Rooms that are mostly used at night provide unique stages for lighting. The surrounding darkness signals a slowing of pace, a separation of the public and private. It’s time to replenish the spirit, refresh the body, get ready for the activities of the next sunrise.

Such personal rooms contain activities which require various intensities of lighting: a clear and balanced light for dressing and undressing: a comfortable, glare-free spot which direct itself on a book’s page without casting its reflection on reading glasses; a soft light which balances the blue haze of the TV screen; a mysteriously indirect light which warms and sparkles intimate moments; and convenient switches for safe passage to and from the room.

The social patterns of eating used to be pretty clear cut. The well-off ate in formal splendour in a well appointed dining room, their children well out of the way in the nursery. Today, with less room and even fewer helpers, people have to plan to eat as pleasureably as possible according to a vastly different set of of circumstances. We like to have it both ways – a bit of elegance and formality when it is called for, and a cosy place for an easy-going family meal. In either case the eating place must be close to the kitchen.

The chairs must be comfortable for any type of eating, and the table surface durable for the inevitable fall-out from the family meal. When the occassion is a more formal one, the room should at least feel isolated from the practical world of cooking and washing up. With space at a premium, the dining room is usually the first to squeezed out. Whether its a kitchen-dining room or living-dining room, depends as much on the size of the room as on the degree of formality you are after.

The more formal a dining room, the more formal the furniture, and the more formal the deatils should be. Starched white damask goes with mahogany and rosewood, though you might choose place mats (but choose these with care). In either case, however, see that this type of table is well protected from hot plates.

The less formal dining, table clothes may be coloured and pink or apricot or terracotta are very becoming and give a look of warmth in winter. For summer dining, a pale blue cloth with green napkins and glasses can look enticingly cool.

Seating arrangements, should be conductive to conversation and relaxation and further the feeling of togetherness. Seating furniture, meaning chairs and sofas, are the nucleus of a good living room. This means chairs and sofas to suit different tastes and purposes ; a sofa on which one can stretch out ; a chair offering head and neck support with perhaps a footrest ; a chair that is comfortable for needlework or reading. Think out of possible ways of sitting and relaxing before making a final choice.

Two seater sofas are useful because they take up much less space than do two easy chairs. They also give mass and weight to the composition of your furniture, which might otherwise look disjointed. Bear in mind that while three seater sofas will look nice in a large room with generous proportions that need to be complemented with a large furnishing element, neither great comfort nor any real conversation is achievable by three people in a row – two talkers area all that they will happily accomodate, although they will, of course, take three TV watchers or listeners to music.

Living Room, is a place in your home, that holds many activities : relaxing, watching tv, eat, and entertaining guests. It’s a room where it should reflect your taste and your personality. It has to function pleasantly and unobtrusively, whether you are settling down to a quiet game of backgammon with an adult or a brisk round of carpet bowls with the young, and it has to go on functioning even as your demands on it change and continue changing as time goes on.

Seating arrangements in a living room, need to be flexible, so that varying numbers of people can be accomodated without making small groups seem lost, or large ones squashed up together.

Designing a comfortable living room is quite a work. First, list all the probable activities ; sitting, talking, watching TV, studying, writing, listening the music, playing games with the children, eating, partying, and maybe even sleeping. Once the acitivities clear, you can choose the furniture ; sofas, chairs (big-small, folding chair, occasional), tables (low, folding, big, small), books rack (if you like to read), writing accessories, eating accessories, telephone, TV, etc.

After all the activities and furniture listed, arrange all the furniture in the most comfortable way. Makes some alternative, consider all the plus and minus, adjust the position with openings of the room. Put some accessories to make the room reflect your personality, such as : favorite sculpture, paintings, fresh flowers, or a family portrait.

Colors is potentially the most exciting and rewarding, as well as the most inexpensive, ingredient that goes into the making of a home. Used with flair, it can transform any interior. Planners of color scheme must not be carried away by emotion alone. They must consider colours (and non-colours) in terms of materials : oaint, stains, textiles, skins, leathers, marble and metal, before deciding on a certain colour for a certain room.

Color scheme fall, roughly, into 3 groups : monochrome, related or contrasting. There are several principle when coloring a house :

1. Continuity : consider the view from one room to another and select colours that coordinate successfully without introducing too many different surface finishes at key meeting points.
2. Colour Emphasis : In teh average house, the design emphasis should be on easy to live with colour schemes, incorporating a practical overall surface treatment and simple choice of materials.
3. Accents : Accent is important, avoiding a room being too bored. Bright color, or even a shocking one can be a very good accent, and furely make the room more interesting.

It is important to remember that colour schemes in much-used areas of the house, such as the family room, kitchen and family bathroom, should be relaxed and all the material should be practical and simple to maintain. This does not mean that these areas need to be dull or colourless ; the test of a successful scheme is that the room should look perpetually fresh, cheerful and inviting.

Those households which always seem to run smoothly with everything in its place and a place for everything, have one common feature : well-lanned storage throughout the house.

The only way to provide enough storage space in a small house is to get it against walls. “Working walls” for storage are discreet and self effacing when closed, but everything is to hand when you open the doors. And the secret of making a room look spacious rather than crammed with cupboards is to keep the outside finish simple and avoid unnecessary knobs, moulding and contrasting materials.

