Category — Live

With styles and designs changing all the time, it is often hard to decide on one specific style and commit to purchasing a sofa. Because sofas are such a financial investment for most people it is essential that you feel confident that you are making the right purchase for you. There is nothing worse than buying a sofa only to stumble upon the one you really want one week later.

Although this risk can never be totally removed there are things you can do to reduce the possibility.

Firstly work out all the local stores in your surrounding area. Take the time to visit them all one weekend. Take pictures of all the sofas you like and take note of the basic details to ensure you have a record for later on. Doing this makes sure you will not stroll in to a sofa store weeks later and realise you had forgot about a sofa you viewed. It may even make sense to rate the sofa on comfort so you at least have some metric for this important factor.

The next step is to spend a few evenings checking out design and interior blogs. Doing this will give you a good understanding of the latest trends and styles. Make sure to print out all of your favourite visuals from the blogs you have been checking out.  This process will also give you an idea about how your space could be changed to accommodate a certain style of sofa. Often it is the room that your sofa is going to be located that drives your sofa choice rather than the actual sofa itself. Make sure you realise that a wall can be painted in second but a sofas appearance cannot be altered.

Once you have done this it is also advisable to check out 4-5 of the major sofa retailers online. Often there are great deals to be found online and you may even be able to purchase a sofa you have tested offline online. Many of the major high street retailers also have a strong online presence offering great deals and offers. Trying a product on the high street and then buying online is usually the most cost effective way of buying. Remember to scour the internet for a good few hours or until you feel you have a clear view of what is available.

Print your visual references out, print the photos from your weekend shopping around, compare notes and make the best decision you can.

This process should make you feel confident in your decision.

Good luck, I hope this helped!

When i think about interior design, I love to experiment to find the right layout, style and feel for my home. This process will not come in an instant so I would advise testing out different themes for your home. Here are a few quick tips which could work well in your home:

1. Think about changing the colour scheme depending on the season. When the weather is really special, why not consider changing your interiors to match. This could include buying lighter coloured fabrics, adding more light to the living spaces and decluttering your rooms to give a more spacious feel.

2. Experiment with art and design pieces to add interest to different rooms around the home. Obviously, artwork will depend on your tastes so choose items that reflect your personality for best results. Alternatively, why not choose some nice home decor items such as plates, glassware, soft furnishings or collectable figurines to add a touch of class to the room.

3. Create a greater sense of space of light. By adding mirrors in strategic locations around a room, you can quickly increase the perception of space and light in a room. This is a well known trick used in many interiors to open out a room and give it a lighter feel. Don’t go too overboard however, so mix mirrors with paintings and artwork for maximum effect.

4. Get your floor coverings sorted – A high quality rug or floor covering can add depth and texture to a room, which can be missed in many homes, especially ones with wooden flooring.

Depending on the room, go for something neutral in colour so that it does not detract too much from the existing furniture in the room.

With a few of these tips to hand, let’s hope you can improve your home with ease.

Those who know colour schemes well use that to their advantage to create stunning homes without having to buy the best furnishing or the most expensive accents.Most people know that dark colours usually make a space look smaller while pale colours have the opposite effect. But knowing this alone isn’t enough to help you aptly choose the right colour scheme for your home.

What colour should my walls be? Let’s look at the main colour contributor in any home — the walls. Ever been in a room and immediately get a headache but didn’t know why? Exit the room and instantly feel better? You’ve just been affected by the colour scheme! While I can’t say for sure what colours you should avoid, there are guidelines to select apt colours for your walls. As most people can’t mentally visualise the outcome, they find that the colour charts provided by paint companies usually turn out a different shade. If you want to have bold colours in your living room or bedroom, the rule of thumb is, choose three or four colours that you would like for a room — you will apply these colours to your walls and furnishing.

One colour must be the dominant colour while another colour should be used half as much as the dominant colour. The third and fourth colours are used sparingly as accents. If you already have furniture in the room, select a shade that is similar or complements the fabric colours on your sofa. Note that contrasting colours will accentuate the structural details of your room, but extreme contrasts will leave your guests too distracted to fully enjoy the effort you’ve put into the room. How do I choose colours? Before even deciding on the colours, know what your room is to be used for, and how much natural light usually gets let in. Colours have characteristics that are augmented differently in natural or artificial light.

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An unclean living environment can prove to be an unpleasant backdrop for our day to day lives. But getting your elbows dirty doesn’t have to be as stressful as it first appears, and below are some handy tips to help you on your way.

Let’s start small. We have all been a little too enthusiastic when dunking a biscuit into cup of coffee at some point, but it can go wrong! Cleaning coffee spillages is really simple. For carpets, sponge the spill with cold water and blot dry. If the stain is stubborn, reach for the shampoo. For your upholstery, sponge the stain with cold water then dab at the mark with laundry detergent solution. Rinse and blot dry.

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Who doesn’t like a nice smelling home? After cars and bathrooms, the next place many look to aromatize is their living spaces. Often we find homes with essential oils burning in the background, releasing the tender smells of ylang ylang or the relaxing odor of lavender amongst the myriad fragrances available in the market today.

