Interior Lighting: How to Brighten Up The Darkest Areas of Your Home

interior lightingThere are a lot of reasons why we sometimes feel cranky and so not in the mood even when we are just sitting idly in some corner of our house and in some cases, that dark mood may have something to do with the interior lighting or the lack of interior lighting to be precise.

It has long been established that we humans respond, act and feel better in a home that has plenty of natural light. That is the very reason why we need to let natural light in as much as we can. However, brightening up the dark areas of your home is not just all about finding ways to let natural light in. It also has a lot to do with how a certain room is finished, or its current paint colour scheme.

To help you get started, we’d like to offer some tips that will help you brighten up the darkest areas of your home.

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Quick Home Improvement Ideas for the New Year

home improvement ideasThe new year brings a fresh start that more often than not inspires new home improvement ideas. Nothing spells “fresh start” better than to get home improvement projects up and rolling . These projects don’t even have to be big ones. They can be quick, simple and should not cost you that much.

Here are some quick home improvement ideas for the new year to get you started:

1. Do some painting

Whether it’s done in a high-traffic area or a barely used room in your house, painting adds a pop of colour and a fresh clean feel to your walls. If you’re painting newbie, don’t hesitate to ask for tips from people working at the paint store, from colours to do to painting techniques that will make the job easier and faster for you.

2. Put up wallpapers

If painting is too much work, then perhaps putting up wallpapers might do the trick for you. Many of the wallpapers available in stores today are very chic, and they certainly would make amazing accent walls. Plus, the choices are simply amazing. You can get wallpapers with texture, wallpapers with retro patterns, metallic wallpapers and many more.

3. Change your drapes

Changing your drapes is one great way to greet the new year. Sure, everyone wants brand new drapes every single time we change them, but there are less expensive ways of changing them. One such way is to recycle your curtains and drapes to another room. The drapes you had in your living room, for instance, could be switched with the ones in your bedroom, and vice versa.

4. Give your cabinets a facelift

When you give your cabinets a facelift, it  does not necessarily mean you have to change a lot of things about them, although that could be an option. Giving it what we call a “spa treatment” will do. Dust the cabinets inside out, then wipe them down with a soft, damp cloth. If your cabinets have nicks and scratches, get a soft cloth and dab those areas with just a tiny bit of wood stain. When the wood stain is dry, wipe lemon oil onto the whole cabinet using a soft, clean cloth. All these will enhance the natural colour of your cabinets and give them a newer feel.

5. Change door handles

Your door handles are perhaps the most worn-out among all the fixtures in your home, and the coming of the new year is the perfect time to replace them. To spice things up, you can actually replace them with handles that are actually different from the last ones. Just make sure that they look perfect for the door and that they don’t end up looking out of place.

6. Organise your home

With the holidays just a few weeks in the past, it’s safe to assume that your home has to deal with a lot of clutter, especially when you have children at home or when you’ve had people come and go for the entire holiday season. The new year would be the best time to organise your home. You can start with just putting things back where they actually belong. If you’re up to it, do some segregation, like keeping the things you still use and deciding which ones you can actually throw or give away. Organising your home may not be as simple or as quick as other home improvement projects, but it’s one of those home improvement ideas that has to be done, whether it’s the new year or not.

Kitchen Renovations: Ideas to add Appeal

Kitchen RenovationsThe kitchen, as far as many home owners are concerned, is the most important part of the house so if you are planning a kitchen renovation, naturally, you will want to get it right in all respects.  Here are some kitchen innovations to think about when you are planning and designing your dream kitchen.

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10 Home Improvement Tips For Better Energy Efficiency

home improvementThe last few decades have seen energy costs rise everywhere in the world, with energy efficiency eventually becoming a cause of concern. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, last year the average Australian household spent $39 on energy and gas for their homes every week.  This comes to more than $2,000 for the entire year. With rising energy costs, more and more home owners are trying to find ways to improve the energy efficiency of their homes.

It is always possible to lower your utility bills, but you do have to make certain changes to your home to make it happen. Here are several home improvement for better energy efficiency.

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How To Get Your Home Ready For Christmas Visitors

get your home ready for ChristmasChristmas is that time of the year when there is a lot of cheer and happiness in the air, gifts being exchanged left and right, and friends and family coming over to your home to spend the holidays with you.

With all those people visiting, you definitely will need to prepare your home for holiday visitors. Here are some tips that could help you get your home visitor-ready for Christmas, all of which require no fortune to do.

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Outdoor Home Enhancements For Your Christmas Party

outdoor home enhancements for your Christmas partySo you’re planning a Christmas party at your home this year. As you already know very well, there are lots of stuff to be concerned about, from the food and drinks to serve right down to the people you want to invite. Of all these things, however, what you need to work on ahead of anything else are the Christmas decorations, which we all understand to be the single most effective way of spreading holiday cheer and making people really feel that it’s that wonderful time of the year once again.

So you already have a Christmas tree inside your home, and all sorts of Christmas decorations all over the place. How about the outside of your home? If you plan on making your home as Christmassy as it can get, here are some outdoor home enhancements for your Christmas party that you might want to try.

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7 Scents to Boost Productivity

scents to boost productivityMore often than not, we associate aromatherapy with stress management or creating an environment that is soothing and relaxing. While true, aromatherapy can also be used to enhance one’s productivity level at home or in business. Our sense of smell, after all, is the strongest of all our senses and is therefore the one that influences brain activity best.

One scent can easily trigger a memory, while another can increase your alertness, and both of which can help you become more productive. Here are the scents that do just that, and more.

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Choosing the Right Windows For Your Home

choosing the right windows for your homeSo you’re changing your windows, and you would want them to look great not only from the inside, but also from the outside. As much as possible, you would want everything about them to be just right, from their intended functions to their exterior styles.

To help you achieve that, here are some things to think about when you’re choosing the right windows for your home.

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Make a Room Easier on the Eyes With These Tips

make a room easier on the eyesWith all the stress that our eyes go through every single minute of every single day at work or anywhere else, there is nothing more refreshing than to go home to a place where our eyes won’t have to work that much. That, however, isn’t really the case with many of us.

More often than not, our homes are also loaded with visual stimuli that further stress our eyes out. Clutter, see-through cabinets, differently-coloured walls—all these are visual stimuli that overwork our eyes and cause us stress.

The typical knee-jerk reaction to this is to want to get rid of visual stimuli that overwork our eyes at home altogether. However, aside from not being possible, too little visual stimuli can still stress us out. The best way to not overwork the eyes is to strike a visual balance for any room within your home. In short, you should make a room easier on the eyes, and here are some tips on how to do just that.

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6 Simple Home Makeover Ideas For Spring

simple home makeover ideas for springSpring is a great time for giving your home a makeover. When the first signs of this lovely time of the year begin to appear, you can start with these simple home makeover ideas for spring and make your home look as fresh and as stunning as it was the first day you moved in.

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