Colourful blooms

Sometimes called gladioli bulbs (more correctly gladioli corms), these South African members of the Iris family are ideal for colour impact. Most garden centres stock gladioli in whites, pinks, oranges, reds (best for impact), bicolour and the rare blue flowered varieties.

Planting

Most Gladiolus flowers last approx 2 to 3 weeks, so if you’re sneaky and stagger your plantings at weekly intervals you can stretch out the length of time they will be in bloom. Plant from the start of April till the end of May in an area that receives upwards of 4 hours of sunlight a day. Plant the bulbs 4 to 5 inches deep (10 to 12cm) and at an approximate spacing of 4 inches, ideally your soil will be rich with free drainage to prevent rotting of the bulb over winter. Group the bulbs in clusters of 5 or more of the same colour for impact, except in a cottage garden where the mixing up of Gladiolus colours is quite acceptable. It is advisable to water well in dry weather as the foliage can be extremely thirsty. Look after the cultivation requirements and you will be rewarded by sword-like leaves topped by trumpet or funnel shaped flowers in vertical rows which bloom from the bottom upwards. The sword-like leaves inspires the Latin name Gladiolus which means little sword, in fact some people refer to them as sword lilies.

Flower arranging uses

Gladiolus flowers can be cut for indoor arrangements by using 3 to 5 different colours bunched together, just be careful not to remove all the leaves from the bulb as this will severely weaken its bloom next season.

Miniature hybrids

When purchasing your Gladiolus bulbs in the garden centre ask for Primulinus or miniature hybrids as these varieties grow to about 2ft (0.6 metre) and do not require staking like some of the larger varieties.

Guaranteed Gladioli, Summer Colour That Returns is a post from: Home Improvement & Interior Design Blogs | Dorhemshech.org

If you have bunk beds in a bedroom they should follow these Feng Shui Rules.
One’s head should not touch the ceiling or this could result in ill health. The top of the mattress on the bottom bunk should also be at least 16 inches off the ground.

It is not favorable to keep a clock immediately behind or directly in front of a sleeper. Clocks should be placed on either side of the bed. If you have your clock on the headboard it should be placed on a stand beside the bed or on the floor.

A light bulb directly above the head of the bed will turn the sleeper in to a nervous wreck. If hung above the centre of the bed, it will cause stomach disorders. The light should be placed to the side of the bed.
The dressing table should not be placed at the foot of a bed as it adversely affects health. Move the dressing table to any other position.

You can draw on the strengths of the elements by choosing a headboard that corresponds to your element as shown in the paragraphs below.
Square or rectangular shaped headboards are for people who represent wood and earth elements. It is also good for professionals, as it encourages stability and offers support.

Oval or wavy-shaped headboards are ideal for people who belong to the element water and also for artists, musicians and designers.

Angular headboards or those with spiked points, these are not recommended for anyone. It relates to the element fire. It prevents people from getting a good night’s sleep.

How To Decorate Your Bedroom Using Feng Shui is a post from: Home Improvement & Interior Design Blogs | Dorhemshech.org

A massive range of bathroom vanities can be found at online stores these days, which makes it easy for you to browse a range of different collections all from the comfort of your home. You’ll soon notice that there’s a huge choice of designs to choose from, to suit bathrooms of any theme. It helps if you have an idea of the look you’re aiming for, be that period, country-style or contemporary, for example. Furniture style bathroom vanities are favorite choices among those wishing to bring a touch of elegance to their room. Decorative arched skirts or bun feet can be wonderful features, and can help your vanity table become an attractive focal point of your bathroom.

Think about whether you’d prefer stools or chairs as part of your vanity set, and remember to check out extras such as mirrors and lights. Other things to consider are the finish of your counter top. Vanity tops are made from durable and stylish materials, including marble and granite, so you’re sure to find something to reflect your personal tastes. Wood bathroom vanities can be made from a variety of beautiful woods, including oak and maple, which can be left unfinished, glazed or painted. Attention to detail can make a big difference to the overall appearance of your bathroom, so be sure to choose a vanity unit that compliments your existing bathroom fixtures and cabinets.

