5 Things to Do Before Starting A Kitchen Design Project

In deciding on what to do in hiring a kitchen designer a well thought out plan is necessary for any kitchen design project to be successful.

A good kitchen designer should be able to work with you to create the design that will both fit your desires and needs and that squares with your budget.

1. How Much Are You Willing To Spend? Level with the designer just how much you will be willing to spend on your kitchen design project. Let the designer know just what you would feel comfortable spending. This way you can insure that the designer and contractor will have a clear direction on where to go with the project and not go overboard. They will have a good idea of the limits when drawing up plans and selecting materials.

2. How Much Time Are You Willing To Devote? You need to consider what your personal needs are and if you will be able to work around the necessary construction in your kitchen. By consulting with an experienced kitchen designer you can get a good idea of how long your kitchen design project will take by providing a timeline that your family can plan around.

3. What Style Are You Planning For Your Kitchen Design Project? You want to give the kitchen designer as much information as possible. You need to do as much research as possible before your meeting with a kitchen designer.

First you should consult with design magazines and catalogs to get an idea of what style and design elements you would like to see for your kitchen. To compile more ideas visit kitchen design showrooms,

check out products and design on the internet and take notes. What are your likes and dislikes regarding color and styles. Make a scrapbook with clips from the magazines and catalogs, as well as examples of materials and design elements you would like to see in the kitchen. Use these to show the kitchen designer what your vision is for the new kitchen. Also bring a list of questions for your kitchen designer.

4. How Do You Use Your Kitchen? You need to be prepared for questions that a kitchen designer will ask you when you first meet with him. Among the questions that you need to ask yourself before talking to your kitchen designer are: Will you be doing a lot of entertaining with family and friends? Is your family busy during the week with lots of activities? You should also fine out what other family members have in the way of ideas.

5. How To Prepare For Your Kitchen Design Project? You will need to prepare for the disruption that will be caused by your kitchen design project. But with the right planning you can make the project run as smoothly and a quickly as possible. You need to make sure that the kitchen design project area and the living area are separate for both safety reasons and to stay out of the way of the contractor and his crew. You might have to set up a temporary kitchen in another room of the house. What time of the year you schedule a kitchen design project can make it easier on everyone since in the warmer months it is possible to eat and cook outdoors.

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How to Select Wooden Bathroom Furniture

Bathroom furniture is a main character in bathroom decoration, it is also one of the three must own items within a bathroom. How to select and distinguish between good and bad bathroom cabinet products and to make the most of the money you spend? First of all, you must get an all-round understanding about the bathroom furniture products from the following aspects. As for solid wood bathroom furniture, according to their physical properties and waterproof, anti-corrosion efficacy, oak is particularly the best choice.

- Flake board bathroom furniture

This kind of bathroom furniture is most commonly found in low cost bathroom and kitchen furniture ranges. It is processed from wood waste and obtain very high water absorption rate. You can identify them from the edge of lumber at both the opening and interface. Manufacturers often produce it by pasting emulated paper leather, wood leather, plastic skin, packaging the edges with other materials, and then spreading it with different colors of paint.

- Cabinet work board bathroom furniture

It is usually found in a number of low-cost or medium priced range wooden bathroom furniture. Because the structure of the furniture is composed by joining many different wood slices together, thus the prices are depended on different material used. Its anti-compression capacity is rather weak because of the combined structured, e.g., if the surface paint is not well done, sun-exposure and humidity will cause all sort of problems including ripped open on the leg plinth etc.

- MDF (Medium Density Fiber) board bathroom furniture



It is relatively prevalent in some household furniture. Using for decoration of indoor exhibition stand and shelf, the waterproof and moisture proof are not as good as other material made furniture. This explains why this kind of furniture often easier to be cracked, it is not appropriate to use the MDF furniture within the humidity environment of bathroom.

- Oak board bathroom furniture

Oak bears unique wood-grain, corrode-resisting wood core, high density and solid texture.. Bathrooms furniture made of oak possesses the advantages of mahogany furniture: elegant, calm, and dignified. But its price is much lower than mahogany. Because of its numerous advantages, oak is widely used to produce beer barrel, grape-wine barrels, bathrooms casks, floor, and outdoor wooden bridge, etc. It is also the most ideal material to produce bathroom cabinet. On the basis of color, Oak can be classified into: white oak and red oak. White oaks are more popular amount urban users because users can easily blend the colour into their existing deco style.

