How to utilize Twigs for a Window Treatment

You can find some of the most quaint, interesting and artsy decor in your own backyard; use any type of twigs, from driftwood into willow into fruit-tree divisions, as pastoral and completely free window treatments or even decorative curtain hardware. Choose a window-decorating job that appeals to you personally. Make it a family affair; round up a collection of curvy, straight or twisty twigs in lengths that fit your window to your planned project. Using branches in the window may not provide you with the light or privacy control of drapes, but it will give you a custom made touch and countrified space.

Drill a hole through the thick end or inventory of enough twigs to spread vertically across your window. The divisions should be almost as long as the window’s height. Insert a 6-inch-long ribbon through each hole. Tie the ribbons to a pole-style curtain pole mounted over the window on which to hang the branches upside down. Use red-velvet ribbon for a festive, Christmas touch or ribbon that is a complementary colour to your room’s decor for everyday usage. Instead of decoration, utilize torn strips of cotton, such as that from an old pillowcase or sheet for a more rustic vibe.

Buy or make a planter box that is approximately 1 inch shorter and 1 inch narrower than the length of the window ledge. Cut dense foam — such as that used to fill planters and add silk stems, and available from craft shops — to fill out the planter almost to the top. Insert the branches to the foam to create a faux forest as a grille-style window therapy. Tuck craft moss between the twigs to conceal the foam. Set the planter on the window ledge.

Attach a branch to each side of the window to use as tie-backs for standard curtain stuff, using wood screws which are long enough to experience the twigs and 1.5 inches to the wall. Search for two short yet stocky twigs with a division which turns back as a hook on which to capture the drapes. Snap off excess branches to make the twig-tie-backs lie flat against the wall, if needed.

Expand a decorative L-bracket plant hanger or Y-shaped branch 1 foot out from every side over the window as a holder or curtain-rod hardware. Lay a sturdy branch across the holder as a curtain pole. Tie strips of fabric, strings of beads, twigs or any other lightweight fabric to the branch to complete the country-charm curtain.

Twist parts of cable around branches to link them together and form a curtain topper. Maintain the branch stocks toward middle and mix enough twigs for appealing fullness. Intertwine the branches with dried flowers, broad ribbon or Christmas lights for added appeal. Attach the topper to the wall over a window, then using eye hooks and wire.

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The way to Insulate Your Central Air Heating Ducts

Central air ducts are often routed through unconditioned zones in the house, like the attic or crawl space. Serious temperatures in these regions contribute to thermal reduction in metal ductwork. A metallic duct conveying cool, conditioned air through a broiling attic in summer or warm air through a cold crawl area in winter may lose a substantial sum of temperature. These losses can be reduced by insulating metal ductwork with wrap-around insulation.

Purchase duct wrap insulation which complies with the 2009 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) criteria that define an R-value of 8 for attic ducts and 6 for ducts found anywhere else.

Inspect the period of ductwork to be insulated. Search for signs of air escapes at joints or seams, like streams of dust radiating in a leak. Seal escapes with mastic duct sealant. Verify that duct sections are permanently fastened together at joints. If they aren’t, use sheet metal screws to automatically fasten them, then tape the joints using metal-backed duct sealing tape.

Assess the duct to be insulated. Consult manufacturer’s recommendations for the right size of insulation to adequately enclose the duct perimeter without compressing the insulation and degrading its heat-resisting properties.

Cut insulation to size using a razor blade knife. Trim 2 inches of insulation from the backing on all sides, leaving a flap of financing that will overlap for taping.

Wrap the insulation around the duct using the vapor barrier backing facing out.

Clip the overlapping financing together with duct insulation speed clips in 18-inch periods.

Seal the overlap seam using commercially available pressure sensitive duct insulation tape.

Butt each adjacent section of insulating material up against the previous section, overlapping the backing. Tape the connection between sections to seal them and form a smooth, continuous section of insulation enclosing the whole period of ductwork.

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What Kind of Floors for Blonde Cabinets?

Whether you’re building a new house or revamping a new-to-you home, neutral hardwood cabinetry gives you a lot of options for wall colors and flooring. The blonde woods in cabinetry comprise ash, birch and maple, but you could also find white oak with little orange tinges or even recessed lighting, however highly grained, hickory. To make a room appear larger, brighter and airier, add flooring that matches the shade of the blonde cabinetry.

It Does Not Look Like Vinyl

It isn’t important whether you choose vinyl, ceramic, stone or hardwood flooring to decide on your blonde cabinetry, as long as you’re happy with the choice, it fits in your budget and overall decor scheme, also gives the maintenance options you prefer. For busy homes with children, vinyl is easy to wash, soft to the feet and affordable. But vinyl doesn’t look like it was used to — it today resembles hardwood flooring, slate tiles, high-end granite or maybe grouted ceramic. In order to get a fantastic game, choose a vinyl installed in boards, in a neutral shade using the weathered look of worn, aged light barn wood.

