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Tips to Winterize Your Home
This is a guest post by Melissa Crossman. If you’d like to guest post on this blog, click here.
When I bought my house it was still warm outside. I don’t think it’s bad to purchase real estate when the weather is pleasant; in fact, it’s nice to be fully nested before the chillier season draws close. However, this is my first home 
and I did not even think about heating it for the winter. Unfortunately, my beautiful, romantic, cozy little abode would be less drafty if it were made of sticks. I love my house and I’m in it for the long haul, but I don’t want to freeze to death. So, a respectful blend of love and survival instincts has made me get creative with how to heat my household.
Just jacking-up the thermostat isn’t enough. I don’t have the money to heat every inch of my home and, frankly, I don’t think the furnace could even handle it. If you are a homeowner also caught between a rock and a cold place then follow these DIY tips to winterize your home and to help keep it cozy in the winter months.
Zone Heating
Don’t think of your house as a giant box that needs to be evenly heated, because it isn’t. There are areas that don’t need to be nearly warm as others. Space heaters are perfect for adding that added bit of warmth to the most needed areas. I have heaters in my bathroom, beside my couch and in my bedroom. I choose to not add additional heat to the kitchen because 1) I don’t cook naked and 2) the appliances in the kitchen generate a lot of heat themselves. I also don’t have heaters near any entryways or the dining room. My most valued heater is in the bathroom because I DO go in there naked and all the porcelain surfaces really make you feel the chill.
Bag Pipes
Wrapping your water heater in a blanket is a pretty familiar winterizing technique, but many people don’t think about the pipes. Covers for these can be found at pretty much any hardware store and installing them is as easy as putting a hotdog in a bun. These barriers will keep your water from getting cold as soon as it leaves the water heater. This means you use less water and energy waiting for it to heat-up, which means your bills are less, which
means you can invest that money into some nice wool socks or a bottle of wine (better known “keep warm” devices).
Draft Police
There are drafts in your home. Whenever you feel a slight air current or even just a cold spot don’t let it go. Hunt that draft down like the money waster it is. Drafts are especially prominent around doors, windows and anywhere that pipes or cables enter/leave the house. Tour your home (inside and out) with a caulk gun and fill any cracks that you see along windows or door jams. Use a draft snake under each exterior door. Putting plastic over your windows also helps keep heat in and cold out.
Taking some simple steps to winterize your home will not only keep it cozy in the cold months but will also save you some money at the same time.
This guest article was written by Melissa Crossman. Melissa is a first-time homeowner who blogs for Sears and other deserving brands. She enjoys running and eating pie next to her space heater. Melissa does not like winter.
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5 Tips for Transitioning to Living Alone
This is a guest post by Bob Hartzell. If you’d like to guest post on this blog, click here.
In one of Charles Dickens’ novels, the children in the family that is central to the plot are described as “tumbling up,” not merely growing up. I’m inclined to think that the tumbling process doesn’t stop when we become adults; there are always going to be events and consequences that set us to tumbling, or spinning, or leave us clueless about how to handle them.
When I was first divorced my newly minted ex commented that I didn’t know how to live alone, that I’d never done it before. She was right. In the intervening years I have rarely lived alone but today find myself doing just that, engaged in finding adjustments that make the solitary homestead a comfortable one. Here are a few that I’ve found have contributed to that sense of well being we all seek when we close the front door behind us.
The essential element to all of these suggestions is learning to do the things that used to be done for you. If you fold those tasks into your daily regimen, before too long your daily routine will incorporate the homemaking chores that were not part of your life when you lived in a household with others.
1. Take Responsibility for Managing your Finances
If budgets and bills weren’t your responsibility before, they are now. You can’t let the fear of new assignments, especially this one, keep you from tackling them head on. The best way to avoid financial panic is to plan your expenditures, line them up with your income in such a fashion that you’re meeting everybody’s expectations, including your own. You’ll find that tracking your costs and resources is a lot simpler than that pile of bills makes it look.
2. Take Pride in Cooking for Yourself
If you’re not accustomed to cooking, invest in some of the simple cooking devices available today so that you can prepare basic meals. It’s going to seem like a lot of effort expended for a basic meal, but it’s going to make you feel a lot better than something that came out of a paper bag or styrofoam container. It’s not just the quality of the food; it’s the ritual of preparing it that adds to your sense of place.