If you’re looking for a way to give your bathroom a stylish new image without too much effort, then a new vanity table could be the perfect solution!

Bathroom Vanities – A new vanity set can complete your bathroom’s makeover! is a post from: Home Improvement & Interior Design Blogs | Dorhemshech.org

White grubs live a few inches under your lawn and feed on the roots of your grass. Grubs are the larvae-or “juvenile” stage-of various kinds of scarab beetles, including Japanese beetles, chafers, and June and May beetles.

“When grubs are close to the surface, starlings and crows, as well as moles, shrews and skunks, can be seen digging them up because they’re a food source,” says Bayer Advanced™ lawn expert Lance Walheim, who wrote the book “Lawn Care for Dummies.”

Identifying grub damage can be tricky. Look for:

• A general thinning and weakening of the lawn

• A wilted or dried-out look to your grass, even when soil is moist

• Large, brown, irregular patches of grass

• Large patches of dead turf that can easily be pulled up in one piece, like a piece of carpet.

“Grub damage is most severe in late summer, but problems can begin as early as mid- to late spring. Grubs are easiest to control when they are young, so prevention is key by taking action starting in May through early summer,” says Walheim.

One preventive measure is Bayer Advanced™ Season-Long Grub Control, which contains Merit®. It’s the only active ingredient guaranteed to kill all common types of grubs and is the #1 choice among turf professionals. Simply apply to your lawn and water it in to form a protective zone against grubs that protects all season long.

If your lawn is already under attack, Bayer Advanced™ 24-Hour Grub Killer Plus provides a quick solution. It contains the proprietary active ingredient Dylox®, which works faster than any other grub killer on the market. In fact, grubs usually stop feeding and start to die within 24 hours. It also kills sod webworms, mole crickets and cutworms.

Grubs-A Small Pest That Can Devastate Your Lawn is a post from: Home Improvement & Interior Design Blogs | Dorhemshech.org

When you are dealing with furniture the whole collection must take priority over individual pieces. It is easy to fall under the enchantment of an antique piece of furniture, but you have to consider how it will fit in with everything else. Plus, you have to ask whether it meets your needs. Everybody loves to buy new things, but before bring in new furniture you must figure out whether to take advantage of what you already have.

You may want to restore or renovate the external appearance of furniture if it is shabby or drab. Decorating is not merely throwing out the old and brings in the new objects. New furniture is certainly attractive, not to mention pricey, if you were to search secondhand market and antique stores, you would probably come across some surprising pieces of furniture that add a touch of distinction to our home. Remember that some old furniture has more personality than new designs and can be a source of inspiration as you seek to create your own decorating scheme.

Old furniture is adequately interesting to be the central feature of a room but be sure never to mix antique furniture with different styles. The general rule is that if you have one very quality piece of antique furniture, the other, more reserved pieces, should stay out of the limelight. In bigger rooms you can place two or three pieces of antique furniture without overdoing it. Decorating a home is a lifelong process that changes as you adjust. It’s an unfolding experience that lets you express yourself. Enjoy the time you spend doing it.

How to combine styles in any room is a post from: Home Improvement & Interior Design Blogs | Dorhemshech.org

The Afterthought

After all, the bathroom used to be the afterthought of home building and design. Bathroom design kept to the basics: A toilet, sink-cabinet combo, and perhaps some tile. Add some color matching, a couple of wall hangings, and of course, the mirror, and voila: your task was complete!

In hindsight, designing yesterday’s bathroom was really a simple and efficient process. In hindsight, creating such a bathroom was magnificently uninspiring, unimaginative, and dull.

