Herb Garden Right On your Dining Table

source

I guess, I'm a little bit slow when it comes to completing my herb garden which I've planned to do decades ago (lol).  Well, I've started with some but I haven't had the luxury of time to complete everything as of this time and I'm so looking forward to have this done as soon as possible.  But one thing good about failing to do this at once is having the opportunity to look for more herb gardening ideas and recently, I've found this awesome idea of having an herb garden right on your dining table.  I love that there is also a separate tin container for your small scissors in case you intend to cut some stalks for your salads or any dish that you're preparing in the kitchen.  You see, this doesn't even require us to buy so many things.  Empty tins were used for planting the herbs and adding some ribbons and a perfect underliner tray did the trick.

Isn't it awesome?

    

4 Safety Measures to Take Before Your Next DIY Project

photo credit

Occupational Health and Safety has become the bedrock of the building industry; similarly, if you consider yourself to be a DIY king or queen, the security and wellness of your family and visitors (especially those lending a hand) should be at the forefront of your mind. Before you walk around your abode or commercial building pondering what it may look like months from now, after the last lick of paint dries and furniture takes up residence, implement these safety measures to ensure nothing goes pear shaped and everybody goes home in one piece. DIY maven or not, you can never be too safe!

Eye on the Sky

The roof is a potentially hazardous renovation location on a good day; not only are you high up, but the tiles are rarely stable supports, particularly if you’ve never been up there – who knows what conditions you’ll meet? Standing on the top of the world has its perks, although, before you get caught up in the fantastic views, consider these three roof safety essentials: ladder safety, anchor points and personal protection equipment. Falls are a very real consequence of working at heights, as the right safety equipment (including PPE essentials like a harness, lanyard, and rope) can save you from taking the fast trip down, sans ladder and ending in broken limbs. Start your roof top journey by contacting a height safety business like www.safeatheightsqld.com.au to take you through the finer points of ladder safety, PPE Equipment and everything in between.

What’s in the Box?

Have you ever wondered where the streams of electricity come from, as they flow from power point to light socket? The circuit breaker box is the conduit of electricity, directing currents to your whitegoods, entertainment units and phone chargers; it’s the brain of the house, basically. When you’re DIY renovating, or even getting help, accept nothing less than the utmost care and attention around this live wire environment. Always ensure everything is clearly labelled (turning everything off is not a solution, as you’ll need electricity to power most tools) and the correct awareness of circuits and wire safety is disseminated among your unofficial work crew.

Let There Be Light!

Renovation brings on disorder, as things get moved, debris piles up and stray materials litter walk ways, prepared for the next day. Suitable lighting is essential to ensuring the safety of your family, particularly if you’re living on your own worksite. Assess the weaknesses of your current setup and consider investing in flood lamps and other portable solutions to avoid potentially painful or dangerous situations.

Chemical Containment

Power tools secured? Check. Circuit Box labelled? Yes. Paths cleared? Definitely. Well fitted PPE equipment? Always…Forgetting something? Chemical containment or management is often left until last, acted upon as an afterthought. Even if you don’t have curious little kids running around your ankles, chemicals are prone to react with each other, give off fumes and damage the environment. Minimise risk and harm by storing containers in a dry place, away from any pets or children; police all chemicals to make sure nothing is left out overnight.

Do you have anything to add to the safety conversation? Do you fancy yourself a DIY expert? Join the conversation below and share your home grown tips!

7 Essentials For a Stress-Free Move

Whether you’ve always been somewhat of a nomad who’s a dab hand at moving house, or find yourself moving to a new home after many years, check out these 7 essentials for making your move stress-free.

1.       Upstairs, Downstairs
Everything you take with you has to fit through your front or back door. So try to gather all your stuff as close to the departure point as you can. Get all boxes down from the attic or up from the basement before moving day arrives. Clear space in a room that you can do without for a few days before the move and stack everything in there.

2.       Clutter Away
As you move things, get rid of anything you haven’t used in the last couple of years – there’s no point moving it if you don’t need it.

3.       Book a Van
If you’re tackling the move yourself, hire a decent-sized van with a tail lift so you won’t be lifting any more than necessary. In other countries, moving and lifting big furniture items need special assistance. In those cases, furniture removals Sydney are sure to be contacted for assistance.  Get hold of a heavy duty trolley too. When you book the van, consider a company that will let you pick it up the night before so you can get a start on the loading, and perhaps ask if you can return it the day after the move.

4.       Packaging Paper for Moving House
You’ll need the right tools for the job and that means paper packing supplies including paper packaging tape; packaging paper roll; and packaging paper for moving. Keep your boxes small and manageable to eliminate too much heavy lifting. 

