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Living Room Furniture That Is Virtually Kid Proof
April 23, 2010

Living Room Furniture That Is Virtually Kid Proof

You’ve got kids. Great! Children are such joys and yet, with the birth of your first child, you probably came to the stark realization that with the coming of children, the way you furnish your home had to undergo some changes. Let’s face it. There is no practical reason for owning a white micro-suede covered sofa, loveseat and side chair if your three year old is going to be drinking cherry-red pop on it. Spills happen. Dirt and finger paint and mysterious discoloring substances you cannot identify seem to be a child’s gift to living room furniture. So, what do you do? For starters, give up on white furniture. You can spray enough Scotchguard® to protect Fort Knox on it and somehow, a toddler will find a way through its defenses. Also, easily cleaned furniture fabrics are much more practical and much easier to get the gooey stuff off of. Try for some low knap, smooth fabric and yes, do treat it with a stain repellant. It will help, at least a little. Throws that cover the furniture when you’re not expecting company are a great way to spare your living room furniture the brunt of your children’s wrath. Keep in mind,...

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Dining Tables Can Be More Than A Place To Eat
April 23, 2010

Dining Tables Can Be More Than A Place To Eat

Don’t think of it as a serving platter with legs. Dining room tables are meant to do more than hold the food. The time spent together having a good meal and sharing the events of the day bring us closer and help cement the ties that bind. These tables become some of the most treasured furnishings in the home for just this reason. So, it makes sense to choose the one you’ll be gathering your family, or your family-to-be, around with extra thought and care. Choosing from the many styles of dining room tables can be a bit overwhelming. You can walk into a showroom and be hit by an overload of different tables a staggering array of finishes; styles and price ranges. So, before you go shopping, take a few things into consideration. First, look at the room you’ll be using to house the table. Is this the room it’s going to “live in” for the rest of your life? Or are you, perhaps, in a starter home or apartment and plan to get a bigger house later? The size of table will, in some instances, help influence the sort of table you choose. Some tables will never expand enough...

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Console Tables Provide Storage and Display Space
April 23, 2010

Console Tables Provide Storage and Display Space

The console table, a long rectangular table, with our without cabinets and/or drawers, that is usually placed against a wall, will provide you with a welcome bit of display space. Since they are often employed in areas where wider or heavier pieces of furniture will not suit, they can easily become a focal point in a hallway or entry foyer. Because of their knack for filling up the spaces that nothing else can handle, versatile console tables are enjoying a new surge of popularity in today’s well-furnished homes. The shape of console tables allows them to fit against a wall and keep enough floor space open so that you can move past them without bumping into them, even in narrow hallways. Their length makes them almost perfect for displaying small collections or holiday-related decorations. I use the one in my entryway for a seasonal display. In the autumn it bears pumpkins and gourds. In the winter, you’ll find a basket of pine’s cones and acorns with a few sprigs of holly and in the spring and summer, I use it for fresh flowers if it is not pressed into duty for a holiday theme. Console tables can come in classical furniture styles...

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Chest Of Drawers Furniture A Beautiful Storage Secret
April 23, 2010

Chest Of Drawers Furniture A Beautiful Storage Secret

I bet you think most people buy a chest of drawers because it looks great with a bedroom suite. I admit it. It does. Still, that is not the reason that almost every bedroom has one. You see, my friend, these chests have been solving the clothing storage dilemmas of wise housekeepers for centuries. Today’s chests are no exception. They provide you with a great place for clothing storage and they look good while they do it. The chest of drawers was probably once, many centuries ago, a stack of chests. Later, it was a chest (think of it like a treasure chest or a trunk) that had drawers and was used when traveling. Eventually, it evolved into a finely crafted piece of furniture that combined style and function in an attractive manner. They quickly emerged as a mainstay in the bedroom décor, and next to a closet, are the most essential piece of storage for our clothes. While closets are great, you can’t actually hang your socks up in them and feel like you are making good use of the space available. Socks, underwear, pajamas, sweats and other “foldable” clothing items need a place to stay, too. Did you ever...

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Amazing Bedside Cabinets Provide Storage With Style
April 23, 2010

Amazing Bedside Cabinets Provide Storage With Style

Need to perk up the look of your bedroom and want to add some handy storage at the same time? You can do it with ease. Simply replace that cute, but barely functional “night stand” with a bedside cabinet. These fit in the same space the old night stand took up, but provide you with some beautiful design options, not to mention the fact that they can store a lot more than an alarm clock. Bedside cabinets are made in plenty of popular styles. You can even find unique, hand-painted artist cabinets, if you feel like making that kind of statement. Whether you want to match an existing bedroom suite, or simply are looking for a cabinet that will compliment your current furnishings, I’d suggest you go on-line and pull up a couple of the larger furniture supply web sites. They’ll have thumbnail pictures of all the styles, and there are pages of them, in which these cabinets are made. This way you can narrow your choices down before you do any serious shopping. Another thing to look at, besides the style and the piece’s ability to blend with your décor, is storage capacity. Having a full cabinet is plenty for some...

