Archive for October, 2009

Easy Changes To Make Your Bathroom More Attractive

Is your bathroom tired? A plan to freshen the bathroom can go two directions. You can hire a Fox Valley handyman to remodel the entire room or a Fox Valley bathroom remodeling company to do the job. Or, if you want to spend a more modest amount of money, you can just change the decor.

The first step in changing the decor of the bathroom is to decide on a decorating scheme. A good starting point might be to strip it down to the bare walls and start totally from scratch. You can then either stay with the same style but change the colors or go in a totally different direction.

Once you have stripped the room bare, start with the walls. There are a large variety of ways that you can cover your bathroom walls. The simplest is just to roller on a new coat of paint. You may want to choose a light color for a small bathroom because a dark color may make the room seem smaller and give you claustrophobia. If a mere coat of paint is too boring, you may want to apply either a faux finish, a graphic or mural. There are so many possible ways to apply a faux finish that you may want to get a library book on the topic so that you stimulate your imagination. Another simple wall decoration is a wallpaper border. You can put this at ceiling level, slightly lower, or at any other level of the wall. The main difficulty with border is getting them straight and even. If you want to do a bit less measuring, put part of the border high and part at chair rail level. Then you can put two diagonal strips between the high area and the low area. Even simpler are the individual wallpaper motifs. If you like things even and uniform, you can measure where you put them. If you are lazy, you can scatter them randomly. Maybe you would rather apply wallpaper. You can just paper one wall, or you can do the entire room.

Then you can adorn the walls with pictures or knickknacks that match your decorating motif. If you can see yourself in the mirror from your position on the toilet, you can create an amusing effect by hanging a hat or floral wreath on the wall behind your head. Then, when you look in the mirror, you will see yourself wearing a hat. If you hang shelves on the wall or bring in one that sits on the floor, you can place small decorative objects on the shelves.

The next step is simple because it just involves your color scheme. It is at this point that you can buy your new towels, rug, shower curtain, and window curtains. At the same time you can get coordinating soap dish, toothbrush holder, and cup.

This decorating advice assumes that you are satisfied with the floor and plumbing fixtures. If you plan to make changes to these items, you need to complete this work before you begin the redecorating process.

Connor Sullivan has been interviewing fox valley handyman companies to do some work on his inlaw's home. He hired a fox valley bathroom remodeling companies to remodel his master bathroom. Click here to get your own unique version of this article with free reprint rights.

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October 31 2009 | Home Improvement | No Comments »

Green Building Design – How It Is Accomplished

While green building is becoming increasingly popular, it isn't something which many of us know how to accomplish. For instance, what qualifies a building as being green, and how are engineers and architects improving the state of the art to be more environmentally friendly? Here are some key aspects of green building, and how to accomplish them.

The most important criteria when evaluating a green structure is energy efficiency. Use of environmentally friendly and recycled materials is certainly important, but the majority of a structure's environmental impact will arise not during its construction, but rather during its years of use. Just what constitutes energy efficiency is a subject of great debate, so individual research is required to decide what is most important to you.

For many kinds of buildings, energy performance can be rated on a scale of one to a hundred. This allows the buildings to be compared to similar ones. If a building rates more than seventy-five on this scale, it may qualify for the EPA's Energy Star rating, just like more familiar Energy Star rated appliances. Builders who would like to get this rating on buildings that are in the process of being built can use the EPA's Target Finder to establish a target for their project's energy performance. This Target Finder can also be used for building renovations meant to improve a structure's energy efficiency.

By entering an estimated energy consumption, a performance rating on the system's construction is generated. Excellent examples of green design are eligible for special recognition by the EPA.

Of course, if you're interested in green building, it's important to have an effective policy to create these structures. A good green building policy needs to use simple, standardized metrics for measuring energy use in every phase of the design, construction, and operation of the building. New buildings need to be designed to meet local energy codes, but shouldn't stop there. Instead, designers should try to get them to meet aggressive energy targets and be much more efficient.

Remember to verify that the target is being reached during building and operation. Many organizations forget to check to see if their goals are actually being met! This is an important feedback loop that will help designers create more effective green buildings. In general, a green structure needs to be less expensive to own in the long run, conserve water and energy, provide health and save environments, and promote good care of the environment.

Green building is a complex area of study. To do so well and efficiently, it is essential to learn as much about the subject area as you can in order to make effective decisions with the greenest outcome.

About the author: J. Dyess has been in the Commercial Energy business for many years. He has published many articles on Business Electric prices.

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October 30 2009 | Home Improvement | No Comments »

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