With limited choices, and prohibitive pricing, vanities of distinction rarely entered the equation for a homeowner without a numeral at the end of their name. Even for those with limitless means, such a task usually involved finding the right piece of furniture in the appropriate size before hiring a carpenter (to cut a hole into the top) and a plumber (to retrofit a sink and plumbing). It required resourcefulness, planning, lots of time, and even more cash.

The Fine Furniture Revolution

The rethinking of bathroom designs came with the increasing availability of reasonably-priced middle and high-end vanity sink chests. With foreign imports driving down the cost and increasing the availability of fine furniture for every room in the home, builders and consumers began to consider investing more design dollars in the room guests very often visit — the powder room. By choosing vanity styles to coincide with their home’s overall design genre, consumers have driven expansion in the vanity/sink chest market that produced a bevy of elegant and affordable products. Ball and Claw traditional vanities, French Provincial style sink chests, and hand-painted and hand-carved furniture sinks — the vanity market has truly embraced the realm of fine furniture. Never before have vanity choices been so plentiful or bathroom sink design concepts so broad. It’s not the usual sink and cabinet combo anymore; it’s a whole new ball game.

A Statement Piece – A Statement Place

Forget about Narcissus, and make your vanity a virtue. Let your vanity make a statement about you. Keep the New Yorker and Reader’s Digest, for sure, but let your bathrooms tell more about you than just your literary preferences. Make a gorgeous vanity the focal point of your bath, and with a painted canvas work of art, some carefully contemplated accessories, and perhaps even a beautiful chandelier, allow the bathroom to complement your taste and your commitment to design throughout your home.

Don’t reflect too long before deciding it’s time for a beautiful furniture vanity in your fine home. I promise you’ll love yourself for it!

Bathroom Vanities: Let Your Powder Room Vanity Reflect Shameless Good Taste In Bath Design is a post from: Home Improvement & Interior Design Blogs | Dorhemshech.org

First you’ll want to choose the herbs that you’ll plant. You might have a hard time doing this because of the huge scope of herbs available. But the best way to choose is to do what I did; just look at what you have in your kitchen. By planting your own collection of these herbs, you can save money on buying them from the grocery store while having the added benefit of freshness. Some of the herbs you might start with include rosemary, sage, basil, dill, mint, chives, and parsley among others.

When choosing an area to put your herb garden, you should remember that the soil should have extremely good drainage. If the dirt gets watered and stays completely saturated, you have no chance of ever growing a healthy plant. One of the best ways to fix the drainage problem is to dig a foot deep in the soil, and put a layer of crushed rocks down before replacing all the soil. This will allow all that water to escape, thus saving your plants.

When you are ready to begin planting herbs, you might be tempted to buy the more expensive plants from the store. However, with herbs it is much easier to grow them from seed than it is with other plants. Therefore you can save a bundle of money by sticking with seed packets. Some herbs grow at a dangerously fast rate. For example, if you plant a mint plant in an open space then it will take over your entire garden in a matter of days. The best way to prevent this problem is to plant the more aggressive plants in pots (with holes in the bottom to allow drainage, of course).

When it comes time to harvest the herbs you have labored so hard over, it can be fatal to your plant to take off too much. If your plant isn’t well established, it isn’t healthy to take any leaves at all, even if it looks like its not using them. You should wait until your plant has been well established for at least several months before taking off any leaves. This wait will definitely be worth it, because by growing unabated your plant will produce healthily for years to come.

Once you’ve harvested your delicious home grown herbs, you’ll want to use them in cooking. Why else would you have grown them? Well first the process begins with drying them out. This is easily achieved by placing them on a cookie sheet and baking them 170 degrees Fahrenheit for 2 to 4 hours. After they’re sufficiently dried to be used in cooking, you can consult the nearest cookbook for instructions on using them to effectively flavor a dish.

