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Go into most people’s bathrooms (and my bathroom comes into this category unfortunately) you will find plastic bottles of all shapes and sizes crowded around the sides of the bath and on shelves. Shampoos, conditioners, bath gels and oils, talc etc not to mention various exfoliants, loofahs and sponges. And you can practically guarantee that many of them will be practically empty. So you can start off decorating your bathroom by making some space which will then let the chi energy flow more freely. Be ruthless! If you are a hoarder it might be difficult for you at first but follow this rule of thumb – if it hasn’t been used for 3 months, the chances are that you are not going to use it so out it goes! But remember to be “green” – use the plastic recycling bin and give your bottles another lease of life.

Now let’s take a look at the cupboard contents. The one under the sink should contain the bathroom cleaning products. Don’t forget safety rules though – if there are babies or toddlers in the house and you can’t lock the cupboard, put them up somewhere higher, out of reach. The reason to have the cleaning products close at hand is because you can clean up any spills or stains such as toothpaste on the mirror. You will have no excuse for not having an immaculate bathroom at all times.

Mirrors should be spotless: they should sparkle and reflect the light. A shelf underneath is a good idea especially if it is a glass one. These are easier to clean and give more of a sense of space. Also they match all décors. You can leave all the things there you need on a daily basis such as toothbrushes and toothpaste, make up remover, shaving cream and so on. But, after use, put the caps back on to keep to that sense of order and tidiness.

Make sure that your bathroom is well ventilated to stop the build up of potentially health threatening mould. Leave the door and the window open and pull the shower curtain right across so that it can dry properly. If you are unlucky and there is no window put a fan heater at the entrance and let the hot air run into the room for a while.

Your bathroom should be well lit especially if there is not a lot of natural light. If you only have a light in the centre of the ceiling try adding a couple of spotlights over the mirror as well. This will help the ladies with their make up and the gentlemen with their shaving. A poorly lit room makes you want to leave quickly, to spend as little time as possible there. A bathroom is not just for your daily ablutions; what you should aim for is a haven of peace and tranquillity where you want to spend a lot of me time to escape the trials and tribulations of daily life.

Simple Tips to Decorate Your House for Christmas

Make Christmas a special time for you and your guests by decorating your house in a special and unique way

Christmas is a special time for everyone. Furthermore, many people decorate for Christmas and go around the neighborhoods around Christmas time to admire how other houses are decorated for the holidays.

There are many things to take into consideration in decorating your home and yard for Christmas. There are many different types of holiday lights that you can buy for both inside and outside. The trick is how to decorate your home inside and out and make it stunning and the talk of the neighborhood as well as making your home a cozy place full of holiday spirit for your family and friends.

Lighting is very important for the Holidays. Usually when people tour the neighborhoods at Christmas time is during the evening, when it is nice and dark and the holiday lights are on bright display. You can have a lot of Christmas lights on your house, and it looks nice, but you want it to look nice, not gaudy.

For example, if you have a nice suburban home, you want the lighting to look neat and beautiful, not like the trailer park where everything just slopped together. Different types of lighting for outside use and how they should be displayed are listed below.

1. Chaser lights can be some awesome lighting but if use too much, these lights can be very annoying. Chaser lights are lights that blink on and off in a chasing type of motion. Many chaser lights are controlled by a special control box that is attached to the strand near the plug. This control box can control how the chaser lights function and the speed of the lights.

2. Sparkling lights are also chaser lights. If you buy a strand of chaser lights, you look at the control box and you will see different modes for the chaser lights. Sparkling lights are chaser lights that are in slow mode. Sparkling lights have a much better effect than chasers do. When you have chasers running in the fastest mode possible, it can drive some people nuts, but on the other hand, other people like those kinds of lights.

3. Colored lights versus white lights is probably one of the thoughts that comes to mind when deciding what types of Christmas lights you want to install for the holidays. Both are great, but where to place them is the question. Chaser lights work best when they are multi-colored.

