RemodDetroit.com

Security is on the mind of the homeowner more and more, with break-ins occurring more frequently. A smart burglar will observe a homeowner’s habits, particularly when the lights go out at night. The proper outdoor lighting can assist in deterring a potential threat, but needs to be well thought out. Outdoor lighting combined with sensitive motion sensors provides a sense of security, especially with a home that has numerous dark corners.

Creating a plan for exterior security lighting is not difficult, but should be thoughtfully considered to avoid blind spots. Motion sensor spots can be mounted anywhere on the house, on posts, in trees, or other structures surrounding the home. They can also be incorporated into landscaping lights to look more natural. It is important to position these lights so that they are not easily reached by an intruder, who will destroy or disable them in an instant. The professional installer will also assist in the correct settings to prevent an over sensitive system that is activated by birds and squirrels.

Smaller homes do not need a vast number of lights to create deterrence, and can benefit from those in the obvious areas – front door, garage, and back door or deck. A larger home with more architectural features often creates blind spots, and should use exterior security lighting near these areas. New construction provides the ability to add breaker switches for hard wired lighting, but there are plenty of options that work off of simple battery packs. The benefits of motion sensor lighting are that they conserve energy by not being on all of the time and that they will surprise and scare away most intruders.

A well designed lighting plan for the exterior of a home will not only consider security, but maintain an aesthetic quality. The home should be accentuated by light that washes its features in a warm tone, without creating a glare inside the house or into the neighbors’ windows. The exterior lighting plan can be wired in conjunction with a home security system for additional protection.

Doorways and windows should be the first areas consider for illumination. A prowler will seek out these areas as easy targets. Lighting these areas will be the first on the list.

A lighting professional can assist in recommending the right product for the exterior of a home. Installing flood lights on a dimmer system allows the homeowner greater control to change the light for different situations. The entire backyard plan should consider the lot’s perimeter in order to create a greater piece of mind. Various types of bulbs are considered based upon their intensity, with the most popular being halogen or incandescent.

Outdoor lighting for security reasons is also a great excuse to provide lighting that shows off landscaping features. Fire pits, water features, and lush plantings can be highlighted with controllable lights that highlight an entire area. This provides extra protection for the homeowner who is outside using these areas at night. In essence, the best of both worlds occur, because the homeowner is given reassurance, and the home and surrounding grounds will be lit in a beautiful way.

Whether you’re seeking the ultimate chandelier, new fixtures for a kitchen remodel, stunning nighttime landscape effects or a complete lighting package to showcase your new home, you will find great tips in our Lighten Up Blog and Videos.

Eric Lebersfeld is an expert at assisting Homeowners, Builders, and Interior designers in selecting the perfect lighting for their homes and projects. We have over 3000 lights on display in our showrooms and over 500,000 on our website http://1800lighting.com. Capitol Lighting provides the most rewarding shopping experience possible allowing our customers to shop on-line or in-store. We have the same guaranteed low internet pricing everyday. We are proud of our 85 year reputation as trustworthy and ethical business partners with both customers and suppliers.

Forget about installing old-fashioned floodlights in the garden when you are having a party. With the variety of choices that are now available, it is worth every penny to invest in some classy outdoor lighting with the help of a specialist or designer.

You may have landscaped your garden but the clumsy looking lights that you have installed look incongruous in your new setting. So it is apt to consider setting up a few inexpensive solutions. It is important to plan the exterior lighting system with the experts and watch the change that transforms your garden or backyard. The lifestyle of the homemakers must be kept in mind while designing the outdoor lighting features.

Techniques you can use

The plants in the garden can be lit up by the means of frontal or bottom lighting. Bottom lighting creates a soft and subtle illuminating effect. On the other hand frontal lighting helps to create a superb effect by focusing on the strongest feature in your garden. Usage of soft green lights in the shrubs makes the foliage look greener.

Landscape lighting would highlight the plants and trees and night. If you happen to have a pond, a set of innovative lights around it can accentuate its beauty.

You can also light up pathways in different styles for your visitors to walk through. Avoid glaring lights which can blind you! Using diffused and dim lights near to the ground or a little bit higher will demarcate the path and make it easier for the guests.

