Monday, October 5, 2009

Here Are Some Ideas For Your Bathroom

With all the home improvement television shows and magazines available, many of us are eager to get started updating our homes. Still, it's hard to get the courage to actually pick up that hammer and screwdriver and get started. Our recommendation is to start on the smallest room of your house - the bathroom.

The bathroom is an ideal place to start because it is so small. A small room calls for small projects that can easily be done by one or two people. Here are some ideas you can try to improve your bathroom.

You may consider replacing worn-out tile or installing some new fixtures. While you might be intimidated by any home improvement projects, these two are fairly easily to accomplish. Just be sure to plan exactly what you want to do. Read all instructions carefully and be sure you understand them. Act them out like a mime before you actually do the work. If there are things you don't understand, ask for help from a friend or from someone at your local home improvement store. They really are there to help you.

One popular bathroom project these days is to replace the toilet. The newer versions available are designed to save water. Not only are these newer toilets earth friendly, they can also save on your water bill. Likewise, installing energy efficient lighting is a popular option.

Once you've performed some of these small projects, you may be ready to consider something bigger. For instance, you may want to enlarge your bathroom by knocking down a wall. By doing this, you can completely rearrange the space. Again, with a little planning, you should be able to do most of the work yourself. It may be scary for you to consider knocking down a wall; it can be done and done right. Just be sure it is not a load-bearing wall.

When you look for materials for your bathroom renovations, be sure to consider your finances. Don't just buy the first items you see: by looking around, you may find a great deal on some items. Think about how you want your finished bathroom to look. Be sure you take the tastes of your spouse into account as well. You want the whole room to look "pulled together" and also to be pleasing to everyone who lives there.

Before you start work, make sure you and your families have other restroom options, especially if there are small children in the household. If the project will take more than a few days, figure out how to get showers and baths done. You may have to visit a neighbor or family member.

By carefully planning out your bathroom renovation project, you will see how easy it can be. Plan things carefully and be patient: Your smallest room may soon be your favorite room.

Noel Wortinger regularly makes web pages on problems related to router dovetail jigs. His publications on how to use routers can be found on his webpage and various other websites.

10 Things a Homeowner Won't Tell a Contractor - Common Courtesy

I've been a contractor in the state of California for over 20 years and there are some things that a homeowner won't tell a contractor. These are a few things that a contractor might want to hear, but a reluctant homeowner, might have second thoughts telling their contractors how they really feel.

1. We are happy with all of the work that you did in a timely manner and we appreciate your services.

2. We are happy with the way you performed your construction tasks, efficiently and we appreciate your services.

3. The work was done by a true professional and we would recommend you to any one of our friends.

4. The payment plan that you created in the contract worked out perfectly and never made us feel uncomfortable. It never seemed like you had too much of our money or we were putting you in a bad spot financially.

5. Thanks for keeping the job clean, it meant a lot to us, because we have seen other construction jobs that look like a tornado ran through them.

6. Thanks for helping us with our design. Working with your contractor on a daily, weekly or monthly basis can be frustrating or joyful. Let the contractor know either way how you are really feeling.

7. You and your crew are extremely hard-working and we appreciate the simple fact that you didn't come to work late or leave early.

8. Thanks for the reasonable priced estimate on our project. You helped us say a lot of money and we appreciate that sincerely.

9. Thanks for doing the extra work at a reasonable price. You could have gouged us at certain times, but you chose to be fair and work things out, in a way that would benefit both of us.

10. This one is the most important and often overlooked by homeowners and it's simple and easy to do. Thanks for doing what you said you were going to do and actually doing it.

Just a simple thank you and paying them on time, for a service well done is enough for most contractors. However, a little common courtesy can go a long way, even in the construction industry.

If You Live in Northern San Diego County or South Orange County, and You're Looking for a Great Contractor, Click on This Link Home Remodeling Contractor

Greg Vandenberge is working on the internet to promote the education for creating simple to follow guides and home building books to help professional building contractors as well as the weekend warriors. He has just finished a Home Buyers Guide to take some of the frustration out of home shopping.