Here are 4 tips to select the perfect Bathroom Cabinet

* For ordinary families, the best choice of bathroom cabinet is wall-mounted cabinet, plinth cabinet or wheeled cabinet. It will effectively isolate the ground moisture;
* Check the spare parts of the bathroom cabinets before purchasing. If they are all made of moisture-proof aluminum or stainless steel materials, the moisture-resistance performance will be guaranteed.
* It is necessary to check the opening degree of bathroom cabinet hinge. When the opening angle reaches 180 degrees, it is more convenient to pick and place items;
* During selecting the style of bathroom cabinet, it is necessary to ensure the repair of water pipes and the valve switches. Do not leave troubles to subsequent maintenance and repair.

by JORDAN SUN

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How To Stop Water From Leaking Into Your Home?

Water leakage in basements is a problem that can run havoc in your life. It ultimately weakens the foundation of your home, results in cracked walls, bowed walls, damage to items like your favorite books and so on. This problem is even bigger in moist and humid areas like Indiana (USA). But you can stop your house from having severe damage if you take care of the problem quickly. There are many ways to stop water leaking in basements by using technologically advanced and innovative basement finishing products. Opting for professional foundation repair services and basement waterproofing services would be the best. If you are wondering how to get a drier and cleaner basement by stopping water leakage then read on.

Sometimes home inspectors will alert home owners to water leaking in your house. A home inspector can give good insight on what type of problem you are having and advise on a company that they suggest. Sometimes companies that specialize in basement waterproofing and water leakage provide free consultation services such as Indiana Foundation Services. It is always beneficial to take advice of friends, relatives and neighbors who have recently got such work done.

There are many ways to stop water leaking in your basement, but the solution will depend on what is causing it. Requesting the service of professional basement finishing services will give you better results and save your basement and home from future damage. Water leaking in basements can be fixed by any of the following methods:


1) Exterior Excavation
2) DryTrak
3) Negative-side Waterproofing
4) WaterGuard
5) Interior Footing Drain

A professional landscaper can also contour the ground around your home in such a manner so that the water naturally flows away from your home. A dehumidifier will help to lower the moisture level in the air in your basement. A sump pump will stop your basement from flooding.

When you call a professional company such as Indiana Foundation Service, they will diagnose the problem and tell you why water is coming into the homes basement or crawl space. It is possible that they need to be cleaned and put into their proper place. Gutter guards cannot stop all pollinating flowers, such as oak pollen, from getting in your gutters and clogging your system. Is the air in your basement too damp? The grading around your house matters too. Whether water naturally pools near your house or not may be a reason for water leaking in your basement. Finding out the source of the problem leads to a good and enduring solution and that is what Indiana Foundation Service excels in.

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Come out on top of the downturn - 5 tips to improve your individual situation.

Make your own personal plan to get through the tough time we face in 2009. Do a quick assessment on yourself now, where you would like to be in the future and how you are going to get there; this could be in regard to your finances, your personality, your career, your health or anything you choose. These 5 tips can help improve your personal situation.

The economic recession is here but how can you stop yourself getting on the spiraling train to nowhere fast? Stop your own personal recession and turn a negative into a positive. As the state of the economy continues to decline, where are all the leaders? With a widespread decline in the GDP and employment on downward slide it seems that everywhere we turn we hear more personal stories of doom and gloom. Yet another round of redundancies, more depleted super nest eggs, retirees postponing retirement, banks foreclosing and people having to sell their homes in order to survive – how can you be different?

When difficult times abound people begin to look within and reflect on where they are in their own personal journey of life. Most people are either glass half full or glass half empty – which are you? Where are you? Do you love your job? Do you have enough time to spend with your family and friends? If you could choose the life you really want, how many hours a week would you work? Would you surround yourself with more positive and successful people? Can you see yourself clearly five years from now? What will you be doing, earning, seeing, and being? These and so many more questions will arise as adverse times surround us and we battle to move forward into the unknown. The catch here is to make the unknown known.

So, let us focus on the positive. So many people are looking for positive leaders to show them the way and if they don’t find them or they let them down then despair can set in. In order to survive difficult times we must first assess who and where we are and then or course who and where we would like to be. Here are the tips to not just survive this recession but to flourish.

1. Know yourself - you are in charge.


Give yourself a quick reality check and tap into both your conscious mind and your sub conscious mind – don’t be afraid to think outside the square. Ask yourself the following questions:

* What do I stand for?
* Do I like who I am?
* What areas would I like to improve?
* What makes me tick?
* How can you become a better person?
* If I could be anything at all what would I be?