Since green technology is a necessity and in demand these days, you can also make use of lamps powered by solar technology. This requires no wiring and is easy to install. Again, less power is consumed in this regard.

There is no better way to create a quaint and magical effect in your outdoors than with the help of a lantern. Lanterns have an old world charm. They can be used in different ways to highlight the special niches of your outdoors. Hanging lanterns installed over tall porches and entrances look great.

A few outdoor lighting fixtures can do wonders by creating a friendly and warm ambiance. The silhouette of trees and the shadows thrown in the background would bring out a diffused and calm atmosphere. Tones of red or yellow add to the warmth of the evening. These solutions would not demand a big budget. It all depends on how you plan and innovate with the few resources at hand.

Looking for more information on Outdoor Lighting visit http://www.lampsusa.com an online store to buy contemporary and modern home decor accessories for home and office.

If you suffer from low light levels in your bathroom, help is at hand in the form of illuminated bathroom mirrors; all that leaning over the wash basin and squinting as you try to get your mascara in the right place can now be relegated to the past.

In today’s doll-sized houses with squeezed in bathrooms, not everybody has the benefit of natural light flooding into the bathroom, particularly when it comes to en suites. And even if you are lucky enough to have an enormous bathroom with dual aspect windows, you still need to use some sort of lighting illuminate your beauty at night. You don’t need us to tell you that the central ceiling light just isn’t up the job. At the very best this type of light casts unflattering shadows, at the very worst it can make you look as if you’ve died but not lay down yet.

All that functionality aside, illuminated mirrors also provide very relaxing light levels that are ideal for a long relaxing soak in the bath. Like candle light but without the flames.

Choose your lamps wisely and you will remove the perennial problem of steamed up mirrors too – halogen lamps give out enough heat to warm the glass thereby preventing condensation! The halogen light spectrum is also very close to that of natural daylight (although slightly warmer), so your skin tone will look good by this light too. The only downside of tungsten halogen lamps is that they can be quite expensive to run and have a useful life of only 2,000 hours.

So, if costs and energy usage are more important to you than looking pink and rosy, you should perhaps consider fluorescent illuminated mirrors. Modern fluorescent lamps are far removed from their ancestors, gone is the popping and flickering of old. They have a useful life of around 10,000 hours, after which time you’ll need to replace them as the light quality deteriorates. So, in effect, they last five times as long as halogen bulbs.

Because of the way they are made – the lights are placed behind a sheet of mirrored glass that has had some of the silvering removed by sandblasting – illuminated mirrors are easy to clean too. The front of the mirror remains smooth and there are no tiny inaccessible gaps where dust and soap scum can build up.

For those of us whose eyesight isn’t what it once was, you can even get illuminated magnifying shaving mirrors! Whilst it’s impractical to produce large magnifying mirrors due to the processes involved, it’s relatively easy to produce smaller mirrors. And that means no more wearing your mascara as eyeliner because you couldn’t quite see where it was going.

All illuminated mirrors tend to be good-looking, but some are far more than that. Designers have used LED lamps to create some stunning effects, from infinite pinpricks of light to Hollywood glamour.

On reflection, an illuminated bathroom mirror is probably just what you need.

Want to find out more about illuminated mirrors, then visit Duncan Munday’s site on how to choose the best illuminated bathroom mirror for your bathroom including great advice in the regularly updated blog.

Are you expectant parents who don’t want to know whether you’re going to have a boy or a girl? Or, if you know your baby’s gender, would you prefer to create a gender neutral nursery for your new baby and stay away from a “baby girl” or “baby boy” theme? If so, read this article and you will discover some of the best nursery themes that work for your baby, whether it’s a girl or a boy.

The Artistic Theme

Can you visualize your baby’s nursery having an easel in the corner with crayons, pallets, and finger paint beside it? Imagine posters of colorful great works of art hanging on the walls. Whether they’re Manets, Monets, Picassos or Renoirs, these images are sure to ignite a love of beauty in your newborn child.

The Number Theme

Do you want to inspire a love of math in your little boy or girl? Then why not put numbers on the wall and bedding and wooden blocks with numbers, a calculator, an abacus, and a slide rule of the shelves?

