Architecture & Web Art

Archive for the ‘DIY’ Category

In many homes, the porch is the first thing a visitor notices when pulling into your driveway. If your porch is run-down or shabby, with chipping paint or torn screens, it reflects poorly on your entire home. Make your home look beautiful inside and out by overhauling your porch. A porch renovation project can be time consuming, but careful planning and construction strategies will make your new porch an attractive part of your home. After completing your new porch, adding some casual patio furniture and potted plants will make it a relaxing, inviting space.

Plan Your New Porch

Never begin a home improvement project without a detailed plan. Before stripping paint from your porch or tearing down the railings, think strategically about what you want the final product to look like. Think about how you typically use your porch. Do you like to gather with a group to have a drink in the evening or is your porch a private reading sanctuary? These considerations will affect the size of your porch, its style, how many electrical outlets you need and how you decorate the space.

For many, spring is a time of great excitement, renewal and promise of warmer weather and greengrass. For others, the word “spring” strikes fear into their hearts, because of another word that is forever combined with it:  cleaning. Over the winter clutter accumulates, the floor under couches and beds have been invaded by hoards of dust bunnies and your fridge begins to emit a strange odor. Instead of dreading this chore, create a room-by-room game plan to ensure this year’s spring cleaning is less daunting. The experience might even be an enjoyable one.

Create a Plan of Attack

Any good general knows that you cannot march onto the field of battle without a well-planned attack and arsenal. Be realistic when planning this year’s spring cleaning. Don’t assume that your busy schedule will allow you to finish the job in a single day, or even a weekend. Plan to thoroughly clean one room a day or weekend. Also, it’s critical to enlist your family members to help with process. After all, they helped make the mess, so it’s only fair they help clean it up.

If you’re ready to build your own pool hall, you’re in good company. For over 500 years, royalty and commoners alike have enjoyed the game of billiards. The game originated in France in the 1400s and was played outdoors like croquet. Over time, the game grew in popularity throughout Europe, and carpenters built tables specifically designed for billiards.

Before you join historical greats like King Louis XVI and Mark Twain with your own in-home pool hall, consider whether you should build your own table or browse new or used pool tables for sale. Choose a traditional design or customize your table with a unique design and unusual materials. With your table in place, decorate your basement or den to reflect your personality.

Build your own Table

This is a guest post from Pete. Pete Wise is a content developer and white-hat SEO Jedi. This article was written for Discount Decorating Online who sell deeply discounted wallpaper and wallpaper borders. Follow Pete on twitter:  @MySEOHeadache

Hi, my name is Pete, and I consider myself a bit of a handyman. I feel that projects come together intuitively for me and I can figure out a solution to any project problem.

According to my girlfriend, “being a handyman” means hanging things crooked the first few times, struggling when I don’t have to, and multiple unnecessary holes in the wall. She tries to talk some sense into me every single time, but somehow I manage to forget it all.

Here they are, and since she used to work construction for 4 years, these are tips all DIY-ers, myself included, need to stop ignoring.

Whether you run an internet business, need space to grade papers, or just take your work home with you most nights, you need a place to get your work done. For this reason, many new homes are being constructed with small rooms meant to be used as office space. But for those who already own homes and don’t want to sacrifice a spare bedroom, or don’t have bedrooms to spare, home office space is often wherever there is available table space.

Using the kitchen table as an office has its drawbacks, and if you’d like to reclaim your breakfast space, consider moving your home office to the closest. No, really! You don’t have to waste a whole bedroom and you get to have dinner at the table again without worrying about spills on your laptop.