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Dont Just Clean, Organize
Instead of cleaning, decorate Trying to maintain both a beautiful interior, and a neat and organized home, can be a daunting endeavor. One of the worst mistakes that you can make when planning the design of your residence is to arrange it in such a way that your decoration actually gets in the way of maintaining tidiness. Some set ups may lead to the accumulation of messes, actually working against the home maker. It is, however, possible to arrange your home in such a way that it will naturally lend itself to organization, and will make the job of home maintenance a little easier. There are two kinds of messes that can mar your home; dirt, and clutter. Dirt, along with dust, grime, and mold are the sickly substances that attach to walls, collect under furniture, and stain windows. Dirt is something you want to completely eliminate. For this, you should always plan your home's design around expediting the cleaning process; making the elimination of these unhealthy substances as easy as possible. Clutter, on the other hand, is made up of items that you own, and is simply a result of them not being put in their proper place, or worse yet not having one. For this, your plan should be to develop a home with a flow in which objects will almost naturally end up in their proper places. CLUTTER Maintaining organization is the key to a clutter free home. Some clutter is simply trash, and should be eliminated as swiftly as possible. This often includes old mail and outdated magazines. The easiest way to deter the build up of expired clutter is to integrate a trash can into the room's décor. If it is a room that doesn't lend itself to a trash bin, you can be creative with your receptacles. Almost anything from bright plastic containers, to elegant carved wooden chests can be used, especially if it will only be used for dry items. A good place to find fancy antique bins at a great price is a yard sale. Containers can be used as primary garbage cans, or can be used as a staging area where trash is deposited initially, and is then later transferred into a larger container. Most clutter is made up of possessions that you want to keep. Generally your strategy should be to find a way to funnel these objects easily into a proper place. To do this you will first need to assess what your problem clutter is. These are the objects that constantly turn up in the wrong spots, creating that messy look. The type of clutter you have is usually determined by the room you in and what its purpose generally is. Once you have assessed the problem objects, you need to develop a system of categories for the different kinds of clutter in the room. An easy way to do this is to divide the items based on the container where they will go. For instance, all paper goods go in drawer A, all plastic goods go on shelf B. Categorizing these objects in this way will greatly expedite the cleaning process, whenever clutter builds up. Try to avoid being too specific; create broad categories that will be easy to remember and find. You can even try placing tasteful labels on the containers, in places where they can't be seen such as inside of a drawer or on the back of a shelf. The kind of container you use to store your items will be a major part of your decorative set up. Shelves are great for display items. They use the height of the room so they don't take away from traffic flow, they allow the items on them to be displayed in a highly visible manner, they allow you to categorize items based on the different shelves, and their height protects the higher-up objects from children. Drawers are perfect places for useful items with little decorative value. Cabinets work for temporarily displaying items. Opening the door will reveal your beautiful collections, creating an almost instant transformation in your room. The neat and tidy look of your possessions, lined up in their proper places, and displayed in tasteful receptacles, is a kind of decoration in and of itself. A setting in which everything is in its proper place will speak more to the quality of your home than almost any piece of décor that you can buy. Even the plainest white room will take on style when filled with shelves of decorative items, curio cabinets, and elegant furniture drawers. If toy clutter from your children is a problem, get them involved. Place a brightly colored container in any room where toys messes occur, and explain to the child that this is where any of their toys go. Get them to help you clean up a few times, and eventually they will start to understand the concept. You can even turn this into a game, timing how fast they can get all of their toys picked up and into the bucket. DIRT Dirt is more difficult to organize around than clutter. The grime that builds up in your home will accumulate more based on the occupants of the space and their actions, than on any design you implement. However, by planning your interior accordingly, you can create a setting that will expedite the removal of the dirt in your home, and make cleaning less of a chore. The first step in this job is the removal of clutter described in the first half of this piece. Once you have removed the clutter from an area you will notice an almost imperceptible increase in "flow" in the room. Flow is simply the ability for people and objects to move through a space. By increasing the flow in a room, you will make it easier to get to and remove dirt. You should make sure that none of your furniture is blocking any other furniture from the rest of the room. Tables are often the problem here, being centerpieces in many areas, and may have to be repositioned in lieu of convenience. Windows too should be left with as little in front of them as possible; you don't want to have to lean over a statue or plant every time you want to wipe one down. A possible exception is windows that are higher up, and may benefit from having a piece of furniture beneath them which you can climb on when cleaning. However, you should always use caution when climbing on any object that was not intended for this use. Placing your furniture on rollers, or positioning them so they can easily be placed on furniture coasters, will make it less trouble to clean underneath. Do