Home Decoration

The kitchen is the one room where members of a family can be found eating, working on homework, talking on the phone or just hanging out with friends. The kitchen has always been the nerve center of the household, and never has the kitchen’s central role been more important than it is today. As the centerpiece of the home, there are some interesting alternatives for kitchen that go well beyond the norm. Our kitchen section contains a variety of home improvement options available to homeowners as well as advice on how to keep the busiest place in the house clean.An Introduction to Dismantling
If your remodeling job is at all extensive, you will need to set up a temporary kitchen in another part of the house. The location should be convenient and have access to water, allow you to keep foods cold and heat up meals. Sometimes portable appliances like a crock pot, electric frying pan and a microwave work best for this temporary arrangement if you are replacing your old appliances.

Most Common Mistakes:
Damaging the wall as you remove old cabinets,
Damaging counters, cabinets or floors you plan to reuse,
Not shutting off utilities before beginning work,
Getting dust and debris in adjoining rooms, and
Not estimating or allowing for enough time to remodel.

Before You Start
Box up everything that will not be used in your temporary kitchen. Label the boxes and store them out of the way.
Remove anything that isn’t nailed or screwed down. This includes drawers, lazy susan’s, spice racks, wall clocks, ornaments, etc. Place a protective cover over anything that must remain in place while you work.

Make arrangements for the removal of any refuse that may accumulate during the remodeling. if you must rent a dumpster, do so in plenty of time or have a pick up truck on hand for hauling the rubbish to the dump. if you plan to salvage the old cabinetry for a workshop or donation to a charitable cause, have a place ready for them to go as you take them out of your work area.

Before removing any major appliances, turn off all utilities. This can be done at the individual shut off valves for gas and water. If there are no shut off valves, you will have to turn off the main valve*. The main gas valve is usually located near the gas meter. Remember that, once you turn off the gas to the whole house, ALL pilot lights will have to be relit before they will work again. Without careful planning you may find yourself without hot water when you’re ready to clean up after a hard day’s work.

Disconnect uses or turn off circuits to the area in which you will be working. In older homes, the wiring may have been modified over the years and it may not be clear which circuits or fuses control specific areas. If you are unsure, turn off the main power or get professional assistance. Never take a chance with electricity! In addition, tape over the breakers so the won’t be turned on inadvertently. If you plan on upgrading your electrical system and adding new outlets and fixtures, it will be necessary to dismantle all existing outlets and fixtures.

Remove all light bulbs. Then, dismantle each fixture by using a screwdriver to unscrew the plate and the receptacle and pull the receptacle out of the box. Put wire nuts on any exposed wires for the interim. The bare copper wire is the ground and does not need to be capped.

What You Need:

• Wardrobe mirror
• Pine frame to surround the mirror
• Composition ornaments
• Satin latex paint: black and white
• Oak stain (we used MinWax brand Aged Oak gel stain)
• Household paintbrush: 2-inch
• 150-grit sandpaper
• Tack cloth
• Lint-free cotton rag
• Satin-finish varnish
• Find step-by-step project instructions below.Referring to the Architectural Plaques directions on the following pages, apply the composition ornaments to the pine frame. Let the ornaments dry.

  Paint the frame white. Let the paint dry.

  Paint the frame black. Let the paint dry.

  Lightly sand the frame. Remove the sanding dust with a tack cloth.

  Apply stain to the frame and immediately remove with a rag. Let the stain dry.

  Apply two coats of varnish, allowing drying time between the coats.

  Affix the frame to the mirror with adhesive or nails, depending on your mirror style. (We had to remove the manufacturer’s frame on our mirror.)

  Architectural Plaques
  What You Need:
  

• Ten 8×10-inch pine panels
• Composition ornaments: moldings and medallions
• White spray paint
• Plaid FolkArt Acrylic Paint: Blue Sapphire #656
• Artist’s brushes: #6 round, 1-inch flat
• Oak stain (we used MinWax brand Aged Oak gel stain)
• Lint-free cotton rag
• Satin-finish varnish
• Find step-by-step project instructions below.Instructions:

  To adhere the composition ornaments to each panel and border, steam the back of each ornament over a pan of boiling water or in front of a hand-held clothes steamer. Grasp the edge of an ornament with pliers and carefully hold the ornament in front of the steam for 15-30 seconds, or until the ornament becomes pliable.

  Press the ornament to the surface of the wood, positioning the pieces. The ornament will dry quickly and be permanently adhered.

  Spray-paint the panels with white. Let dry.

  Paint the background of each plaque with a round brush and Blue Sapphire. Let the paint dry.

  Apply stain to the panel with a 1-inch brush; immediately wipe off stain with a clean rag, allowing color to settle into the indentations to highlight the relief. Let dry.

  Apply two coats of varnish, allowing drying time between the coats.

A passion for antiques produces a dining room brimming with vintage furniture and collectibles for every eye to savor.

A decorating style created with golden oldies can be learned. This cottage dining room, with warm antiques presented in an orderly, edited manner, serves as an ideal template for acquiring the knack.

Scale is important in drawing attention to vintage furniture. The homeowners avoided a lot of small furnishings, which create a cluttered look. Instead, they selected large-scale furniture pieces, particularly a harvest-size table and a tall cupboard, that command attention.The pieces aren’t fussy, either; their simple lines make mixing easy. The American Empire dining table (a real find at $200 from an antique shop’s basement) doesn’t require a banquet of same-style chairs. Painted black, Hitchcock chairs — American classics — are right at home with the straightforward look of the table.

A white-painted cupboard adds focal-point interest while tidily organizing a display of antique pottery. Walls disappear beneath creamy white paint, allowing attention to fall on the furnishings. The only art is a pair of vintage prints symmetrically balanced on either side of the cupboard.

Tabletops present an opportunity in design to complement or contrast the mood of the room. The casual feel created by the country cupboard and its pottery display is dispelled at the dining table.

Here, quiet elegance reigns. The mood is established by the centerpiece — a traditional bouquet of roses in a tall crystal vase.

Crystal candlesticks enhance the formality of the centerpiece. (Note: Opaque, earthy potteries are avoided when a formal elegance is desired. Glistening silver and glass are favored.) Completing the look are the place settings of bone china, sterling silver flatware, and emerald goblets.

Thorough cleaning of home can be quite a daunting and tiring task and it is always best to have a rough plan in mind, if your don’t want to waste any efforts and time in the process or miss ‘the’ spot while doing all the hard work on your own. Here are some practical suggestions from us that you will find useful:

• An appropriate cleaner for the job is a great help while cleaning. Try to use the least abrasive ones at first as abrasive ones may damage porcelain toilet bowls and scrubbing too hard may cause grooves that become difficult to clean later. Make sure to follow the manufacturer’s instructions while using abrasive cleaners for your safety.
• Before trying to get into corners and worry about details, it is best to start with what you can see at first.
• Clean from top to bottom, so that when you dust the edge of the ceilings and bookcases and it settles on the floor, you do not have to clean it again. Floor should be swept last.
• Follow a system of cleaning left to right or vice-versa so you can be sure that you don’t miss anything.
• Keep a big box and a trash bag close at hand. All the small items that you may find while cleaning and would like to keep can be kept in the box while all things that are now useless to you can be dumped into the trash bag.
• Make sure that you keep your cleaning supplies in the cabinets that get locked automatically and out of reach of your children and pets, as it can be injurious to their health, if ingested.
• While rags are most common choice for dusting, vacuum cleaners today come with appendages that can reach into the tightest corners, ceiling edges, fans and window sills and suck all the dust in.