Taking Good Care of Your Hardwood Floor - Things You Should Avoid

Even though hardwood floors are pristine, the fact that you have to fell a couple of trees to get the floor tingles the skin. Installing a hardwood floor calls for more than your ability to purchase the floor. It demands of you an extra loving hand and dedication to making the floor last for as long as possible. Holding onto your new hardwood floor for longer will not only make it a worth investment but also give the forests a chance to regenerate.

Here are a couple things that you ought to do if at all you are to achieve this.

Don’t get your hardwood floor wet

Prolonged exposure to moisture or water has a detrimental impact on wood. While most of the hardwood floors get a waterproofing cover, this is rarely enough to protect the hardwood from rising damp. Keep the floor dry at all time. Wiping of spills as soon as they happen and resisting the urge to clean the floor with water will increase the wood’s life span.

Avoid Vinegar, silicon and ammonia

These are popular home cleaning agents. These components are easy to come by, either existing purely or as a component of a common domestic cleaning product. Though reliable cleaning component, using them on your hardwood floor will wear out some of the most common floor finishes. This will leave the hardwood exposed and prone to quick damage. Similar products include citrus, lemon and Tung oil.

Oil, soap and wax

Cleaning without soap is unheard of. After all, soap is the next most important element next to water when cleaning. Using some wax and buffing up your hardwood floor to a dashing finish is equally logical. However, the fact that these components rarely fully wash off the wood make them a danger. They will either block the wood’s patina hence natural beauty or accelerate its aging.

Cleaning too soon

Well, I am not lazy, I do not advocate for laziness but there is a thing as cleaning too much. It doesn’t matter whether you are using cutting edge hardwood floor cleaning products or working whether you are hiring the professionals, cleaning your floor too often will abrade it. Sweep it clean with a soft broom as often as you can. This will keep it clean to no effect. Thorough cleaning with spray cleaners should only occur once a week or every two weeks.

How to be a Better Gardener - Best Gardening Tips

A home without a garden is like a river without a source. It’s dull, silent, and lacks in the abundance of nature. Keeping a blossoming garden not only makes your home look lovely but also gives you a means of connecting with nature.

Converting that free space in your backyard into a full-fledged garden or that spacious porch you rarely use into a floating garden is an amazing idea. First, you must know the 7 commandments of a good gardener, the holy grail of gardening tips.

Stay Natural

Good gardeners are natural. Artificial fertilizer might be justified in commercial production but no one will excuse you for using this in your private garden. You can afford to use organic manure in it and some bit of compost. Manure will give your plants the nutrients they need. Compost will protect them from weeds, diseases and later improve the soil structure when it disintegrates. This improves the soil’s structure and betters on your new garden’s capabilities.

Make Your Own Compost

Anything organic can easily pass as compost. All you have to do is shred it nicely. Putting the leaves your trees shed in a shredder will give you fine bits of compost that can go straight to the garden. The grass after a lawn mowing session is not only good for mulching but also can easily pass as compost provided you decompose it for a while.

Be Creative

Sticking to the normal plant and weed plan is not a bad idea. But that won’t make you any different. Taking your gardening seriously and implementing the unique ideas possible will create an impressive and productive garden. There is nothing aesthetic about planting tomatoes and cucumbers the normal way. Putting your plants in beautiful pots and flowerbeds will add looks to your garden and make your home look better.

Feed the soil, not your plants

Feeding your plants is like eating junk. The results will be fast, but short lived. Your plants health will depend on the overall health of your soils. Soil with sufficient organic matter will always hold its own no matter what. If you focus on using artificial fertilizers, you will keep at it and degrade your soils in the process.

Always be there

A good garden is all about the gardener. A good gardener will be there for his or her garden, or at least have someone represent them.

Keeping Your Apartment Clean Without Cleaning All Morning

Unless you are way beyond the lower upper income bracket, chances are that your apartment is not as spacious as you would love it to be. Keeping tiny spaces clean could be a real bother even if you had the time. Keeping your apartment clean, on the other hand, will not only portray you as a responsible individual but also have a positive impact on your morale and self-esteem.

Get Rid of What You Don’t Need

This is the first and most basic rule. The lesser the things you have in your apartment the less effort you will expend in keeping them orderly. Dispose those soft drink bottles you no longer need. Put your precious magazine in a box, or a bookshelf rather than leave them lying under the table. Stashing away what you do not frequently use and disposing what you won’t need any time soon leaves you with lesser things to clean.

Clean as Soon as Possible

Piling utensils in the kitchen as you cook will increase your workload after the meal. Procrastinating doing the dishes to a later hour is an even worse decision. Dumping used utensils in the sink and cleaning them as you cook will leave you just the plates and cooking dishes to do after the meal.

Extrapolate the same philosophy to all parts of the house. Mop up spillages as soon as they form and avoid letting your laundry pile. Doing your cleaning in bits makes the work seem easier since you will be done with the little tasks in no time.

Set Aside Ten Minutes for Daily Rash Cleaning

Even though the cleaning as soon as possible philosophy should keep your apartment in order, setting aside some ten minutes to wrap up the loose ends should set everything in order. Use this time to straighten up things, rearrange the living room and put things back in order. You can do this as you brush your teeth in the morning or during TV commercial breaks.

