Paint Your Room Sunny!

Color of your room affects your mood, your activities and your living style. What type of color to use in a particular room, depends on the utility of the room. For example you need lively and bright colors such as yellow, orange, red in the living room, the kitchen, the dining, etc. whereas the bedroom needs to be colored exactly the opposite way, you need dark light absorbing colors such as blues, greens, mauves, purples to make your bedroom look calm and pleasant.

Color up right

If you have your living room, dining space and the kitchen that appears dark, dull, lousy and inactive you can change the look completely. Choose the right color for the room. A bright shade such as yellow works wonders for lively places inside the house. You can choose from a variety of yellows shades right from golden to lemon yellow. The yellow that you choose should be paired with the right color. Warm yellow colors can be perfectly paired with the right shades of browns, reds and oranges whereas a brighter yellow can be paired with blues, lavender and subtle grey to calm the shade down a bit. An example can be beautiful mango color walls perfectly paired with mahogany floor and ceiling, to add to the color choose the right furniture.

Choose the right décor

Curtains, cover of your couch, cushion cover and also your carpets play a huge role in making the room appear lively and bright. Try not choosing dark shades or heavy curtains for your room. Even if you keep the curtains open it will still block a part of your window obstructing light. Translucent curtains work wonders for dark rooms. Lighter curtains will allow light to reflect to your newly painted walls, making your room look dramatically gorgeous. A light shade couch will add to the charm of your room. Do not forget the cushion covers; you can match them to the contrast you use in the room. Finally the carpet, choose a lighter shade carpet for the room. A lighter shade carpet will make your room appear brighter.

Let Mirrors Work

Use mirrors to reflect light. Place a mirror on the wall opposite the window. The mirror will not only reflect the sunlight it will throw light throughout the room. In case you do not have a window in your room you can place a lamp facing the mirror to lighten up the room. Use natural sunlight bulbs or brighter bulbs to give it a better effect. Mirrors not only reflect light they add volume to your room making it look bigger, brighter and better.When used light colors to color up the walls of your room your room not only looks livelier it appears bigger. Choose the right color as per the utility of the room. Make sure you choose the right combinations of the color to pair your walls up with. The décor of the room also adds to its brightness, so choose it wisely. By adding mirrors to the room you can add more volume and light to your room.

About the author: Bethany is a blogger by profession. She loves writing on home decor and luxury. Beside this she is fond of gadgets. Recently she bought a John Lewis Sofa Beds for her bedroom. She is passionate about cars and had a dream to own a Lotus evora.

Wood Swing Sets: Best Choice for Your Kids

With an abundant array of exciting activities for your children and their friends, swing set is the best option that is available in different shapes and sizes. Swing sets are made using different materials like steel, metal, plastic or wood. There are different researches and studies conducted that have arrived to a conclusion that wood swing sets are the safest, long lasting and most durable play sets available in the market. There are also some reasons that contribute in the wide usage of wood for swing play sets and especially timber redwood. Redwood is a strong timber redwood that is virtually splinter free, has natural resistance to decay and doesn't require constant coats of stains and wood preservatives for maintaining its durability as well as rich exterior color.

There are numerous people, who assume that steel or metal is strongest and most durable material to use for building swing play sets but there are several reasons that support that redwood trees outlast buildings. Weather always remain a threat to a play set frame; there are different factors like year's rain, snow, high winds, excessive UV sunlight, insects and animals that can harm the metal and can also corrode the metal. Corroded metal shows rusted color and sometimes you won’t even be able to detect the weakness of the metal.

Plastic is also used for constructing swing play sets as it is considered to be cheap and lightweight, but it is also under the attack from the environmental elements when placed outside. Plastic play set is considered as the best option, if it has to be placed indoors and not outdoors.

Due to all these reason, wood is considered to be the best material for building strong, high quality and long lasting swing sets. There are different types of timber wood available, including white pine and redwood. Best wood to be used is redwood because it is strong and able to resist natural decay. Splinter free redwood is used for making a solid swing set frame and also ensures that your kids don’t get their clothing snagged on exposed screws and bolts or wood shards from cheaper lumber.

There is another benefit that you will discover after installing redwood swing sets and that is this type of wood does not require preservatives, stains or any other exterior spray for protecting the wood. Redwood is considered as one of the most durable timbers available that can be used for years without any maintenance.

Another most important benefit that you will discover through wood swing sets is that these have the ability to add different accessories in your sets like monkey bars, spiral slides and buoy swings. Metal and plastic sets are usually pre-made and come as is with no option for additions. When your child grows older and wants some exciting features except for only a glider slide then you have to buy a new play set but this is not the case with wood swing sets. With these sets, you can add different accessories as per your child’s specification and requirement.

Cangkuang Temple

Cangkuang temple is a seventh century Shiva ancient temple that located in the small island. The island situated at the centre of Cangkuang Lake (Garut, West Java, Indonesia). We rented a bamboo raft to reach the island.
The Weekend in Black and White

6 Tips to Paying Off Your Home Loan Sooner

When it comes to paying off the mortgage, whether it is on a home or an investment property, the quicker you can repay it, the better off you will be! By paying off your home loan sooner, you can save thousands of dollars by reducing the amount of interest you have to pay in the long run.

