I have been loving this home trend: incorporating glass-paneled garage doors in place of windows and walls. It opens up rooms, and allows you to multi-purpose your space.
While I’ve noticed businesses latching onto this trend first, more and more homeowners are incorporating it into their homes too.
On Monday I talked about some quick fixes for your dining room. Today, some of my major overhaul ideas if you’re dining room just can’t be revived with small changes.
1. Knock Down Walls: One of the best ways to makeover your dining room, is to create the illusion of more space. My favorite way of doing this is creating “open plans,” which allow for direct flow of traffic between the kitchen living room and dining room. Open plans will make your home feel bigger since you’re eliminating some of the things that take up space, and confine your space, namely, your walls. Check out these examples of an open plan home and how convenient and beautiful it looks to merge your kitchen, dining and often living room spaces.
2. Add windows: Let in the light! Nothing opens up a room and makes it like new more than natural light. Adding windows or making windows in a room bigger can make your space more inviting.
2. New Flooring: New flooring in any room makes it feel brand new. Replace carpet with hardwood, or maybe a new varnish to your hardwoods to give them a new look. This picture is a perfect example of what new flooring, and new windows can do to your dining room.
November, for me, means one thing: Thanksgiving! The food, the friends, the wine, and of course, the assortment of delicious pies.
Nothing makes Thanksgiving more enjoyable than the perfect space to enjoy it in. This week we’ll look at ideas, both big and small, for making the most of your dining room.
Some projects you can finish before your family arrives on the 27th, and others will take longer to plan and execute, but will bring greater, more noticeable results. This week we will look at major and minor ways to change up your dining room.
Part 1: Quick Dining Room Fixes
1. New Lighting : Adding a new light fixture not only adds a new focal point, but can also brighten up a room.
2. New Paint: Add a new coat of paint to a room. A new color scheme can dramatically change the look and feel of a room. Painting can be a great DIY weekend project, or just paint half of the room as seen here to make it an even quicker project:
3. A New Table: A dining room table can make or break your space. Make sure you have a table that fits the space you’re in, and that functions for your purposes for it. If you’re less than happy with your table, maybe it’s time to start scouting out a new one before the family arrives.
You might not think about your stairs that much. You know that they’re there, and you use them to get between floors, but when you think about remodeling, they are the last thing on your mind.
Well, maybe it should be the first. Check out these awesome ways homeowners revamped their stairs:
October’s falling leaves, cold nights and daylight savings time alerts homeowners that winter is around the corner. This means it’s time to de-summerize your home by covering the patio furniture and cleaning door and window screens. Yes, even screens need fall maintenance.
We advise homeowners to clean screens at least once a year. Some professional window washers offer screen cleaning with their services, but homeowners can easily do this themselves. Most people don’t realize that the screening material has four sides. The best way to clean screens is to lay them flat on a porch or driveway, use mild soap and water and scrub on both sides with a soft brush. Rinse from top down with clean water, and then “snap” the screen to knock off most of the water so it dries clean.
Most screens today are vinyl coated fiberglass so homeowners can use a vinyl protectant to extend the life of the screens. However, most vinyl protectants will attract dust and dirt, and it’s hard to evenly cover the entire screen. For sliding screen doors, we recommend using a furniture polish, such as Pledge. It’s a silicon-based lubricant that doesn’t attract dirt like oil-based lubricants, and furniture polish can also be used to clean the tracks of the sliding doors. It makes the doors work great!
Fall is a great time to take a close look ar your entire home, and that does not exclude your screens. If some do not fit or are bent, then they need to be replaced. If they fit correctly, then just clean them with the above steps. And if white strands are apparent, then it’s time to re-screen.
About the Author: Scott Walker is the president of Screenmobile, the national at-home screen installation company, For more information about Screenmobile and their locations, visit www.screenmobile.com.
Hiring a contractor is overwhelming, but if you know the questions to ask, you’ll be sure to get all the information you need when interviewing a contractor to be able to hire the right person for the job.
We always recommend getting more than one estimate for a project. So, with each contractor you meet, you’ll want to ask the same questions so that you can get the most accurate, comparable impressions and estimates from each person you meet with.
Here is a list of questions we recommend asking:
1. Do you have up-to-date licenses and registration with the state?
2. Do you have copies of these documents to show me?
3. Do you have proper insurance and bonding?
a. They should have liability insurance, as well as worker’s compensation insurance.
4. Have you worked on projects similar to mine?
5. Do you have a list of references?
6. Do you have a portfolio with past work?
7. Would any of your references be willing to show me the work done on their home?
8. Will you be able to obtain and handle any permits for my project if they are required?
9. Who will be overseeing the work being done?
10. Will you be using any sub-contractors?
11. What type of warranties or guarantees do you put on your work?
A quick search online will provide even more questions to ask. The most important things to remember is there is not such thing as a dumb question, or too many questions!
It’s Halloween today and for most, it means one of day of celebrating ghoulish, fall weather fun.
But, if you like darker palettes not just on Halloween, but all year round, here are some great ways to use a lack of color for amazing effect.
When using darker colors, lighting plays an important role. Notice how well the bright natural light plays against the darker interiors:
I love all the dark wood floors. These types of wood floors can be created with a coat of dark varnish color. It gives a classic aged, antique look:
Obviously this look isn’t for everyone, and honestly, while it has rays of elegance, I prefer much more vibrant color palettes, like in these previous posts:
Ochre oranges and vibrant reds have started to peek out through the lush monochrome greens of our abundant foliage here in town. It’s crisp out and the leaves are ready to be crunched under foot while sipping a pumpkin flavored coffee beverage.
Autumn is a great time of year to indulge in the warm colors and the last ditch displays of nature before trees and grasses descend into full hibernation mode for the season. Ambers and golds, burnt siennas and gingers frame city streets and park sidewalks, and while nature is changing its palette, it got me thinking how great it would be to bring similar colors inside to revitalize a home’s tired color scheme.
I like paint colors that are visibly inspired by the hallmarks of autumn. For example, Valspar has created an entire line around the warm hues of fall just for the home. Giving your home a fall painting makeover is a festive way to warm up your kitchen’s feel in anticipation of the cool weather and shorter days. It may also cheer your spirits as the mornings hide within the horizon longer, and the evenings get sucked away too soon into the winter dark.
(Photo Credit: 
(Photo Courtesy: 
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