Archives for June 2014

How to Pick Out a Coffee Table

June 30, 2014 By EmmanuelFonte Leave a Comment

Assure a great fit for your room and your lifestyle by considering a coffee table’s size, features and aesthetic

coffee table does a lot of work. It needs to hold books, magazines, drinks, food — even games on game night. You might want to put your feet up on it, or the kids might need a place for coloring. Plus it’s usually smack dab in the middle of the room, where you can’t miss it — so make sure it’s a good one.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when you’re picking a coffee table.

How to Pick Out a Coffee Table

Filed Under: Blog, Furniture

Save on Energy: Plant a Tree

June 29, 2014 By EmmanuelFonte Leave a Comment

As air conditioning season rolls into parts of the country that couldn’t stand the cold not that long ago, home owners are ready to find new ways to save on their energy bills. Energy.gov provides a handy infographic with a variety of techniques that you can pass along to people who want to stay comfortable on the cheap.

Top among the site’s recommendations is to landscape for shade: A landscape can reduce air conditioning costs by as much as 50 percent. Neighborhoods with plenty of trees can see daytime temperatures of 6 degrees less than treeless areas, too.

Shrubs and ground cover can cool air before it reaches the house, providing an even bigger break on bills.

Landscapes can also be designed to conserve water. Group plants with similar water requirements together, raise your lawn mower’s cutting height, and water in the early morning to keep water from evaporating in the heat.

A landscape designed with these and other tips in mind can pay for itself in less than eight years, according to energy.gov.

Source: “Slash Your Energy Bill With Smart Landscaping,” Lifehacker.com (May 27, 2014)

Filed Under: Blog, Home Care

PLAYBULB: Bluetooth Speaker Smart LED Light Bulb

June 28, 2014 By EmmanuelFonte Leave a Comment

MIPOW PLAYBULB™ Bluetooth Speaker Smart LED Light Bulb.

It is a LED light bulb, not only with traditional bulb shape, but also can absolutely replace the traditional one. It is more energy saving and durable, suitable for most standard E27 lamp socket.

But rather than only a LED light bulb, it is also a Bluetooth speaker.

It uses the newest low energy Bluetooth V4.0 to achieve real time data transmission for smooth music listening.

So it’s can communicate with most Bluetooth devices for music playback. And Bluetooth Smart Ready devices for light control.

Currently we have the iOS App developed for the Apple devices and developing the Android App. Once paired with your iPhone, iPod or iPad, lighting and music are under your control.

More info : http://www.playbulbs.com/ http://www.mipow.com/

Filed Under: Appliances, Blog, Technology

Bath of the Week: Black, White and Classic, With Some Twists

June 27, 2014 By EmmanuelFonte Leave a Comment

Black trim and tile keep an otherwise snowy bathroom in a 1910 home from feeling sleepy

Architect Jason Urrutia takes pride in his firm’s grasp on tradition. “We lean toward classic without being boring or old school,” he says. “We embrace elements that time has tested and give them our own creative twist.”

That thinking drove the design of this bathroom and closet in the master suite of a 1910 home in Sausalito, California. “A white bathroom is traditional,” Urrutia says. “But to keep it from being sleepy, you need to wake it up.” The bugle call for these rooms comes in the form of strong ebony elements.

Bath of the Week: Black, White and Classic, With Some Twists

Filed Under: Blog, Economy, Home Care, Home Remodel

How to Choose a Front Door Color

June 26, 2014 By EmmanuelFonte Leave a Comment

If choosing a door paint isn’t an open-and-shut case for you, here’s help

Don’t let your home blend into the background — even if you’re not in the market for changing your exterior color scheme, a new coat of paint on your front door could be just the makeover your home needs.

Use our color guides to each color to learn which hue, from unexpected purple to bright yellow to elegant black, will work well on your exterior door.

How to Choose a Front Door Color

Filed Under: Architecture, Blog

Modular Room Design Transforms Interior Spaces

June 25, 2014 By EmmanuelFonte Leave a Comment

Starting as a compact cubic room-within-a-room, this unique modular furniture system opens up in a variety of ways to transform the space from a living room to an office to a bedroom for one or two. Three mobile modules, each with a bench of cushions and open ‘walls,’ can be hooked together or separated and rolled around a given space.

The Cube was created by Russian architecture firm Ruetemple to make a small space more functional for a brother and sister. Each of the three sections has built-in storage beneath the benches and an overhang that creates a roof when they’re pushed together.

Read more: http://dornob.com/rolling-modular-room-design-transforms-interior-spaces/#ixzz35DV01p6E

Filed Under: Architecture, Blog, Home Remodel

20 Creative Kitchen Islands

June 24, 2014 By EmmanuelFonte Leave a Comment

Nixing ready made for readily imaginative, these homeowners fashioned kitchen islands after their own hearts

For the My Houzz series, we visit and photograph creative, personality-filled homes and the people who live there. Sometimes working with professionals but most of the time going strictly the DIY route, these residents take clever and unexpected approaches to home design.

The heart of many of these homes is the kitchen, of course. And the heart of the kitchen is often the island. Whether using reclaimed materials from their own construction sites, refashioning vintage furniture or discovering clever Ikea hacks, the My Houzz homeowners we’ve featured have built their islands to suit very individual lifestyles and tastes. Here are 20 great examples.

The Best of My Houzz: 20 Creative Kitchen Islands

Filed Under: Appliances, Architecture, Blog, Home Remodel

The Ark in the Park: Peaceful Green-Roofed Floating Home

June 23, 2014 By EmmanuelFonte Leave a Comment

There is a certain type of mental connection that we tend to make when we hear the word “houseboat.” Some think of the lovely but necessarily narrow canal boats you find in the UK; others think of the rough-but-romantic behemoths of the west coast of the US. The ParkArk in Utrecht, Netherlands – from Rotterdam-based BYTR Architects – is an entirely different species of floating homes.

Filed Under: Architecture, Blog

How to Make a Top-Down, Bottom-Up Window Shade

June 22, 2014 By EmmanuelFonte Leave a Comment

Block light and control privacy high or low with a no-frills magnetic covering you can whip up for less than $30

Since I deal with privacy issues in my high-density neighborhood, I always coveted the costly window treatments that open from the top portion of the window as well as the bottom portion. So I decided to make one for myself. I was pleasantly surprised by the results — and the less-than-$30 cost. Here’s how you can create your own window panel.

How to Make a Top-Down, Bottom-Up Window Shade

Filed Under: Blog, Home Care, Home Remodel