Home Management

Archive for May, 2011

What is there to choose from? You probably won’t want to do away with your general light but could it be gentler? There are diffuser shades for strip lights, and paper globes and glass and plastic bowl-type shades which make sure you can’t see the glaring bulb from below. Frosted glass light bulbs can help. Table or standard lamps with opaque shades, and spotlights and desk lamps will give direct light, but if you point a spotlight at a wall or ceiling it will give a much gentler and wide spread illumination. Or you could train it on a collection or item that you want to highlight. If it’s a picture, you may find non-reflecting glass is necessary.

This brings us to the question of direction do you want your light in one direction permanently, or should it be flexible? If so, make sure your lamps, etc. is tough enough to stand up to being altered regularly. Another aspect of flexibility is that it’s easy to replace your on/off switch with a dimmer, so you can turn your lights from bright to a soft glow. Unless your lamp specifically requires low wattage, always have bright bulbs. Fluorescent tubes should not produce a green or bluish light they will make you look ill. They are also bad for your eyes if used alone. There are varieties of diffuser shades you can buy for them under and behind ledges. A rise and fall pendant lamp fittings, where you can adjust the height of your light, can be useful and effective over a table, although for a really romantic light you can’t beat candles.

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All too often lighting is limited to a single dangling bulb and lampshade; yet it has an enormously important and all pervading effect on your house. No matter how good your decorating is, if the light is bad a room will look uninteresting. Good lighting can transform a very ordinary setting. What is good lighting then? Again, there’s no straight answer; it will depend on your personal needs. Clever use of light and shadows can appear to alter the shape of your rooms; a ceiling that is too high can be brought down by remaining shadowy, while wall lights appear to increase your space. Leave your room’s deficiencies in the shade and high-light its good points. An even all-over light can be depressing areas of light and shadow will give interest. Plan where you’ll need light, what sort and how much.

Apart from the usual bedside light, this will mean considering where you do the mending, pay the bills, and listen to records and so on. Then make sure the switches and sockets are where you need them. If they’re not and you can’t afford or aren’t allowed to do any electrical work, look for standard lamps with adjustable spotlights, use the central ceiling outlet for a track with a number of spots, or use extension leads from skirting sockets. You could have a long flex from that outlet with a lamp attached to the end, and loop the flex over a hook, perhaps above the coffee table.

You may think that lights inside cupboards are too much of a luxury but a spotlight could be angled to shine into them. In a child’s room make sure that the fittings are out of reach, and use safety plugs and childproof sockets. You will need stronger light for an elderly person. Lights should not shine on to mirrors or they’ll shadow the bags under your eyes. Reading lights should shine down over your shoulder, and ideally should be used in conjunction with a background light to avoid glare. If you’re right-handed you will need it come over your left shoulder. For dining, watching television and for stairways, make sure no one’s dazzled by low lights for other activities low level lighting can be affective and look very glamorous.

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This is the cheapest, simplest and most versatile storage. Check that the wall you want to put shelves on is sound and solid, and doesn’t have any pipes or cables hidden in it. Measure the weight and size of what you want to put on them. If the contents on your shelves are going to remain the same you won’t need adjustable shelving just brackets attached directly to the wall. Otherwise you’ll need wall mounted up rights, with tracks or lots of sockets for movable brackets. The heavier the load, the more supports you’ll need. Shelves come in a variety of materials and in standard widths to fit brackets. DIY shops will often cut them to any length you want. Light plastic drawers with their own runners can be fixed to the underside of a shelf. You can make your own shelving with planks supported on bricks arranged in double rows, 90 cm apart. Whitewood book shelves or stacking bins are other alternatives.

Freestanding Storage

Freestanding storage, like wardrobes and chests, tends to be less efficient than the built-in type. If you’re in rented accommodation, you’ll probably have to rely on it. Old tin and wicker trunks can be a godsend too. A basket by the kitchen door for slippers, a bag hanging on the back of a child’s door for dirty clothes, metal rails on castors a simple and inexpensive idea can often help. In an old cupboard with deep shelves that are wide apart, you could fix a narrow shelf between two old ones.

Building in

When you’re short of space in the bedroom or spare room perhaps it may be best to devote an entire wall to storage and have very little furniture. You will have to give careful consideration to the space needed. Decide what you’ve got to store and which type of doors would be best. Sliding doors save space but there will always be a section inside the cupboard that you can’t reach. Wide, hinged doors need a lot of clearance. Narrow, hinged doors will make it more expensive because you will need more of them. Hinged concertina doors will need a slightly deeper cupboard a fold into.

