William Morris, the famous English writer (who happened to be an architect, artist, and furniture designer, all at the same time) was so right when he said “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful”. He said that in nineteenth century when owning a big living space was not that much of a problem. Coming back to present conditions in large cities, where the living space is getting smaller day by day, especially with the introduction of apartment residence. Someone not familiar with how the life goes in these metropolitans might find it hard to believe that a family can spend their lives in these mini homes. But anybody who’s accustomed to the life in metropolis and who knows how scarce the living space is in these towns, would gladly accept a small apartment knowing that it’s more than enough to contain what’s deemed as “useful or beautiful”.
The reason for emphasizing so much on this particular phrase is that it points up to the basic rule for living in a small home and that is to keep only what is of practical usage and get rid of everything that doesn’t offer any use. Apart from that, you can modify your furniture, appliances, paint and lighting to give your home (and its residents) a fairly spacey feeling. Start from replacing the large furniture and home appliances with some small-sized substitutions. These days, you can easily find plenty of products and appliances in the market, which are designed to take minimum space. It’s not really the size/space that matters but the way you are using the space.
Colors and lights can play a very important role, right combination of colors and lighting will give your apartment a more open and spacious feel. You don’t have to hire an expert as a little research on internet will provide you with ample ideas. Along with the color schemes, you will find suggestions regarding color patterns. However, too much experiment is not a great idea as some of it may not go as planned. Therefore, if you are not good with color selections, go for white. As a general rule, remember that you must choose from one of those cool colors (normally light green, blue or violet are classified as cool colors).
By: William King
Posts Tagged ‘Lighting’
Small Home Living Tips – Utilizing the Limited Space
December 16th, 2009Should You Repair Your Appliance?
November 15th, 2009
I want the public to know that the new machines out their are not lasting as long as machines that were built 10 to 20 years ago. It does not matter what brand it is: Kenmore, Whirlpool, GE, Maytag you get the idea.
In my opinion the older machines were built like tanks! They have less electronics in them and in my opinion they were built with better parts. Before you buy a new machine keep in mind that almost anything you buy today will have a electronic control board in it and the more gadgets the refrigerator, washer, dryer, dishwasher or oven has the more things that can go wrong with it. If your machine is in good condition and has been well maintained then you should think about repairing your appliance. The cost of the repair in most cases will be far less than a new machine. Also, most new machine’s will not last as long as your parents machine did!
For those of you that I could not convince and your almost out the door to purchase a new appliance I have a couple of Tips for you.
First, do a litter home work, research the appliance your going to buy. Do a search online about the appliance you want to buy to see if customers are having a problem with it, and do not just look at review pages find some blogs, get the model number of the appliance your thinking of buying and do a help search on the internet. (Example: help (your model #) washer) and see what comes up on the internet. I personally looked up a LG dishwasher that had 3000 complaints on it. Of course you can not rule out something just because it has a couple of complaints.
Second, when your at the check out ready to pay for your new machine, they are going to want you to purchase a extended warranty on the appliance. If you do not have a home warranty that covers your appliance’s and your spending a lot of money on the machine you should get the warranty. As I said, the new machines can have more than one control board and lighting and power serges can cause problems with these newer machines, and the makers of appliances are not putting serge protectors on them witch is something else you might what to buy for it also.
Third, on the positive side. I can say that I am happy with front load washers, they do save a lot of water, when a front load washer fills it only uses a few gallons of water compared to 10 gallons or more on a top load washer every time it fills. This could save you hundreds of gallons of water a year. The customers I have talked with say it washes very well. On the negative side, the cost of repair could be on the high side, so don’t forget about that extended warranty.
UPDATE : 10-17-09
If you are buying a new appliance please ask the company you are buying it from who will be the service company that will repair the product if it has a problem. We are finding in some areas that some manufactures do not have any authorized Tech’s in many areas.
Thank you for reading.
By: Donald Rowan