not store boxes beneath your furniture. This may be the only way to eliminate clutter however it also becomes a difficult place to clean, as you will have to bend over, move the boxes, clean, and then replace them. Rarely seen closets are a much better place for box storage. Interior design is not a static art; it is a form in motion. Your home should be constantly evolving towards a perfect version of itself. You should always be searching for the right balance between decoration and ease. If you consider the properties of dirt and clutter in a room, before repositioning objects and items within it, you will save yourself a lot of annoyance and effort in the future. Joey Lewitin is an author, artist, and designer of home décor accessories made from imported stone. His line of Unique wall clocks in stone can be seen at http://Pebblez.com/clockbeautiful.html Or if you don't use anchor text Joey Lewitin is an author, artist, and designer of home décor accessories made from imported stone. His line of unique wall clocks in stone can be seen at http://Pebblez.com/clockbeautiful.html
Latest News:Site: Yahoo! News Search Results for news Guests on Sunday TV news shows (AP via Yahoo! News) Guest lineup for the Sunday TV news shows: Report: News not good for White Sox' Quentin (Sports Illustrated) NEW YORK (SI.com) -- White Sox outfielder Carlos Quentin received some bad news from an MRI on his right forearm and wrist, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. The injuries have kept Quentin, one of the AL's leading MVP candidates, out of the lineup since Monday. Green news harvest: stolen solar panels, love for small wind (CNET via Yahoo! News) A sampling of green-tech news with quick commentary. In TV news matchup, cable wins convention coverage (Los Angeles Times) Cable news networks logged record viewership during the two weeks of back-to-back convention coverage NFPs Fail to Cool Dollar Rally, Looks to Next Friday's US Retail Sales, Fannie/Freddie News (Forex Video) (Daily FX via Yahoo! Finance) US dollar holds strong despite disappointing NFPs, jump in unemployment rate to 6.1%. Forex traders look ahead to RBNZ rate decision, US retail sales, and news this weekend from the Treasury regarding Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. News vet: Coverage ob-scene (Boston Herald) WBZ-TV is reeling from massive cuts and was the only Boston station that didn't send a reporter to the political conventions, but it has devoted over-the-top news coverage... Good News Club for children (North Lake Tahoe Bonanza) The non-denominational Bible Club ?Good News Club? for children from kindergarten through fifth grade meets every Friday for Bible stories, games, songs, snacks,and prizes! Sunday news shows (The Monterey County Herald) Guest lineup for the Sunday TV news shows: 6 a.m.: NBC's "Meet the Press" ? Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden. 7 a.m.: "Fox News Sunday" ? Obama chief strategist David Axelrod and McCain campaign manager Rick Davis. 8 a.m. Guests on Sunday TV news shows (Boston Globe) Guest lineup for the Sunday TV news shows: ABC's "This Week" -- Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama. Dallas Morning News, Fort Worth Star-Telegram enter joint distribution deal (Dallas Morning News) The Dallas Morning News and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram have reached a joint distribution agreement in an effort to reduce costs, the two newspapers said Friday. Site: news - Google News News Analysis A Difficult Road Awaits Panetta at the CIA - New York Times
MORE RESOURCES: Site: Yahoo! News Search Results for interior decorating Interior Decorators Challenge State Law On Job Title (Hartford Courant) Lynne Herrmann will help you pick a color for your living room walls, choose upholstery or recommend fabric for your draperies. You can find her in the phone book listed as an "interior decorator" or "designer of interiors" ? but never under the label "interior designer." Warm Weather Decorating in Cool Hues (Carteret County News-Times) (ARA) - When the weather turns warm, we open our windows to let in the light and fresh air. But there are other ways to update living spaces to reflect the best of the summer season. How to Integrate Personal Style into Your Kitchen and Bath (Carteret County News-Times) (ARA) - Most of us have developed a unique personal style and we know what fashions work for us. But when it comes to decorating or remodeling our homes, particularly our kitchens and bathrooms, style preferences can be harder to pin down. A student's dedication to interior design (University of Connecticut Daily Campus) Studying abroad is an excellent opportunity to soak in the nuances and differences of other cultures - their food, their style, their arts and their way of life. And one of the frequently-unmentioned benefits of studying abroad is the opportunity to experience the fact that outside of the United States, the residential college system is fairly uncommon, or at least of a far smaller scale. Interior Decorating Seals the Deal (New York Times) Just finding the perfect new home may no longer be enough; some buyers seem to want the house predecorated in the bargain. This odd house (Sewickley Herald) Interior designer Tom Weigel mixes imagination and personal style to create one-of-a-kind rooms. read more » Restoration after flooding (The Springfield News-Leader) Interior decorator Debra Moore spent two months preparing for her dream life. The Interactive New Site for the Budding Laurence Llewellyn-Bowens out There (PRWeb) Need inspiration for your next decorating or home improvement project? Then totallyhome.co.uk is a new website well worth looking at. (PRWeb Sep 10, 2008) Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/totallyhome/080908/prweb1302084.htm The Interactive New Site for the Budding Laurence Llewellyn-Bowens out There (PRWeb via Yahoo! News) Need inspiration for your next decorating or home improvement project? Then totallyhome.co.uk is a new website well worth looking at. Browse News & Feature Stories (Metro Times Detroit) 134 stories found. Showing page 1 of 5. Site: interior decorating - Google News Interior decorator pursues her true passion - Telegraph-Journal
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