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How to Choose Persian Rugs for Your Home

Persian rugs are most luxurious and decorative rugs among all handmade rugs. They add an amazing feel to your home interior. A Persian rug adds color, warmth and style to your floor. These rugs are mostly come with medallion patterns. You can find a wide range of Persian rugs in stores as well as online in a wide range of colors and design. Mostly Persian rugs are manufactured with New Zealand wool which is more soft and durable than other materials. Persian rugs are originally manufactured in Iran, Russia, China, Nepal and India.

Decorate with Persian rugs can be a difficult task for you because they have traditional theme and they can fit easily with traditional homes but in modern home you have to think deeply about its colors. Because they have made up of different colors and style. If you are going to buy a rug for modern space so you can choose soft and neutral colors they will easily match with your interior. Persian rugs mostly available in red and blue colors you can choose these type of rug if you have charcoal grey colors on the walls.

If we talk about quality, Persian rugs are best in many ways. Mostly people love to buy durable rug and Persian rugs offer both durability and style because they are hand knotted with quality wool. They can easily convert to any simple room to a luxury room.

Here are few factors that you should consider before buy a Persian rug-

If you are buying it from a store then check the rug properly from both sides check irregular weaving and ask the seller about knots per square inch. Mostly hand knotted rugs have 60, 80 and 100 knots per square inch.

Open the rug role and check it should open smoothly. If it get any ripple and wrinkle so you must ask the seller about this issue.

Check the dimensions from all sides and it should be same on both sides.

If you are buying a Persian rug for bathroom then it should out 3 feet from both sides.

If you are buying a rug for small room then buy a rug with small pattern and it will appear large on the room.

If you cannot find the rug according to your expectation so you can customize rug according to your own design and colors.

February 27, 2015
Time To Decorate Your Valentine’s Dream Kitchen – But How?
“ The Kitchen Is The Heart Of One’s Home”

While the living room of your house might be a place for every social gathering, the kitchen room is the place to get ready for the occasion. Many of us tend to spend a lot of time within the kitchen itself. Everyone of us have some childhood tale to tell, which was took shape inside the kitchen of your house – The time when your mother cooked you a delicious dish after you arrived home exhausted for the day, the time when you first tried your hand at cooking a dish and surprised your family with a finger licking dish, or the day when you joined your partner in the kitchen to produce a meal together. I am sure all these memories still linger around your mind as you reminiscence about those good old days. Some of you might have partners who love cooking and find the kitchen as the best place to spend the rest of the day. You must be glad to return home after your day’s work and sit down at the table with warm meal in front of you. Have you thanked him/her for that? If not, why not?

Well, Valentine’s Day is here and you can thank him/her in a very special way. How? Turn his/her working place into a dramatic ambiance. Something, where he/she could enjoy working through the day. On a lighter note, a happy mind could bring out more productivity and enthusiasm too. What could be more beautiful than trying to show your love how much you indeed care for him/her?

Here are 3 amazing ways you can decorate your darling’s kitchen to set the mood on, this Valentine’s Day:
- Add A Dash Of Romance To Your Kitchen Color
Change the color of your kitchen. Your kitchen color need not only sport a pale white color. It looks rather dull. How about painting the walls blue? Blue can be a ‘cheery alternative’. Or, if your better half prefers the color white, then paint it as she wishes it to, but set the mood right by getting the cabinets red. It could turn out to be an interesting color combination. You could paint your cabinets red, but why not gift her something new? You can buy kitchen customized steel cabinets that come in elegant red shades. White and red can make your kitchen look elegant indeed!
- Increase His/Her Working Space
You can save every inch of the working space in the kitchen if you think wisely. How about getting cabinets with elegant finish that can step up to the challenge of holding the linens, plates, recipe books and other items. Yeah! That could make the kitchen look stylish and spacious. Also, you could get installed, cabinets that come with built in appliances. You could purchase cabinets coming in fine metal finish and built ins, designed to give kitchens the ultra look. Coordinate it with the right wall paper or color and give your partner a romantic surprise.
- Bring Your Partner A New Stove
Sometimes, the stove can transform the entire look of the kitchen. Well, how about pepping the environment up and adding some fun to it? Have you ever thought of trying out something vintage? Why not bring home the 1950s O’Keefe and Merritt stove? This stove is one of those that were used by more than a million mothers during post war America. Your partner could still have some kind of emotional attachment to it. Ask.