3. Take Charge of your Automotive Maintenance
Don’t let automotive maintenance scare you. Take the time to learn what the basics are – changing oil, yearly inspections, renewing registration. They are all mindless chores after you’ve done it once and they don’t require dropping off your car and leaving it. If you’re concerned about your ability to deal with car problems, make sure you have the resources for an emergency: phone numbers to call for a jump start or a tow into the shop. You don’t have to know how to fix it; you just have to know who can.
4. Stay on Top of your House Cleaning
If someone else has been doing the housecleaning you’re going to become a scrub artist, like it or not. As with most chores, the key to keeping housecleaning manageable is to stay on top of it – if you do it frequently they will be relatively brief and painless tasks. You don’t have to do it all at once; one day for vacuuming and another day for bathrooms, a third day for dusting or windows. It’s your home, you can do it on your own schedule but you can’t ignore it.
5. Foster your Friendships
Fold some contact with friends into every day. If you’re struggling with loneliness initially, make it a point to have a cup of coffee or a long phone call with someone whose friendship you value. You can’t fill that hole that’s left when you have no life partner, but you can knock the rough edges off by keeping the affection for and from others in active mode during your daily activities.
This guest article was written by Bob Hartzell has been writing for five years about education and other life essentials on a variety of websites. Much of his recent work has been about online master’s degrees and their value in career enhancement, in recognition of the fact that the job market has gone completely off the tracks in the last decade.
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Ten Bedroom Ideas to Help you Sleep Well
This is a guest post by Tess Mathews. If you’d like to guest post on this blog, click here.
When a person’s bio-rhythm is interrupted and the cyclic pattern of waking and sleeping is thrown into disarray, he 
suffers severe mental and physical fatigue. One can never stress enough the value of a peaceful slumber. Sleep disorders related to stress and physical ailments are extremely prevalent today. Natural sleep aids, including some of the tips in this article, can help you attain restful sleep. Follow these simple bedroom ideas to help you sleep well and wake up refreshed and ready to face the day.
1. Keep the colors in your bedroom muted and pleasant, whether it is the walls or the furnishings or the bed linen. Bright and vivid colors and patterns can tire your eyes and brain.
2. Clean and fresh-smelling bed linen is always more inviting than wrinkled soiled sheets. Change them frequently if need be. Use the right kind of sheets and quilts depending on the weather conditions.
3. Make sure the size of the bed is sufficient for you and your partner to sleep without elbowing each other. Indulge yourself and switch to a king size bed.
4. The mattress and the pillows too should be comfortable. Often, lumpy mattresses cause discomfort and keep you awake. Periodically change your mattress as it tends to develop depressions and soft centers. Try using a memory foam mattress if your mattress makes you toss and turn.
5. Ensure that there is no seepage of light or sounds from outside.
6. If you are the type that likes to go to sleep with music playing, then get a music system that has a ‘sleep’ provision. Waking up just to turn off the music can disturb your sleep. Try to keep the television out of the bedroom. If one person were to watch, another cannot sleep peacefully. The flickering pictures would leave their images on the retina.
7. If your partner uses an alarm, choose something that is not strident but muted so that your sleep is not disturbed when he/she wakes up.
8. Make sure that the doors are oiled. If you have an adjoining bathroom make sure you don’t have taps that drip. Persistent noises like a dripping tap can keep one awake. Throw out the old rattling fan or the noisy humidifier and gift yourself a quiet one.
9. If you feel the need for a night light use a low wattage bulb rather than a regular bulb. Sleep is natural to us in darkness and we should simulate that condition to the extent possible.
10. Above all keep the bedroom clean and neat. Avoid strewing clothes on the floor and on the furniture. Peace and harmony cannot be achieved in unclean ambiance.
If you follow these simple bedroom ideas to help you sleep well you might find that you will face each day with a renewed vigor and attitude toward life’s challenges.
This guest article was written by Tess Mathews who is a freelance writer and a self-made home improvement expert. Apart from writing, Tess likes to read a lot, cook, travel and spend time with her pets. To induce a restful sleep in her house she enjoys her king size beds at home.
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5 DIY Credit Boosting Tips for Getting the Best Mortgage Rates
This is a guest post by J.D. Roberts. If you’d like to guest post on this blog, click here.