5.       Wrap It Up
Use moving supplies packing paper to protect your breakables. Packaging paper for moving house will ensure you wrap your fragile belongings carefully. Use bubble wrap to wrap items like knives and forks and your best crystal.

6.       Label, Label, Label
Don’t simply label your boxes according to which room they’ll be going into. Label them according to where they’ve come from and you’ll have a much better idea where to find that ashtray or coffee mug when you need to take a break. Label your boxes not only on the top but on two sides too so you won’t have to lift each and every box to find out what you’ve put in it. Also make some signs for the new house such as “office, bedroom 1 and bedroom 2” so those helping you move on the day will know where to put each box.

7.       The Essentials
Put together a moving day essentials box. This box should carry things like a kettle and enough mugs for everyone helping as well as sugar, tea and coffee and a carton of Long Life mile. A bottle of water or some welcoming cold drinks on a hot day are also a good idea as are a couple of snacks and a roll or two of toilet paper.

Create another essentials box with a hammer, screwdriver, drill and a couple of nails too. You may even like to include wall plugs in this box and some light bulbs. Bin bags will come in handy too as will large dust sheets on a rainy day. Planning your move and ensuring you have enough boxes and packaging paper for moving house will ensure that your moving day is that much less stressful and hassle-free.

Concrete Block Raised Bed

source

I am thinking of making a similar design for my vegetable garden.  I am actually thinking of using some woods but after seeing this, I guess this would last longer.  I have to consider the extreme rainy season in the Philippines where typhoons seems to be a normal occurrence, so I guess concrete blocks will work best than pallets of woods.  I've started growing vegetables on containers as I would love the idea that I could transfer these pots anywhere in the yard but my other green veggies require larger space such as the sweet potatoes, so I need to have a raised bed. I think this one will work best in our yard. :)

How Roll Up Displays Can Get You Noticed

Trade Shows

Essentially, trade shows are networking hubs for people to come across all sorts of business information – right from the companies who are current players in the specific field. It is also a brilliant way for the companies to increase their brandability and draw attention to their products and services amongst their target marketing audience. It’s also the perfect opportunity to grab the attention of prospective customers.

Roll Up Display Stands By DisplayToday.com

Roll up display stands neatly and professionally displayed on your exhibition spot are the perfect way to get the word out about your services and products. One of the biggest benefits of having professionally printed stands is that your company can professionally advertised by portable, premium quality banner stands as well as modular stands and brochure stands. These types of marketing tools are easily customisable and really quick and effortless to set up and take down again – it only takes minutes.

If you’ve yet to have display stands printed for your company, take a look at the roll up display stands by DisplayToday.com. They can help you choose the best material for your stand as well as advising on the artwork to ensure your stand remains top-of-mind and draws attendees to your stand.

Choosing a Stand

Choosing the right display stand for your products and services is of the utmost importance, especially if you plan on taking full advantage of the opportunities that exhibits and trade shows offer. You’ll no doubt want to be the exhibitor that grabs your consumer’s attention, calls on your target audience and convinces everyone to check out what you currently have to offer.

Roll up display banners come in a variety of sizes, materials and prices. Every single part has a unique function. So it’s crucial that you select displays that are going to compliment your business’s particular products and services.

Professionally printed display stands are one of the most crucial aspects of presenting your brand at a trade show. Just showing up for the show is simply not good enough – it needs to be worth your customer’s while to visit your set-up. To get the best results from your roll up display stands:

• Make sure your displays are neatly put together and easily visible for top success
• Effective displays will pull the crowd in and get them interested in learning more about your offerings
• Your printing display should encourage active engagement from your visitors. It should draw them in so that you can sing the praises of your products and services.

Visit the www.DisplayToday.com website to learn more about roll up banners.

Making The Most of Your Garden Waste

I have lots of plants in my garden and all over our yard and more often than not, I used to do a lot of trimmings and weeding on my plants.  I usually collect all my garden waste and either throw these directly to the garbage can or burn it off to get rid of the insects especially the mosquitoes.  But recently, as I embark more to vegetable gardening and as I try to update my garden, I am on a look out for more ideas and ways to make my gardening adventure more exciting.  I'm getting a lot of tips on how to properly take care of my plants and how to propagate them easily. One of the best tips that I got was how to make my garden waste into fertilizers and I find it really useful since I've been having a lot of garden waste from my daily garden activities.