Ceramics That Look Like Wood

The changes in vinyl tile also apply to ceramic tiles. Now you can buy ceramic tiles in boards that resemble the look of hardwood flooring — if you desire the appearance, but not the maintenance and hassle of wood. And even though hardwood flooring can function in kitchens, bathrooms and laundry rooms, overexposure to water spills is simply not great for hardwood flooring. For a daring contrasting statement, choose ceramic boards in dark brown wood grain with blonde streaks.

Wood Works Too

Hardwood or engineered hardwood flooring continue the heat of wood in the room and tie into the cabinetry once the light and shade values match. If the room is large enough, you can go for a hardwood or engineered hardwood in darker stains — as long as the room can manage it with no perceptively shrinking. But in more compact spaces, stick to light colors or woods matched to the cabinetry, like white ash, maple, birch or even hardwood’s greener alternative, bamboo. A room equipped with unstained, but lightly varnished light hickory advantages from precisely the exact same treatment on the ground, creating a sense of cohesion wherever you look.

Slate, Granite or Marble

Slate’s blues, grays, rusty oranges and bits of tan add more than just one color and texture to the flooring. Insert cushioned rugs to encourage your toes in work locations. Slate tiles add a definite rustic element to the room and have a pure grounding effect. Granite and marble may also function in high-end kitchens, but be aware that these alternatives are extremely slippery when wet — you’ll need to clean any spills fast to prevent slips, trips and falls. Other options for stone flooring comprise gray granite with flecks of black and white, shiny and stained beige or gray travertine tiles, or high-maintenance marble. Remember that natural stone products need annual sealing to protect them from staining.

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Dinnerware Patterns of the 1950s

From spicy to natural and dull to linear, 1950s dinnerware patterns were far from regimented. Dinnerware of the ’50s varied widely in color, design and fashion. Some were created entirely in arresting colours and had no layouts, while some had little doodle-like motifs in pale, barely-there palettes against seas of white. The Space Age age steeped in a mix-and-match trend with many whimsical, individualistic patterns to place together with simple and solid coordinates.

Minimalist Flora

While flowery motifs on dinnerware are popular through many eras, the ’50s showcased demure curtain designs using a reliance upon lots of white space. Slender flowers and spare leaves apparently in movement scuttled concerning the ’50s dinner plate, and patterns were somewhat organic and slightly stylized. The Marcrest Stetson Blue Spruce and Brown Pine Cone patterns had undulating boughs and thin cones. The 1957 Franciscan pattern Ferndell featured wispy ferns in slightly anemic colours. One year afterwards, Franciscan introduced Sycamore, with its cartwheeling clusters of just drawn leaves in turquoise, rose and chartreuse. And also 1959’s Happy Talk plated star-shaped daisies in dark pink and gray with quick, narrow brush strokes of grass in jewels.

Asian Influence

The post-war age of the 1950s saw an influx of foreign dinnerware patterns. Many were from China and Japan, and they seized the charm and mystery of the Far East within their layouts. Known as #5547, one simple Noritake flowery pattern was produced from 1954 to 1957. With ivy-like leaves and flowers in a muted brown, mauve and gray palette, the dinnerware was beautifully edged in gold trim. Noritake also created a line with an Asian-inspired bamboo motif called #5490. The Kyoto Regina design was just another imported Japanese dinnerware, and with its wide, ornate gold border, it suited a wealthy and formal table.

Rich Solids

Not all of 1950s dinnerware patterns had patterns; some were rich in color without any specifics. Produced by Homer Laughlin, starting in the 1930s, Fiesta — also called Fiestaware — was reimagined in the 1950s with new colours: delicate rose with terra-cotta, forest green, chartreuse and gray. Melamine dinnerware, which would have layouts or even an embossed pattern such as featured the Watertown Woodbine pattern, was recognized in its simply solid state. Designs in the Branchell Company, such as Color-Flyte and Royale, came in colors like Glade Green and Orange Copper, while Russel Wright Harkerware debuted in adobe and sage green.

Space Age

The Space Age, or Atomic Age, inspired the discs where Americans ate. The year 1954 saw the arrival of Starburst by Franciscan Ware, with its chartreuse and turquoise centered stars appearing to emit energy out of their web-like forms. Five years afterwards, Franciscan created Cameo, a more formal pattern, with little gold asterisk-shaped stars over the edge. Another retro, atomic design was by Canonsburg Pottery Temporama, which showed turquoise blue, olive green and brown blocks using snowflakes and squiggles. The Vernonware by Metlox line came out with Anytime, with its various slender parallel light geometric configurations, and Heavenly Days, which included a natural area decorated with pale turquoise rectangles and intersecting lines.