A home mortgage loan is a large investment, probably one of the largest you will make in your lifetime. It stands to reason that securing a home loan should be done at the lbest mortgage rates with the most available options at 
your disposal. The only way to succeed in getting approved for a reasonable and affordable home loan is to do a bit of work prior to applying for the loan to ensure your credit is where it needs to be. This article will show you how to improve credit score ratings and eventually allow you to secure a mortgage you can live with.
Better Credit or Bust
Lenders have taken many risks in the last few years and as a result there was a significant crash in the home loan industry. When lenders started their recovery work, they imposed much stricter requirements for borrowers looking for a home loan. Lenders are no longer willing to take risks in lending hundreds of thousands of dollars so borrowers must be able to prove their ability to repay a loan and not be a risk for default.
Today’s lending standards require 20% of the home price as a down payment, the ability to meet the monthly mortgage amount, and the presence of a solid credit score, preferably over 730. While there is some flexibility between lenders, the majority of companies providing home loans will rely on your past credit history to make important determinations.
Understanding Home Loan APRs
Your credit score will be used first to determine your creditworthiness. It will then be used to calculate the annual percentage rate you pay for the life of the loan. Higher credit scores typically allow for lower interest rates. Lower credit scores will increase the APR as lenders will seek extra cash to cover the possibility of loan default.
Traditionally, mortgage loan APRs are relatively low as far as interest rates go. But when you consider that this interest builds for 15 or 30 years, it stands to reason you’d want to secure the absolute lowest interest rate being offered per market standards.
Example of a home loan at two different fixed interest rates:
Home loan amount: $200,000 at a 30-year fixed rate
4.5% APR versus 6.5% APR
Monthly payment: $1013.37 vs $1,264.14
Total interest paid: $164,813.42 vs $255,088.98
Not only is there a significant savings on the monthly payment of the loan at these terms, the 30 year total of accrued interest is nearly doubled with the higher rate of interest.
Improve Credit Score Starting Today
The most important thing to know about credit score repair is that it can not be done over night. It requires time and effort to boost scores despite what some agencies are advertising to consumers.
1. Deal with Existing Credit Reports
Ideally, you’ll want to first know where you stand credit-wise. You can access and pay for your credit scores online then print the documents for review. Be sure to highlight any inaccurate information and file a dispute with the credit reporting bureau. Notate a date 30 days from the mailing of your dispute to follow up with the credit bureaus if you have not heard about the results of your investigation.
2. Start Paying Everything On-Time Every Month
It is also important to appear financially stable to prospective lenders. You’ll need to be sure all of your monthly bills are paid before the due date in the months leading up to your mortgage application. This on-time payment activity has the power to boost credit scores in a relatively short period of time.
3. Cease New Applications for New Credit
Also prior to applying for a mortgage, you need to be sure you are not seeking any other type of financing. This could be perceived as an overextension of your credit and lenders may not be willing to risk lending money to someone with reckless credit behavior.
4. Apply for Your Mortgage
Within a few months of avid attention to your financial life and credit score you can see a positive impact that creates confidence in mortgage lenders. Once your credit score has been improved to meet the lender’s specific requirements, you can apply for a home mortgage loan with confidence you’ll be approved and with assurance you can afford to become a home owner.
5. Follow Up on Your Financial Life
It can be easy to put your financial life back on the backburner once your mortgage has been approved. However, with the amount of additional financial responsibility you now carry on your shoulders, it is crucial you continue on the path of good credit. As a homeowner, your credit score will dictate how much you pay for insurance premiums, what kind of job you are qualified for, and how much the utility companies will charge you to access services and products. Your credit score affects a large part of your daily financial life and it is always best to know exactly where you stand.
This guest article was written by J.D. Roberts who is a seasoned writer in personal finance, specializing in credit repair. You can find more of his articles located at CreditRepair.org.
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10 Tips to Help your Child Find Money for College
This is a guest post by Ashyia Hill. If you’d like to guest post on this blog, click here.
You’re proud of your child for wanting to attend college but scared of the financial burden. It’s very common for parents to feel this way, especially with the rising cost of tuition.
Fortunately, there are many methods for helping your high school student find money for college. So if your child is repeatedly saying “I need money for college”, this article will discuss ten tips on answering the age-old question of how to get money for college.
