too much going on in your room, this will actually draw focus to the items you do decide to display. If it’s hard for you to decide between items then try to group them by theme and then rotate your themes seasonally.

Quality Basics

Most people don’t have the time, inclination or finances to redecorate their home on a real regular basis. If you want to keep your home looking fresh, new and trendy then you need to start with some quality basic pieces that are fairly timeless. Look for sleek lines and classic pieces with colors that aren’t too trendy. Then you can update the accessories regularly and keep them very trendy and stylish. This is an inexpensive way to keep a room looking current and exciting.

Organization and Storage

Too often storage and organization are glossed over when creating an interior decorating scheme but these elements must be considered or your end product will get messy and cluttered after a very short period. Look for pieces that perform multiple functions with storage being one of them. Then once your style is established, work to keep your rooms organized and clean.

Choose Colors Wisely

Colors do affect emotions so learn the moods colors create and select your interior decorating color schemes accordingly. You don’t want to decorate a room in black just because it’s the trendy thing to do if it’s going to make you depressed and have you avoiding the room. You also don’t want to decorate in strong reds and oranges if you’re trying to lose weight as those colors increase appetite.

Keep it Functional

There are a lot of things in interior design that look great on television or in print but really aren’t functional in real life or in the average home. Be smart about your decisions so that they actually are functional and don’t detract from the usefulness of your home. Think of safety, traffic flow, comfort, and maintenance when you’re thinking about trying something you saw on TV or in a magazine.

The most important thing to remember when figuring out how to decorate your home is what makes you happy. Decorate in a way that makes you like coming home and makes you feel comfortable. Display your collections and artwork to give the space a unique touch that no one else can replicate. The best decorating styles are ones that reflect the home’s occupants.

Garden sheds with style

By paying attention to scale and siting thoughtfully, you can transform a storage shed into a garden shed

Some of houses have a storage shed tucked somewhere in the backyard. It’s often placed in the most inconspicuous location on the lot with little attention given to its scale, its design, or the quality of its materials.

However, by paying attention to the scale of a storage shed and by placing it sensitively in the landscape, you can transform it into a garden shed, a decorative focal element in the yard.

Purpose and proportions dictate shed size
The first thing you need to determine is the size of the shed, a function of both the shed’s purpose and the size of the garden. Start by considering how the shed will be used. Will it be available for an activity such as potting? Will it be a backyard destination with an adjacent sitting area or patio? What items will be stored in the shed: outdoor tools and toys or overflow items from the house? Make a list of the things you want to store to estimate the space you need.

At a minimum, a garden shed needs to be 3 ft. deep for storage. Shelves maximize storage, but they should be at least 13 in. deep. To improve access, consider double doors to expose more of the interior.

If the shed will be used for an activity such as potting, you’ll need a small work area inside or outside the structure. I like a counter about 3 ft. long and 2 ft. deep. For an inside workspace, you also need room to move around, generally about 3-1/2 ft. of depth (enough for a small chair).

A shed that is too large will look out of place and will diminish the usefulness of the yard. I prefer to limit the footprint of the shed to a proportion of garden size. For small gardens (up to 900 sq. ft.), the shed can be up to 3% or 4% of the garden. For a garden between 900 sq. ft. and 1500 sq. ft., devoting 5% to a shed is OK, but generally, I would not exceed 100 sq. ft. In a garden 3000 sq. ft. or larger, I suggest limiting the shed to 150 sq. ft.

Mimic the house, but reduce the proportions
This shed draws inspiration from the house, sharing the primary siding and trim elements. It’s appropriate to reduce the size of the shed’s details proportionally to match its smaller scale. For example, the siding exposure might be reduced, and the rafter tails might be 2×4s instead of the 2×6s on the house. The roof’s low pitch helps to keep the height appropriate for the shed’s 4-ft. by 6-ft. footprint. On small sheds, avoid steep roofs such as a gambrel or front gable. Although there isn’t room for a window, the small glass lites in the door offer enough transparency to prevent a fortress-like feel.