Besides, setting up a modular & modern metal kitchen cabinet with one such stove can indeed create a dramatic effect. It could take the spotlight of your kitchen. Vintage look still rocks! And your partner would love to cook on that. Team it up with metal cabinets, wooden shelves and composite tops to give it a homely and high functioning look.

So there now, you have got three amazing tips to get on started. Hurry up Now! Or you’ll miss Valentine’s Day.

Eva Green, is a Interior Designer from California, she is one of the fans of Moya Living and would like to recommend them for kitchen remodeling.
February 14, 2015
Importance of Colors in Home Design

Interior home design has many aspects that need to be covered to ensure things will look great in the long run, but colors play a major role in what design is all about. They set the mood in unique ways, making sure you have ways of influencing yourself and your guests with subtlety. Warm colors invoke certain feelings, while cool colors invoke others.

The way you can go about this is to make sure you pick a good major color for the furniture dominating your rooms. If you don’t pick the colors right however, you may have some colors causing drop in the mood, especially if you or your guests are sensitive to such changes. You would do well to avoid using darker colors for most rooms, as they will only make the place look smaller than it actually is. Toning the colors down for items around your rooms will be a great way of keeping the brighter and more powerful colors to a reasonable level.

You would still benefit from brighter colors, but only if you handle them with proper contrast in mind. Think about the mood you want to create in the room and act toward using the color that makes it work. The bedroom for example would be a place for relaxation and rest or romance. Each color will carry its own unique signature, such as red and other warm colors meaning the latter, while the former will mean cooler and more calming colors.

Decorating your rooms with the right colors and in the right order will ensure you have the perfect combination. Going from lighter colors in the ceiling and going darker as you go down to the floors is an excellent way of dealing with the overall style and combination, creating depth you need to make the rooms look welcoming. You would do well to also pick colors that will be easier to clean, especially when it comes to carpet cleaning, furniture cleaning, upholstery cleaning, wall cleaning so you won’t have to use the services of a professional cleaning company way too often. Keeping things color-coded will help with creating the style you need and making it last.

When you set things up, your furniture will also require contrasts in color. This will help attract the attention to a certain corner of the room, a centerpiece or other design and decoration elements. Balancing the colors you need is very important, as a ratio of 6:3:1 is the perfect way to create the necessary look. The major and most dominating color should take the largest part of the room, as it will set the mood, but then it will have to be balanced with darker or lighter colors, depending on what you may be working with. Once all of this is done you will need to figure out the other, smaller aspects of the design work you need, such as smaller decoration pieces for the 10% of the colors that aim to emphasize the lines and shapes of the room. For more interesting house cleaning tips Cleaning Carpet Ltd.

February 12, 2015
How to Lay Carpet Stairs When Going for Home Renovations?

When you’re going for home renovations, you might have found harder to lay carpet chairs. This is mainly due to the recurrent changes in elevation, and it may seem a difficult task. Don’t let that put you stressed: if you have effectively carpeted all the other rooms, then there is no problem with the stairs too. Stairs can be successfully carpeted with fitted carpet.

Method of fitting runners to stairs

A woven carpet runner can facilitate the carpet to be moved irregularly so as to balance wear. You can make use of the old-fashioned stair rods comprising of side clips. These rods can effectively hold a runner in place and form component of the stair décor. The gripper strips, especially the pin-less grippers are utilized with foam-backed carpets. It can hold the carpet in fixed jaws. On the other hand, the wooden strips are used in pairs, i.e. behind the tread, and at the foundation of the riser.