If you choose to place chaser lights on your home in fast mode, the best place would be either on the roofline of your house or along your fence line on the front end of your property. Never use chaser lights together with icicle lights. That just does not look good. You can also buy chaser lights that are all white or another particular color.

If you choose to use the sparkle mode and want to have sparkling lights in your yard, you should use white lights. White sparkling lights look great on your evergreens and bare bushes that have a neat look in the wintertime, such as a crooked man bush. White sparkling lights have a special effect when there is a lot of snow.

4. Icicle lights are special light strands that have wires with the lights dangling down from the roofline giving the icicle effect. These lights are very beautiful on the rooflines and gables of your house. The key to make icicle lights look good is use only white icicle lights. Lately, there are many icicle lights that come in different colors, but for these lights, white is best to resemble the natural color of the icicles.

5. Colored lights can also be used outside in the yard. The best place for colored lights outside is on your pine trees. If you have tall fir trees that have that traditional Christmas tree shape, colored lights are the best. They will turn those fir trees and spruces that you have in your yard into outside Christmas trees.

6. Special shaped lights of all kinds of shapes and sizes are also available at most of your major stores around the Holidays. Some of these lights can be great accent lights in your yard. One of the favorites is the ball or star lights. These are large balls that are sometimes shaped as round stars or spheres that hang from their power cord. These lights are great to hang from some of your landscape trees in your front yard. These lights will look like glowing Christmas tree balls.

7. Flood and spot lights can also be used to shine on certain yard decorations such as Nativity scenes.

8. White reindeer lights are also beautiful decorations. However, if you live in the woods, you should find some sticks and a small piece of a large tree trunk and parts of a tree root. With these ingredients, you can make your own natural looking reindeer and wrap them with white Christmas lights that have green wire. This can be a wonderful accent to your yard at Christmas time.

Choosing your Christmas tree

You are done decorating your yard and Thanksgiving weekend is here. It’s the traditional time to get the Christmas tree in the United States. There are many places that sell both live and artificial Christmas trees.

Though you might prefer a live tree, there are many artificial trees available that look like the real thing and mimic the various different varieties of Christmas tree breeds from balsam firs to the Scotch pine. If you do choose to go with a real Christmas tree, some of the things to check are:

1. Look at several trees before making your selection. Check and make sure the tree is healthy and will last throughout the entire holiday season. Avoid buying a live Christmas tree from a big-box store unless it is a live tree that is in a pot. Cut trees may not be kept in water and be already dry and loosing needles.

2. Shake the tree before choosing it. Shaking the tree is a good way to test it and make sure that it does not lose any needles. If a tree looses needles, do not buy it. The best tree to buy is a Frazier fir. These trees last the longest when indoors.

3. Keep water in the stand. Most cut trees sold at Christmas tree places are usually kept outside and in a cold climate, so they will not dry out as fast out in the cold as they would inside where there is dry warmth. The water will keep the Christmas tree moist and prevent it from drying out until the Holidays are over.

4. Do not leave Christmas lights on the tree on when you are not home or when you cannot see the tree. Remember, that live evergreens can be highly flammable when kept in a warm and dry environment. If you like to have your Christmas tree lights on a timer, you are better off buying an artificial tree that is required by law to be made from fire-retardant materials.

Christmas tree lights and other lights for inside

There is a wide variety of Christmas tree lights available for everyone’s taste. You can get lights that can be shaped as Christmas tree ornaments or candles, etc. Some of the more beautiful lights to get for your Christmas tree are:

1. Bubble lights are an American Christmas classic. Bubble lights are lights that have a special light bulb that fits into a C-7 light socket. The actual light bulb is in a cup and has a glass tube with different colored petroleum-based fluids which bubble when they get hot. This can create some wonderful effects.

These lights have been popular in the United States since the 1940s and 1950s. This is a great choice for those of you who like the classic style. A warning about these lights though. Take special care not to break them and keep children away from them.

The fluid that bubbles is highly toxic. If one of those bulbs does break, immediately discard any clothing that the fluid comes into contact and wash the area of the break very well.

