Friday, August 17, 2018

Fireplaces Warm Home and Heart

Fireplaces do much more than just heat your home.  A focal point for gatherings of family and friends, a fireplace draws guests within its circle.  Your fireplace takes center stage in your home by its design and location. It can express your style of living whether formal or casual

In the widening search for alternative to scarce and expensive fuels in home heating, a growing number of homeowners are discovering the advantages of heating with a fireplace. Fireplaces designer for efficiency and used correctly, can spread their warmth over your home. Technically, fireplaces heat in two different ways---radiation and convection. The type of heater you have determines its heating effectiveness. Radiation is the direct transmission of energy in the form of infrared rays, these rays heat objects they strike, although they don't contribute to heating the air space in between. Convection is the movement of heat through air or fluids. When the air is heated, it rises, setting up convection currents that circulate the air.

The latest introduction is the EcoSmart Fire Innovation  It is an environmentally friendly open fireplace. The EcoSmart Fire is flue less and does not require any installation or utility connection for fuel supply, which makes it ideal for just about any architectural environment such as high-rise buildings.  It is fueled by renewable modern energy, denatured ethanol, burns clean and is virtually maintenance free. I really like this system as it feature remarkable design flexibility and choice.

The Importance Of Lighting Your Interior

Lighting can be one of the most dramatic effects of an interior design.  The importance of this element of an interior has increased over the past few decades.

It was the practice years ago that you would design your room---selecting floor covering, furniture, wall treatment, window covering, and accessories including artwork.  Then at the end of the project, the lighting would be selected according to overall lighting and task lighting which is necessary for reading, working and cooking areas.

Today's lighting interest is a focal point of the interior design project plan and that has been a wonderful evolution to room design.  Lighting is exciting.  The same furniture and color interior design plan can be changed by the lighting approach. You can take the same room furnishings, and with one approach to lighting selections your room will feel warm and cozy; or another lighting specification can make the same room into a cool, stark and stunning atmosphere.

I recommend that when you are designing your room's furnishings and color palette, you also pay as much attention to the lighting plan from the beginning.  This will help you to create that memorable home interior you desire.

Thursday, August 2, 2018

Right Size Design Help

Are you living in a home space that has become too large for your life style?
It's a common situation today. I have many clients that are down-sizing their living space---and I prefer to call it right-sizing their home.

A big challenge is to find somewhere for the furniture that you do not have the room for in your new, smaller home, condominium or apartment. Most people would like to sell these items to get some money to use for decorating the space they are moving to. If they cannot sell the items, then donating them is another option. Key is the cost to move the items from the home to the place to sell or donate. If you sell, you can either move the items to the consignment or auction house, and if you do not move it yourself, the cost of pickup will be taken off the amount the piece sells for. If you cannot sell the items and decide to donate, most charities will pick up the items at no charge.  The first step is to contact the consignment shop and send photos of the items to see if they can sell them, or if you are donating you also need to send photos of the items you want to donate to see if they will pick up the size of items you have.

Another option is to have an estate sale in your home or to have an auction house take the items and put on sale either for live auction or on-line auction.

A few suggestions for sources in the Chicago area are:
Leslie Hindman, Chicago, IL
Divine Consign, Riverside, IL
Village Treasure House, Northbrook, IL
Direct Auction House, Chicago, IL
Everything But The House, Chicago, IL