Composting is the main key here.  I have to collect all the dried leaves and stems that I got out of trimming my plants and put these on an empty large plastic bin. This has to be topped with soil and repeat the process until you are able to convert these garden waste into fertilizer which will definitely add up to the richness of your soil.  I think this is a good way of making the most out of your garden waste. You are able to help the community by producing less garbage and at the same time, you are able to give something useful back to the garden. 

Isn't this awesome?

Navigating Your Way Through Global Real Estate

The quest to find the perfect home for your family can be a long and tedious journey. Whether you plan on living in or renting out the home, it is difficult to find the best deal. Trying to find the right home on your own is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. You could spend tons of time and energy searching and still end up being unsatisfied. Time is a precious commodity that seems to slip by faster every day. This can be especially true for a successful person with a full-time job. Stepping out of the normal routine can be difficult for many. Without their routine, their whole method of success may be thrown off kilter. Things can start spiraling from there and get worse. This is why many successful people trust an expert. For an average person, there are just too many options. An expert from a company that offers a global real estate solution could save them time and money.

Searching for an Amazing Home

Imagine living and working in America every day. You have worked hard and become very successful. You decide to look into purchasing real estate in Europe. You would love to go look into all the property yourself, but you don’t have that much free time. You need someone to go check things out for you and help narrow your search down. Then you can plan a short trip to check out the best options. The right company will send an agent that really wants to get to know you. They will also have a knack for asking the right questions to help them understand your vision of the perfect property.

Expert Help Can Lead to Low Stress Home Buying

Global real estate companies can help you find a home anywhere across the globe. Consider your options when investigating potential property purchases. Do you have the time and energy to find the right place? If you try to complete the property buying process under too much stress, it could lead to poor decision making. Trusting the search to professionals could be your best option.                                                                                                                                            

Kitchen Container Gardening

source

I have just started with something on my side yard.  I have a bigger space for gardening but I don't want to make use of the land because I have some upcoming projects for the said land, so I've decided to resort to container gardening for my home grown vegetables.  This could give me me a flexibility to move the plants and secure them during heavy rains.  Currently, I made use of my side yard for my vegetable garden planted in pots of different sizes.  I wish to add up more and I'm still in the process of acquiring more seedlings.  I think my vegetable garden will be in full bloom come summer.  I can't wait to post real pictures here.

Container gardening is a good solution for those who do not have a big yard.  In fact, this could be done even on the small patios.  I've seen few designs on some interesting sites and this is where I adapt the idea of what I've started at home.   

I have some friends who would love to start their own garden, too but they complain about not having enough space for this so I advised them to resort to container gardening which is more fun and easier to maintain.  You may want to try this in your own place, too. :)

Unique Home Decors

Whenever we travel abroad, I am always on a look out for a unique home decor that would speak of the country where it was bought.  I've managed to buy several cute figurines from Cambodia and Vietnam, a nice lamp shade and a pewter from Thailand.  If not for the baggage problem, I would have bought few more like paintings and other art works.  I'm really a home lover and I would always like to beautify my home.  I would rather proceed to the home section of a shopping mall rather than scout for mikimoto jewelry at the jewelry section.   

Now that I'm home for good, I'm more to DIY decors.  Perhaps, if I have more time, I would have done a lot by now.  I have several DIY in my bucket list like remote control organizer for my living room and bedroom, a vertical garden, jewelry organizer and some wall art.  I wish I could accomplish some of these during summer.  We will be all home by then so I'm quite optimistic that we will be able to come up with some interesting weekend projects.  

An All Seasons Porch

source

If you are living in the Philippines, then you should always consider building your outdoor spaces in a way that it would be useful for all seasons.  This was my failure when we built our house.  We should have more areas covered so these could be protected from both sun and heavy rains.  This is actually the reason why I have our poly carbonate awning installed in our laundry area.  Now, I'm thinking about our porch.  Our porch design is best for dry season.  Air can come in and out freely, so it's really relaxing to stay there especially on a very hot weather.  However, the problem is during rainy season especially on the onset of heavy rains.  Rain water could easily get inside the porch as it is an open space, so you would expect the tile flooring to be wet all day long.  It's quite dangerous as this is the main entry to the house and it's very slippery.  Our pet dog can't also stay in the porch during rainy season as it's totally wet.

I think the porch design shown above is perfect if you want to build a house in the Philippines.  More often, rainy season becomes longer than the dry season and it would be best if we would make our outdoor space covered from wall to wall.  Glass door panels can be perfect for this kind of situation.  It could be open wide during dry season to allow air to come in and can be closed during rainy season to protect the area from being wet.