After the completion of the above step, the strips are divided to length and approx. 40mm shorter than the carpet’s utilizing secateurs for wooden strips. These strips are nailed into places, and the space between each pair of wood strips must be broad enough to compress the carpet downward. Incise the underlay to fit among the rods and approach close to the rods. In this type, no underlay is required with foam-backed carpet.

Carpeting the floor step

An additional length of carpet is included with the runner. It can be easily moved up to level the wear taken on the treads. The pile requires running down the stairs, so as to support longer wear. Just begin at the bottom of the stairs, and tack the carpet’s end horizontal to the bottom tread. After this step, lay it down over the tread to the underside of the preceding riser, fold it backside and tack the fold to the tread. Scamper the carpet up the stairs, and then pull it more above the gripper rods. Simultaneously, it should unite the landing carpet at the crown of the last riser. In case, no carpet is present on the landing, with the help of stair runner, turn the same under the edging and tack down.

Fitting of carpet to the stairs

The method of fixings for a fitted stair carpet is the same as that for a runner. The extra length of woven carpet is avoided at the bottom; however an underlay is required to be fitted. The gripper rods should be the complete thickness of the stairs. The carpet is fitted from the top, and the landing carpet is required to extend beyond the stairs and downward to the base of the upmost riser. After this step, the stair carpet is then stretched over the gripper rods and pushed down involving them. No fixings are necessary at the edge parts.

Method of carpeting spiral stairs

In the event, the stairs go round a bend, usually gripper rods can’t be utilized in the identical way. The carpet has to be engraved or folded to fit the turn. For woven carpet, just fit the gripper rods to the tramps on winding stairs. After this step, fold the spare carpet and tack it to the underneath of the riser at 80 mm gaps. Lay the carpet on crown of subsequent rod up, and reiterate the folding cum tracking procedure. For foam-backed carpet, neglect the pin-less rods in total on spiral stairs. Tack the carpet, preferably at the back of the tread. Fold down the remaining, and tack carefully on the bottom of the riser.

Bio – Mary Brown is an Interior Designer having 8+ years of residential and commercial design experience. She quickly learned to appreciate good design and her family encouraged her to develop her own personal style. She is currently working with Affordable Home Innovations.

February 12, 2015
How to Choose the Perfect Conservatory

If you long to add more living space to your home but wish to avoid the upheaval and expense associated with moving somewhere bigger, a roomy conservatory could tick all the right boxes.

Considering their suitability for enjoying time with your rapidly expanding family, or making the most of your garden whatever the weather, the popularity of conservatories is hardly surprising.

In fact, statistics reveal there are over four million homes in the UK with a conservatory, adding, on average, a whopping £9,000 to the value of a property.

While it may be tempting to opt for kit or DIY conservatories, it’s recommend you hire the services of a specialist, lest your new addition falls around your ears like a soggy pack of playing cards.

But before you sprint to your nearest conservatory showroom clutching a fistful of sweaty banknotes, check out our top tips for choosing the perfect addition to your home …

Planning Permission

Firstly, some good news – adding a conservatory to your home is considered a permitted development, which means it doesn’t require an application for planning permission. Hooray! However, this is subject to some limits and conditions set out by the government’s Panning Portal.

Among other conditions, your conservatory must not be higher than the highest part of your roof, with the maximum height of a single-storey rear extension being four metres. For more information and guidance, you can view the full guide here.

Choose Your Style Wisely

It should go without saying, but if you live in an older property, it’s important to choose a conservatory that’ll mesh with your home’s exterior. In these cases, Victorian or Edwardian style conservatories are popular choices.

On the flip side, if your home is fairly new, it’s important to lean towards a more modern style, as the design of your conservatory shouldn’t stick out like an expensive mistake unconsciously tacked onto the rear of your property.

Glazing Considerations

It’s something of an urban myth that conservatories are stiflingly hot in the summer and practically uninhabitable in the winter – but it’s crucial you select the correct glass and glazing to ensure energy efficiency and keep your heating bills to a minimum.

