Selecting right lighting for your verandah

Outdoor Tiles

If you have a verandah outside your home, then you must of different ways of designing it. One of the important things when decorating any outdoor space is how you do up the lighting. The type of lighting you select for your outdoor space determines the aesthetic appeal of the place.
For your verandah, you may want fancy lights to impress the guests and visitors who come flocking to your house. When it comes to choosing fancy lighting for your verandah, you have a lot of options to choose from as fancy lights comes in a pool of different shapes, sizes and varieties and you can easily hunt for them in the local market. If you want your fancy lights to be custom designed, then you can also place an order for these fancy lights according to your preferences and the look of your verandah. If you opt for the right type of lighting for the outdoors of your house, it will just not add beauty to your home but also provide an enhanced level of security and protection for your home.
Before you start to install fancy lights for your vernadah, you need to check the pavements and courtyards while you wander in daylight as well as in the night. This will let you know at what places you will need the maximum lighting and what places can suffice with minimum lighting. The idea is that the entire verandah of your house is reasonably illuminated. You do not want a lot of light focussed at one place while another place remains pitch dark due to insufficient lighting. Mark the areas where there is a lot of darkness as this will help you to fit appropriate lighting for your verandah.

Replacing damaged ceramic tiles




Ceramic Tiles

  Ceramic tiles are known for their aesthetic value and long shelf life and they come if various shapes, sizes apart from varying degree of thickness. Sometimes, harm may be caused to the ceramic tiles when a hard object smashes on the floor. Damaged ceramic tiles need to immediately removed and replaced.

Once you see that any of your ceramic tiles is damaged, you need to purchase new ones. The damage may have caused uneven ends at the corners. This requires correct shaping to be done. Once you are done with shaping, you have to start the procedure of laying the tiles. To lay the tiles, you need to first prepare the floor surface. To start with, you need to remove all the broken pieces of the ceramic tiles. Following this, hack the dry grouting that is present beneath the surface of the tiles. While doing this, care should be taken to see that the surrounding tiles are not harmed. Ensure that you clean all the debris before proceeding with installing the tiles.

When you finally start replacing the broken tiles and fitting new ones, you should see to it that you do not harm the existing tiles which are in good condition. Before you start to lay the tiles, wet the surface and let it be for around forty minutes. To even the surface, a mixture of cement and sand is used. The ratio is two parts of sand and one part of cement which gives a rich mixture. Add the right amount of water to make the mixture consistent. Spread the mortar in the area. Put the cement grouting on top of the surface. After this, lay the tile on the top and use a mallet to level the tile while pounding it.

Getting creative with your ceramic tiles

Ceramic Tiles

You may be thinking of installing ceramic tiles for your home but must be wondering whether these tiles will add a new look to your home or just look like the conventional tiles. There are many ways you can give a artistic and a creative touch to your ceramic tiles. If you really want to play around with the design of your ceramic tiles, then one easy and affordable option you have is hand-painting them.

If you are wondering whether hand painting will do a good job for your ceramic tile, then worry not as ceramic tiles look amazingly wonderful once they have been hand-painted. Hand-painting ceramic tiles are the most popular method of decorating your ceramic tiles. Once your ceramic tiles are hand-painted, then it just not adds to the aesthetic value of your home but also greatly increases its resale value. All you need to do is put some effort to ensure you get a handsome price when you finally sell of your home. Your home may consist of different parts like the living area, stair risers, counter-tops, fountains, patios, floor accents, display windows apart from wall coverings. Having the flooring for these places will hand-painted ceramic tiles will surely add a new dimension to each of the place. When it comes to hand-painting your ceramic tiles, you can get as creative as possible and paint from anything right from abstract images, geometric shape, ancient designs, historic pictures, Egyptian hieroglyphics apart from Mayan stone carvings. 

You may be surprised to know that hand-painting ceramic tiles has developed into a full-fledged hobby for many people and people like to hone their skills into becoming professional painters in a bid to express their thoughts and imagination.

Two simple ways to revamp your kitchen



Kitchen Wall Tiles

 You may have watched innumerable TV shows demonstrating how to design your kitchen the right way. Though you may be excited looking at the different designs presented in the show, you really are clueless as to how to proceed with those designs for your kitchen. For starters, there are simple things you can do that can really augment the look and feel of your kitchen. There are a lot of do-it-yourself and self help ideas which can surely assist you in decorating your kitchen the way you want to do it. Here are some easy tips on how to give your kitchen that unique look.

Kitchen walls

Your kitchen walls play an important part in how your kitchen looks on an overall basis. The first step in giving your kitchen a whole new look is by changing the appearance of the walls. It is also the simplest step as you do not have to spend a bomb and it does not even involve a lot of hassles. You can give your kitchen walls a whole new look by going for a new paint or simply opting for a latest design wall paper. Be it paint or the wall paper, they help to create a unique ambience in the kitchen. Once you are done with the walls, you can then safely proceed with designing the rest of the kitchen.

