We had lived in a series of rentals before we had our own place built, and many of these were old houses on their last legs.

There was one house in particular that we rented because it had mosaic tile floors, a large yard with fruit trees around the house and a Bermuda grass lawn in front. It was newly painted and, although we knew it was fifteen years old, we didn’t suspect that it had anything intrinsically wrong with it.

We had already settled in and were starting to add our own personal touches to the house décor when we had our first inkling of the problems to come.

There was water on the bedroom floor. At first, we thought it was because it had just heavily rained and there was condensation, but it worsened after a series of sunny days, and the tiles started to loosen. We pulled up the tiles and saw that the under surface was the old wooden flooring, rotting in places.

We found out that the water pipes, which were embedded under the floors and in the concrete walls, were made of PVC which had become brittle through the years and cracked.

Instead of changing the plumbing, the owners had just tiled over the wood.

We thought of by-passing the interior plumbing with exposed pipes until we saw the condition of the pipes coming in from the water main under the road.

We had to move out, but the experience served to make us aware so that  we involved ourselves more in the building of our own house, and, before choosing flooring material, we made sure that no pipes ran under the floors.

Gray is often viewed as a drab color.  By itself, it seems dusty, dirty, and drab.  But what most people don’t realize is that it’s a great color that can be used to control other colors, especially the bright ones.  Gray area rugs are a great way to decorate your floor and incorporate in bright colors without actually making your floor pop out and give people vertigo.  Like black, you can pair up almost any other color with it, although do be careful to not pair up any muddy colors with gray or else your room really will look dirty.  It’s best to pair up bright, popping colors with your grays.

If you’re having a hard time trying to match your gray rug with the right amount of another color, think of it as a cloud with silver lining, only instead of the gray being the silver lining, it’s the cloud, and you’re looking for colorful lining to go with it. 

Related articles by Zemanta

• Nature-Inspired Colors for Home Interiors (interiordecorating.suite101.com)
• Gray Rooms from a French Guest House (apartmenttherapy.com)

Taking care of your hardwood floor isn’t a hard thing to do, but it’s also not always noticeable how dirty your hardwood floor is until you actually clean it.  So here are some tips on keeping your hardwood floor clean and how to clean it.

1) Put mats at doorways.
Placing walk mats, similar to a Welcome mat you’d put at your front door, helps collect dirt off of shoes and prevents it from getting all over the floor. Not only will dirt particles make your floor dirty, but it can also potentially cause damage to your floor by scratching it or staining it. Remember that mats get dirty too, though! So be sure to shake them out every once in a while.

2) Don’t wear shoes indoors.
One effective way to prevent the floors from getting dirty is to not walk on floors with shoes on.  That way, you can ensure that your floors will stay clean for a longer period of time, and then you also won’t have to place mats all around the house if that’s not your personal aesthetic.

3) Sweep and mop weekly
Every Saturday, my mom would make me sweep the floor and my brother mop up after me.  It was always a chore I didn’t want to do, but after moving into a college dorm, I soon realized the benefits of weekly sweeping and mopping.  By doing these things daily (which really isn’t even a big deal and doesn’t take that long to do), you keep your floor clean as well as the bottom of your feet!

4) Retailer Instructions
Some types of hardwood floors have specific care that are instructed by the retailers.  This type of care is only once in a while, maybe a couple times of year, so it’s not something to worry too much about, but it’s important to remember if you want your floor to last a long time.  Be sure to ask your hardwood floor retailer about any special care you need to take in cleaning them.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Choosing a Hardwood Floor Vacuum (thehomeadventure.com)
• How To Prepare Hardwood Floors for Refinishing (home-flooring.suite101.com)

When it comes to any kind of aesthetic look, females are always known to be a tad pickier than men.  And even though children are known to change their minds a lot, there is no doubt that children are even picker when it comes to knowing what they want.  That being said, when it comes to buy a rug for daughters, there are definitely some easier tasks out there…unless you do it the right way.

Start out with asking what are some things your daughter likes.  Simple things, such as flowers or polka dots.  What colors does she like? Solid colors, such as pink, purple, green, white, or an array of colors, like rainbow, pastels, neons? It can also be a bonding moment, to pick out rugs with your child.  Children LOVE to touch things, and rug shopping is great way for them to not only touch, but feel the rug that they want in their room.

Whatever you get, in the end, could become a childhood heirloom that your daughter grows up with.  Even if you’re buying a new rug for a teenage daughter going off to college, a rug is something that adds a warm and comfortable touch to the room that can remind any little princess of home.

If you’re the type of person who loves all colors and all things rainbows, you must know that decorating your home may not be the easiest to do if you’re looking to incorporate every color of the rainbow spectrum into a room.  But here is a cool idea you might want to consider: pixelated rugs.

One company called Tufted creates high quality rugs that are handmade and made of many fabrics that are all different colors.  Their rugs kind of resemble fishscales, and brings to memory the Rainbow Fish.  Some rugs have bigger “scales” than others, but the color changes are definitely something interesting for your floor.

Anthropologie also has it’s own version of the pixelated rug, which is just a rug that is literally made out of many “pixels” of fabrics that are all different colors, more random and more chaotic than that of Tufted’s.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Tufted Pixel Rug (design-milk.com)
• 10 Circular Rugs ROUND Up (apartmenttherapy.com)
• tufted: pixel rug (designboom.com)