Guest Post by Sam Weston:

Have you found a new home for sale in the perfect neighborhood? Are you ready to take on the challenge of home ownership? There’s a lot that goes into owning a home, and costs can add up before you know it. When it comes time to add your own sense of style and decor, here are a few creative ways to furnish your home for less.

Bargain Hunting

Estate sales, county wide flea markets, and antique stores are sometimes hiding that one-of-a-kind piece of furniture you need. You just have to go hunting for it. Choose a good long weekend, and bring a truck and the right gear to lift a cabinet, dresser, and table. You might want to dig around the grandparents’ attic for old fixtures they aren’t using. Also, check online for deals, but be aware of extra shipping costs.

What should you do if you find an item that’s out of your price range? First, go over the piece with a magnifying glass and look for flaws or defects, then wheel and deal to get a price reduction. Sellers can be sticklers but their ultimate goal is to move the piece and get some extra cash. You could also ask for a percentage off if you’re buying more than one piece at a time.

Do It Yourself

Once you’ve found the good deals and trucked them home, it’s time to fix them up, your way. Use a work shed or space in the garage to take apart an item and repurpose it for what you need. The possibilities are endless when it comes to tearing a piece of furniture apart to make something new. The idea is to get just as much use out of it when you’re done.

Whether you’re refurbishing a dresser into a sideboard or television stand you should have some basic knowledge of wood grains, textiles, and what tools to use. There are also paints and stains you can apply for an aged appearance. Be careful to not mix chemicals though because they can be harmful to a piece or to yourself. Get advice from a trusted interior designer or craftsman before you take on a big project.

Beyond The Basics

If you love eclectic art then repurposed decorating is a good thing. There are so many things you can do with a few slabs of driftwood, from coffee tables to painted murals. If you want to decorate the exterior of your home consider a distressed dresser as a plant display on the front porch.

Armoires, apothecaries, and china cabinets are very trendy, and can accent any room. For a beach house entryway you could mount an old surfboard to sturdy wooden crates. For the guest room add a vintage chaise lounge near a bright window. For the kid’s room an old nightstand can become a play kitchen. Also, industrial light casings or metal sheets add eye-catching appeal to a man cave or rec room. The sky’s the limit and the imagination can soar when you repurpose with an artistic flair.

Sam Weston loves food, fishing and football. You can find him building new homes in the beautiful city of Philadelphia or in the bustling city of New Jersey. For more new home ideas please read more of his articles!

image via Yahoo!

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Guest Post by Sam Weston:

Curb appeal is more important than you may think. A nice yard makes a good impression and your yard is the first thing people notice. If it’s tended to regularly and maintained well you’re sure to get the visitors and compliments you deserve. Here are a few tips for a do-it-yourself approach for a great looking yard.

What the Front Yard Needs

You want a visually appealing yard that’s not too cluttered. If you are taking on a just-purchased home, whether it’s new or older, look over the yard for any problems it may have. Improve the overall look of your yard slowly by finishing small projects before you start big ones. Some tasks may take longer and you may need to rent tools to get them done. The best place to start is closest to the house. Check sprinkler systems, and make sure you don’t have lawn rodents or crabgrass. If there are trees growing out of control you may want to trim them back to protect the house or the neighboring yard.

Subtle Improvements

Add rose bushes or other flowering plants for a nice color boost. Use a good quality fertilizer and water regularly to keep that beautiful green color from spring through autumn. A simple bench and wind chimes can lend a nice homey touch. Put in stepping stones that lead up to the front door. This is a project that the whole family can help with. Installing a picket fence with arch or gate can keep neighborhood animals out of your yard and give it a bit of country charm.

What the Backyard Needs

A backyard needs a place to grill out, a place to hang out, and a place for the kids and pets to run and play. You want to have a great patio with all the amenities. Comfortable shade should be first on the menu. Mount protective shade awnings that can easily close up with the touch of a button. Purchase a patio set in the off season to save money. If you have a green thumb, why not plant a vegetable garden or a few fruit trees to liven up your space.

Quick Fun Fixes

If you can work it into your backyard budget consider sprucing up a private corner by installing a hot tub. Call around for a good deal. Get it delivered and before you know it your backyard is the place to be. If there is a tall, old tree you could easily put in a bench swing. It would be perfect for sunny afternoons or lazy weekends. Adding a mini pond with koi can be a bit more time consuming, but it can be a fun addition to your backyard. There are plenty of things that you can do for your lawn with little or no extra help to make it your favorite place.

Sam Weston loves food, fishing and football. You can find him building new homes in the beautiful city of Tampa or in the small paradise of Bradenton, Florida. Please read more of his articles to see more home ideas!

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Guest Post by Annette Hazard:

We are in the age of the futurists’ dreams. Brilliant visionaries like Ray Kurzweil and Gene Roddenberry created worlds of the future as entertainment. These wondrous feats of imagination left an imprint on the psyche of the world, and our collective dreams of the future held a firm place for technological marvels. With mind-bending realities such as the 3-D printer, which echoes near precisely the mechanized capabilities of the Federation Starship Replicator, we have entered a time where imaginative speculations of the past are the realities of the present. Hanna-Barbera brought these fantasies home with a prime-time television cartoon called the Jetsons, which featured a space-age utopian society, in which cars could fly, high-rises were above the clouds, home systems operated at the touch of a button and Artificial Intelligence was used to clean your house. Wouldn’t we love to live in a home like the Jetsons? Some of us already do.

