DIY City Mag

An online magazine highlighting your favorite DIY cities living room for the great Business

Monthly Archives: April 2012

Home Office or New Family Living Room

April 25th, 2012

Home Office or New Family Living Room

Isn’t it strange how things in life can change right before our very eyes and we don’t notice it happening?

Once upon a time,families would all eat together formally, sitting around a dining table, musing over the day’s events and sharing stories. They would then retire to the lounge or living room to watch programmes together on the one TV in the household.

Sometime later, although meals were still taken as a family, it was now popular to eat casually at the kitchen table. A practical move as tidying up was easier. Installing a second television in the kitchen added to the entertainment. The dining room was now kept for high days, holidays and dinner parties.

The television became all consuming with programmes not to be missed at any cost. Meals on laps became the favorite way to eat, either when watching in the lounge or in individual bedrooms as most now had a portable television .

Family banter was fast becoming history.

Before long, most households had acquiesed and bought a PC and the home office was born. The internet had grown immensely in popularity and everyone wanted to be involved in the revolution. The PC became an indispensable piece of equipment. So ideally suited for administrative purposes, that many found that they were able to work from home, either in their existing roles or by starting new web based companies.

With the advent of social networking sites, along with the ever increasing array of games available that could be played on the PC, the home office had become the new family living room. A place for learning, fun, and entertainment.

Families once again gather together, this time around computers and share the stories of their day as they play a game, listen to music, or watch a movie.

Might now be a good time to make the office a little more homely and comfortable? What about a new office desk or workstation? In addition, some new, comfortable chairs would be much appreciated by all, along with a squishy sofa on which to lounge.

No longer just a place for hard business, the home office is now the hub of family life.

Andrew Spencer writes informative and useful articles on office furniture. For more about:office desks, office chairs, reception counters, meeting tables and office screens seehttp://www.londonofficefurniture.co.uk

Home Landscape Design Basics

April 20th, 2012

Home Landscape Design Basics

Landscape design basics for your home begin at the planning stages. Landscape design basics help you create all the different and unusual aspects of a front yard along with a garden and entertainment area in your backyard. Your pathways, patio, deck, and driveway areas are all part of your landscape design.

Whether you are re-vamping an existing landscape or creating a new one from scratch can be very rewarding. Your main consideration needs to be the people that will be using the area and they are your family. You may already have a design or theme in mind but your main concern is being able to enjoy it, move easily from one area to another, and to have a view from inside your home. Your garden landscape should be a place to relax and entertain family and friends. If you have a large or small garden you may want to have pathways leading from one area to another.

If you have never designed a landscape before there is one thing to keep in mind and that is drainage.

If it is done properly everything will drain away as it should but if done wrong you will have puddles of water in some areas and no irrigation in other areas; your garden or grass will die if it gets too much or too little water. You may have to build a retaining wall or re-grade your backyard. If that is going to be too costly you may want to consider growing plants in raised garden beds. Drainage is just one landscape design basic that will help in creating a garden landscape for you and your family to enjoy.   

Screening or trellis growing can hide things in your yard that you do not what anyone to see plus it will protect many of your plants from the wind if place in the right areas. If you use trellis work on your pathway around the garden it may entice people to want to see what is coming around the corner. You can even use green walls or trellis growing as the walls surrounding your outdoor entertainment room. You need to envision how you want things to look as you wander through the garden or how you want others to enjoy their walk. Think of all the natural settings that surround your home and how you can highlight it for others. You may have mountains, a valley, or a lake as a backdrop and you want others to also enjoy them. You may live in the city and have buildings in the back that you want to hide. Taking a stroll through your yard this way will give you ideas as to how to hide objects or to frame a particular view.  

Your children and pets also need to have an area of the backyard garden that is all their own where they can have fun. It is always a good idea to be able to see your children playing even from the inside of your home. You want them to be safe and placing soft rubber pavers under a swing set or jungle gym will help cushion any falls. This play area should be safe enough for your children to invite their friends in to play. You not only want to see your children at play but you do not want your view of the garden landscape blocked by the play area.  

It is always a good idea to put all your thoughts and ideas sketched on paper; once you do this it will give you even more ideas. Since you are still planning everything you can move things around to different areas. Map out your yard by using a garden hose for flower bed borders or pathways. A vegetable garden needs to be in an area that receives plenty of sun. You may want an entertainment space in an area that only receives full morning sun and not the hot afternoon sun unless you are going have some type of awning or shade covering. If you have a pool you may want to have sunny areas along with shade areas. A flower garden not only needs a few hours of sun but may also need some shade.

You can still move things around during planning stages, so before you start to dig make sure everything is final. The flower garden and vegetable garden may look better having gentle curves as borders. You may want to place hose guides around those gardens to protect those plants. Make sure your grassy area is going to be easy to mow. Some of these landscape design basics go along with planning and a little patience at the very beginning and you may have that beautiful landscape you always dreamed about creating.

Barbara has done some research on some landscape design basics and incorporated them in her backyard garden. Her website Gardeners Garden Supplies has interesting information regarding many gardening ideas so please visit.