Kujang Souvenir

I saw this kujang souvenir at a cake shop. Kujang is a blade weapon native to the Sundanese people of West Java, Indonesia.

My Husband's Ring

My husband only has two rings; it's one of them. A silver ring with a unique white natural agate stone. I guess it looks nice in B&W.

The Weekend in Black and White

Getting Inspiration for Your Home Makeover

It doesn’t matter how you do it, you need to be inspired so you can make the most of your home. If you don’t, you are wasting a tremendous opportunity to be happy and enjoy the place you spend so much of your free time. There is an endless amount that you can do, from mixing up the furniture to switching to open-plan living. As long as you’re not too scared to try something new, your home will feel like a refreshed and revamped place.

Magazines

Whether you subscribe to an interior design magazine yourself or just drop in at your local library and check out theirs, interior design, and ‘home and garden’-type magazines can be fantastic ways to find inspiration for doing something at your own place. Even just checking out the magazines at the doctor’s office waiting room can lead to a flash of inspiration.

Holidays

The ideal holiday is one of relaxation, and one that you come home from feeling inspired, so choose your holiday destinations carefully and always do your best to immerse yourself in the local culture. Checking out Aboriginal art in Alice Springs, or inner-city graffiti art in Melbourne can trigger an idea that will be amazing at your place, and don’t forget to scope out how your serviced apartments or B&B accommodation make use of art to create an effect.

Friends’ Homes

Any time that your friends have some work done at their place, offer to help out if you have any spare time and be sure you check out the finished product. There is a good chance that anything your friends have done, you could afford to do too, so have a good look at what they are doing, and see if it makes you think of something awesome you can do at your place.

Television

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There are more than a couple of home renovation shows on television which can provide you with simple and useful information, so tune in if you have time and see if the episodes might relate to your place. It is always interesting to see people doing creative things with their homes, and these shows can do a fantastic job of making people want to get stuck in.

Trade Shows

While they can be overwhelming large and busy, trade shows can be the perfect way to get inspired. You will get a small taste of a huge variety of different businesses’ latest ideas. Some times the best thing to do is just take the information from each vendor and then read it all at home. If you are lucky you can get occasional opportunities to talk to some industry professionals about your ideas.

The more fun you have with your home’s makeover, the better it will look, so rather than putting unnecessary pressure on yourself, just enjoy the transformation process. If it doesn’t work out right, you can always change it again later, so relax and see how much of your home’s hidden potential you can unlock.

Keeping Your Home Cooler without the Cost

 When the summer kicks into high gear and those scorching hot days become the norm, you have to be able to find a way to cool down. If you don’t want to shell out a huge amount of money for air conditioning you are going to need to get creative, and the following are just some of the ways you can be keeping your home cool without the cost.

Close Up During the Day

Keep that hot, stifling air out by closing up your home early on in the day before the temperature gets too warm. Keeping windows, doors, blinds and curtains closed will be allowing the cool air to stay in and keep the warm air out, and the earlier you close everything up, the easier it will be to keep cool inside. On really hot days the temperature inside will still get warm, but it will be far better than if you hadn’t closed everything up, and it might mean you are able to keep cool with just a small electric fan.

Open Up at Night

Once the day has finally cooled off later in the evening, open up your home as much as you can, and allow the cooler air to come through your place. A cool breeze can completely refresh the air in your home, and allow you to manage to cool down enough in order to get some sleep. Security screens provide a fantastic way to keep your home open to the cool air at night without leaving your home vulnerable, so if you don’t have secure screen doors and windows, it is well worth investing in some.

Pull Up Those Carpets

Carpets are great during the winter when you are looking for more warmth, but in the summer they can make it extremely hard for your body to cool down. So for the sake of keeping cool in your place, get rid of those carpets. Tiles, hardwood, vinyl, slate, polished concrete or even cork will all help keep you cooler on those crazy hot days, so regardless of what you choose, pull up those carpets.

Take Advantage of Any Help

Once in a while a brief storm in the middle of the day can provide some much needed relief and drop the temperature a few degrees, so if you are home when this happens, take advantage of the help and open up your home so it can cool down. Open up as much as you can without getting anything soaked, and if the storm passes quickly and the weather starts warming up again, close your home up once more.

The key to staying cool at home in the summer is to prevent it from getting hot in the first place, as well as take advantage of natural cooling cycles. By choosing an alternative to air conditioning you will be saving money as well as the environment, so put a bit more thought into how you plan to stay cool this summer, and you’ll be glad you did once the mercury starts to rise.