How to Dress Odd Windows

Bay windows, corner windows and sliding glass doors all present unique challenges for dressing them. You can’t simply hang a common curtain and have it look good. Here are the different types of odd window challenges and how to address them. Sliding Glass Doors Many people ignore dressing their sliding glass doors because they just don’t know what to do with them. The larger size makes them hard to cover, and you don’t want to limit the access to the doors themselves. The solution then is to span past the door frame with an extendable rod that will offer enough … Continue reading →

Home Decor Shopping on a Budget

Being a new home owner of less than a year, I have done quite a bit of shopping for our home. When I moved in my husband had a few items, and I l luckily had inherited a lot of furniture from my grandmother. I inherited some essentials such as a kitchen table, a buffet (perfect for our TV, DVD player, etc), and a leather chair. My husband had a couch and I had a bed and some bookcases. To fill in the gaps there were several other items that we needed. To name a few, we needed more lamps, … Continue reading →

The Style of Tile: Stone Tile

If you are thinking about using tile in your home, you are probably wondering exactly what type of tile it is that you want and need. There are so many choices of tile, and some varieties are better used in certain areas of your home and in certain applications than other forms of tile. Knowing what to use and when can be confusing. While looking at tile, you may have heard a number of different terms, such as penny round, mosaic, textured, etc. What do they all mean? Let us start with the basics of tile to give us a … Continue reading →

The Style of Tile: Glass Tile

Kitchen Sink

The first house we bought when we moved to Texas had the most incredible kitchen. The whole house was beautiful but the kitchen sold it. The only thing that would have made the kitchen better is if it had had a double oven like the house we live in now has. The kitchen in our last house was enormous. There were cupboards galore and all sorts of decorative shelves to show off pretty things. Having crystal vases sitting out unprotected on a shelf was odd for me because I was used to earthquakes. I loved the way it looked. There … Continue reading →

The Right Way to Add Mirrors to Your Home

Mirrors can add a lot to your home, from making it seem larger to offering a convenient way to check yourself before you leave your home. But to make the most of the positive power of mirrors, make sure to place them purposefully, strategically and in the right shapes and sizes for the space. You don’t want to wind up with a dated or unflattering look (remember the wall of mirrors that was so popular in the 80s?). First Select Your Area Where do you want to place a mirror, and what do you want its purpose to be? An … Continue reading →

Flooring for your Home

When choosing flooring for your home there are several options to consider. One is carpet. But what sort of carpet and where? Carpets are definitely more comfortable and softer underfoot, especially in the bedroom. However If you have someone who has allergies like hay fever or respiratory problems like asthma you may want to forgo the carpet as it will collect more dust. In particular I’d suggest you stay right away from shag pile and long haired carpets and go for a smooth close texture instead. The other disadvantage with the longer fibred carpet is they are much harder work … Continue reading →

Books,Books and More Books

Continuing the saga of books in the house, this is where the others are. My study has mostly writing and poetry related books, umpteen journals and exercise books with my writing and quiet time times in them and several children’s books from writers I admire like Eleanor Spence and Madeleine L’Engle. Another shelf has bible translations and commentaries, dictionaries and reference books. I also have writing magazines from various writing related organisations I belong too as well as copies of my own books. Then there’s the second bedroom. It has children’s books from when the children were young as well … Continue reading →

Hello, Art!

Sometimes Art likes to come and live at my house. I tell him to stay home and my husband pleads with him to go away, but really, secretly, I open the door. I rather like Art. If I had enough money I would get him a home all to himself and stroll around it, gawking. Art came to live at our house again yesterday. Buying art can be an expensive habit, and it’s only one that I indulge in when I have some birthday money to spend. Since it’s not July yet, it is most certainly not the time of … Continue reading →

Where are the Books?

Where are your books in your house? Being an avid reader I always find it strange when I walk into a house and there are no books. I guess that’s a result of growing up always surrounded by books and a mother who saw the importance of reading. In our house books seems to spill over into just about every room. The lounge room which is near the entry hall has a huge bookcase stuffed with books: fiction, poetry, Christian books, Australian authors, some of my own published books, biography – a real hodge podge. Favorite authors of which I … Continue reading →