1. Fill out your portion of the FAFSA before Valentine’s Day
If you stop reading this article right now, please let this be the one tip you follow! Filling out the parent portion of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid is the single most important thing you can do to help your college-bound student find money for school.
Filling out a FAFSA will make your college-bound student eligible for many different types of financial aid, including subsidized loans, unsubsidized loans, federal work-study, grant money for college, and many types of scholarships, too. Grants and college scholarships are considered free money for college since they do not have to be paid back.
Please note that filling out the FAFSA is completely free and does not commit you to pay a penny of your college-bound student’s expenses. It’s just a form that provides your child’s future school with the information they need to award aid. Your child can fill out the student portion on their own.
Let’s look at it from the other angle, too. If you don’t fill out the parent portion of the FAFSA, your child will be ineligible for most types of aid. Your child might be able to receive an unsubsidized Stafford loan, but only if you completely stop financially supporting your child and they can prove to the financial aid office that you refuse to file a FAFSA.
It’s not rare for colleges to adopt a first-come, first-served policy for some types of financial assistance, like federal work-study, so it’s best to fill out your portion of the FAFSA early. If your child wants to start college in the fall, you should make sure you do your part by completing your section early. Then, encourage your student to finish theirs and submit it before the 14th of February.
2. Talk to your child’s guidance counselor about college scholarships
Many high schools receive scholarship filing guidelines and application forms directly from scholarship committees. Your child’s guidance counselor may know about scholarships you haven’t heard of yet.
So, make an appointment to drop by the school and ask them what’s available.
3. Contact prospective colleges about institutional scholarships and grant money for college
Many colleges offer college scholarships and grants just for their students. It doesn’t hurt to call, e-mail, or visit the colleges your child is interested in to ask what types of aid is available especially for their students.
If your college-bound student is accepted into several of their top choice schools, the availability of aid and scholarships at each one could help them narrow down the list.
4. Ask your employer if they offer college scholarships for children of employees
Yes, even in the age of cutbacks and layoffs, some companies still offer scholarships for children of employees.
Intel, for example, provides 1.4 million dollars worth of scholarship money to children of employees from 26 different locations around the world.
So, talk to your employer about possible scholarship opportunities for your college-bound student.
5. Look up what is available using a free scholarship search engine
Skip the pay-to-search websites and focus on the many free scholarship search engines instead. You just need to set up a profile for your college-bound student on each site and the search engine will find the scholarships that they are likely to qualify for.
You can start with the College Board’s regularly updated Scholarship Search. It’s available at College Board Scholarship Search and features more than 2,300 sources of funding.
6. Drive your college-bound student to drop off job applications and attend interviews
Working is still one of the best ways for young people to earn money for college. If your child doesn’t have a car yet, you can help by driving them to pick up applications, drop off applications, attend interviews, and get to work on time, at least until they can save up for their own ride.
If your college-bound student finds a job that they like close to campus, they can keep working there during the school year, too.
Some parents worry that working while in college could hurt their child’s grades, but a study by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has found that the opposite is true. After collecting information on hundreds of undergraduate students from 1996 through 2004, they found that the average grade point average for university freshmen who worked between one and 20 hours per week was 3.13. Students who didn’t have jobs had GPAs averaging 3.04.
However, the study also found that freshmen who clocked in more than 20 hours per week had GPAs averaging 2.95, so full-time jobs are probably best left for summers and breaks.
Your college-bound student’s first job may just earn them minimum wage, but with tuition costs today, every little bit helps!
7. Carefully evaluate student credit cards
Establishing credit is an important part of adult life. Consider student credit cards to help your child build credit. While earning cash back on everyday spending is a plus, make sure your college-bound student understands financial responsibility and the importance of paying on time, on budget.
8. Apply for a Federal Parent PLUS Loan
If you have good credit, you could qualify for a Federal Parent PLUS Loan to help cover your student’s college expenses. These can be put toward paying for your kid’s school supplies, housing, tuition, and more.
However, keep in mind that this will be your loan, not your kid’s loan. It will be in your name and you will be responsible for paying it back.
According to student loan expert Heather Jarvis, Parent PLUS Loans can’t be repaid under Income-Based Repayment or Income-Contingent Repayment. Like regular student loans, they can haunt you for a long time if you aren’t careful.