Kitchen Island

If you are blessed with a larger sized kitchen, then you can always incorporate a kitchen island into your kitchen. The added space in your kitchen can be used for small food preparations or casual gatherings. A kitchen island always helps to smoothen out traffic in your kitchen. If you have a small kitchen space, then you can go for a kitchen cart that occupies minimum space and is functional too.

Choosing a design for your living room



Living Room



When it comes to designing the living room, you surely want to go with something that is not too expensive on the pocket. There are many ways to design your living room in a opulent manner without going too haywire with your budgets. If you are working on a tight budget, then you can look for DIY projects. You can go through various interior designs instead of hiring a interior designer. DIY projects are not that demanding. You can always check on the internet or refer to the various décor magazines and home decor sites to get an idea of how you want to design your home. If you are looking for some ideas to design your home, then read on.

Classic design

Designing your living room in classic design has always been preferred by most home-owners. This is one of the most common of ideas when it comes to doing up your living room. If you have chosen to do up your home is a classic design, then you can be assured that your living room gets a relaxing atmosphere and a unique texture. If your living room has sharp edged spaces and is too geometric, then offsetting it with textures is the right way to go about.

Hawaiian design

Another great theme that you can opt for your living room is the Hawaiian inspired look. This look is not that difficult to achieve as you think it to be. While going for Hawaiian themed look, you need to get a few ornaments and artefacts. Hand-made native accessories, bamboo accessories, woven furniture apart from the classic Hawaiian floral prints and designs make for classic Hawaiian themed home décor.

Getting right tools to clean industrial tiles

Industrial Tiles

Industrial tiles are a lot more different from the standard tiles that we see in homes and other commercial spaces. Industrial tiles or the standard tiles, you must have noticed that tiles began to lose their sheen after some time. They do not look the way they used to when they were installed. You may mop the floor several tiles with all the cleaners present in the market, but somehow the sheen does not come back completely. After certain point of time you tend to give up and let the floors remain as they are.Industrial tiles need to be maintained properly as industrial spaces go through a lot of rough activities and this may harm the tiles or permanently stain them. The first thing while purchasing tiles for industrial spaces is to see that they have a good shelf life unaffected by the regular dents and stain marks. For industrial tiles, many people prefer to go it simple and use a normal vacuum cleaner to clean the tiles. After the vacuuming, a drained mop is used to get rid of the remaining dust. But while using the wet mop, you are scared. There is a danger that that water may seep in to the tiles causing the flooring to swell.
Floor buffers
If you want to be assured of the beauty and the long lasting ability of your industrial tiles, then it makes sense to go for a floor buffer. You must have probably heard of a floor buffer earlier and chances are that you may know a few people who have already gained the benefits of installing a floor buffer. Floor buffers are quite common in markets. Floor buffers for industrial tiles might look difficult to use, but the reality is that they are quite simple to use. While using floor buffers for industrial tiles, always use a new pad every time you take up cleaning the floor. For tough surfaces, you can use cutting pads. For a wooden surface, a finishing pad will do the job well.

Cleaning your floor tiles effectively

Cleaning Floor Tiles

You may have installed the most beautiful looking floor tiles for your home but remember that they also need proper cleaning. Cleaning floor tiles and grout lines can be a challenging task at hand. Your floor tiles are subjected to a lot of moisture and heavy traffic throughout the day which makes them susceptible to catch dirt. Add to this, the porous nature of the grout makes it easy for dirt and dust to build up making the cleaning procedure even more difficult. If you want an easy solution to clean your floor tiles effortlessly, then look no further than vapour steam cleaners.

In the past years, technology has advanced to a great extent and there have been many innovations brought about in the make and design of steam cleaning machines. Steam cleaners endowed with latest technological inputs have made the cleaning procedure easy, quick and effective. Apart from quick and efficient cleaning, some vapour steam cleaning machines also help to get rid of germs and bacteria from your floor tiles. Another good thing about steam cleaners is that they do not require any harsh and strong chemicals to be used for cleaning your floor tiles. Thus, your floor tiles are not exposed to strong chemicals and as such, this is the most eco-friendly way of cleaning your floor tiles. 

Benefits of steam cleaners

Steam cleaners use vaporised steam for cleaning your floor tiles. The steam is heated under very high temperature and contains almost negligible moisture content. This means that the steam is dry and once the cleaning process of your tiles is finished; there won’t be any moisture left on the grout lines or the floor tiles. This feature of no moisture content is extremely beneficial for floor tiles.