Posts Tagged ‘interior design’

Great Ideas For a Remodeled Basement

November 5th, 2009

If you have a basement, you will find that it can be used for many things. All it takes is some brainstorming and you will come up with some great ideas. Many homeowners have a basement in their house that isnt finished and is just wasted space. It is probably used for storage and nothing more. If you need more room, instead of moving to a new house with more space, your basement can be remodeled to add the extra room you need. Here are some great ideas of uses for your basement:

Turn your basement into a music room. If you like to either play music or listen to music, you need a place to go where you can go and not bother the rest of the house. Most basements make a great place for anything to do with music and that includes having your own band. You can even soundproof the room so you can be sure the neighbors won’t hear you! Basement are a great place to do many hobbies and if you like music, look into what you can do to make your basement the music room of the house.

Your basement can be turned into a bar or entertainment room. If you have a nicely finished basement, you might be able to use it as a room where you do your entertaining. You might do this if your kitchen and living room arent big enough and you need more room. Proper lighting will always be a challenge for this type of room and you will want to make sure you install nice counters, furniture, stools, and bar setup that will make this room become the room to hang out and relax.

Your basement can be turned into a workout room. Anyone who has extra space in the basement and has heavy machines like treadmills and weights, might use that space as a workout room. Basements are naturally cool and that works great for working out and exercising. They are also sometimes the easiest room to get heavy equipment into as they might have a ground floor entrance or stairs that go down. Finally, the basement is by itself which allows you to make noise, play music, and work out hard without bothering the rest of the house.

These are just a few ways you can use your basement to add a fully functioning space to your house. If you can think of a room you need and move it downstairs, you will be freeing up some much needed space in the rest of the house and you will be adding value to your home as well.

Please visit my website Basement Ideas to find more ways to make your basement the cool room in your house. You can also find many more ideas including some basement lighting ideas.

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A Closet Design Challenge

September 20th, 2009

I’m in the business of closet design. I have always loved closets and the task of organizing. Some people might liken me to Monica on the tv show ‘Friends’. My business goes one step further than simple organization however, since I do some actual construction when the project requires a total closet redesign. Large walk-in closets are the most exciting to plan, build and decorate, but renovating a tiny reach-in closet can also be very rewarding.

My business has been expanding over the past few years. With so much interest in home organization and minimalist design, there is no shortage of work. And the range of requests does keep me on my toes. But even so, I don’t often get calls from clients with closet requests that I haven’t already seen or built before.

I was soon to discover that as experienced as I am, and with the variety of closets that I had already worked on and renovated, there were still some closet design jobs that could totally surprise me. Last week was one of these times. I didn’t know it at the time, but as it turned out, what I thought would be a straight-forward design job would actually turn out to be a totally unexpected design challenge.

Last weekend my sister had her 20 year university reunion. With my encouragement she decided to make the journey to catch up with old friends. She only decided to make the journey after I promised to move into her house for the weekend to care for my 6 year old nephew. I happily agreed but my nephew was less certain about being away from his mom for a weekend. He finally acquiesced when my sister told him that we could spend the weekend redesigning his closet and that he was to have complete artistic control. It sounded like fun to me.

When I got the house on Friday afternoon, I confirmed with my sister and nephew that the plan was to redesign his closet. Both gave me a big smile and confirmed the plan. As we were saying good bye to my sister, she turned to me and said “Good luck, Ms. Closet Designer”. At the time I didn’t realize how much luck I might need. The chore became clearer when my nephew handed a small stack of dungeon and castle comic books and suggested we think about the closet. Sure enough, after a quick call to my sister on her cell phone, I confirmed that I was to redesign my nephew’s closet into a mini-castle play room.

Well, after I got over the initial surprise, and panic that I wasn’t prepared for this sort of closet make-over, I decided that this after all was just a closet design with a different look. In the end I created a great castle within a closet, and I incorporated some great storage ideas to boot. Remember that whatever closet design challenge is thrown your way, whether it is a tiny closet with no shelves, or you have a large closet and a small budget, just use some imagination in your design and you may be surprised with the results.

To discover more on designs for closets please visit closet organizing.

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Think About A Pantry For Kitchen Storage Space

September 20th, 2009

If you think about it, you have closets in just about every room in your house except for the kitchen. Although if you were to think about it again, what are our cupboards except tiny closets hanging all around the kitchen perimeter at eye level. So why shouldn’t we have larger closets in the kitchen? In fact, older houses did have large kitchen closets where all sorts of kitchen stuff was stored, called pantries. It may be an old-fashioned idea, but I think it’s time we bring back the kitchen pantry in our quest for perfect storage solutions.

Including a large closet, otherwise known as a pantry, in your kitchen floor plan is a perfect way to clear the clutter in your kitchen, and create a space for all the items you still need close by. If you are renovating, try to set aside a little corner that could be turned into a walk-in pantry. If you are building new, then incorporating a closet space in the kitchen shouldn’t be too hard. Both approaches will inevitably add charm as well as value to your house.

In addition to the added storage space that a pantry adds to your existing kitchen, having a pantry will also save you time in the long run. Along with being able to store food extras close by, you have the opportunity to put your spare freezer right at arms reach, rather than all the way down in the basement. In addition, you will now have space to store all those everyday items like boxes of tissue, vacuum bags, extra printer paper, etc. A pantry is a kitchen closet as well as an odds and ends closet that you access from your main floor living space.

A pantry that will strictly be used for storage is fairly simple to plan. You will want a series of shelves and some bins for root vegetables such as potatoes. Think ahead about what you want to store in the pantry. Pantries are great places to stores seldom used appliances such as juicers and bread makers. Make sure that the shelving can accommodate the height of whatever you want to store.

If you are planning to make your pantry into a storage / food prep area, like old school pantries where the kitchen staff prepared food, then you will need to spend a bit more time drawing up a plan that accommodates storage, prep areas, and the plumbing. If you have people over a lot, then you may like to use your kitchen more as an entertaining and serving area. You can use your pantry as the actual food prep area where the real cooking takes place. The kitchen is left free for just the final product, where it may be heated and served to guests, without worrying about all the clean up until after guests have left.

If you feel like you just don’t have enough space to store all your kitchen appliances and supplies, extra food, and everyday items, then a kitchen pantry might be what your living area is missing. It is much more than a place to store your pickles and strawberry jam, a properly designed kitchen pantry will add value and convenience to any kitchen.

Read more about different closet design systems at how to design a kitchen pantry.

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