The Alphabet Theme

You can inspire a love of reading and writing by stenciling the ABC’s on the walls of your baby’s nursery. Put up shelves and start a library of baby books along with classic literary works. And have baby blocks with the letters of the alphabet for your children to play with as they grow up.

The Travel Theme

If you want a fun theme you can put pictures of exotic animals such as lions, tigers, monkeys and parrots on the walls. Imagine wallpaper that looks like a rainforest with brightly colored flowers and trees. And wouldn’t plush stuffed animals go wonderfully in a nursery like this?

Keep It Basic with a Black and White Theme

Once of the easiest yet most striking nurseries combine black and white furniture against white walls. You can use colorful pillows as accents to stimulate your baby’s curiosity.

The World Traveler Theme

Do you or would you love to travel? Why not inspire the quest for adventure in your youngster by decorating the nursery with globes, maps, and photos of famous landmarks around the world? Imagine the curiosity you can arouse in your children when they see images of the Statue of Liberty, the Great Wall of China, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Eiffel Tower every day.

Hopefully these half a dozen themes have inspired you to visualize the type of environment you would like your baby to grow up in. Your child will be a reflection of his or her experiences. By creating a visually exciting nursery you can help your children be the best they can.

So you have decided to get smart and purchase a duvet cover set but do not have the slightest clue on which one to get. With so many beautiful duvet sets sold today in so many great designs and colors, I can’t blame you. What many people do not understand is that this is not just any typical bed set. It is quite unique. Purchasing the right one can save you plenty of money and headaches. That is why I am here to share with you a few tips that can help you find the perfect one for your bedroom. First you have to know where to purchase one. Online is always the easiest way to buy a duvet set and it can help save you a lot of money. Department stores will not sell the same bed set at the same price unless it has some type of defect. They will always sell a brand new set for a lot more then buying it online. But the decision is up to you.

Next you will need to know exactly what size you are going for. This is not as easy as it sounds. You should always pay close attention to the measurements when purchasing a duvet cover. Do not always relay on the size of the bed. A simple way to figure out which is the perfect size is measuring all four sides of the duvet or comforter with a measuring tape. A comforter cover that is just a few inches bigger then the comforter is fine. Just make sure it is not too big. This will cause the comforter to shift around in the cover. If shifting is a problem, you can try purchasing duvet clips. They clip inside the corners of your bedding set, securing your comforter to your duvet cover or you can sew ties inside each corner of the cover to hold the comforter in place. Another important thing to remember when purchasing this type of bedding is the fabric and the thread count. Cotton is always a good choice of fabric. Cotton feels great against your skin and can be easily washed in the washer machine unlike other fabrics that need extra care. The thread count will give a hint on how soft this bed set will feel. Always make sure it has a thread count of 180 or more. Less then 180 is a waste of time and money.

Finally we can now decide on the right design and colors that will look great with the colors and decor in your bedroom. When deciding on the color, it is always a good idea to go with the color of your walls. You do not want to get a bedding set that has too much of the color you have on the walls. Less is always more. When looking for the design, it just depends on the look you are going for. Stripes are great for a more modern look. Polka dot can also be modern but fun. A floral duvet can make the bedroom look more romantic and bright. The list goes on and on but I am pretty sure that the one that you choose will look great as long as you follow these easy steps. Good Luck.

Interested in finding the best high quality duvet cover sets at the lowest prices around, then I suggest going to http://shop.multishopstop.com Multi Shop Stop. At multi shop stop you will find a wide range of stripe, polka dot, plaid, floral duvet cover sets and more. There beautiful floral duvet covers will take your breath away.

Modern interior decorating today is more inviting and warm, with a very functional feel to it. In case you haven’t seen much about interior design and decorating lately, you need to know that it has come a very long way in recent years. The same could be said about the interior decorating styles that are out there, such as traditional or modern. In the past, if you were to choose to decorate your home in a traditional style, or cozy cottage type of home, you would find yourself surrounded by lace, ruffles and heavily flowered fabrics. A traditionally decorated home would typically be dark, with heavy furniture. Conversely, not so long ago, having a modern decorated room meant that you would be faced with an almost sterile space that seemed cold and unwelcoming.