If you remember the show, Rosie the Robot was the humanoid AI the Jetsons used as a maid, but she had a little help from a tiny robot that came out of the wall and vacuumed the floors. Even though this show was set in 2062, robots that vacuum the floors have been around since 2002.

The Jetsons also enjoyed a fully automated home replete with flat screen televisions and videophones which could all be operated at the touch of a button. That future is now. If you want a home like the Jetsons, full-home automation is the way to go. There are lots of companies offering home-automation packages that just might blow your hair back. Combining your smart devices with your home technology and equipping the homeowner with a single point of control is an option presently available to the tech-savvy homeowner. The ability to literally remote control your security system, lights, garage door, thermostat and audio/visual entertainment systems has been gifted to mankind by the technological pioneers of now.

There are systems on the market so advanced that they have descriptive settings that can turn groups of appliances on and off or adjust them to appropriate levels whether you are throwing a party, away from the home, or checking on your children after school with full home surveillance. People may be clamoring for jet packs and flying cars, but we have cars that drive themselves thanks to one of our most innovative companies, and being able to control a fully automated home from far away has got to count for something.

Annette Hazard is a mother of one and enjoys cycling, running, and green living. To be more like the Jetsons, she just got a home automation system from Vivint and is promoting Vivint’s Twitter. 

image via NY Daily News/Getty Images

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Guest Post by Nettie Gray:

Our bedrooms are a reflection of our personality and who we are. They can also be mirrors of our mood or our changing tastes. However, unlike clothes, we cannot buy a new room just like that. We have to work with what we have in our space.

Here are ways to make sure you can immediately transform your room to what your current mood is:

Use Versatile Furniture

Buy pieces that can go along with all themes. Stick with the basics – sofa, desk, dresser, etc. Also, buy dual-purpose furniture like daybeds, fancy frame magnets, sideboards that can be used to store bed linens, or a coffee table that can act as a bench, or a vintage bird cage that can also be used as candle holder.

Paint the Walls White

Your house is like a blank canvas which is open to your imagination. By painting your walls white, you can express your joy or sadness through colors without making a mess with re-painting. A white backdrop can make balance eclectic or contrasting pieces that might be a result of momentary hormonal imbalance or cramps or something completely reasonable.

Get Moveable Appliances

Another trick is to get appliances that can be easily pushed into another area without hiring extra hands. Choose those that have wheels so that you won’t have to worry about breaking them apart when you lift them. This is also helpful if you are following Feng Shui  which gives emphasis on direction. Mobile appliances can be a bit costly, but it’s worth the investment, especially for monthly room theme changes.

Have One Constant Furniture Piece

Even if you are an interior chameleon, you need to have one piece that is deeply rooted from your personality. You can be a boho at heart but your room’s theme for the month might be oriental. Put that sole item in a corner of the room where it can be easily seen and remind you of who you truly are.

Buy Small Pieces

You can buy Morrocan-inspired vases or rugs when you’re feeling Moorish instead of buying a hundred dollars worth of Aladdin-esque lamps or carpets. Changing a bedroom’s interior is costly and a waste of money if uncontrolled if you do not have the money to splurge. Even if you had an unlimited budget to buy expensive furniture to suit your mood, there are more things in life worth spending your hard-earned money on.

Nettie Gray is writing essays twice a week for an academic provider and has been looking for a sturdy apothecary table at flea markets for sometime now.

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Guest Post by Jordan McPelt:

Many homeowners have the same question. How do we open up our living room to make it appear and feel more roomy and inviting? It is my opinion that no matter the actual square footage of your living room, you can make it more roomy and inviting.

Un-Clutter the Space

Get a good look at your living room space. See if there aren’t items or trinkets that are making the room feel smaller and taking up space. To make your living room feel more open you should adhere to the law of ‘less is more.’ It’s okay to have some items or trinkets in your living room but very few items in the space of the room is the goal. Do a thorough check of the clutter in the room, remove what you feel doesn’t absolutely have to be there then do a thorough cleaning of the entire living room space. Vacuum, dust, wash, wipe, or do whatever it is you do to really clean every inch, crease, or crack of the room. Take one last look at the room and decide also if you are satisfied with the walls, the paint, and flooring of the room. Perhaps you are thinking that now would be a good time to install quality laminate flooring Boca Raton that you’ve always wanted instead of that carpet. Now would be the perfect time to make these significant changes.

Rearrange Furniture

Once you’ve un-cluttered the room to where you feel comfortable, it’s time to rearrange the furniture. Where you place the furniture plays one of the biggest roles in the feel of the room whether roomy or stuffy. For that roomy feel you will want to arrange the couches against the walls further back in the room from the entryway. Arrange the couches and the end tables so that you leave as much space as possible in the middle of the room. Most living rooms don’t need more that two couches. Evaluate the space of the room and decide just how many couches you really need or really can fit in the room. If you are going to have a coffee table, then place it in front of one of the couches with plenty of room to walk past it with people sitting on the couch.

Opening up the space of your living room can sometimes seem like such a challenge but once you start to un-clutter and rearrange your furniture it will all come together and provide you with the roomy feel that you’ve been wanting.

As an author, Jordan McPelt writes about various subject matters including laminate flooring and home improvements. To learn more about laminate flooring please visit uswoodflooring.com/Boca_Raton.html.

image via Be Good Design

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