9. Co-sign for a private student loan
If your student isn’t getting enough federal loans and grants to make ends meet, you could help them get a different type of aid by cosigning for a private student loan.
In this situation, both you and your college-bound student will be responsible for the loan. If your child doesn’t pay up, you will have to. Your credit score will probably take a hit if your child skips a payment or defaults on the loan.
Additionally, these loans are provided by banks and companies to earn a profit, so they tend to have higher interest rates than federal loans.
So, it’s best to only think of cosigning for a private student loan as a back-up plan if none of the above tips are enough for your child to cover their college expenses. Make sure your child borrows only what they need and keeps applying for traditional forms of aid.
10. Be sure to file taxes each year, even if your income is low.
If your student, who is under 24 years of age, continues to live with you and rely on you for financial support while attending school full-time, you can keep claiming them as a dependent when you file taxes. This could make you eligible to receive free tax credits.
One of these tax credits is the Lifetime Learning Credit, which is designed to help with college expenses for taxpayers and their dependents. You could receive a tax credit worth 20% of the tuition and college-related costs you incurred for your child, up to $2,000!
So, even if your income is low, it’s worth it to file your taxes every year.
We hope these ten tips for helping your college-bound student find money for college will be useful to you and your child. It is even better when that money is free money for college. Obviously, some of these strategies involve more direct involvement than others. As always, think about your situation carefully before taking on any financial responsibilities.
If you feel discouraged, remember that funding your child’s education is a way of investing for the future. As with any investment, there is some risk involved. Risk is the price we all pay for opportunity.
This guest article was written by Ashyia Hill who is a freelance writer.
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Get to Know the Angels in your Life
(This post is dedicated to my sister-in-law Anne, who passed from this life on 10/22/2011 at 57 years old.)
As I write this I am sitting in a plane heading home from California, the day after attending the funeral of my sister-in-law Anne. She was diagnosed with cancer in July and, three months later, on October 22nd she 
passed from this life at the young age of 57. Oh, how quickly someone can be taken away from a loving family and friends. It makes you sit back and think a little bit more about your life and how you are living it.
It was a very moving funeral service with five different people eulogizing her life, each one as eloquent as the previous, honoring a wife, mother, baby sister, and close friend. This was the first funeral I attended since the death of my father over a year ago. It hit me hard and I welled up with tears on numerous occasions. My brother Joe was stoic throughout the ceremony and his eulogy, but his tears were shed before this day, within the past few weeks, when he knew it was just a matter of time before his loving wife would be by his side no more. A rather strange and cruel twist of fate turned out to be the fact that Anne’s youngest brother Bill passed away two days earlier from the same illness. So, within a few days, family members attended two funerals only to be left with mere memories of their loved ones.
I can honestly say that I didn’t truly know my sister-in law. We lived 3000 miles away from each other and saw each other’s families about once a year. When she spent time with our family it was so much fun. She had a quick wit and a hearty, contagious laugh. One regret I do have is not making a real effort to get to know her better. When they visited I typically concentrated on spending time with my oldest brother, a man I admire and for which I have the utmost respect. Hearing the many accolades from family and friends at the funeral opened my eyes to the kind, selfless, and caring person Anne truly was.
I was fortunate to have spoken on the phone to Anne approximately two weeks before she passed. I told her I was praying for her and she said that she felt truly blessed and rather overwhelmed by the heartfelt outpouring of love showered upon her in those declining months and weeks. Those sentiments were echoed yesterday at the most moving ceremony honoring an individual that I have ever had the opportunity to witness. Shortly before her death, as my brother recanted in his eulogy, Anne awoke in her bed one night and uttered to Joe “I am happy”. I think that gave my brother some solace in a rather turbulent and tragic time of his life.
My brother and niece will be fine. They are strong, as are Anne’s three children from her first marriage. Her brother, the last remaining sibling, will forever hold onto the loving memories of his baby sister. At the post-funeral reception at my brother’s house I spoke to a woman who had five daughters who attended the school where Anne had worked. She described Anne with a rather glowing tribute.
“She was an angel who walked among us.”
I just wish I got to know that Anne, the one that the people who came in contact with her on a regular basis, knew and loved. Don’t make the mistake I did. Get to know the angels in your life because, you never know, they may be taken from you much too soon.
Rest in peace Anne. We will all miss your wit, your hearty laugh, your caring nature, and your beautiful smile.