Consequently, opt for glass with a low U-value, as this will allow less heat to escape from your conservatory during the colder months. Importantly, if your conservatory will face north, therefore receiving less sunlight, lower U-value glass will be essential.

Now it’s over to you …

Have you recently added a conservatory to your property? What other tips would you give our readers looking to follow suit? Please let us know by leaving a comment below – we’d love to hear from you.

February 12, 2015
Garden room made of shipping containers

Having to struggle with space in modern houses and flats, a lot of people seek alternative solutions, such as building outdoor structures, adding a new floor to their houses or installing counters in their kitchens and platforms/decks in bedrooms. However, when resizing your rooms isn’t enough and there’s no other option, you should look into shipping containers and their purpose in modern homes – even though they’re not brand new structures and have been present on the market for some time, only now are they getting well-deserved attention and finding their purpose.

Unusual Purpose

So, how can this huge structure primarily built for overseas transport of large objects be integrated into your home and what advantages does it bring? Shipping containers can enrich both your outdoors as well as indoors, and it’s only a matter of creativity and budgeting. First of all, they make great garages or sheds and can, with very little modifications, provide quality solutions for your crammed space. Also, you can transform them into workshops, space for children to play in, storage rooms or even guest houses – but that might need quite a bit of modification. As for your indoor projects, you can incorporate shipping containers into your house by inserting them into big rooms creating separate space, or even adjoining them to the existing house walls. And the best part is that one container can always be combined and connected to others!

A Garden and a Farm in a Container

For all those who wish to have a personal garden or grow fruit and vegetables in an urban area, shipping containers are the right choice. They are transformed into portable farms that can be placed on building rooftops or even uninhabited spaces in cities. Moreover, these structures, also called “pods,” create an environment for themselves and are often self-sufficient and can produce about an acre’s worth of food even though they are only about thirty square meters big! Taking space of a living room or a slightly larger bedroom, these second hand containers are an effective and innovative solution that fits not only several types of vegetables, but also have a special addition to the roof where you can grow grass!

A Modern Solution from a Modern Designer

Not being completely satisfied with the initial concept of shipping containers-turned-gardens, designer Damien Chivialle created a new solution called “Urban Farm Unit” that, as the name suggests, takes the idea to the next level. Starting in 2010, his innovation combines several separate parts into a multi-level organization – there is a fish tank/pond on the lower level and a place for vegetables, herbs, small plants and flowers on the upper one, right in the sun, but that’s not nearly all. The thing with Chivialle’s solution that turns shipping containers into fully functioning gardens is the enabled circulation – water from the plants goes down and is stored in the fish tanks and is later, together with decomposed excrement of the fish, enriched by minerals and returned into the soil of the vegetables. By mimicking nature’s already present highly organized and quite perfect circular system, this solution brings urban gardens into a new phase and realizes their full potential.

Shipping Containers and More

It’s obvious how simple, everyday objects you didn’t consider useful and practical can be repurposed, recycled and given a new meaning. The same goes for shipping containers and their newly-found role in modern world – whether you want space to store your equipment and unused things, place for your garage or want to grow food in the urban environment, shipping containers are the right choice.

Image sources:

Yellow shipping container garden found on theownerbuildernetwork.co

Urban Farm Unit images found on inhabitat.com

February 11, 2015
D.W. Alexander, bar and lounge

Toronto’s center is full of diverse content. Museums, theatres and opera houses are part of its culture life and they are among the biggest and most prestigious in Canada. CN tower can be easily included in the modern wonders of the world. Part of T.O.’s life that not many people are mentioning is its night life. There has always been a high demand for quality liquors in this area, which led to many establishments being opened. Nowadays the competition is very stiff and there is a large amount of different managers and bar owners that are each day pondering over how to improve their business and provide the customers with something new and innovative. One of the spots worth mentioning in that regard is the Toronto bar D.W. Alexander.