If you want to store your herbs for later usage, you should keep them in a plastic or glass container. Paper or cardboard will not work, because it will absorb the taste of the herbs. During the first few days of storage, you should regularly check the container and see if any moisture has accumulated. If it has, you must remove all the herbs and re-dry them. If moisture is left from the first drying process, it will encourage mildew while you store your herbs. Nobody likes mildew.

If you enjoy herbs or gardening, or both, then you should probably consider setting up an herb garden. It might require a little bit of work at first to set it up for optimal drainage, and pick what herbs you want to grow. But after the initial hassle, it’s just a matter of harvesting and drying all your favorite herbs.

Growing Your Own Herbs is a post from: Home Improvement & Interior Design Blogs | Dorhemshech.org

Having a media room used to be reserved for the rich & famous sitting in their 50-seat screen rooms, drinking Cognac and smoking cigares.

Well, No More!

Ordinary people like you and I can now afford our own Media Room with HDTVs, surround sound and all the bells & whistles. There are now DIY solutions for the rest of us.

To set up your own media room, first choose the room with the least amount of lights; usually the basement which no longer is the domain of ping pong tables and dusty toolboxes.
Place your TV away from any windows and place a 10-watt incandescent or fluorescent lignt behind the TV to reduce eyestrain. It also helps to paint the walls in a neutral color like gray.

Now that you have the Big HDTV set-up, you need to accessorize it.
Yes, what’s the right furniture for the room?
Well, let’s start with the seating:
There is now a distinc furniture caegory called “Media Room Furniture”. The chairs offer abundant choices in padding, motion and sizes. Most designs have double-feature comfort with soft materials that absorb the sound waves better thus giving you a better sound quality in the room.

For the Entertainment Center, avoid dust, poor ventilation and stacking up electronics on top of each other; this can block vents and reduce performance. Close cabinet doors when the system in not in use and look for furniture with adjustable shelves to make sure you have enough room to clean your different components without having to pull them out. If you live in the South where it gets pretty hot in the summer, I recommend a small media fan that turns on automatically when temperatures rise.

Finally, have fun decorating your media room with a theme. Whether you like dolls, coins, computers or past presidents, have fun decorating with paintings, memorabilia, oe whatever to give the room its own personality.

Visit www.rkea.com today to find the right furniture at great prices. With hundreds of categories and thousands of different pieces, you’ll have fun picking out just the right piece of furniture for your media room.

How to choose the right furniture for your HDTV is a post from: Home Improvement & Interior Design Blogs | Dorhemshech.org

No longer are bathrooms limited in the choice of tiles to plain white, square shapes, and glazed ceramic finishes. Today, there are several hundreds of different styles, colors, sizes when it comes to finding that, and elusive, perfect bathroom tile. The materials are no longer limited to ceramic. You get tiles in travertine, sandstone, marble, granite to name a few.

If you are worried about the tile sizes for your bathroom, then quit worrying because now tiles are available in a variety of sizes. Piece them together can create a unique, striking, and eye-catching designing either on the floor or on the wall of your bathroom. If you think, you are not very creative cover the entire wall from floor to ceiling with both the same type of tile as well as same color. Or you can create a completely different effect by mixing it up and having one color of tile at the bottom of the wall and a different (contrast) on the top of the same wall separated by thin and textured pieces that work as a chair rail clearly distinguishing between the two types of tiles used. Your imagination is the only limitation when it comes to bathroom design.

Depending on the bathroom tile idea you have in mind, you will be able to choose tiles that suit the desired décor the best. The starting point for bathroom decoration is the range of shapes, sizes, textures, patterns, and materials these tiles are available in. A creative bathroom tile design idea can help you have the bathroom of your dreams.

Ceramic is the preferred material for bathroom floor tile as it is durable, offers resistance to dampness, and is non-slippery to walk on and use when wet. It is also easy to clean and stains can be removed with lesser effort. Of course, this does not mean that other materials aren’t user-friendly or durable. You can select tiles in the materials of your choice, but check with the salesperson on durability and life.