7 Tools a Single Mom can use for Managing Home and School
This is a guest post by Carrie Mcpherson. If you’d like to guest post on this blog, click here.
Managing the household and keeping up with the everyday demands of life is not easy, especially for a single Mom. It seems like there is always 
something on Mom’s to do list and since I started back to school, Mom’s schedule became a little more hectic.
For everything to run efficiently I have to constantly plan my days. They will probably bury me with a notebook and pen but that is the only way I can stay above water.
In all seriousness, between taking care of my kids, work, classes, and running the home, I found a few simple tools that I absolutely cannot live without and if you use, and keep up with, will be your best friend forever.
1. Notebook
A notebook is glued to me at all times. Throughout the day, I write notes to myself so I can transfer to my Family schedule at the end of the day.
2. Family Planner
I would like to thank whoever invented the family planner because it is my best friend! I keep it with me at all times. Within my family organizer, there are some wonderful tools to help you get through your day. The family calendar, the daily schedule to-do list, and the address book all come in very good use. I usually list all my notes for the day and then take it down into 15 minute increments every step of my day.
3. Folders
I have daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly folders that I keep important information that I need to remember for each day. This way I’m not shifting through huge stacks of papers. For the weekly folder I usually copy a to-do list into each so I can keep up on what needs to be done for each day. I like to keep info in the monthly folder when car maintenance or homeowners insurance is due.
4. Cleaning Schedule
The cleaning schedule and organizer is something the kids and I love to use. I set it up so each day has a series of chores that need to be completed. Once each chore is completed, my kids get to put a sticker on their chores
calendar. It keeps them motivated and helps me get the house clean!
5. Grocery Planner
Even though I have a section in the family planner reserved for coupons, I keep a running list on the refrigerator of any food item that I may run out of.
6. Banking Planner
Using a checkbook if you are making purchase while you are out is very useful so you don’t forget to record it. I also use Quickbooks to get organized when it comes to the bills. Every bill has a code and every expense has a code and it’s easy to pull up a spreadsheet with totals of where our money is going.
7. Class Organizer
My class organizer helps me keep up with what is going on with classes, when I have tests, papers, or anything else that I need to be prepared for. It helps me stay organized and on my toes when it comes to my classes.
Making good use of my time is mandatory which is why I am always planning. Whether it is getting outfits ready ahead of time or planning my meals for the week, I try to plan everything out the best I can.
These are just a few of my favorite tools that have made my life easier as a single mom and guaranteed to keep me organized and going throughout the week, month, and year.
This guest article was written by Carrie Mcpherson who is a single mother of two, works full time as a nurse, and attends accelerated rn to bsn online classes. With her busy schedule, Carrie is a strong believer in time management and being organized.
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How Interior Design can Save you Time and Money
This is a guest post by Steve Shapiro. If you’d like to guest post on this blog, click here.
When contemplating the “modern design” concept, most people immediately think of smooth contours, spartan contents, neutral tones, and ultra-contemporary furnishings. Like many novelties, modernized interior decors may appear somewhat understated at first blush. Upon closer examination of the matter, however, it becomes aptly apparent that this acquired taste has many advantages over more traditional options.
A Sign of Things to Come
“Contemporary” and “modern” are two terms that are often used interchangeably to describe a specific type of interior design. Despite the novel connotations of both names, this decorating innovation initially gained widespread popularity in America during the early 1960s. Widespread preoccupation with spaceships and aircraft was the phenomenon that first spawned the trend. As such travel modes became more common, public fascination with furnishings and decors that resemble flying things faded somewhat, which prompted modernist designs to take a less ostentatious, almost minimalistic route; and it is this style that has persevered and flourished over the ensuing decades.
Contemporary designs snub curvaceousness in favor of sharp borders, precise lines, and – at their most rotund – continuous unbent formations. Modern woodwork carvings, crown moldings, and doors are definitely different from those of yesteryear. Dominant shape and color coordination is now defined in terms like “flat,” “narrow,” “round,” and “plain.” Contemporary interior home furnishings, for their part, feature spartan linear contours which often present in
conformity with aerodynamics (as did the first spacecraft-inspired contemporary decor of the 1960s). A typical example of this is the single-color leather sectional sofas that have become popular in recent years. In the same vein, contemporary floors are covered with linoleum or tile rather than patterned carpeting (as this also reduces allergies), while modern dinettes are of lightweight metallic construction rather than heavy oaken build. Instead of tradition, contemporary designs emphasize technology and functionality. As conservation and economy are society’s current catchwords, it is hardly surprising that modern consumers desire interior decor that reflects these virtues. With these two virtues in mind, it is worth discussing 4 key ways that modern design can save not only your time, but your money as well!
