Home Renovation Blog

Can you remember starting a new job during your career waiting nervously in the reception area? The excitement of getting ahead tempered with fear of the unknown. Wondering if you have made the right decision. You meet with your new boss and it’s clear he’s under a lot of pressure, with too much to do in too little time.

You almost sense he’d forgotten you were starting today. Hurriedly, he takes you into an office full of people and quickly introduces you to someone in the department you’re going to be working in and asks them to ‘take care’ of you while he sorts out some pressing issues.

And then you don’t see your new boss until it’s time to go home. In the meantime

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Control4 are one of the many choices in home automation, offering a range of products for the home and for businesses. Theyre not cheap, but they are stylish check out the HC300 Home Controller that we first wrote about in 07. If youve bought their systems, or are looking to, youll be pleased to know that theyve just released an app for Android that allows you to control your hardware from your portable device. Check out the video below, more info here, and the full press release here.

The only real downside of this is that it requires a MyHome license, which can run up to $499 for full coverage of a single site.

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Are you frustrated with all the clutter consuming your bathroom?  Well I’m sure you are not alone.  Bathrooms can always use more storage space, however sometimes there is only so much that one can do. The following Microliving article, provides three steps to help you reduce bathroom clutter.  One simple example could be reducing the amount of shampoos and shower gels sitting around your bathtub and store the rest in the closet until they’re needed.  De-cluttering your bathroom doesn’t have to be a huge task, just remember to put things back in their respective spots and continue trying to find new ways to organize and keep your bathroom area clean.
With most people preferring to use a variety of soaps, shampoos, lotions, face washes, and towels, it is no wonder bathrooms get cluttered so quickly, especially if two or more people use the same bathroom area. If you ar Read more…

Today, when building costs make large houses prohibitive, one way to extend your house is to use your outdoor space to full advantage. And many contemporary houses make many a room look larger by visually extending it into the lawn or garden what is often called the outdoor living room.

Tricks such as glass walls, using the same wall material inside as for a continuing wall on the terrace and using the same material for the ceiling inside as on the extended terrace eaves, help to do this.

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Before freezing weahter, cut back the longest branches to about arm’s lenght. Take a fencing product like snow fence and wrap the tree tightly. Fill the voids between the branches with straw or leaves. Pack straw or leaves around root area. Fasten some insulating material to the fence and wrap the whole plant with tar paper or a product like a Bio Winter Fleece cover.  Secure the wrap with a good rope or wire. Remove when all danger of frost is gone in the spring. New leaves will form on the branches without die-back. The Bio Winter Fleece cover is reuseable each year.

In the last few years, people have been concerned about the state of the environment – from global warming, to deforestation and saving endangered species, it seems every has “green” on their mind. So many things have “gone green,” from business practices, to the moving industry to fashion and even home decorating. Our homes are the best place to start if we want to be environmentally-friendly (as well as teaching our kids to be.) Of course, it’s not just about being chic and in-style, but you may find that keeping toxic materials and chemicals out of your home can do a lot more for your health. With these

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The green project of OS House is a colorful 1,900 square foot single-family residence that located in an old downtown neighborhood in industrial Racine, Wisconsin. Designed by Johnsen Schmaling Architects for a young family demonstrates how a small, sustainable residence built with a moderate budget can become a confident, new-urban constituent and a harbinger of change, this One of the first LEED Platinum certified homes is a simple rectangular volume that mediates between the three-story mansion to the north and the mid-century ranch to the south with a series of outdoor rooms such as an entry court, elevated patios, and a main-level terrace.

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