Click here if you're looking for additional Homeowner Contractor Advice. If you're interested in gathering more information on how to hire a good contractor, make sure that you visit our website.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Discount Hotels - On the Internet

Everyone loves to travel and everyone loves to travel cheap! While traveling, you tend to spend the maximum on transportation and lodging. A hotel is one thing you cannot even compromise on, even if there's a dearth of resources. Everyone longs for a comfortable stay when he ventures out of his home and at a rate that suits his budget. Discount hotels heed to all your wishes and make your stay and vacation an occasion to remember.

To find discount locations was a cumbersome task earlier. Not any longer. With the proliferation of internet in every household of UK, life has taken a turn for the simple. Things are accessible to you by a mere click of the button. Similarly, keying in the words 'discount hotels' will present before you a plethora of websites that will offer you a list of budget hotels, fulfilling your requirement in the destination of your choice.

Hotels give discounts to its customers for various reasons. Sometimes, because of the negotiation power of the guests and sometimes due to the off-season. Moreover, internet users are given a special preference and status these days by the hotel owners. They keep a reserved quota of rooms for the online guests and these rooms are not made available to the regular guests. Also, a special discount is offered to the online customers by various hotel chains.

Also, reserving discount hotels through the internet also has one more benefit. If you happen to make the transaction through a cashback portal, you would end up getting richer! Book your discount hotel through a cashback portal for your next vacation and you would get back a percentage of the amount that you spend on their site!

Avail great discounts offered by various hotel chains throughout the year. For that, you just need to research a little and a hotel of your choice in the destination that you wish would be offered to you at a rate that suits you budget.

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Important Do-It-Yourself Home Remodeling Advice

Often I'm asked by homeowners, if they think that they can build something on their own. Often I end up explaining the process to them and it's pretty confusing. I would like to give some homeowners and construction handyman some do-it-yourself home remodeling advice, about projects that I think they should avoid and the reason why.

1. Working on Electrical Service Boxes

I really don't recommend, anyone who lacks experience working with electrical, to be working on it at all. When it comes to the electrical service box repairs, if you don't have any experience working in this specific area, I am suggesting this to all homeowners and do-it-yourselfers, stay away from electrical service power boxes. Electricity can be extremely hazardous to your health, so take my advice, this is coming from an expert on the subject.

2. Plumbing Water Supply Lines

I don't recommend, anyone who doesn't have any experience working with plumbing water supply lines, because if they break, or if your repair, doesn't hold properly, you could destroy a large portion of your home. Picture this, you just got through putting a new faucet in, everything looks great, but it's time for you to go to your baseball game. You come home about four hours later and the entire house is flooded with water.

This kind of stuff does happen and you need to take the advice of an expert here. It has even happened to me and I understand the process, pretty good. If you plan on fixing any plumbing water supply lines, make sure that you can spend the time, keeping an eye on your new home repair. If you're going to have any problems with them, they will usually happen within the first few hours of use.

I hope this helps, sometimes it's better to pay a professional, but I can understand, every intelligent person, is interested in saving a few dollars and learning new skills.

If you're really interested in basement remodeling and repairs, you should click on this link Home Repair Pictures and Advice. Get some great home repair advice that can make a big difference on any of your home remodeling projects.

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Greg Vandenberge is working on the internet to promote the education for creating simple to follow guides and home building books to help professional building contractors as well as the weekend warriors. He has just finished a Home Buyers Guide to take some of the frustration out of home shopping.

Thanks For Reading My Articles

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Saturday, October 3, 2009

Building Codes - Stairway Construction

The stair building code was created for building safety. Before the building code and local city enforcement (Building Inspectors), anyone could build a house. This meant Uncle Earl who had just watched a couple of his friends build a house down the street construct some sort of a dwelling. The next step for Earl would be to help these guys for a day and now he is a professional home builder. You get the point.

Stair Building Codes create the safety needed for one of the most hazardous areas of your home. You might know someone who has fallen down a stairway?

I lived in a house I built for 15 years and I redesigned the stairs from a winder design to a T shaped set of stairs. Both sets of stairs were built using the local stair building code for my city.

Wow I could not believe how many times my family members fell down the stairs. I even fell down once. I was amazed. When I switched from the winder to the T shaped stairway there were less accidents. My point is that even using the stair building codes this is a dangerous part of your house.