Now a days, we have to be extra creative when working our our home spaces.  For me, comfort is my top priority so I always see to it that everything is convenient for me given all the weather conditions.

A Gorgeous Music Room

    Eclectic Media Room by Wilmington Interior Designers & Decorators Bruce Palmer Interior Design

How would you feel if you have this kind of music room in your house? Great, isn't it?  This place is perfect for music lovers!  The sound proof wall makes it an ideal place for voice recording and those leather sofas are pretty awesome!  The guitar collection with those vibrant color are simply amazing!  

Building a music room, I guess is not that easy.  It entails a big capital and of course, a great passion for music.  My daughter once dreamed of having a fender fa 100 acoustic guitar from guitar center but that remains a dream as she already dropped her passion for music for a while.  She is now prioritizing her studies and I couldn't agree more.  I am thinking that she could always get back to her passion at a right time anyway.

To have this kind of music room is certainly a good idea.  Why not? If you have enough money for the musical instruments and an exceptional talent in home decorating plus a burning passion for music, this dream would come into a reality.  But since, we are not really musically inclined, I guess this will be the least of our priorities for now.  I really love the design though and I salute the designers who came up with this brilliant design.

  

Give Your Kitchen A New Look

I am at awe for a kitchen makeover but I do not want this to be a pain in my pocket, so I am in search for a kitchen make over that's friendly on the budget. Apart from adding more storage spaces in my kitchen, I am planning to give my dining table a lift by either adding some colors to it or just simply accessorize it. 

One way to liven up your dining table is to add fabrics.  You can make this possible by adding a burlap aisle runner on your dining table or you can also create a unique center piece to add drama to your dining room. Burlap aisle runner can easily be transformed into a table cloth or can also be used as window covers.  It could give your dining room a natural look.  You can also pair it with burlap chair covers to match the overall look of the dining room.

We could also consider to modify our kitchen cabinets or kitchen counter tops. Repainting is also one of the many options that we can choose.  To soften the look of your kitchen, you may refresh your cabinets with a few coats of a soothing paint color.  You maybe surprised with the results.  

There's a lot of ways to reinvent our kitchen and budget should not always be a problem as long we are creative enough to transform used things into modern and artistic creations.  Sometimes, things that can be picked from our backyard can be a great work of art. 

Glass Front Cabinets

source

If you want to give your kitchen cabinets a bit of make over, you could try to change the wooden doors to glass.  Some home makers though do not like the idea of showing the content of their cabinets.  If this is the case, you may consider going for opaque doors.  It actually looks light and clean!

I guess, I have installed the same material in my bathroom which serves as our shower enclosure.  It's tinted though so you cannot really see the person taking a shower but I love that it looks neat and elegant.  I guess the same kind of materials can be great for kitchen cabinet doors, as well but I think it would be nicer to choose a frosted one as it partially conceals the contents of the cabinet.  This would help you hide the mess in your cabinets for the time being and work on it when your time permits.  This way, you won't be pressured to do additional chores right away.

     

Centralized Music System At Home

Have you dreamed of having a centralized music at home or maybe you already have one in the house now? It will always be a pleasure to have centralized music system at home especially when you are doing your household chores.  It will surely spice up your mood and give you more energy more than you can imagine. Music heals our soul and it sometimes uplift our spirit especially when we listen to the songs that we truly love.  How I wish, I could have an access to the same music in every part of the house, that would be fun, I supposed. :)   The ideal system for playing music across your entire home should be easy to integrate and implement, flexible, reliable and easy to operate.  Of course, music can be distracting if it's too loud or if it competes with our attention to a more important thing that we're doing but overall, music has so many positive effects on the human brain.  In fact, it can help us in pain management.  Music therapy is also being used to reduce the need for medication and this is being practiced in some hospitals.  This is the reason why sometimes, I just ignored my teens when they are in the mood to play their gibson acoustic electric guitars from musicians friend especially during weekends.  That's their time to bond and I can't say no to that.  But as a Mom who is more sensitive to a noisy environment, I prefer soft and mellow music.  Something that's soothing to the ear.  Maybe our preference for music really changes as we aged. :) I've heard that it's now easy to install a centralized music system at home.  The simplest and most affordable way is to install a digital media adapter.  These adapters send audio signals freely between two or more components, such as between a PC and a stereo receiver, or a receiver and a tabletop system almost anywhere you want to send music without using a wire or a cable.  If you want, you may even have the music played inside your bathroom.  This is the good thing about modern technology, everything can be done even without having to spend much.  Well, I might consider doing this at home given the opportunity. How about you? Would you go for wireless centralized music system at home, too?