Now, maybe you’re wondering what exactly defines modern interior decorating today. Modern and contemporary decorating styles are still defined by clean lines and space, with decorations used as focal points in a room, rather than part of a bigger picture, but it has become much more functional and comfortable as well.

Modern interior decorating of today focuses not so much on the absence of color, as it focuses on the use of neutral colors, accentuated by a warm, bold contrasting color that can be added in the use of a brightly colored sofa, or an eye catching accent wall. It is no longer necessary to have abstract artwork on your walls with modern decorating of today, either. When you choose to decorate your home in a modern style, you will find that you have more creative license than in the past.

If modern interior decorating sounds appealing to you, then you might be looking for inspiration when decorating your space. Maybe you’re wondering where to find these ideas, but the truth is that modern decorating ideas are all around you. If you love the look of the clean lines of many types of furniture that you’ll find today, then it’s likely that you are drawn to a modern or contemporary type of interior decorating.

That being said, once you learn to identify modern design in everything from offices to homes, you will begin to be able to gather designing ideas for your own space.

The first thing you should do when working with modern interior decorating is to choose a neutral color that suits your taste. The second thing you need to do is pick a bold statement color to add to your color palette. Often, you can choose two colors that work well together and add it to your neutral “base” color. For instance, if you choose a color such as taupe for your neutral, you can comfortably use almost any color for a statement. Perhaps you like a nice warm pumpkin color to help your space make a bold statement.

The bottom line when it comes to modern interior decorating is that your possibilities are endless. With more comfortable, functional furniture designs and a warmer approach to this popular form of decorating, you will probably find that your modern interior decorating project is not only fun, but easier than you had previously thought. So, what are you waiting for? Find your inspiration and give your home the modern decorating that it deserves.

Home decorating by way of renovating or changing your interior design, is easy with the help of Patricia Harris. If you are thinking of modern interior decorating for your home, contemporary or traditional, visit the ‘Home Decorating Guide’ http://homeandhouseguide.com/home-reviews/.

Designing your home should suit your taste. Gone are the days of strict decorating rules and narrow room definitions. Where dining rooms were once formal, they are becoming casual or disappearing all together. Where dens were for reading, they became family rooms and are now turning into media rooms. The bedroom long considered a room that has to be subdued and quiet has shed its shackles and is enjoying bold colors and lively designs. You room’s design should speak to you, and if bold is what you want, then that is what you shall have.

Minimal

A bedroom can be attractive and restful even with a minimalist approach to the design. By keeping the room monochromatic and the furnishings simple, you can add a single bright element in the room and create an instant focal point taking a room from boring to amazing. A large bold piece of art hung alone over the bed offers a dynamic focus on a blank canvass

Colors and Contrast

While monochromatic with a pop of color is appealing, so is a room with many contrasting elements. By using black and white throughout the room the effect is to essentially create a blank canvas just as a single color would. Just like its monochromatic counterpart, the black and white contrasting room can then offer a focal point with a single bold colored element such as a bed cover or a piece of art.

Urban Sensibility

As urban spaces are being reclaimed as living spaces, many individuals and families are moving into refurbished lofts. While these spaces are amazing, they frequently present the decorating challenge of dealing with a rustic brick wall. While the wall is interesting and beautiful, it is such a dominant force in the room that it is hard to keep it quiet. By using brick like tones, such as orange, beige and red, the bricks seemingly fade away. Stick with solid fabrics and limited patterns since the brick provides a mass of pattern on the walls.

Keeping Up with Trends

Using a duvet cover to update your color scheme is a simple and affordable way to update any bedroom. Using accents in green, orange, dark brown and gray creates a very up to date and trendy bedroom. This chic color scheme bounces off of the neutral black and white background, and great lighting keeps the room bright and functional.

Seductively Chic

Adding a sitting area to your bedroom is a great way to make a mini retreat in your own home. By choosing a style that is soothing and relaxing you can create a respite that can rejuvenate you any time. Using area rugs in bright colors and chairs with round backs creates a nice contrast against all of the square edges of the bedroom furniture, which helps to further define the space.