Having a professional stair builder install your stairs is great advice. Take it. For example this happened to me on quite a few jobs. I get a set of plans from a architect who has been designing houses for over 40 years. I looked at the stairway to find out that he has designed a stairway that is too small for the length of this part of the home. If I build the stairs using the plans that by the way were approved from the local building department, I could have a problem.

You are probably asking yourself how does this happen. Aren't these people experienced professionals. Of course they are. They probably have the U.B.C. (Uniform Building Code) in their office somewhere. Everyone makes mistakes here and there but this is one area of the home where safety is a big concern.

Just look at it like this. The stair building code was designed to improve the safety and reduce the number of accidents while using the stairs. Over the years I have seen stairs poorly designed and constructed. These stairs create problems for the owners of the buildings not just the people that use them. Did I mention lawsuits. This is one area where a lawyer will have a field day.

As a building professional I advise you to use the stair building code first for safety and second to avoid lawsuits. Get an idea from some of the pictures I have taken over the years on problems with stair building.

Use common sense while building or remodeling your home. It goes a long way.

Greg Vandenberge is working on the internet to promote the education for creating simple to follow guides and home building books to help professional building contractors as well as the weekend warriors. He is currently working on more building stairs books and adding useful content to help solve problems created by the lack of construction knowledge in the building industry. Stair Building Articles

Now Your Dream of Owning a Wet-Room Can Be a Reality

Imagine the scene - a hilltop villa overlooking the shimmering Mediterranean sea. The Tuscan sun beats down on the travertine tiled floor of the veranda, a single screen of invisibly clean glass shields the cascade of shower water from the gentle honeyed breeze. Bronzed bodies fresh from the salt and sand revel in the open air shower, the glistening water snakes across the tiles and trickles away into the floor level gully. No walls, no restrictions just pure shower freedom.

The wet-room has always conjured images of luxury, design, space and wealth. The dream bathroom everyone will have as soon as the big lottery win happens or their daughter makes it big in the music industry. However what most people don't realise is the reality of the wet-room is now within everyone's reach thanks to huge advances in the engineering of wet floor systems, the ever rising skill of the British bathroom fitter, fantastically designed products and most importantly new ways in which we look at what a bathroom needs to be.

Most people's first thought is "I just don't have the space", but the wet-room concept is about bathroom freedom rather than bathroom space. Utilising a concise and clever bathroom plan will open up your bathroom in ways you never thought possible. For example, water conservation and rising energy bills have sparked a decline in the number of baths being used and installed, and even estate agents aren't insistent on a bath to help sell a property anymore. Because of this the wet floor concept has begun to inhabit the space in a bathroom where the bath used to be.

The wet floor system is a fully waterproof seal that sits level with the existing floor, it can come in the form of a tray, a kit or flexible matting, in most cases a combination of the three. Because the area is so adaptable the wet floor can be any size required, giving you the freedom to have anywhere from just the corner of your room, to the entire floor space completely waterproofed. Anti-slip tiles are then laid with just enough of a slope to ensure that all the water flows towards the drain and in essence that's it. From this point on there are no restrictions and the industry is full of great products to create your perfect wet-room.

A glass screen is seamlessly mounted directly onto the floor, the screen acts as a barrier keeping any spray or puddles in only the place you want. Not only is it stunning to look at but completely functional, no hinges, runners, or mechanisms to collect scale and dirt, or to break over time. Not only giving you the freedom of movement in your bathroom but also the freedom to do something other than scrubbing the lime scale again!

Wall-hung sanitary ware is the perfect choice to compliment a wet floor area as no part of the ceramic is in contact with the floor. Looking effortlessly stylish the concept makes the room feel open and free and throws open the boundaries of what was previously thought possible in a small space.

So choosing the wet room idea for your bathroom means more choice, more space, no restrictions and the all important wow factor. Today there is so much to choose from to make your space something truly spectacular including wall tiles, floor tiles, waterproof panelling ( wall boarding ), chromatherapy lighting, underfloor heating, towel radiators, shower systems, remote controlled options, accessories and even water proof televisions! So if you want real freedom in your bathroom there's never been a better time to go for it!

Need inspiration for creating that designer bathroom look? Ocean Bathrooms is a leading luxury bathroom supplier. Check out our article and images for creating the perfect wet room.