2. Candle lights are another popular Christmas light and another excellent choice for those of you who like the classic Christmas look. You can get Christmas tree lights that have candles on strands which can be clamped to the branches of your Christmas tree.

There are also candle lights that are made to be placed at the window. These larger candle lights for the windows take a regular C-7 bulb. You can also give your indoor window lights that extra pizzazz when you get a spare bubble light bulb to screw into the window candle light.

Imagine the look of C-7 candle lights at the windows with the extra bubble light. This can make your house the talk of the neighborhood during Christmas time.

3. Chaser and sparkling lights can also be used inside as well as outside for lighting. On the Christmas tree, sparkling lights are the best and can give your Christmas tree that sparkling look.

Ornaments

Ornaments are a must for any Christmas tree. Ornaments come in all different shapes, colors, sizes, and made from different kinds of materials. Some ornaments can be family memorabilia, whereas others can be glass and plastic or wood.

1. Glass ornaments are the classic. There are many small curio shops and import shops throughout the United States that sell glass ornaments that are hand-made in several eastern European countries such as Poland, Romania and the former republics of the Soviet Union.

Some of these glass ornaments are not your typical balls. Many of them are elliptical shapes. Others are decorated with glitter and some are done in the shapes of pine cones and other things that have to do with the Christmas motif. Most of these imported glass ornaments are hand-blown and the glass has different mineral additives to give off the color.

2. Straw ornaments are another wonderful addition to your Christmas tree decorations. Straw ornaments are traditionally made in Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, Russia and Georgia. Each country has its own style and these are also handmade and are very beautiful.

3. Figurines are an American classic. You can get all kinds of Christmas figurines that are made for the Christmas tree. Some of these figurines are of the familiar Christmas characters such as Santa Clause, elves, nut crackers and tin soldiers. You can get figurine ornaments from other countries as well. Russian imported ornaments that are made from wood and painted to look like traditional men and women in ethnic dress are very beautiful.

Other unique decorations

If you are the multicultural type, look for different decorations to buy or even try your hand at making your own decorations. One nice decoration is the Georgian Chichilaki. The Chichilaki looks like a white Christmas tree and really stands out.

How to make the Georgian Chichilaki

1. Take a wooden rod which is made of a wood that can be carved thinly and the shavings are long.

2. Carefully carve the rod with a sharp knife to make sure the shavings do not come apart. Do not carve the shavings all the way to the end of the rod. When you carve the rod enough that the shavings start to fill out and form the shape of a Christmas tree, take a small flat piece of wood to affix to the bottom of the Chichilaki with a small nail and glue.

3. Get some green ivy leaves and winter berries and carefully glue them to the shavings. You can also find some seed pods from flowers outside.

Another unique decoration is the German advent wreath. This is very simple to do.

All you need to do is to cut some evergreen branches and place them on a round tray in a wreath form. Decorate the wreath with four red candles that are tapered to be smaller at the top. Light the first candle at the fourth to last Sunday before Christmas, then the following Sunday the second, you get the picture. Then by Christmas Eve, all four candles are to be lit.

There are many more ideas that you can come up with to decorate for Christmas. If you are creative and artistic, the sky is the limit and you can have your place uniquely decorated for Christmas.

The trends of today have changed immensely over recent years in regards to home design and interior decoration. Our ideas and expressions have taken a more grandeur approach combined with the realms of futuristic and modern elegance all encompassed around a vision of enhancing our homes to impress our friends and family.

Conversation and words have the ability to trigger certain images within our minds, especially when it is focused on furnishing the home with modern furniture and fixtures. We all have our own individual tastes when we think towards certain rooms and their appearance. The latest designs to spark our imaginations are more around chrome’s combined with black leather furniture, whereas other people will think of transforming their living room in a more subtle manor represented by the sectional based sofa around a glass coffee table. The more modern appeal of black leather and chrome has a detrimental charm through the introduction of imagination mixed with passion. However our desire for modern charm is usually contained within only a couple of rooms within the house. The dining room has always taken a turn towards the traditional charm with the introduction of antique dining tables and chairs.