Decorating specialist Aja Klenna offers many more free and easy decorating ideas at Metal-Wall-Art.com – the place to go for unique decorative wall art and musical notes wall decor.

As you study and know deeper into feng shui, it becomes increasingly obvious on how important it is to be completely familiar with the various orientations and arrangements of your home. The reason behind is because there are basically so many of the different feng shui formulas and methods that are directly associated with compass directions.

The average amateur feng shui practitioner basically works with the eight compass directions, but those who are more advanced in the learning of feng shui, goes deeper into analyzing the flying star charts of their homes. As we proceed deeper into Chinese astrology, we expand the eight directions into 24 by dividing each main direction into three sub-directions. Conventionally, we refer these 24 sub-directions as the 24 mountains of feng shui.

One of the fundamental of fengshui that you must take note is that, in addition to the eight main directions, fengshui also identifies an additional two directions from which both good and bad luck can originate from the top(sky or heaven) and from the bottom(earth).

There are various Chinese astrology symbols that the Chinese believe will spell protection for the home. These symbols bring wonderful good luck to the home. Some of them are celestial guardians like the dragon, the tiger, phoenix, and tortoise. You can witness these Chinese astrology symbols such as the favored guardians like the massive lions or Fu dogs in many corporate building and large mansions and residences in China. One example of a place which uses Chinese astrology symbols to protect the home is the Forbidden City in Beijing.

In other areas of China, the dragons Pi Yao or Pi Xie are also extremely popular Chinese astrology symbols to safeguard the home. Fengshui has evolved into the modern world and we can apply it in the current world to safeguard our homes by cleverly applying the exhaustive, or controlling, cycle of the five elements or Wu-Xing.

Bad Luck Can Come From The 10 Major Directions

If you want to safeguard your home or office, it is important to see if it is being afflicted with bad luck from the 10 major directions of North, South, East, West, Southwest, Northwest, Northeast, and Southeast, as well as from the top and bottom.

You must take a serious view of these major 10 directions as each of these directions can carry with it an ill-wind or afflicted chi energy capable of bringing different types of bad luck. If you are not careful and simply ignore these afflicted directions, they can cause loss of life, fatal accidents, and other tragic developments.

Hence, you need to develop what I called the “Feng Shui Eye”. This simply means that you will subconsciously be alerted to anything negative that is perhaps the consequences of some new building, structure or development in your immediate environment and area.

Feng Shui Cures and Feng Shui Remedies

By being conscious but not overly conscious to your home environment, you can become familiar with ways of deflecting such bad luck and you will take your practice of feng shui to a new level of effectiveness that will bring you peace, love and harmony to yourself and your loved ones.

One of the most important aspect that you must take note when tackling bad luck from inauspicious directions is that you must pay extra attention to the compass directions and use feng shui cures based on the exhaustive cycle of the five elements to deal with bad luck.

The idea is to exhaust the chi energy of the bad luck that is coming at your house. Basically, the direction from which the bad luck originates will allow you to come out with the feng shui cure that will most effectively curtails its strength.

In my various intensive study of Chinese astrology, I realized that feng shui cures and remedies will work as long as you apply the cycle of the five elements correctly, and the good news is that you can be as creative as you wish in using this remarkable principle to change your home and thereby your life.

Bear in mind that you must never allow the talk of so-called “classical or restrictive feng shui” to confuse you. The most significant thing is to understand fully the basics and the reasons behind it. You then only need to apply your creativity and rational mind to set up the necessary feng shui cure and remedies to whatever is sending you the bad luck.

Both good energy and bad energy can be formed from the 10 directions. According to the facing direction of your home and the direction you face while sitting and sleeping, it will tap into positive or negative types of luck.

Swanton Mah is a freelance writer and an avid enthusiast on Feng Shui who uses the wisdom of Feng Shui to bring great health, wealth and love to anyone who wants to improve their lives. By tapping on the wisdom of Feng Shui cures and remedies, we hope that you can have the unlimited power to receive and give love and create the happiness and joy that most of us wish to pursue. For more information on Feng Shui tips and guide on home living and arrangements and how to learn and apply Feng Shui yourself, go to => http://www.101fengshuitips.com.

