ABC’s of Fine Design

Water heaters not only take up a lot of space, but they waste energy and money. It takes a lot of power to heat gallons of water and keep it heated. Now though you can get a tankless water heater that will heat your water instantly and save you money.

Tankless water heaters have been used in Europe for many many years. Why? Well they take up less space then our huge American type water heaters. In Europe they just don’t have room for a huge water heater. Now though Americans are starting to see that having instant hot water is much better and more energy efficient then our old water heaters, so check it out and set your self up to save some cash and make your home worth more.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Right now there is a hold up in the design market. It is hard to find work and it’s hard to get jobs to do. What does this mean for the person looking for home improvement. Well you may be able to get some great deals. Look around and see who is offering what. Now is a good time to fix up the home you have. Stop using your home as a checking account for your vacations and start putting something into it that you will eventually get back.

Now this will only work if you can still afford your payments, don’t jump into an adjustable rate just because it’s cheep. Look for a fixed rate mortgage if you going to go that route. If you have the money to do the repairs without pulling out a loan make sure you will also have enough money to pay bills for a few months if something does happen. I don’t want to see any of you lose your home because I wrote you should fix it up.

If you have decided your going to fix things anyway here are a few things you may want to consider.

Kitchen and bathrooms if they are outdated
A new roof
Adding green design, such as geothermal heating or solar power.
Insulation

These are things that will either give you money back when you sell or they will save you money in the long run. Right now my mother is thinking of trying to get a loan to put up wind power and possibly geothermal heating. It’s something to think about.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Have you ever spent an hour trying to find that shirt you wanted to wear? I have it ended up being in the laundry. There are ways to help with this problem and closet organization is one way to do it. That way you can have all of your shirts, dress and even your bustiers if thats what your into, in a nice neat and organized area where you can actually find them.

One way to do this is to throw out your clothes and start over, I don’t recommend it though as it’s a little expensive to do that. What you can do is either look into some shelving units that have drawers and closed closet areas to put all of your things in. For a child or teen, plastic organizers work well and can be stylish. Personally for an adult who wants to make a good impression, plastic is not the way to go, use wood and make sure it’s sturdy and goes with the style of the wood in the room.

If your still clueless you can also call an interior designer or a closet specialist, yes these exist. This is one of the special areas in interior design and these people know what there doing. So don’t feel bad if you don’t know where to start find one of these helpful people and get your time back.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Now that it has been a couple of weeks since you made that new years resolution to lose weight I have one question for you, are you doing it? One reason that you may not be as excited about losing the weight is that you don’t feel comfortable where you work out.

If you have a home based gym I have a few great ideas for you that will make the room scream come in and play! It will also answer that dang question of where to put that dang elliptical.

My first tip is simple, paint the room one of two types of colors. Bright and exciting or calm and relaxing. It really depends on how you want to use the room. If you using it for both relaxation and as a heavy workout area think about using both colors. Stick to the same color but different shades and you should be fine. Paint one wall the bright color and the opposite the calm color, keep the other two walls a neutral. Set up your equipment so that you are facing the correct wall for what you want to to. If you need energy for that tread mill set it so you face the bright wall. If you need a calm place to meditate or do yoga seat yourself facing the calm color wall.

Another thing is put a TV in your workout room. Watch your favorite movie or music videos while you work out. Using a radio or mp3 player can help too.

Bring in plants, they make the room more inviting and help clean the air. This could just make it easier on your body as it will have fresh air to work with.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

This is the best time to get all that home improvement done. If your looking for green design items you want to get all of that bought before the new year. Why? Well the tax credit for buying these items will be non existent after this year. Yes you heard me. It’s gone forever! So now is the time to buy and you better make it quick.

After the new year look toward other types of home improvement and decorating. Buy new furniture to help start out the new year right. Look for fung shui tips on this blog and other websites. The big thing is to make your home work for you.

January 1st I will have a nice post about tips to make your home work for you in the new year. So check back and take a look.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

One thing about design that is always fun is finding good reliable plumbing contractors. I have heard many horror stories from homeowners, designers and my teachers about plumbers that don’t do there job. They either say it can’t be done, because they themselves cant do it or they do the job badly and expect you to pay them to come back and fix it.

One story that I’ve heard from my favorite teacher about 20 times is the story about the toilet from Europe. The plumber she hired kept telling her that it can’t be installed. When she asked why he told her that the toilet was broken and would not fit the pipe. Of course having been in the industry for a while she went over to look at the toilet. It was fine, the only problem was it was from Europe and needed a special hookup. The plumber still insisted that it could not be done and was fired. She hired another plumber the next day and it was completed by the end of the day.

The moral of the story? Ask questions before you hire someone, do some research and find out if they can actually do the job you want them to. There are many websites where you can find this information. One being plumbing networks, they have a huge database of plumbers in almost any area you can imagine. They even came up with some in my small, small town. They came up with many many more when I searched for plumbers in Ann Arbor MI.

This is a huge problem in design as you don’t always get to work with the same people you have worked with before, sometimes your across the country or in another country altogether.  Sometimes you just have no idea who your hiring but if you do some research you should be fine.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

When I have my own home I will have a bar area, one I think it’s fun for both kids and adults. Of course it must be kid friendly and include lots of locks. I have always thought a good way to decorate a bar area like that would be to join a wine of the month club and use the bottles to decorate with. I have always pictured having the bar area with a sink and open glass shelving above it for the kids stuff, like ice cream glasses and so on. Then along the sides of that have two counter to ceiling glass cabinets where I could display wine bottles or other things that have to do with a bar. These cabinets of course would be locked.

I’ve always thought of home bars as being an glamorous place for adults and almost like an ice cream parlor for children, yes it’s a strange combination but I have the picture in my head and it will work. I just need the house and money to do it.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!