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Valet Stands Stand Ready To Serve You
April 23, 2010

Valet Stands Stand Ready To Serve You

Wouldn’t it be nice if someone would choose your outfit, press it, and then hand it to you piece by piece as you dressed each morning? You could be sure that you looked tailored and stylish, without all of that digging through drawers and rummaging about in closets. Still, good help is not only hard to find, for this sort of situation, it is unnecessary. Valet stands can do the job nicely, and they never complain about the lack of wages. Valet stands get their name from the once-popular man’s servant referred to as the valet. His chores including keeping his masters clothing clean and pressed and ready to wear. The stand named after that servant, since it is merely a piece of furniture, won’t iron or even choose your clothing, but it will hold them and be ready to serve them up when you are ready to wear them. Typical valet stands are about three and a half feet high, and has a wide flat hanger on the top of the back for your jackets and shirts. There is a slide in rack for slacks and other hooks or fasteners to hold your belt and tie. The better ones have...

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Recession Cheap Furniture Can Be A Smart Buy
April 22, 2010

Recession Cheap Furniture Can Be A Smart Buy

Just out of school and in your first apartment, you get a couple of choices in furnishings. You can take those hand-me-down pieces that Mom and Dad don’t want any more, with any strings that might be attached. Or, you can buy some cheap furniture to tide you over until you make CEO and can furnish in lavish style. Cheap furniture doesn’t have to be ugly furniture. It just doesn’t cost a great deal of money. You can find cheaper pieces of furniture in every furniture store. Why? Because they know that there is a market for products that might not have the style or the enduring quality of higher priced pieces, but that still provide a place to sit, sleep, etc. One of my favorite fun ideas for decorating with cheap pieces of furniture is to buy plain, unfinished wooden chairs, chests and tables, and then you paint them. A couple cans of paint, a few stencils and you’ve got unique “art furniture” to fill your empty apartment and it won’t cost nearly as much as if you bought it already painted and decorated. Another cheap furniture trick is the cover up. This means you buy really inexpensive tables or chairs,...

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How to Remodel Your Bedroom, A Refreshing Wake Up Call
April 22, 2010

How to Remodel Your Bedroom, A Refreshing Wake Up Call

Looking some new decorating ideas to spruce up your bedroom. Maybe its time for a whole new look or perhaps you just need to change up the old one a little. After all, no matter how much you love that old brass bed and the chest of drawers your grandmother gave you, sometimes old gets old. It doesn’t matter if you’re buying the suite or just a few odd pieces of bedroom furniture; when you are ready to start shopping, make sure you have a plan. Size matters in the bedroom, and no, that is not a sexual innuendo. If your bedroom is too small for a king-sized bed, don’t try it. Even if you mange to wedge it into the space, you won’t have any room left for other items such as an alarm clock or a coat hanger. In fact, you’re usually better off going with a queen bed, even in a larger bedroom. Unless you’re a basketball star, the bed will be more than adequate and the extra space will make the room seem even larger. Do not spend all of your money on great bedroom furniture and then get stingy with the bedding. You want quality linens, comforters...

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Storage Furniture Creates Space
April 22, 2010

Storage Furniture Creates Space

Are you tired of clutter and ready to simplify your life? You could throw away all that stuff that never seems to belong anywhere. We all have it. They are mementos of old trips and old romances. They are collections we started when we were kids. They are essential tools we use all of the time, but don’t have a place to put. They are, in a word…. Clutter. To eliminate clutter and regain valuable living space, you don’t need to throw your stuff away. You need to invest in some storage furniture that will allow you to stow it neatly away. Each sort of space will require a different type of storage furniture. You’d use one sort in a basement to store away all of those old tools and the bicycle pump and other miscellaneous items that have accumulated down there. Another sort of storage furnishing would be appropriate in your media room to house movies and music CDs that seem to be lying around all over the place. For collectibles, a curio cabinet or display cabinet might be just the storage needed to get them out of the way and show them off at the same time. There are...

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Latest Restaurant Furniture Updated For Today’s Diner
April 22, 2010

Latest Restaurant Furniture Updated For Today’s Diner

Restaurants are among the hardest hit businesses in today’s rough economy. With so many families and individuals cutting back on their “excess spending”, dinner out is not as common for most of us. In order to keep the customer’s coming back, lots of them have lowered prices on their menus and added specials. Another thing they’ve done is to replace their old restaurant furniture to update it for the way we dine today. When we do dine out, we seem to be doing it differently. Instead of a table for two or a booth for four, we are seeing singles eating out alone. Of course, they do bring along a little luggage. That luggage is often in the form of a laptop computer or, since its recent release, maybe an Ipad®. This diner needs a table with space to use his computer or device in relative privacy, and still have room for that tuna on a whole-wheat pita. That’s okay because today’s restaurant furniture is up to the task. Another emerging trend is the group dinner. Lots of friends or business associates eat out en masse. That means today’s restaurant owner needs to be able to seat twelve as easily as four....

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