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.

So Your Chair is Killing You?

If you are reading this, it means that you have the same question on your mind, and question comes on our mind for a reason… perhaps you are an employee and experiencing back pain these days? Well then you are just at the right place to find the solution to your problem.

So you work at your office, in a controlled cozy environment.. sitting on a chair that gives comfort to your back for eight long hours.. wait is it really for the comfort of your back or just making you prone to various health problems? It’s shocking right? Wondering how a comfortable chair could possibly harm you? Sure you do… well reports have shown us that those who spend most of the time sitting are 54% more likely to die from heart attack, this study was carried out for 13 years on 17000 men and woman and finally showed up a shocking result. It doesn’t matter whether you do exercise or not, whether you are a smoker or a non smoker, if you spend most of the time in a day sitting on a chair, there is a big chance that you would experience heart attack, well 54% is a big chance indeed.

By now you might be thinking ‘Oh, I am not an employee so I don’t need to worry for all these stuff’… well things are just not going to work out so easily. The result applies same to everyone, whether you sit on a chair at your office, or just at home while watching T.V with a bag of Crisps, it’s all same. Thing is that when you stand up the micro muscle movement that happens to keep you balanced on the ground, burns a little bit of energy , but when you sit on a chair, you just do nothing , now think about your daily activities, actually how much time do you spend standing? Still wondering why the rate of heart attacks has increased so much? I guess that’s why bar tenders don’t die from heart attack.

So let’s make a strategy so that chair and sofa s won’t be able to kill us

1. Take a break- Well do take breaks while working at your office, how about taking two water breaks an hour, go to  the water fountain and grab your drink, it’s a good excuse for standing up and at the same time your body fluid remains balanced.

2. Stop receiving phone calls while sitting on your chair, you may want to go outside to receive the calls, also it will give you a break as well.

3. Ask your authority for providing you a standing desk, you see if you don’t have a chair to sit, then you will slowly develop a habit of working while standing, going to be beneficial for the rest of your life.

4. Instead of calling a person next to your room, go to him and talk.

If you are taking this seriously, then you will not try to find any more opportunity to park your back on a sofa or a chair just like that, well I can at least hope for that. How ever if you still think that sitting is not going to affect you…then it’s just up to you.

Dan has been associated with home improvement for several years and he now loves to share his experience through his articles about stand up desk,  standing desk, home improvement, sophisticated furniture etc.

Correct Lubricants to Use around the House

Lubrication is a crucial part of all home maintenance. It is something which is done in every home because otherwise the screeching becomes incessant. Until you own and maintain a home you will not realise how important this is but there are plenty of different things which you will have to lubricate at some point. Whether you are using lubricant to repair your garage roller door locks or keep your bike running smoothly, it is important to use the right lubricant each time. Remember that using the right lubricant will solve the problem immediately, whereas using the wrong one could cause you unnecessary headaches. Here is a guide to which lubricants you should add to your toolbox to use around the home:

Greases

Greases can be used in a number of different ways. They are designed for metal-to-metal, metal-to-plastic, and plastic-to-plastic lubrication. Greases provide a high level of lubrication under numerous intense conditions. They work well in heat and at high speeds so they are ideal for power tools and joints. They are also effective in many harsh chemical environments.

Greases make up an effective multi-purpose part of your tool kit. They can be used for most things but it is important to recognise that they are a messy form of lubricant. It is wise to keep such lubricants away from areas which will experience contact with clothes or hands for this reason. Grease is not suitable for use in door hinges or in draws for this reason.

Be sure to dispose of any rags used to apply grease properly because they will be highly flammable and could ignite easily.

Silicone Compounds

Silicone compounds are resistant to oxidation so they work effectively in areas which will be regularly exposed to the weather. Silicone compounds are excellent lubricants for things like doors and hand tools as they will resist oxidation without making things too greasy.

Silicone compounds offer an excellent level of lubrication and will become a useful element of a tool kit. These lubricants can be effectively used for a wide range of indoor and outdoor lubrications. Everything from draws to cupboard doors will benefit from silicone compounds but they cannot be used in oven doors, for example, because of the high levels of heat exposure.

Pastes

Pastes are utilised mainly where heavy loads are being handled. They have a large concentration of solid lubricants which makes them perfect for things like car hoists and jacks. Keeping your car hoists and car jacks well lubricated is an important practice because a sudden slip could have drastic consequences if you are underneath when they happen.

Pastes are somewhat unsuitable for the majority of uses around the home but they are an essential element if you have any heavy lifting machinery or tools. Keeping these well lubricated is an important element of safety.

Read the label

Many lubricants can be used for a wide range of metal and plastics. It is important, however, not to treat them as an all-in-one solution. Different lubricants will have different results on each of your joints and runners. Be sure to read the label thoroughly before using a lubricant because some are highly flammable and some will dissolve through plastics.

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Understanding Your Home Power Usage

Measuring home power usage has become more important than ever as we enter an era of sky-rocketing power prices. Lower energy emissions are also key to a cleaner greener environment. All of your appliances will use some electricity and they range from being heavy power users (refrigerators), to medium powers users (washing machines), through to low power users like toasters.

The important thing is to understand how much power you use throughout your home. This could be a case of doing some complicated maths and understanding how much power your home is using. Another way to measure this is to check your meter yourself or just take a look at your power bills.

What Uses the Most Power?

You don’t have to be an electrician to understand what uses the most power in your home these days. You can, with most new products, simply look at the energy rating on the device or its packaging. While this is not available for all products, it is now standard on higher-end whitegoods such as new washing machines and refrigerators. Suprisingly, even though our overall power usage has gone up year upon year, traditional appliances actually use less power. So what has been eating up the extra juice? It is probably the computers and other devices that we have plugged in or at least charging for a certain part of the day.

Ways to Save Electricity

Once you understand where your power is going and what it costs, you can start to save some money. There are two ways to save money on electricity, both are very effective and they can even be used in combination:

●      Conserving

●      Preserving

While these concepts may seem similar or even the same, they differ slightly in their methods. If you conserve energy you are trying not to use it at all. This includes turning off the lights and unplugging devices that you are not using. Preserving electricity is entirely different. This involves making the most of the electricity you are using, so it is not wasted. This could include cooking multiple items on an electric stove at the same time, instead of cooking things separately.

Fight the Power

There are some simple ways to understand power usage and lower those electricity bills. One increasingly popular option is to produce your very own electricity, using solar power, or even wind power. If you are thinking of adding renewable energy to your home make sure you understand how your power will be used. An average home will use about 1.5kW, but in the peak usage time anywhere up to ten times this amount could be used. This is why many solar systems start at around the 3.5kW mark. If you go solar, you may want to upgrade any energy-wasting appliances at the same time.

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