2. Know your environment

What is around me that is positive and what is around me that is negative? Do a quick audit to limit the negativity in your life and expand the positive influences. Take stock of where you live, the work you do, the people you associate with and ask yourself if they are positive or negative influences on you. If someone tells a child enough times over that they are “bad” the child will grow up believing they are “bad”. Similarly if someone tells you as an adult that “We are in a recession and likely to lose our jobs and houses.” then we will naturally start to believe this to be inevitable.

3. Plan your course

Plan to change or limit the negative influences in your life and improve and grow the positive influences. Surround yourself with people who like you and believe in you. If your plan is to keep your job then surround yourself with people who believe and reinforce that you will keep your job. Also plan how you will keep your job. Do you need to affect more sales or support your Manager more or be happier in the workplace? Actually set yourself some tangible challenges and complete them. The satisfaction you will get from writing down these mini goals and then achieving them will actually send out more positive vibrations to yourself and others around you creating more positively.

4. Use your resources

Be aware of who and what is around you to help you improve your situation and achieve your goals. If you have a mentor at work, use him/her to help you achieve your goals at work. Be inspired. If you’re a Mum, use your mother’s group, friends or family to help achieve the goals you set for yourself as a Mum. Also don’t underestimate the power of the pen. It costs you nothing to sit down and write out a plan of what you want to achieve and how you are going to get there. Do you need to complete a course of further study in order to get that promotion? If so, write it down and then when you have completed it tick it off your list and celebrate the achievement. If you aim to be a better husband then talk to your wife about what she would like you to do. Talking, writing and communicating are free resources at your fingertips so don’t underestimate them.

5. Manage the risk

Minor changes are often easier to achieve than major changes. So don’t quit your job as a nurse to open your own café. Decide what you want to do, plan it, devise a strategy to achieve it and surround yourself with positive people who believe you can do it. Take baby steps as this way you will also feel more success and achievement along the way and that in itself will have you espousing optimism.

So take stock of your situation and if you’re happy with it keep doing what you’re doing but if you’re not then take stock, believe in yourself, initiate change and develop your own personal success track to satisfaction. You can and will survive the recession and actually come out on top.

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Teak Furniture - Ideal For Outdoors

When it comes to wooden furniture, most people just classify them as hardwood furniture, or softwood furniture. Simple classifications do help to make buying decisions easier. However, in reality, even when wood belongs to the same category, they can have rather different characteristics.

For example, not all hardwood is suitable for the outdoors. That is because outdoor furniture has to be exposed to external elements such as weather, moisture, insects, weeds, etc. Furniture gets damaged very easily when left outdoors for prolonged periods of time.

Therefore, if you are considering buying furniture for the outdoors, you have to be extra careful about the raw materials that is used to create the furniture. Some homeowners may just jump to conclusion and write off wooden furniture, thinking that they may rot when left outdoors. Others may think that steel furniture sounds like a better option.

In general, if you buy furniture that is made from some kind of stainless steel, it’s a relatively safe choice. However, steel is still subject to rust and oxidation, which dulls the shiny appearance of the surface. Furthermore, steel can never achieve the same aesthetic effects of wood.


If you still prefer wooden furniture, you may be comforted in knowing that there are certain types of wood that is suitable for the outdoors. Teak is one such example.

Unlike other types of timber, teak has got some unique characteristics, that may it extremely durable. In fact, teak is renowned for it’s ease of maintenance and durability. The wood contains high levels of resinous oils, which helps to keep out moisture, insects, and plant growth. You may be surprised to find that teak won’t rot even when left in the outdoors.

Teak does not grow in rain forests. It is a deciduous plant that grows in hilly areas. It is mostly found in South East Asia. But the highest quality teak comes from Indonesia. These are not carelessly harvested raw materials. The teak actually comes from specialized tree farms.

If you are looking for high quality teak furniture, be prepared to pay a premium price for the furniture. That is mainly because it takes several decades for teak trees to become mature. To get a better price for the furniture, you may wish to consider buying teak furniture at wholesale prices. The more you buy, the more discount you can ask for.

One would expect a wood that is as durable as teak to be hard to work with. Fortunately, that is not true at all. Many expert craftsmen find teak to be an easy wood to work with. In general, most teak are straight grained. You do occasionally find wavy grained teak though. For this reason, teak is a very popular material that is used to build decks, cabinets, etc. You even find it in expensive boats!

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