Emmanuel Fonte | Music | Art | Leadership
If music be the food of love, play on. Emmanuel Fonte website is about music, art, real estate, architecture, design and decor. Occasionally, I talk about my other passion, hockey.
When you work at home, even part time, you discover that a makeshift desk area on a kitchen counter or the dining table isn’t the best setup. Having a dedicated home office, even if it’s compact, makes a big difference in comfort and productivity. Once you’ve chosen a room or area for your home office, here are five must-haves to include in it.
Are you more productive from an office or from your own home? This has been an ongoing debate for some time. Still, there’s something to be said about working from your home.
If you’ve given up on traditional broadcast television, you’ve truly cut the cord. But do you fear that you could be missing out? If so, here’s everything you need to know so you’re still up to date with all the shows you love.
From guest columnist Kaelin Waters kaelinwaters@gmail.com
When it comes to furnishing your home, it can be easy to over-spend or tempting to cut corners to save cash. American’s spend an average of $15,215 on furnishing a three-bedroom home. While it’s fine to try and reduce the cost of creating a comfortable home, there are certain household items you shouldn’t skimp on.
Sofas and Couches
Disposable furniture is bad for the environment and your budget in the long run. Great looking couches at low prices can be enticing, but they are rarely as comfortable as they look. Similarly, second-hand couches can have broken supports, stains and even bed bugs. Ensure you have a comfortable place to relax that won’t hurt your back after a long day at work and invest in a quality couch.
Mattresses
A quality mattress is key to creating the haven of relaxation and comfort that should be your bedroom. While the bedframe can wait, you’ll need a mattress right away and a good one if you care about your health and mental wellbeing.
Quality sleep is integral to your physical and mental health. A poor-quality, cheap mattress won’t give you the rest you need to make the most of your day and enjoy your time off at home. Choosing the right mattress should include consideration of more than just price. A quality mattress should support you while you sleep – relieving pressure on muscles and joints, promoting airflow to keep you cool while you slumber and allow you to move freely without disturbing your partner.
In the Kitchen
How we prepare our food is almost as important as what we choose to eat. Pitted, burnt or flaking non-stick applications to pots and pans are bad for your health. Aluminium, nickel coated and copper cook wear have been associated with a number of health risks resulting from the metal compounds dissolving into food when used for cooking. Worn, pitted and scratched posts and pans are the worst culprits and should be replaced with high quality pans – you’ll have fewer cooking disasters and safeguard your health.
Knives are also worth spending a little more on. Low quality knives are more prone to damage as they often lack the tang that attaches to the handle and have thinner blades that can break when trying to cut through harder foods like pumpkins. Quality knives remain sharper for longer and are far less dangerous when it comes to working it the kitchen.
Keeping Things Clean
The cost of household appliances can vary wildly, and while price sometimes makes minimal difference to quality, there are certain appliances that you’ll be pleased you spent a little more on.
Vacuum cleaners don’t only keep our carpets and floors clean, they also have the ability to affect air quality in our homes, trapping allergens and microbes and stopping them from being released into the air indoors. It’s worth spending a little more on a quality vacuum cleaner to be sure it can do this job properly.
Spending a little more on the dishwasher is likely to get you one that does its job reliably well and even gives you more space to stack dishes after a family meal. What’s more, the higher priced dishwashers are also quieter.
Awaken new style in your room with bedding, seats and more
Learn how to think about light, layout, circulation and views to get the bedroom of your dreamsHave you ever been in a room that just feels right? Nine times out of 10, it’s because it has a simple design that functions well. But creating a simple design is harder than it looks — particularly in bedrooms.
Why? Because every bedroom absolutely has to have a bed in it. And beds are big and ungainly, and dictate the placement of every other object in the room. But if you’re lucky enough to be planning a bedroom from scratch or remodeling an existing bedroom, you can control the other elements and create a space that’s both practical and pretty.
The bedrooms shown here manage that feat with panache. Even if you don’t have a great view, access to the outdoors or plenty of space to work with, the principles they embody and the simplicity they show can inspire your own bedroom design project.
Here are 7 ways clutter can bog you down, and 7 ways you can benefit from declutteringDo you feel burdened by too many belongings? Is your desk piled high with papers, magazines and unpaid bills? If so, clutter may be holding you back from living the life you had envisioned for yourself.
As a professional home organizer, I’ve noticed that for many clients, decluttering provides greater benefits than mere visual appeal — it can relieve stress, improve relationships and more. Read on to learn about seven ways that clutter can hold you back as well as seven ways decluttering can improve your life. These aren’t just abstract concepts — these are all based on the work I’ve done with real people who were once overwhelmed by clutter.
The Tiny Canal Cottage’s Whitney Leigh Morris shares her creative approaches to guests, gifts, decor and moreIf you live in a 362-square-foot cottage with your husband, toddler and two beagles, do you have to gather with the clan around someone else’s table every Thanksgiving and instantly regift everything you get for Christmas? As a mother of three grown children who is thinking about drastically downsizing with the hubby from a suburban house 10 times that size (and crammed with 20 years of memories) to a small city condo, I wanted to know.
So I asked small-space lifestyle blogger and consultant Whitney Leigh Morris — who lives and works in the aforementioned cottage, aka The Tiny Canal Cottage in the Venice area of Los Angeles — how she navigates the holidays with husband Adam Winkleman and their son, West. Her first book, Small Space Style, comes out Nov. 13.
With TV and movie season ramping up and cozy weather coming, here’s what to consider as you pick your perfect couchFootball season kicks into high gear, your favorite shows return for fall sweeps, and chilly weather takes your cocktail party from the patio to the family room. It’s the humble sofa’s time to shine.
“From the very beginning [the sofa] was a synonym of relaxation,” says Agata Toromanoff, author of the new book, Sofas: 340 Iconic Designs.“Just like the preceding piece of furniture, the daybed, sofas allowed positioning the body comfortably and obviously enjoying the company of others who could join you,” she says. “Today, due to our sitting lifestyle, the sofa is, in many homes, the center of family life.”
But when a piece of furniture plays such a vital role in your everyday life, choosing the right one can be daunting. There’s a lot to consider.