We are listing down some bathroom floor tile ideas than can help you create the bathroom that you always wished for.

* Solid Color Tiles: Floor tiles in solid colors for your bathroom can help create a warm ambience. You can use tile borders in contrasting colors to the floor tile or you can create a pattern using two or more than two differently colored tiles. The visual impact will be very interesting.

* Different Tile Sizes: Try to use colored tiles for floors and walls in different sizes or lay them diagonally to create unique patterns.

* Contrasting Grout Color: Using contrasting grout color with ceramic floor tiles looks very interesting. Ex: if you want to use white tiles then use grout in red, blue, or yellow color for contrast. Do not forget to apply sealers to grout lines in heavy traffic areas to protect and preserve the color of the grout.

* Using Your Favorite Tile Color: If your favorite bathroom tile color is blue, you can consider adding some blue decorative tiles on the walls or use different shapes/textures to make the composition visually appeal.

* Contemporary, Chic Look: Use bold and bright colors with graphics against plain backgrounds. Add contemporary and sleek styled accessories and enjoy the chic look!

* Turn Up the Love Feel: Add a touch of romance to your bathroom with floral tiles in pastel or soft shades such as pink, light blue, light green or use hand painted sinks and maybe get a wooden floor to complete the love-dovey look!

* The Mediterranean Look: A mix of terracotta tiles and Mexican or Spanish hand-painted tiles for the floors will create the trendy Mediterranean look.

The important thing when designing your bathroom is to pay attention to the bathroom tile colors because colors affect your mood, while creating a warm, cold, or intimate ambience in the space. If you like bright colors them peach and yellow could be the colors for you. These warm colors make your bathroom feel cozy. Using neutral colors like beige, white, or similar colors make the area look large and reflect color. Blues, greens, and violets are serene or cool colors, while reds, oranges, purples add a touch of drama to the bathroom as well as absorb light making the area look smaller.

Have fun shopping fro your bathroom tiles. You can also browse bathroom tiles online. Remember to choose tiles that are suit your individual tastes and are practical and don’t give in to trends, though you can always look at them for inspiration!

Bathroom Tiles And The Best Bathroom Design Ideas is a post from: Home Improvement & Interior Design Blogs | Dorhemshech.org

Along with the increase in the number of people who are over-eating or not eating healthy foods, there has been an uptick in the number of men and women who have taken a keener interest in “watching what they eat,” in developing a more healthy diet. One step that a significant number of people from around the world have taken in regard to ensuring a more healthy diet is growing their own fruits and vegetables.

If you are a person interested in developing a healthy eating regimen, you will want to take a close look at the benefits of growing your own fruits and vegetables. In point of fact, there are many significant health benefits to be derived from growing and using your own fruits and vegetables.

At the outset, it is important to note that the process of planting and cultivating your own fruits and vegetables can have significant health benefits in and of itself. Too few people get enough proper exercise on a regular basis. The act and process of tending to a garden actually is good exercise. Additionally, gardening has been proven to be a significant stress reliever for a person, resulting in lower blood pressure and other demonstratable health benefits.

Researchers have long noted that the average person (in most countries around the world) does not consume enough fresh fruits and vegetables. By planting and producing your own fruits and vegetables, you have a ready source of wholesome food that can be consumed on a more regular basis.

Many gardeners have taken to using organic practices in the cultivation of their gardens. By utilizing organic gardening practices and techniques, you will be able to grow and consume fruits and vegetables that are free of chemical residue that can be found in many produce items for sale at a typical grocery market in the brick and mortar world.

In the end, you can put yourself on the road to a more healthy life by incorporating fresh fruits and vegetables into your diet on a more regular basis. By growing your own fruits and vegetables, you will be able to better integrate healthy eating into your overall lifestyle — both now and into the future.

Growing Your Own Fruits And Vegetables: The Keys To Healthy Living is a post from: Home Improvement & Interior Design Blogs | Dorhemshech.org