Efficiency
The characteristic clean, linear look of contemporary design minimizes clutter and maximizes tidiness. Getting greater usage from less space and lower dust accumulation are two additional modern design attributes. An overall contemporary look even optimizes optical effects by fooling the eye into believing that an area is much bigger than it actually is. Modern interior decors conserve physical energy by eliminating monolithic furniture movement each time you clean a room. Likewise, electrical energy is preserved by the lack of bulky furniture that prohibits free airflow throughout the room, thus saving money on electric bills as well. Contemporary design colors are also attractive in more ways than one; reflective colors that help retain or reflect hot or cold air as appropriate really take a load off heat and air conditioning systems.
Organization
Various partitions, divisions, and decorative doors increase storage capacity without adding a single inch a structure’s physical dimensions. Cabinets containing internal sliding doors can divide a room into several “storage zones,” for instance. Hook-type holders on inner closet and cabinet door surfaces can also serve as valuable storage devices. This high level of partitioning makes organizing your possessions easy and efficient.
Cleanliness
A popular philosophy posits that cleanliness is next to Godliness. As such, occupying a contemporary designed structure or dwelling must be the closest thing to a Heaven on Earth. Modern furniture and interior accessories tremendously facilitate tidiness by providing a place for everything and helping you keep everything in its place. Due to this delightful combination of enhanced storage and eliminated clutter, contemporary rooms practically keep themselves clean; mix in laminated flooring instead of carpets, and even vacuuming becomes far less necessary.
Calming
Greatly enhanced emotional serenity is another contemporary decor advantage. Subdued neutral tones that soothe – rather than assault – the senses create this felicitous state. A tidy, spacious-looking area also elevates moods and enhances domestic tranquility. There is no clutter or other visual cues to distract you from relaxation or concentration. This sense of calmness will keep you feeling good and thus better able to effectively handle whatever challenges life throws your way.
Do Not Deny Yourself a Contemporary Décor Any Longer
It is easy and cost-effective to avail yourself of all the advantages afforded by a contemporary interior décor. Think
of how much more productive you will be in both personal and professional realms by fully focusing on your immediate vocational – or avocational – task. You will not only accomplish more in less time, but having any implement or item you might need within easy reach is also very reassuring. When you factor in phenomenal financial savings, it is simply impossible to go wrong with the immediate implementation of a contemporary interior design.
This guest article was written by Steve Shapiro who is the founder of the eRoomService modern furniture showroom in Bensalem, PA. He has extensive interior design experience and is an enthusiastic supporter of many modern European furnishings.
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The Importance of Having a Bucket List
This is a guest post by Christine Kane. If you’d like to guest post on this blog, click here.
Did you ever see The Bucket List movie with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson? If not, it’s one of those movies that’s a little hokey but can be a tear-jerker and has an underlying motivational life-lesson as the theme. It follows Freeman and Nicholson as they both battle cancer and decide that they need to get out and
really experience their lives before they die. They do so by writing out their bucket lists and doing whatever they need to do to cross everything off.
Which brings me to my next question: when is the last time you did something that you really wanted to do? Something that you thought ‘man, I’ve waited my whole life to do this!’?Something that added value to your life? We tend to get so wrapped up in our day to day lives and all the tasks we “have to do” – such as laundry and grocery shopping – that sometimes we forget that we need to just live our lives sometimes and do the things we want to do too. Making a bucket list will get you closer to accomplishing those things that you want to do.
Making a Bucket List
Writing out a list of all the things you want to accomplish before you die sounds a little morbid, I know, but we tend to spend so much time focusing on our daily “to-do” lists that we forget we need to get outside and do some things that scare us!
Get out of your Safety Zone
I think it’s important to take time every day, week, month, etc. to do something that scares us and gets us out of
our self-inflicted bubbles of safety. And I don’t mean things that put you in harm’s way, but things that you never thought you’d be able to accomplish, when really you’ve been the only thing holding you back from just getting out there and doing it. If we never make goals, how will we ever push ourselves in life?