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The simplest of these are roller blinds. They are neat and inexpensive. There are simple kits available for you to make them yourself with your own choice of material, which should be something, quite tough and tightly woven; you can also buy sprays for stiffening roller blind material. Roman blinds are similar but pull up into concertina pleats. You can make this yourself, too, although they’re not quite as straightforward as rollers. Pinoleum blinds are made of fine strips of wood woven together with cotton; there is now a white plastic quill version, too. Balastore and pleastex blinds are both made of tough paper, treated like a roman blind. Venetian blinds with slats of metal or plastic that you can angle at will to control the light entering or pull right up are pricey, but consider them as an investment. They are a good answer to sloping windows and are excellent for insulation.

Day –time Privacy

Translucent curtains are a well established method of giving day-time privacy. If they’re at all heavy, you’ll have to use a second track or a pole but it will be worth the effort to have something rather good. Net curtains can look very wishy-washy. You could be more unconventional and use them as a fixed panel or roller blind. Alternatively you could fit frosted glass or buy glass paint and stencil on a design. If you’re not short of light, mirror glass could replace the ordinary sort. A well-tended window box, or shelves of plants across the whole window box, or shelves of plants across the whole window on the inside are exciting ways to deal with the everyday problem of privacy.

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How are you going to dress your windows? For most of us, privacy is one of the major considerations but if this doesn’t apply to you, try leaving a handsome window uncurtained, at least during the day. You don’t have to be conventional. For example, you don’t have to use curtains – blinds will give an uncluttered look and their patterns won’t be broken up with folds. Do consider your windows from the outside too, and how all the windows will look together. Be practical about relating length and weight to headings and rails, etc. – have you considered all the possibilities? Limited funds shouldn’t stop you, for there are inexpensive roller-blind kits, cheap Louvre panels and many different and efficient heading tapes.

Choosing curtains

Curtaining can be expensive so think carefully how much you can afford and what you want to achieve. Some practical considerations are: will they be fire hazards, how much fullness and of course, color, texture and pattern. Avoid enormous patterns unless you can afford to change your curtains frequently. If you’re already struck with them, try adding a neutral border to the edges. If you stick to something plain you can always pep the room up with, say, patterned cushions which will be cheaper to change. Also avoid short but heavy curtains – the material just won’t hang correctly. as a general rule it’s best to have curtains either 1 cm off the floor or 0.5 cm above the sill; and shorter and it may look as if you ran out of material. The tops should be either ceiling height or at the top of the window. The exception is if you’re going to have café curtains which will come half-way down your window. Its best, when you’re measuring up for curtains, to put the track up first. Remember to allow for matching pattern repeats, and to check that the material won’t shrink. If you’ve any doubts about your material, your retailer should be able to advice.

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The decoration of your walls can have a very profound effect on the mood of your rooms busy, calm, sophisticated, etc. What’s more changing that decoration is the quickest way to alter the whole effect.

Paint

Paint has become very easy to use, and is the most popular form of decorating. Take a sample of the color you want with you when buying manufacturer’s color names vary a great deal. Check the condition of your walls before you start and make sure the cause of any stains has been dealt with. An unplastered good brick wall can be painted directly, or sealed. A plain painted wall makes an excellent background for a display or collection. But if you want to add individuality to the wall itself, you could be more adventurous a mural or stenciled designs cost only imagination. Or try painting the bottom half of your room one color, the top another. Or combine a painted wall with a paper frieze there are many to choose from.

Wallpaper

A patterned paper can help to unify a bitty room, but otherwise there’s no need to go floor to ceiling. Try panels, edged with narrow border paper, or dividing your wall with friezes. Then you can have the tough paper at the bottom, where all the wear and tear is, and something more delicate above. Although most papers come in standard rolls, prices are extremely varied, so you should be able to find something to suit your pocket. The cheapest papers are thin, and both cheap and very expensive papers are harder to hang. Non-washable papers can be protected with a special sealer, but test first to see if the pattern smudges. Hand-printed paper looks sharper than machine printed, but it is much more expensive. Washable paper is water repellent but not as tough as vinyl. Lincrusta, anaglyptas and embossed paper can be a good solution to bumpy surfaces, especially ceilings where you need a non-directional design. Like woodchip paper, they can be painted. Various fabrics are available backed with paper and are hung in the same way as wallpaper.

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Carpeting can be made of a bewildering range of fibers though these fall into two categories manmade and natural. Totally synthetic carpeting, though very hard wearing, can give rise to static electricity, which gives shocks. One hundred percent nylon is the worst offender for this, though the problems are being researched. It is extremely tough, but a dropped match will leave a market. Acrylic fiber is more like wool; but is not fire resistant. Polyester is soft and tough, and also waterproof. Polypropylene is usually used as a backing or blended with something else. Of the natural fibers, wool has the most luxurious feel and if blended with nylon, it can be extremely hardwearing. Other animal hair is not so soft warm. The vegetable fibers feel harder still, though they can be tough attractive and relatively inexpensive compared to wool. As with types of fiber there are numerous methods of carpet construction.

