I was shopping for ceiling fans yesterday, and found a great deal – 2 cool fans for only $85 – amazing.
I’ve paid $300 or more for ceiling fans in the past, and these two new ones are almost as nice. They don’t have light kits on the bottom, but they are pre-wired for lights if you want to add them in the future.
Many people shy away from ceiling fans because they remember those loud, unbalanced fans banging away in their parents’ homes with pennies taped to the tops of certain blades to make them more balanced and less noisy. Well, fans today are very quiet, balanced, efficient, and look great. You can get any style / color combination you want, and they help cool AND heat your home more efficiently. With ceiling fans running in the rooms you spend the most time in, you can keep the AC set a little higher in the summer and the heat set a little lower in the winter, saving money year-round.
With the proper light kit, you can have custom lighting in your room as well as a nice fan — a can’t lose combination. The light kit on the fan in my office has three different spot lights that can each be adjusted independently as well as a soft up-light that is on a dimmer. I have one spot shining on my desktop fountain, one on the artwork on the wall, and one on my cigar-box collection. The up-light adds a nice warm glow to the entire space. Everyone that walks into my office at night is blown away by how nice it looks and how nice and cool it is even in the middle of the summer.
Give ceiling fans another look the next time you’re at the store — you’ll be surprised how far they’ve come since the days of your dad’s clanky, noisy contraption in the den!
The next time you need to plan out a room design or furniture layout in 3D, give Google SketchUp a try. You can download it for free here.
SketchUp is a very powerful 3D modeling software that has a huge library of pre-built objects like kitchens, sofas, TVs, chairs, etc. that have been built by other people all around the world and shared in the 3D Warehouse for everyone to use. Before building your own custom 3D objects, check the Warehouse to see if someone else has already built that object — if they have, you can download it and use it in your own design.
Download SketchUp and play around with it for a little bit — it’s very easy to learn, and extremely powerful once you figure out the tools. Take a look at some of the example models built by others to see how complex they are — there are even models of entire towns built in SketchUp!
You likely have an unused formal living room, just like most people do.
You know what I mean, that room by the front door that never gets used, is filled with expensive furniture and art, and still has the vacuum cleaner marks in the rug because no one ever walks in there.
I have one of those rooms — it has 25 foot ceilings, awesome furniture, cool art pieces, and never gets used — and it drives me crazy.
I’m the more practical type who goes for a more “livable”, “usable”, “functional” type of home while my wife is more outgoing, entertains all the time, and goes for the “wow” factor. I lost the battle in the last house hunt…
If I lived here alone and could do anything I wanted to the space, I would completely change it. For starters, I would add a ceiling half way up and create a loft above and a nice cozy space down below. Those massive high ceilings seem like such a waste of space to me. In the loft I would have a poker table, huge TV with surround sound, pinball machines, bar, a giant leather sectional, and an exhaust fan to the outside so I could smoke cigars with my friends. I would convert the space below into an “activity area” that would include a large work table, lots of built-in storage cabinets, painting supplies with an easel, arts and crafts stuff, a couple of iMac computers to design stuff, a couple of flat-screen TVs on the wall, big comfy chairs for reading, and a couple of sofas. Yes, all of that would fit — thus my feelings of wasted space in the current setup.
If you have an unused living room, sit down and think about transforming that space into something more usuable and enjoyable for you and your family. There is no law stating that you need to have a formal living room or sitting room just because your parents and grandparents used to. Break out of those old patterns of design and use of space and create your own — your family will thank you!
Interior design seems like a glamorous industry filled with beautiful, rich people and fabulous furnishings.
There is some of that, but the vast majority of interior design jobs begin in a much different way. There are basically three different routes into the design business: get an interior design degree from a university, start out in sales and work your way into design, or be brought into the business as an apprentice.
An interior design degree from a 4-year university is expensive and takes a lot of hard work, but you end up with a credential that has a lot of impact for the rest of your life and give you a big edge over beginning designers without a degree. A degree opens doors and gets you interviews that you may not have had otherwise. You are also able to apply at the higher-end design firms and retail establishments that may not have even looked at you twice without a degree.
If you skip the degree path and start out in sales be prepared for long hours on your feet, jobs that pay 100% commissions with no base (or a very small base with most of your income coming from commissions), and a mass retail environment with medium to low-end products. Your best bet here is to work on your selling skills, build up a customer base that places repeat orders with you, and work your interior design skills all at the same time. With good designs you will attract more repeat clientele, repeat sales, and increased commissions. After a while, you will gain a reputation in the industry as an excellent designer with great sales skills. This opens doors to higher-end establishments and also your own design business.
If you’re not good at sales, and you don’t want to go the degree route you may be able to get your foot in the door by starting out as an apprentice or intern for a more established designer. You could do client interviews, take pictures of the rooms and spaces that are to be worked, transport sample pieces and fabric swatches to the customer residence, etc. Do not take this “grunt” work lightly — do your best and keep your eyes and ears open. Listen to how the designer interacts with the client, watch what pieces of furniture they place in the rooms and what fabrics, carpets, and accessories they choose. You should be learning every day and taking notes. After a while, you will begin to develop your own personal sense of style and learn how to please your own clients with great, original designs of your own.
No matter what route you take, entry level interior design jobs may not be the most glamorous or sexy at the beginning, but they can lead to fame, fortune, and a fantastic career down the road.
Good luck with your journey!
When I moved into my new house, all the bathrooms had the huge, cheap “builder” mirrors above the sinks. You know the type — a big rectangular piece of mirror that covers almost the entire wall.