Concentrate on Happiness
Actually writing out a list also takes you one step closer to actually doing those things. It doesn’t matter what you add to the list, so long as they’re things that will make you happy. Maybe its wine tasting in Napa Valley or sky-diving or taking an introduction to photography class – anything and everything goes when it comes to writing a bucket list.
Check off what you Accomplish
The great thing about having a bucket list is that it can evolve over time as you cross things off and add things to it. Make sure to go through and regularly update it, adding in new ideas and removing ones that are no longer relevant. The point is to always have something to work towards that will make you happy.
Take an afternoon and watch The Bucket List
Disclaimer: The image above of The Bucket List movie and the text, The Bucket List, are Amazon affiliate links.
This guest article was written by Christine Kane from internet providers. She is a graduate of Communication and Journalism and enjoys writing about a wide-variety of subjects for different blogs.
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4 Reasons You Should Be Drinking Pour Over Coffee
This is a guest post by Peter John McLean. If you’d like to guest post on this blog, click here.
A year ago no one really cared about pour over coffee. Sure, a few baristas were talking about it, and maybe if you were really lucky you knew of an obscure espresso bar that actually served it to order.
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But most coffee shops just didn’t care about it – probably because it wasn’t as feasible a way of selling mass quantities of coffee inexpensively. Fair enough.
Now things are different, now more and more cafés are jumping on the bandwagon, setting up a full scale pour over coffee bar with a well-trained barista happily pouring water into little ceramic cones all day long. Most of the shops don’t even charge extra for it, because it’s becoming such a staple of the routine coffee drinker’s life.
And yet you don’t even need to leave your house to be drinking this fresh, perfectly extracted nirvana.
But why bother? You ask.
1. Provides a cleaner cup of coffee
The pour over coffee method is arguably the ‘cleanest’ and ‘purest’ way to make and drink coffee. There is no residue left in the cup, because the water is not dripped and is not fully immersed. 200 degree Fahrenheit water is poured into the cone, stirred briefly, and moments later the finished product has entirely drained into the mug. The first time you try pourover coffee you may be taken aback, it is bold yet without even a hint of residue.
2. More efficient if you only want to drink one cup
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So many times in the day I used to want a single cup of coffee whilst I sat at my house. I didn’t want to leave to buy a cup, but I didn’t want to make a whole pot. Whether I used a drip pot or a French press I would be left with either significant waste or a little more caffeine than I was looking for. The pour over resolves this. Just place the cone on top of your mug, pour a single serving and you’re done.
3. Better extraction than drip, without the mess of French press
It might seem like I’m harping on the same point as Number 1, but I’m not. There is a distinct difference here. The pour over coffee method allows for a very robust extraction because the water is preheated and because the ‘slurry’ is stirred before all the water soaks through – this creates a very bold, well extracted mug of coffee in your hands, without the long, tedious cleanup required with a press pot.
4. You can buy one for around $20.
This might be the very best thing about the pour over apparatus. Most of the ones you’ll find for sale, like the Hario v6, are a single ceramic drip cone that fits on top of a
coffee mug. These are my personal favorite, and the ones I recommend above the others. You can order one for right around $20 – yet again setting it apart from drip coffee makers and most French presses. It’s a simpler version of the one cup coffee maker without the electricity and the ongoing maintenance of cleaning the unit. You, in essence, become the pour over coffee maker when you embark on this innovative and simple method for making coffee. You just might be joining a whole new legion of pour over coffee makers.
Pour over coffee almost seems too simple and inexpensive to make such a great tasting cup of java. There’s got to be something wrong with it, doesn’t there?
Nope. Not only is it less expensive than other coffee brewing methods, it will save you time and the waste of excess coffee that you didn’t drink. If you become a pour over coffee brewer, you just might never go back to traditional methods of brewing your favorite cup of java.
Disclaimer: The images of the Hario White Ceramic Pour Over Coffee Funnel and the Chemex Glass Pour Over Coffee Maker above are affiliate links.
Peter John McLean loves nothing more than brewing up perfectly extracted madness in the deep recesses of his coffee lab. He and his cat, Cicero, blog about their exploits at Project Vvlgar.
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