Do Thorough Cleaning Once a Week

To keep up with the piling disorder courtesy of the shallow daily cleaning, you need to set aside a day for deep cleaning. An hour or two of the weekend should be enough. Mob up the apartment, sweep under the chairs, do some dusting and clean the windows. The better you handle this cleaning the lesser you will have to do to carry the look through the week.

Invest in the Right Tools

The right cleaning tools will get the job done faster. They might even make cleaning fun. Wrong tools will make it boring and a bother. Cleaning the carpet, for instance, with too soft a broom will increase the number of strokes you need use to move the dirt. Using a vacuum cleaner or a stiffer broom will do the job faster. The same applies to cleaning agents, mops and scouring pads.

Keeping your apartment clean without an hour of daily cleaning requires a lot of discipline and change in habits. It will be hard to start. Once the habit sticks, you might have to guard against being a clean freak!

5 Home Improvement Projects that Might Not Add Value to Your Home

To some people, extending the patio or repainting the deck floor is all about making the home look better. To others, home improvement and renovation is all about boosting the value of the house. 

Regardless of what your goal might be, pre-planing your home improvement projects will save you quite an amount and have a say on the overall look and value of your home.

The tendency to jump into home improvement projects just because they look cool is the nemesis of many myths that might actually do more harm to both your pocket and home than good.

Basement Conversions

Home improvement experts have idolized basement conversions and made them look like the ultimate home improvement project. Even though it will create more space, the cost of getting it done does not justify the ends. Normally, you would be looking at charges to the tune of $500 per square foot. Converting your basement is never a great idea unless you have exhausted all options in your home.

Getting a Swimming Pool

The idea of a shimmying pool at the back of your house and a superbly polished exotic wood pool deck is tantalizing. Even though almost everybody dreams of a quick dip in the pool on a hot afternoon, very few people will pay extra bucks for a private swimming pool. Keep of pools unless your house is in a rich neighborhood, in which case it will most probably have a pool in the first place.

Making Clashing Improvements

Every house has a statement that needs be preserved. For instance, a prehistoric townhouse has to remain that way. Swapping the wrought iron windows for fancy shutters will do the home no good. The best thing is to maintain its classic look and focus on making improvements that revolve about the old school look.

Extending into the Garden/Lawn

More and more people are conscious of nature. Very few would trade that lush lawn or backyard garden for an extra garage. Obeying this and investing on a simple but attractive garden rather than knocking it down and extending your home will have a greater impact on the overall value of your home.

Making your home improvements center on the relevance of the changes you make rather than the fanciness of the improvement will have a great impact on the overall look of your house. Avoiding rash changes that will make buyers shun your home will drastically lower your home’s value. 

Simple Ways to Getting Rental Apartment Interior Decor Right

Let’s face it, we all don’t have an indoor pool teeming with exotic fish or a clear swimming pool under a clear glass roof. This, however, does not mean that we cannot transform our simple homes into lovable abodes.

With simple DIY tricks and ideas, you can transform your rental apartment into a stunning attention grabber that will make you feel proud and important no matter your monthly income.

Choose a Color Scheme and Stick to it

The most common interior decoration mistake we make is buying ready made on impulse. A black doormat, brown carpet with white and red stripes and a blue couch with light pink floral patterns. These will never match no matter how hard you try. Your living room will always feel as jumbled as it looks. Settling on a harmonious color scheme and planning all your purchases before leaving will ensure that each piece you purchase neatly falls into place.

You Can’t Paint, But You Can Use Paintings, or Wallpaper

The proprietor won’t smile at the idea of turning his neutral cream walls to a screaming orange and green color combo neither would filling the walls with decorative decals amuse him. Focusing on using non-intrusive art to create a look will rest well with both of you. Invest in sizable paintings that blend well with the existing walls. The idea here is to break the monotony of the neutral painted walls with your own hanging paintings that you can take off the day you leave.

Change the Mood by Using Proper Lighting

Placing colored bulbs strategically can help change the mood and even the hue of the walls. A single blue bulb on the roof can give a touch of blue to your white walls and make the plain floor tiles look more appealing. Purchase a few bedside lamps adorned in your color scheme of choice and use them to cast normal white light on tables as colored light will strain your eyes if you used it for detailed work like reading.

Be Creative

Decoration is like art. There are general guidelines to doing but no specific rules to follow. This leaves room for creativity, positive creativity that will result into something unique and appealing. Do not limit your interior decoration ideas to the normal convention of using paint, paintings and light. You could for instance decide to create patterns using plates and a few cups or decide to make a chandelier out of cutlery. The more unique and symmetrical your contraption is the more appealing it will be to your guests.

Clean and Organize Frequently

Remember those beautifully set scenes you see in movies of a clean glass table, a pot of fresh flowers and wicket basket full of assorted fresh fruit? Such scenes do not maintain themselves. They have to be set on daily basis. Taking care of your living room on daily basis will not only keep it clean but also ensure that each bit of interior decor implemented remains in place. After all, no one will imagine how fresh flowers would look like next to your TV screen if the flower pot at that instance if full of wilting flowers.