Metafora Home Ambience fragrances are somewhat unique in that the aroma oil permeates from a jar through rattan reeds. These rattan reeds contain channels within the reed itself to produce a capillary effect that in layman terms, sucks up the oil and diffuses it into the air at the tip of the reed

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In the world we live in today protecting your home is more important than ever for a number of reasons. The increased value of contents that people now have in their homes means that burgling a home is more profitable than ever for the common thief. Also, as we become more reliant on computers and other technology these devices have more and more value than meets the eye with thousands of sentimental photos, personal records, music and other data being stored on such devices.

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Fact- Home renovation and furnishing cost a bomb! Many always start out with grand plans for their new home up until the quote from the contractor comes in. These plans then get stripped down, contractor requotes, stripped down further, requote (well, you get the idea), until the price is right.

This scenario does not apply to those with deep pockets but certainly holds true for the majority of us out there. There are only two things one can do – find another source of income, or save up to get your home done up ideally. The former is definitely the better option- easier said than done though.

Kelly from Almost Frugal has two very real and applicable articles from her blog on things she does to live frugally in order to save more. As she’s a student in France, not all of her tips are directly applicable due to social and cultural differences between Europe and us here in the Eat, but each article offers 25 tips and is definitely worth a read.

Click on the images below to access Kelly’s articles

Polypropylene pendant lights are very popular in contemporary modern day homes. Unfortunately, for anything designer, you’d have to fork out a handsome amount of money to procure it. Despite most local lighting stores constantly putting up banners that sale ‘SALE! Discount up to 70%‘, pendant lights usually cost several hundred dollars even after discount.

Really, these pendant lights are just made out of sheet plastic. For RM129.90, you can get the KNAPPA pendant light from IKEA, which is probably one of the more reasonably priced lamps of its kind. Still, I can’t quite get beyond paying that amount for sheet plastic.

Puremodern.com sells the Asbury Pendant Light for USD120.00. Personally, I think this design is rather cool. Perhaps because it reminds me of a local thorny fruit that’s banned in all 5-star hotels here!

For a little less, Exclusivelyhome.com has the more intricate Cerebro pendant light to offer. There’s no denying that pendant lights are becoming quite the craze. Most modern showrooms often have pendant lights as their lamp of choice in living rooms and hallways. Click here to view the cerebro lamp on exclusivelyhome.com

If you’re unwilling to part with that much money for a plastic lamp, then here’s the perfect answer- an invaluable instructable. Thanks to Dan, you now have a great tutorial and an avenue to create a super cost-efficient pendant light.

Click here to go to Dan’s Pendant Light instructable.

Alternatively, here’s another great source for teaching you how to create pendant lights – Steve Lambert’s Bright Idea Shade.

Watch the video Here

Imagesource (from top): IKEA, puremodern.com, exclusivelyhome.com, instructables.com

We’ve recently been given a juicer by our parents. Our fridge has never really been filled up since it’s just the both of us at home and our guests have even commented on how unbelievably empty our fridge is. The only item that seems to be a constant is ice cream in the freezer.

Now, the fridge is brimming with fruits, mainly from the orange and apple variety. Having fresh fruit juice in the morning is a surefire way to wake one up and get one refreshed and energized for the day. Unfortunately, we don’t usually juice the fruits in the morning for the lack of time… more honestly, the lack of willpower to wake up that extra bit earlier to cut and juice the fruits. Most of the time we have ours in the night, which is also a great way to top off our meals.

It only takes several minutes to cut the fruits up and several more to clean up after. The juicer that we’ve got is pretty neat and is well designed to make juicing quick and efficient with a large enough entrance to put the fruits in (meaning we don’t have to cut them into minute chunks), and a pitcher at the other end which is an adequate size- holds approximately 5 cups of juice. It’s also cleverly designed to make cleaning a breeze. The entire top half of the juicer can be detached and brought directly to the sink to be disassembled and cleaned part by part.

Occasionally I’ll have my celery + green apple + young bittergourd juice, which YinLeng finds absolutely yucky. She likes the apple + orange or orange + carrot combo. Quick tip- if you’re juicing carrots, it’s best to wash the juicer immediately as the beta-carotene contained in carrots can leave permanent stains on the plastics.

With this, we never have to go out and drink diluted fruit juice with lots of sugar syrup added to the concoction in the local kopitiams or pay over the top pricing for juices at fancy eateries. Remember- juices should be drunk almost immediately after juicing to avoid oxidisation.

Do you have any great juicing combos? Share it by posting a comment today!

Live healthy. Drink well.

Imagesource: howshouse.com

Here’s a good post shared by Kelly from RNcentral.com- 99 Ways to Make Your Home a Healthier Place. Click here to access the article.

Some of the tips in the article may not be entirely applicable to eastern homes (e.g. tips for pools, garages, carbon monoxide detectors) but there are plenty of other tips which have been categorised logically that offer plenty of information. What’s great about the article is that it’s provides links to other information sources for many of the tips listed there.

For the ‘Monica Gellers’, you’ll find the Organization and Production section very useful whilst weightwatchers will like the Diet section which provides useful information on how to live and eat healthy in the home. If you havent’ read enough, the good news is that tips 91-99 are links to other articles and guides to aid you in your traversal of cyberspace in search for more information

Kelly, thanks for the great post and thanks too for sharing it with me to share with the readers of How’sHouse.