The first question to ask when building a storage is, what are you storing? There are many stuffs to be stored : bedroom stuff, shildren storage, linen storage, cleaning materials and seldom-used things.

There are many types of storage, the choice is likely to lie between freestanding, built-in or modular storage. Freestanding cupboards or shelves, acquired usually for their looks rather than their capacity. Built in storage on the other hand is the basis of “working wall”. Its function is to conceal or display your possesions, and it should merge with the walls. Modular storage fittings usually comprise units of standard height and depth and two or three different widths, designed as to fill almost any given space within a few inches the remaining space filled in with a scribed panel.

Bathroom cabinet, is one of the sanitation equipment. There are no standard size for the this type cabinet. The shape varies, and can be adjusted to your own taste, and so are the color and accessories.

The materials used for making a cabinet is wood, stainless steel, natural stone and brick. Each of the materials finishing has different treatment. After being cut and shape, wood is given special paint to avoid moss. Use good quality timber to avoid rotten wood. Before using the wood, inject an anti-termite. Don’t let the cabinet touched by water continously, it will make the wood moist. Cabinet made of brick can be finished by ceramic, marble, or natural stone.

Bathroom cabinet is very usefull for storing toiletries and bath accessories. It also usefull for sink holder or to hide the sink pipe, so it looks neat and nice.

2. Keep your windows locked. Make sure your ground floor windows are fitted with strong locks. If any windows are near drainpipes or flat roofs, put a lock on them as well.

3. Never make it obvious you’re away. Use timer’switches to switch on lamps and radios at certain times and have the post office hold your mail. Leave blinds or drapes open in their usual position. And have your lawn mowed or your walk shoveled.

4. Get to know your neighbors. . They can keep an eye out for’suspicious activity around your home and keep you aware of any criminal activity in the area.

5. Keep trees and hedges trimmed. This gives intruders fewer places to hide while they try to break into your home.

6. Make sure your home is well lit. Always have replacement bulbs for your outdoor lights handy so you can replace them as soon as they burn out. Consider upgrading to motion detectors that turn on the lights whenever anyone walks past.

7. Don’t hide things in obvious places. Thieves know that most valuables are kept in the bedroom, so don’t think yours are safe there. And don’t hide them in typical places like a dresser drawer, the freezer, under the mattress, or in the cookie jar.

8. Don’t keep a lot of cash or’small valuable in the home. Keep jewelry or other valuables locked in a safe or well hidden. Large items like TVs, VCRs, computers, and stereos can be bolted to tables, making them too much of a bother to steal.

9. If you have an alarm, use it. If you don’t, get one. Learn more about the monitoring systems available in your area. Ask friends and neighbors for recommendations.

Several national security companies have local representatives who will install a system for you at a very attractive introductory price (sometimes even free) when you commit to a certain length of monitoring.

There are two approaches to fixing squeaky stairs—from below the stairs or from above. It’s preferable if you can fix them from below because your repair is less likely to show.

Once you find the source of the noise, you can usually fix it relatively easily. If the noise comes from the spot where your foot meets the tread, concentrate your repair efforts there. If the noise comes from one side when you step in the center or if it comes from the rear of the tread when you step at the front, the chances are pretty good that the entire tread is moving or deflecting.

If you’re worried about the noises, start by investigating the source of the sound. Stairs with open undersides (such as when basement stairs or closets are built below) make this job easier. Where the underside is not accessible, you may have to pull down a finished ceiling underneath to get a good look. Before making any repairs, try lubricating the parts with talcum powder or powdered graphite to reduce the friction where they rub together. Forcefully blow the powder into the joints, especially where the backs of the treads meet the risers. If this doesn’t help, you’ll need to take on a little carpentry work.

Check that wood wedges, used to lock the treads into their mortised slots, haven’t worked loose or fallen out. If they have, glue them back in place and tap them tightly home. Glue blocks under the treads where they meet each riser also can fall away. If so, nail and reglue them as well. Look for longitudinal splitting or cracks across the width of the stringers, which carry the treads. Also check the vertical plumb and horizontal level of the major parts to determine if the stairs are leaning in any particular direction—all the noise you hear could indicate that the structure is moving or in danger of collapsing.

If you can get at the stairs from beneath, you can use wedges, brackets, or wood blocks to secure the treads to the risers. (Wear eye protection to keep sawdust and other debris out of your eyes.) Glue and screw wood blocks under the tread and against the riser. Be sure not to drive screws through the tread’s surface.

If you don’t have access from below, you’ll have to work from above. To prevent the wood from splitting, drill pilot holes before inserting nails or screws; counterbore the holes if you plan to fill them with dowel plugs. Otherwise, set the heads slightly below the surface and cover the holes with matching wood putty.

Wallpaper is so named because it usually is just paper, though in some cases it is made of sturdy vinyl. Vinyl wallpaper is well suited to use in kitchens and bathrooms because it is tougher than paper and resists moisture. Vinyl may be laminated onto paper or cloth, or cloth can be vinyl-impregnated with a paper backing.

Wallpaper is typically applied over an existing painted wall of drywall or plaster, or it may be applied over a lining coat of wallpaper, which hides imperfections.

In this section of HomeTips, you will find a wealth of helpful information on choosing materials, preparing your walls, successfully applying wallpaper and other wall coverings, as well as how to maintain and repair them.