Along with all the other rooms in the house, there has certainly been a lot written about what kind of Feng Shui impact the kitchen has on its occupants. Many myths abound and I have had clients needlessly worry about features in their kitchens, some of which will be addressed in this issue.

Firstly, the residential kitchen is not normally looked upon as the most important room in a house. In fact, with the way we live today, fewer people actually cook on a daily basis. There may even be an ironic parallel between how high-tech and ostentatious a kitchen is, with how little cooking actually take place.

And yet it is one of the more important rooms in the house which could make or break a real estate deal. Here are some of the more popular kitchen myths: (READ: not true)

• A mirror behind a stove brings prosperity: I have walked into kitchens where clients had propped up make-ups mirrors behind their stove burners or had placed one large mirror propped up or against the wall because they had heard that this brings in more money. Aside from the fact that grease and food will splatter onto the mirror and look bad, I don’t recommend this practice. This notion has something to do with creating the illusion that the more food you are cooking, the wealthier you are. Nice concept, but not very effective. In fact, if you really want to be spiritually rich, it would probably be better to pack an extra lunch each day and then give it away to the first homeless person you see each day.

• A sink placed right near a stove, or a refrigerator right near a stove, is bad Feng Shui: this is very intangible. And I would not argue with a kitchen designer about the most functional placement of appliances. The Feng Shui myth is that hot and cold (stove/refrigerator) should not be placed side by side because it would be a conflict of the yin-yang energies.

None of the authors who claim this is a problem have given information about what the measurable consequences are when stove and fridge are next to each other. Not worth worrying about.

• When a person stands at a stove and cooks with their back to the entrance, this is seen as vulnerable or prone to accidents. I can see some truth to this, although I have never in all my years of practice heard a client blame a kitchen accident on their having their back to the entrance. (And since mothers supposedly “have eyes on the backs of their heads,” this should be a mute point for a large percentage of the people who cook in the family kitchen.

• Kitchen in the center of the house is bad luck: This seems to simply be a poor design and possibly more prone to a fire. It is more practical for a kitchen to be on the side of a house where there can be a window for direct escape of cooking odors, excessive heat or steam.

• Bathrooms next to kitchens are bad Feng Shui: This concept is hinged on the notion that there could be a sanitation problem by having “elimination” energies in close proximity to a food prep location. Just remember that you can walk across a whole house with unwashed hands and end up in the kitchen also.

Some of my consistent findings, using traditional Feng Shui, is that when a kitchen ends up being in the most positive area of the house, the client often reports that this is in fact the favorite hang-out place for occupants as well as guests. Conversely, when a kitchen is located in a particularly accident-prone area of the house, there are more injuries and/or appliances break down a lot.

Another consistent finding: when the kitchen resides in the Northwest quadrant of the house (NW=metal and cooking produces fire), the result of fire symbolically melting metal can create a home where the children are unruly and do not listen to the father. (NW is associated with the father figure.) There is no physical explanation for this, but the feedback supports this association.

A commercial kitchen in a restaurant or catering company should be in a positive location within the building because the success of the business is based so much on the food.

Finally, we are all psychological and programmable beings. When people enter the house from the kitchen, there seems to be a universal agreement that the occupants will feel like eating whether they are hungry or not.

Feng Shui Solutions, founded by Kartar Diamond, is dedicated to advancing the information about Feng Shui as a natural science. Author of four books and two e-books, so far, Diamond has taught introductory classes to over 10,000 students and has had over 4,000 clients as of 2009. She began her consulting firm in 1992, and has studied with a number of Feng Shui Masters, including Master Larry Sang of the American Feng Shui Institute. Kartar is one of his senior instructors and she also moderates the Institute’s on-line Forum for on-line students.

You can find Kartar Diamond on Facebook and her Twitter name is FengShuiRx
You can also join Kartar’s monthly e-newsletter and find out about her global services at http://www.FengShuiSolutions.net.

Wordpress | Theme by Gerrit van Aaken