Many of us try to emulate the fashions portrayed throughout magazines and television and are forever trying to express the tastes of the many rather than the individual. However fashions constantly change and are all based around the ideas of inspiring our imagination. Utilising your own ambitions and creating your very own style within the rooms of your home will enable you to express your own individuality and personality. Warm shades of colour used in the correct contrast will illuminate our homes providing a warm and tranquil feel, whereas the use of lighter blues will give off a more chilling effect leaving a cold lifeless feel to the room.

The use of modern furniture adds to the overall effect giving character and adding life making the interior blend with the surroundings. The days when we were accustomed to the same old, same old feel to furniture has long gone. The inspirational designs now introduced in to the sofa have an ability to transform the entire room. Furniture manufacturers have given us the ability to enhance our living space by offering sofas that can be positioned in to a multitude of shapes giving us a unique satisfaction of creating your very own desired appeal. The modern furniture of today is all about the imagination, so combinations of shapes fulfil our overall need for expression.

Platinum Taps & Bathrooms offers a complete array of modern and futuristic furnishings for the home with a large selection of bathroom furniture and much more at discounted prices.

A wall sconce for the bathroom, or more traditionally a pair of them, might be based on the styles of the bathroom mirror and vanity. On the other hand, the styles may be so different that the sight of a contemporary pair of wall sconces beside a Victorian vanity and mirror delivers a little pop of surprise and delight. Such a set up has to be done with care, and the wall sconce has to complement something else in the room, perhaps a modern wet room with chrome fixtures, or a ceramic tile floor with an Art Deco pattern. There are ways to make even the most unlikely elements in a bathroom work in harmony.

A small bathroom might have a small and simple vanity with a very ornate mirror with a carved wooden frame painted in gold leaf. The walls are faced with pale ceramic tiles and in this case a single wall sconce with a bracket made of oil rubbed nickel and a simple, frosted glass shade is put above it. The frosted glass shade echoes the white of the vanity, and the dark metal of the sconce’s base contrasts with the bright gold of the mirror frame.

In another bathroom, a similar mirror has been hung above a traditional porcelain topped vanity with a built in, three mount sink with polished brass spigot and handles. This mirror also has an ornate frame but the wood, carved into knots of fruit and acanthus leaves, is painted ivory. The wall sconces have escutcheons painted the same color as the mirror frame, and the incandescent bulbs have silk shades edged with tiny white pompoms and braid.

In another small bathroom whose walls are faced with traditional tile, the vanity has a pretty ivory and yellow skirt. The mirror is the front of a medicine chest and is acid etched with sheaves of wheat at the top. The wall sconce beside it is made of chrome with a milk glass, bell shaped shade over a single 100 watt bulb.

A tiny, very modernistic bathroom has a long vanity with two sinks whose top is made of what looks like plexiglas. Above it hangs a simple, frameless round mirror. The wall sconces are actually on the adjacent wall and look like two portholes, one placed right above the other.

In a large bathroom, a gorgeous vanity has beautiful, teak wood drawers and cabinets beneath and a top made out of gray and white Botticino classico marble. Two mirrors, also framed in teak, are mounted above two sinks. Between the two mirrors is a wall sconce that drips with crystal chains, balls and almonds like a tiny, three armed chandelier.

One bathroom has a simple vanity made of white porcelain and above it a square, mahogany framed mirror. The sconces beside it are in the form of two neon tube lights which give off a pretty, sunrise glow that complements the bathroom’s other clean lines.

These are a few of the many ways to combine a wall sconce or two with a vanity and mirror.

If you’re planning to give your home a new color this season, you will be happy to know that now you can buy world-class paints in India. Many Indian paint companies are now offering international quality paints for homes. All you have to do is to make a comprehensive research on different types of home paint and colors. This research will definitely help you in making a good paint choice. These next generation paints are developed using state-of-the-art manufacturing technology so that you can paint your home in your desired way. Now with the help of internet you can easily search through a wide range of paint options.

