Before and After

It never ceases to amaze me what a big change some paint and furniture can make in how you view a space. Take a look at what Ashley Whitaker Design was able to do with this dining room.

Now see what some minor and major work can do.

The difference is pretty amazing and when you look at was done, it really was a lot! No worries though, you can get a similar look accomplished for much less. The major work that was done: removing the beams in the ceiling, staining the floors, minor electrical and adding the built in cabinet. Now how do you accomplish this all for much less?

1. Don’t worry about the floors! (If you don’t own, you can’t make this change anyways!) If you notice, an area rug covers most of the floor so there’s little bare wood showing anyways. Find a rug that works with your furniture in terms of colors and you won’t have to worry about the floor at all.
2. Don’t worry about custom built-ins. There are plenty of companies that make pieces you can self assemble that serve the same purpose. Ikea will allow you build a similar cabinet at half the cost of a custom built cabinet.
3. Paint changes everything! Perhaps one of the biggest changes you can make in a room, is the color you paint the room. Know what colors work well with the furniture you’re planning to place in the room. This is what will help make the change seem so dramatic. Most landlords allow tenants to paint as long as the tenant paints it back before they move out.

Three simple steps that can dramatically change the way a room looks and how it is used.

Go Green with Outdoor Lighting

Looking for another reason to change your outdoor lighting to something more green and still think cost is an issue? How much are fewer mosquito bites worth to you? I recently heard story that LED lights attract far fewer mosquitoes than regular conventional lights. After doing some research, it turns out the story is true. Mosquitoes are attracted to ultraviolet light which LED’s produce zero of. So if you’d like to enjoy some longer nights outside this summer but would like fewer bugs, switch to more environmentally friendly LED lights. You’ll be saving the environment and yourself a lot of pain.

Special thanks to Mike Holmes for this information.

Home Improvement Tip: How to find a leaky toilet

This week will be the first of a multipart series in how to find the leak you may have in your toilet. This tip will help you if you have water puddling on the floor or you think your toilet might be running but aren’t sure.

Step 1: Clean the Toilet!
Cleaning the toilet and make sure the surrounding area is dry will go a long way towards making this process easier.

Step 2: Add Food Coloring to your toilet tank (red is easiest to spot) then flush the toilet.
After you’ve flushed the toilet give it a few minutes that take a dry paper towel and wipe around where the toilet meets the floor. If your paper towel turns red you now know where the leak is. (Most likely it’s the wax flange that the toilet rests on.)

Step 3: If you think the toilet might be running and want to be sure…
After you flush the toilet then add food die when the tank is half full. As the tank begins to fill, if it’s working properly the water should stay inside the tank. If you come back 45 mins later and see that water in the toilet bowl turning a red color you know that yes your water is running because you’ve got a leaky stopper.

Home Improvement Tip: Garbage Disposal Maintenance

As part our sponsorship of Home Ownership, we’re going to be giving a weekly home improvement tip here on our blog. Seeing as it’s week one, we thought we’d start with something simple: Garbage Disposal Maintenance.

Now some of you may already know the tricks listed below, but for those that don’t, try these over the next year to keep your disposal smelling fresh and running clean.

Tip number 1: Throw some ice cubes down the disposal every once in a while! (Note: you must be running cold water when you do this.) The common misconception is that doing this will sharpen the blades, but that is not the case. What the ice cubes do, is clean off any gunk or food that maybe collecting on the edges of the blades. This allows the blades to slice food better in the future. For those that want bonus points, make the ice cubes from lemon juice.

Tip number 2: Have you ever wondered why your dishwasher sometimes smells? The answer is your garbage disposal vents into your dishwasher. So if you’ve ever opened your dishwasher after doing a load of dishes and wondered why despite looking clean, they didn’t smell so hot, you now have your answer. The cure for this problem is to put some citrus into the disposal. Take either a lemon or an orange and cut it into quarters or slightly smaller pieces and then start sticking the pieces down 1-2 at a time and run the disposal. The citrus will get rid of the odor and hang around for a little bit so when you just turn on the water you’ll get that sweet smell as it goes down the drain.

Well that’s all for week 1! We hope we have helped some of you and encourage everyone to test out our tips this weekend!