There is a great variety in price as the quality depends on how much fiber is used in each square centimeter. The best blend is 80 percent wool and 20 percent nylon. Carpets made with continuous yarn are most suitable, which limits the number of colors usually to five, but many carpets are plain. Tufted carpets are set into a backing and then secured by latex. Cord carpets are cheaper and have a rigid appearance; they are often extremely hard-wearing. Needle loom is also inexpensive and tough utilizing synthetic and vegetable fibers enmeshed in an acrylic backing. Bonded carpets, that is pile glued to a backing, are being developed rapidly and are now available in many varieties and prices. Carpet tiles are also available in a bewildering assortment of materials and colors to get the best out of them; you must change them around regularly. Sisal coir and rush matting is cheap, attractive and very good on cold floors.

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Tiles are at the other extreme tremendously hard wearing and available in a wide range, from glazed or unglazed, ceramic or vitrified in all sorts of colors, shapes, and designs through to the well known plain quarry tile. All types share the disadvantages of being cold and noisy, and their lack of resilience makes them tiring to stand on for long periods. Many of the more traditional types of flooring share these characteristics old brick floors, flag stones, slate. Since they have an unusual quality that is irreplaceable. It’s probably worth preserving them by cleaning and sealing them. If you want softer, warmer floors, cork is hard wearing, a good insulator, resilient and quiet.

The only disadvantages with cork are the possibilities of it fading, or crumbling at the edges. Linoleum is better than it used to be, but there is a great variety in quality the cheapest will give poor service, the thicker and more expensive ones are hardwearing, resilient and warm underfoot. Rubber flooring is very similar synthetic rubber is less inclined to mark and plain colored embossed industrial rubber flooring is now used in homes too. Thermoplastic tiles are inexpensive and tough but rather unyielding and chilly. Vinyl asbestos tiles are more resistant to grease but are easily marked by rubber heels, and can soften if they are too near a heat surface. Though they need accurate laying you can create your own individual combination of colors. Vinyl sheeting is durable, resistant to dirt, quiet and warm.

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Flooring is one of the most expensive decorative items, so you can’t afford to make mistakes. Be practical first, and then make decisions about color, pattern and texture. Being practical involves thinking about various different aspects of your floor covering. What is it going to cover? (It’s not usually a good idea to put ceramic tiles on a wood floor, or a delicate carpet on the stairs). Then ask yourself if it will be easy to put down, or will the cost be increased by the services of an expert? Once down, will it be easy to keep clean? Pale floors look tempting, but if you’ve a young family, they’re probably not wise. It is also essential that you take into consideration the warmth of the floor, its safety, and whether it will be noisy, or tiring to stand on for long periods.

Hard Floors

If you have good floor boards, a cheap way to make them look good is to sand them down then seal or stain them. Floor stain is not only available in the usual woody colors but also in red, blue and green. Plain sealer will bring out the color of the wood, looks excellent and will show off rugs well, but it doesn’t provide insulation. Alternatively you could install a new wooden floor, replacing your old one. Ply wood or chipboard can also be used as a surface covering over old floor boards or can be attached directly on to timber joists; both can also be treated by staining or sealing. Hardboard, too can provide an inexpensive floor covering, and can be sealed, waxed or painted. It isn’t very hard-wearing but could perhaps be a first step when carpets are to be laid later.

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Obviously halls and stairs exist to get us from one room to another, but they can often be a neglected waste of space. First impressions are very important, be it of people or places, and it’s your front hall that gives visitors a first glance at the way you live. So it should be friendly you won’t spend too much time there, it can probably afford to be more unusual than other areas. Often the hall is one of the best places to show off large collections of things hanging on the wall, or for a really large painting that won’t fit anywhere else, or for bookshelves. Of course you shouldn’t have anything that gets in the way; you don’t want to have to edge past bulky items; after all your hall and stairs must be safe thoroughfares. Most halls will need a fairly tough and washable wall surface.

Though you could opt for a more dramatic color scheme than you could live with elsewhere, your hall should blend well decoratively with all the rooms leading off it or it will jar with the others when you leave doors open. A strong focal point at the end of a long hall will appear to shorten it. A wall paper with a light background and a very widely spaced pattern will add spaciousness. You will need something hard-wearing and easy to clean on the floor; even in the quietest household in town, it will get relatively dirty. You may also feel you need good sound insulation against the thunder of feet. One type of good economic carpet is a synthetic needle loom, one that is non-woven and has quality hair cords. If you are carpeting stairs, avoid vegetable fibers as they are rather slippery, and make sure that whatever you use is very well tacked down. Also avoid slipper rugs on polished floors.

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