In order to understand the building in which this club is situated, you need to know the history of the city. Like in many other places at that time, the industry was situated in the very center of the town, near the water and the railroad. That made it easy to distribute goods all over the Canada and US. One of the buildings that was used as a sales store, was the one in which D.W. is situated today. Its brick structure bears a stamp of the industrial era. During the years it transformed from leather business to bar and lounge.

Today, this is one of the Toronto’s modern entertainment establishments which are famous for its cocktails. The selection of drinks is really good. Most of them are either high quality or rare. Half of the cocktails represent a standard offer which can be found in Toronto, while the rest are exclusive to this bar. Menu list is a bit shorter and it is characteristic for this type of bars. The barbeque in this place is exquisite and it is perhaps its strongest trump card when it comes to food. With this offer and high quality of liquor and meat used as the ingredients, it is no wonder that the prices in this place are above average. Yet the price is understandable given the product that you get for it. This lounge usually attracts middle and upper class, who feel right at home in this fashionable bar.

Building is in the center, in the Church Street, near the Union Station, making it easily accessible. For the tourists, this represents a nice spot to rest in between visits to museums and other popular sights. Naturally, having in mind that it is in the inner city circle, there is not much parking space. Fortunately, public transportation in Toronto is really efficient and you won’t have any problem planning your night out.

If you are a fan of cocktails, D.W. Alexander is definitely a great place for you to visit. Many exotic mixtures are among the best in Canada and almost everyone will surely find a flavor that suits them. Its unique design and hospitable staff will make your night a one to remember.

February 10, 2015
7 Ways to Keep Your Home Safe

Your home should be your sanctuary, but is it safe? Burglaries are one of the most common crimes, with one burglary every 15 seconds in North America. However, we can all take steps to improve our home safety.

Install a secure door

The typical thief will spend only one minute—just 60 seconds—trying to break in to a home. Having a secure door could improve your home security, in addition to making your home more durable. For example, solid core or metals doors are very secure, and these doors come in a variety of attractive styles, which in addition to improving security, also increase curb appeal.

If you’re concerned about break-ins, don’t choose doors with glass panels unless you also have a security film over the glass. If the panel is close to the lock, a burglar could smash the glass unlock the door from the outside.

Install deadbolt locks

Deadbolt locks are the most secure, but make sure the horizontal bolt ismore than 1 inch long. Many break-ins occur when the burglar kicks the plate which holds the bolt or latch in place. Install a high-security metal strike plate, attached with 3-inch screws.

Make sure all outside doors are equally secure—including the door from your garage.

Don’t hide your key

Never hide a spare key to your home. This is a surprisingly common practice—and is known to burglars. That concealed hiding place might not be so secure, so leave your spare key with a friend instead.

Install secure windows

Windows are of course a common target for burglars. Make sure they have secure locks, and have stops installed which restricts their opening to 6 inches or so. Windows with tempered glass are stronger, and windows can also be made stronger with an impact-resistant film. Vinyl windows are safer and more energy efficient when compared to any other type of window.

Park inside your garage

If you have your garage door opener in your car, always make sure your car is parked securely in your garage.

Get a home security system

Home security systems may prevent your home being targeted, and in the event of a break-in, could increase the chance the burglar is apprehended. Some home security systems include glass-break sensors, or shock wave sensors, which will activate if a burglar is attempting to kick open your door. Alarm all windows and doors which could provide access.

Make sure the yard sign is visible, and use the window decals.

Don’t make your home look empty

Your home is a more tempting target if it looks unoccupied. Drapes which are closed all day are a sign that no one is home. If you go on vacation, install automatic timers to close drapes and turn lights on. Don’t let mail or newspapers pile up. Informing your neighbours you’ll be away means they can be on the look out for any potential problems.

Author Bio:

Deborah Salinas is my name and I am a contented homemaker who works from dawn to dusk for the well being of my family. I love everything which makes my home look elegant and stylish. I am an absolute family person and I try my best in bringing down heaven within the four walls of my home. I live with my husband and two handsome sons in Toronto.

February 10, 2015