The first thing I did was tear those mirrors out and put in smaller, upscale mirrors that are surrounded by thick frames that match the rest of the decor in my house. I had to do some sanding and painting to repair the area that was under the old mirror that is now exposed, but it was all worth the effort.
Now, instead of a giant 1970s wall of mirror in my master bathroom that went all the way across both double sinks and ended at the sunken tub I have two smaller (3 feet x 4 feet) mirrors that have very thick, ornate frames around them. They almost look like pieces of art rather than mirrors, and they changed the look of the entire bathroom.
Try this trick in your own bathroom and you will be blown away by the difference.
Have you ever tried in vain to make a room in your house look like those you see in model homes?
You’ve got everything just right — the furniture, paint color, plants, accessories, rugs, and lighting — but it still doesn’t look right.
What’s missing?
The answer is usually the lighting, specifically uplighting.
Uplights can transform a dark area into a softly-lit, glowing, accent area. Try them in dark corners, under large houseplants, behind large pieces of furniture, and as accent lighting all around your home.
You can buy dozens of different styles of uplights – the one pictured here is the most basic, and is less than $20. This is the type you see most often because they are so useful and versatile. There are many more sophisticated styles and shapes of uplights designed for specific purposes — plants, bookshelves, behind beds, etc. Click here to take a look at the huge variety of uplights available to you.
Start with just a few of these lights and see what a huge difference they make in your home — you’ll love them!
How do you know which interior designer to hire for your next big project?
Do you hire the most experienced designer? The most expensive? The cheapest? The one with the most impressive web site?
Forget all that stuff and just follow these two rules:
Find a designer that has rooms in their portfolio that you love — the style should be exactly what you’re looking for, the fabrics should be something you would choose for yourself, and the furniture and paint colors should match the overall theme you had in mind when starting your project. You might be talking to the best designer in the world, but if their sense of style does not align with yours you will end up with rooms full of floral patterns when you prefer dark leathers and solids — bad fit, good design, unhappy customer.
Second, you should actually like and get along with your designer — they should be someone who you could be good friends with. You’ll be spending a lot of time with your new designer, and your personalities should be compatible. You don’t want to waste time and energy with a person who is overly negative, treats others with disrespect, has an attitude, etc. (unless you are also that way — then it would be a perfect fit 
). If you have a good friend who is also a trained interior designer you already have this part covered…
Once you find a couple of designers who match these two important qualifications then you can go ahead and think about price, time frames, etc.
Do you cringe when you have to use the oven during the hot summer months? I do — and I often change the lunch or dinner menu to avoid firing up the oven and ruining my nice cool interior with a blast furnace just to make a meal.
An outdoor kitchen is the perfect solution to this problem. You can bake, grill, fry, saute — all you want without heating up your nice cool home.
You can make a budget outdoor kitchen with just a grill, portable island working table, and mini-fridge to keep meats, drinks, and condiments cool until ready to use. You could also spend $50 to $100K to have an elaborate built-in kitchen with sinks, dishwashers, microwave, full size refrigerator, flat screen TVs, etc. If you’re going to spend that kind of money, I would go with an entire outdoor room where there are 3 walls and a ceiling, but the 4th wall is open to the back yard or pool.
Whatever your budget, setting up a functional outdoor kitchen will add to your enjoyment of your home and make use of wasted outdoor space previously only used to store the lawnmower and garden hoses.
Now that the full blast of summer heat is hitting most of the US, it’s time to think about your strategy for staying cool.
Of course, air conditioning is a must in most parts of the country, but there are many other things you can do to keep your home cool without spending a lot of money.
The first thing you should do is get all of your window shades in top working order and use them strategically. In the morning, keep all shades, blinds, and curtains on the east and south side of your house closed until the afternoon. Around 1pm you can open the blinds on the east side and close those on the west side. Keep all southern facing blinds closed during the day. The more direct sunlight you keep out of your home the more efficient your air conditioning system will work. If you see sunlight streaming through a window go close the blinds!
In the early morning hours when the temperature is nice and cool make sure to open a few windows to get a nice cross-breeze moving through your home. This will fill your house with nice cool morning air. As soon as the outside temperature hits 70 degrees close all windows and kick on the air conditioning. Do the same thing in the evening. As soon as the outside temperature is lower than the temperature you have your air conditioning set for turn it off and open windows to let nature cool your house.
Ceiling fans in the rooms you use the most will make you feel much cooler and use very little electricity. Ceiling fans combined with central air conditioning will make your home feel amazingly cool.
Use 100% cotton sheets, pillowcases, and bedding during the summer. Cotton breathes very well and will help you feel much cooler while you sleep. Throw the heavy flannels and winter sheets into storage for the summer months.
For the outside of your home, light paint colors will help reflect the sun and strategic plantings that shade windows and walls facing west and south will help your home stay nice and cool.
Now, whenever you come home from a hot day at work or on the golf course you will notice how nice and cool your house stays during these hot summer months…
I get questions all the time about which paint color to choose, or which fabric to put on a new sofa, or which piece of art would work best in an existing space.
The honest truth is that there is no one right answer to any of these questions.
The correct answer is whatever works with your specific space, room, home, or apartment. The answer also depends on your goal — is your goal maximum comfort for you and your family, or is your goal to have a showcase home that will someday be featured in a magazine? Most goals are somewhere between these two extremes, and so the answer to most interior design questions is a moving target that must be aligned to your specific home, your intentions for the space, and your overall goal for the space.
Do not spend all of your time agonizing over interior decorating decisions — trust your instincts, talk to friends and family for advice, and look through magazines at the supermarket checkout aisle for inspiration and ideas. A mixture of these three inputs will usually result in a great looking space that is both comfortable and welcoming to guests.