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What Color Is Best for a Living Room Facing Northwest in Feng Shui?

When applying feng shui principles to an individual room in your property, like the living room, you have to consider the orientation of the room with respect to its surroundings. It’s also important to take into consideration the internal spatial instructions — or bagua — of the room itself, as defined by the positioning of the entry door. Combined with other factors, both of these directional relationships might help determine the best colors.

The Feng Shui Bagua

The bagua is based on arranging hexagrams in the “I Ching,” a historical book of Chinese wisdom, in an octagon. It may be represented as a square with nine identical divisions; the extra division represents personal well-being. To utilize the bagua, align it mentally with the floor plan of your room so that the entrance door falls in one of those squares in the bottom row. Going from left to right, the underside squares signify northeast, north and northwest. This makes the wall to the left of the doorway the east wall, the one on the right west, and the instructions on the other wall southeast, south and southwest.

The Facing Direction

Typically, a room faces the direction of its principal entry door, however, when your living room includes a huge picture window, it may make more sense to think about that the entrance. This is because the room faces in the direction where the majority of the chi, or energy, enters it. If the doorway is facing northwest, and it is on the ideal side of the wall, the room’s compass direction is directly in alignment with its internal bagua. If you consider the exact same room as facing in the direction of the window, you ought to earn a direction adjustment when considering optimum room colors.

Door Facing Northwest

The northwest is the most yang, or creative, of all the instructions, and it signifies helpful people and travel. Its component is metallic, and its color is white. If the doorway and room are confronting in this way, painting the walls white enhances all of the qualities that the northwest can bring into your life through that room. Earth improves metallic, so any ground colors, such as beige, terra-cotta or ochre can help temper the creative power of the northwest positioning. Metal feeds water, thus if the rest of the house comes with a water theme of blue or dark colors, you might even use these colors to advantage. Stay away from orange and red — the passion colors — and greens — the colors of timber.

Making Direction Adjustments

In case your northwest-facing door is in the middle of the wall — in the northern place concerning the room’s bagua — it is appropriate to add water colors — blue and black — in the room’s decor. If the door is on the left side of the wall, then on the other hand, use ground colors. Your door may be facing northwest, but enough chi may enter through a window to warrant considering that the facing direction. If so, think about both window and door instructions. Keep in mind that the flame colors of the south — orange and red — dominate metal, and steel, for its own part, dominates the greens of the east- and southeast-facing wood component; it is usually best to include the dominating color.

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What Does "Resulting LTV on Mortgage Loans" Mean?

If you don’t pay money for your house, financing the purchase ends in a mortgage loan equal to the price of the house minus the down-payment amount. For lenders, financing a house loan is a danger that must be assessed. The danger level is higher when the borrower’s down payment is reduced. Lenders evaluate the probability of a loan by calculating the loan to value ratio.

Loan-to-Value Ratio

The loan-to-value (LTV) ratio is a number used by lenders to evaluate just how much is financed or owed on a property in relation to its value or purchase price. The lender uses this ratio to evaluate the amount of risk involved in financing the property. The higher the percentage, the greater risk involved with the mortgage loan.

Calculating LTV

Figure the percentage by dividing the total owed on your house by its value. When first buying a house, this LTV mortgage relies on the original purchase price minus the down payment the buyer is currently supplying. If the homeowner buys a house for $100,000 and places $20,000 down on the house, he is financing $80,000 of the purchase price, leading to an LTV ratio of 80 percent.

Common LTV

Traditionally mortgages were given to borrowers who put down 20 percent and financed 80 percent of the purchase price. This gave the new homeowner 20 percent equity in her home. To promote homeownership and provide opportunities to those who don’t have the money for a 20-percent down payment, the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) insures loans for which the buyer is only required to have a down payment of 3.5 percentage of the purchase price of the house. This FHA down payment provides a home buyer an LTV ratio of 96.5 percent. A 10-percent down payment results in a LTV.

Value vs. Price

In a house purchase, a part of the purchasing procedure includes the creditor getting an appraisal on the home being purchased. In an appraisal, the property is in comparison to similar properties in the region that have recently offered to ensure the purchase price of the house is consistent with home worth in the neighborhood. If the price is higher than other properties in the region, the creditor may recommend the seller lower the purchase price to local levels before approving the loan.

Factors

A low down payment that raises the LTV percentage leads to a higher monthly mortgage payment. Additionally, without a 20-percent down payment, the buyer is required to pay private mortgage insurance (PMI) or, together with FHA loans, a mortgage insurance premium (MIP), which also raises the monthly payment.

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