To help those in the process of organising a home loan, below are 6 useful tips on how to pay off your home loan sooner.

Tip 1: Take Out a Loan with Repayment Options
When homebuyers go to take out a loan they generally try and get one with the lowest interest rate. This can sometimes be a HUGE mistake. Instead of focusing on the interest rate, you should be looking at a loan’s repayment options.

Some home loan options, like a standard variable rate home loan, might have a higher interest rate, but there are also a number of repayment options available. Some loans have the options of making larger and more frequent repayments, without any penalties. Some loans also have a redraw function, which allows you to also redraw on those extra payments if, for some reason, you desperately need the funds.

The benefit of making larger and more frequent repayments is that you pay off your loan sooner. You can save heaps by paying off your home loan sooner, despite the fact your loan has a higher interest rate.

Tip 2: Make Sure Interest on Your Loan is Calculated Daily
When searching for the right home loan, try and get one that has its interest calculated daily. This is because whenever you make a repayment on the principal of the loan, you will actively reduce the amount of interest you have to pay on your next instalment.

Tip 3: Connect Your Home Loan to an Interest Saver/Offset Account

Some home loans provide the option of being linked up to an interest saver or an offset account. An interest saver/offset account is generally an everyday transaction account, where the interest paid into that account is used to reduce the amount of interest calculated on your home loan.

With an offset account, you want to store as much of your savings and salary as possible into that account. This will help reduce the home loan’s principal quicker and the interest paid on all future home loan repayments.

Tip 4: Pump Extra Funds into Your Home Loan

If you accumulate any surplus cash you should immediately put it towards paying off your home loan. This reduces your chances of wasting your cash on frivolous things.

When taking out any kind of loan, you should also be on a budget and putting money towards only the essential things. This can be tough and not much fun. You have to constantly remind yourself, however, that every dollar you put towards paying off your home loan sooner can save you thousands of dollars in the long run. With the money you end up saving, you can treat the whole family to something nice!

Tip 5: Pay Your First Home Loan Instalment Upon Settlement
Usually your first home loan instalment is paid a month after the settlement of you loan. However, if you pay the first instalment upon settlement, you have immediately reduced the amount of interest you will have to pay on your next instalment and all future repayments.

Tip 6: Seek Professional Financial Advice
Speaking to a financial adviser can highlight a number of effective ways and strategies to help you find the right home loan and to pay it off sooner. You don’t (and shouldn’t!) have to do all the number crunching by yourself, as it can be quite overwhelming.

Financial groups know the tricks of the trade and have the experience to help you develop ways to efficiently use your income and assets to pay off your home loan sooner. Some groups, especially those dealing with investment properties, even have access to special software programs, like real estate development software, that can help in balancing out your positive and negative cash flows. This is particularly useful if the loan you have taken out is for an investment property.

How to Decorate Walls of Your Home?

The best part about decorating your home is that you need not be a professional home interior designer to decorate your home beautifully. All you would need is dedication, aesthetic sense, willingness and skills to do so. If you have that creative instinct inside you, let your home reflect that. A beautiful home is a true reflection of your own personality. Let the walls speak about your aesthetic taste and creative mind.

Well painted walls do not always add color, charm and your own decorating style to your home without painting the walls. A wall decoration project comprises of things like proportion, balance, scale, texture, variety, color, size and the list is long. Here are a few ways to beautify your home with decorating ideas that are a bit off the wall!

Arrange for a gallery wall:
Locate some focal point sand learn about dimensions before venturing out on wall decoration of your home. Draw a rough plan on a piece of paper before actually starting with the decorating. Put some photo frames on one wall of your living room and you will create a beautiful gallery wall. Measure the distance between the art piece, so that there is equal spacing between them. Select one picture that would serve as the gallery's main attraction. You can also hang some frames without pictures as this form of decoration is in vogue.

Photo collage
You can get more creative while decorating the walls of your personal room. Buy a wall-safe tape and start slapping your collection of photos on the wall of your room. But make sure to paste them in a sequence. Start from your childhood photos and then add photos of kindergarten and then high school, college, your wedding photos and go on further.

Contemporary wall art
Though wall art lack realism and meaning, these do not lack style. The beholder can always come up with his or her own meanings of the wall art. It is the best and the most dramatic way to express your style and character, which makes your home a true reflection of what you are.

Oil paintings:

Living room wall must be ornamented with an oil painting. Choose a painting carefully for your living room, as it is the best way to add grandeur to your living room. You can always seek service from a professional handyman london for hanging these paintings.

You can buy a full-length mirror for your room, as it will bring more light into the room. You can decorate the borders with paint pens. Removable wall graphics are also one of the many ways to decorate the walls of your living room, dining area and lobby. You can built floating wall shelves or bookcases to add vertical appeal to your walls. This not only enhances beauty of your living space but also acts as an extra storage space.

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Seeing through the Window

Thinker, my niece's cat, doesn't allowed to go outside. But when she's at school, once in a while, I let the cat out and kept my eyes open to ensure that she only played in the front yard.

The Weekend in Black and White