The very first thing you have to do is to analyze the walls of your home. How much you will require? What will be the total budget? How will you paint? Do you have any contact to a good color contractor? Do you have an updated color book? What are your color preferences? What will be the finish? Will your family members involve in selecting a home paint? These questions must be answered before you buy a particular type of home paint for your home.

I will recommend using internet services for all your queries. There are so many paint tools and calculators available online so that you can easily get your home painted with lesser worries. By using these tools online you will get the answers right sitting on your couch. You can browse through a wide range of paint options in terms of paint finish and color. Internet has made everything so easy that even a child can do home painting. You can visit a virtual room and paint it in your own way. This way you will get an idea on how your room will look after being painted.

Choosing a home paint is not an easy task and you must consider the decision of other family members before closing the deal. Choose a paint that matches best with the surroundings and interiors of your home. Do not paint the interior and exterior of your home with the same paint. They are two different things and need to be treated separately. By carefully looking at all the available options you can make a good choice eventually. There is no professionalism required in conducting your research and you can do it in your own way at your availability. The onset of advanced internet technologies has made it really for people to paint their homes easily.

Looking for a high quality home paint and various colour combinations? With an employee strength of about 900, AkzoNobel India’s manufacturing sites, business and sales offices and distribution network span the length and breadth of the country.

Decorative pillows, sometimes called throw pillows, can add the finishing touches to a room makeover or breathe a new life into any room in your house. There are many styles and sizes of decorative pillows available on the market today. As with any home accent, decorative pillows have their own dos and don’ts.

It is important that you pick the best style of pillow for the room you are decorating. If you have a sleek and modern couch, don’t match it with a decorative pillow covered in fringe. The pillows shouldn’t be bland, either. Colors and patterns that either blend with the furniture or stand out in contrast are the better choices. Don’t be afraid of pattern and texture! Using designer pillows with pictures and patterns can be an excellent way to add some fun and interest to your room. But be careful not to go overboard with the patterned pillows. Too many fabrics and colors can come across as being too busy.

Another aspect to consider is the size of your furniture. If you have a large sofa, you will probably want larger pillows. If you have a small sofa, small pillows are probably better. Using the wrong size pillows in your decoration can make your furniture look odd and misshapen. And remember to keep the embellishments on your pillows to a minimum. Beads can be fun, but they can also be uncomfortable. Since pillows are provided for comfort and beads can scratch skin, it’s best to not use too many.

This may seem like a lot to consider, but remember: decorative pillows are supposed to add fun and spice to your interior design! Have fun with them and pick out pillows that represent your personal style. Not all throw pillows are solid colors, either. Some designer pillows on the market today sport beautiful paintings or photographs. These pillows can complement the decoration of any room in your house and will add a finishing touch to your design.

Perhaps you want to design a room in your house to feel like a beach retreat, even though you live nowhere near the ocean. Maybe you just purchased a beach house and are looking forward to decorating it with nautical home accessories. Adding seaside pillows to this room will add a sense of beauty and tranquility and will compete your design.

When it comes time to purchase your decorative pillows, you will want to consider the origins of your pillows. Some decorative pillow companies are run by large corporations, but others are run by artists out of their own homes. Each designer pillows sold by Rowe Boat Art is a linen printing of one of Robin Rowe’s original paintings. Whether you choose to purchase the rustic 3 Row Boats or the peaceful Cows And Buttercups, you can be sure the beautiful picture on the pillow originated as a painting. Each painting has been printed on linen and placed around comfortable, down-blend pillows. Each pillow is made in the USA.

Robin Rowe has owned and operated her own high-end ribbon company and was known internationally for her needlepoint designs. All of her custom pieces are created in her home studio. Rowe Boat Art offers high quality photography prints, original paintings, giclees, and beautiful designer pillows. Each designer pillow from Rowe Boat Art are proudly made in the USA. All are available online.