Patrick Franks Blog: March 2016

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Bedroom Decor

Your bedroom should be a place where you can ‘get away from it all. Doing a bedroom-decorating project adds to your individual taste and a key thought. Above all things, you want it to be at ease. Think of your bedroom as a retreat, and let your imagination go!

Quality linens not only look great, they feel wonderful too. The higher the thread count, the more durable the fabric.

Painting is one of the easiest bedroom decorating ideas and most affordable ways to transform your haven. Once your walls are painted, wallpaper borders are a simple way to add attractive detail and integrate individual appearance.

Draperies and blinds provide some privacy, shy away from anything that’s too heavy or overwhelming. Your floor and floor coverings aren’t just something you walk on. They play a key role in your bedroom-decorating look, and feel of the room.

Most likely than in any other room as you’re more likely to look at it in here, your bedroom ceiling is important.

Whether you like natural woods, painted furnishings, lacquer, or steel, try to choose bedroom decorating pieces that enhance the look you’re trying to create.

This is an affordable way to light up your sense of style. Lighting can help create a relaxing mood, when it’s soft and indirect.

Here’s an area where your bedroom decorating ideas and personal tastes and creativity can really come through. Select a few pieces that you really love.

If you can walk into your bedroom and think, ‘I love this!’ you’ve done a great job. Keep comfort and your personal tastes in mind, and you should end up with your bedroom decorating project that’s wonderfully and restful.

About The Author:

Roger King is a successful author and publisher of http://www. 1st-home-decor. com. Bedroom decorating tips and ideas to showcase your homes.

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Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Gray Owl and White Dove

kitchen paint colors

Ceiling and cabinet paint color: White Dove by Benjamin Moore

Wall color: Gray Owl at 50% srength (Benjamin Moore)

Chatfield Court – Small Kitchen Remodel on a Budget

Monday, March 28, 2016

Concrete Paint

Lifting and peeling paint from epoxy coverings, coatings and seals are too often the end product of efforts to dress up a garage, shop or basement. A lifting and peeling problem is worse than having no finish at all. The eyesore of blisters, peeling, and chipping of a floor gone wrong is testimonial to a failure in preparation. Fortunately, after 40 years of development technology in flooring, one should no longer rely on raw materials like muriatic acid (Hydrochloric) to clean and prep your floor. Applicators now realize that an “acid etch” using a simple raw muriatic acid is no cure all. Integrated systems for preparing concrete properly can now avoid disasters that leave garages looking worse than before they were coated.

Preparation is everything when applying finishes. You can only expect a surface to stay in place if its substrate is permanent. Obviously, if the substrate crumbles or moves, your surface will move with it. Today, after 40 years of application experience, flooring experts have developed application preparation procedures that help minimize the risk of substrates moving. New floors are especially vulnerable and require extensive preparation. New concrete is dusty for the first few years while the latents of concrete on the surface are kicked, walked, or driven off. Those latents must be removed before quality epoxy topcoats are applied or the topcoats will move with the latents as they break free from the substrate.

Blasting away part of your floor often leaves corn rows cut into the floor due to over lap, and will need to be filed. Blasting often just brings you down to a new level of contamination. It is often better to clean 100% of the surface using chemicals that are designed to work together in an integrated system to assure a clean, solid surface. When you wash your clothing your detergent uses a change in pH to help release soils. Water softeners and rinse agents are blended into laundry detergents, dish shops and even shampoos to assist the pH change in releasing soils and contaminants.

Cleaning first with a high pH or alkaline degreaser attacks oil and grease contaminants while moving the floor pH higher. Next slamming your dirty surface with a low pH acidic cleaner attacks minerals, rust and other particles, makes your pH jump 10 points or better to shock contaminants loose from substrates. The acidic cleaner should have detergents, rinse agents and water softeners blended into it so you know that it is formulated to do the best job possible. It is vitally important to bring your pH back to normal 6. 5 or 7 pH after cleaning, with a scrub rinse. Have you ever run your finger across your car after pressure washing only to find it still has a thin layer of road film on it? Surface tension holds even high pressure from penetrating many films. You need to break the surface tension with contact during all three steps of cleaning. The more aggressive the contact the better for removing concrete latents, small particles of concrete that are ready to break of to become that endless dust coming off unquoted concrete floors.

Rotary scrubbers, similar to what a school custodian utilizes, can be fitted with stiff bristle brushes using carbide chips imbedded in flexible nylon bristles to scrub your floor. The bristles dive into mall pours, cracks, and holes to help strip away fragile cement particles that are softer than the exposed carbide chips. These scrubbers should be used for your alkaline cleaning, your acidic cleaning, and for your final rinse cleaning. Scrub rinsing stops the chemical action of your cleaners and provides a liquid medium to bring your floor pH back to neutral and flush contaminants and residual detergents away. Once dry (1 to 4 hours) you are ready for your coating, paint, epoxy or seal.

Epoxy flooring is weather-resistant, and unharmed by rain, snow, oil, and flooding. This resistance is due to the fact that epoxy coatings, unlike paints, come in two parts. When mixed, a catalyzing process changes these two parts from a liquid to a permanent solid. In contrast, paints are carried in water or solvent bases that evaporate to leave the finish. If you reintroduce one of those carriers to the surface, the paint often is able to re-dissolve back into a liquid state.

Even though painted garage finishes are formulated to resist dissolving into their carriers, under stress they can be susceptible to blistering, peeling, and chipping. But water and most solvents have no effect on sealed epoxy surfaces. Epoxy flooring goes on at the job site and requires no seams, creating a continuous membrane that seals what is above from what is below. These epoxy surfaces have been used in food processing plants for over 50 years now. Mold, mildew and other contaminants cannot penetrate the epoxy membrane, and wash off easily.

One should not rely on retail store clerks to help with a floor that will be used for 10 to 20 years. Factory-direct kits of materials including step-by-step instructions and a 24/7 help line are now available online. With these resources, anyone can put a quality floor down in their garage that will last for decades. Like a car finish, you may get some scratches and marks, but also like a car finish, a little touching up can keep those finishes looking great for decades.
Durall Industrial Flooring offers no-cost, no-obligation quotes for its fully customized kits of materials, including all preparation materials and procedures, for installing industrial quality epoxy or urethane coatings at www. concrete-floor-coatings. com. These beautifully sealed and easy-to-maintain floors come in over 20 colors. The floor finish can be gloss, flat, or satin and may be easily accented with decorative chips. Additionally, the floors may be skid-resistant like emery paper, yet still be easy to sweep or squeegee.

For photo examples and more detail, visit www. concrete-floor-coatings. com
For more information, contact Harvey Chichester at harvey@durallfmg. com
Phone: 800-466-8910 or 952-888-1488 (24/7)

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Saturday, March 26, 2016

Outdoor Living

While Tampa winter days might seem chilly to those that live here, in truth we’re extremely blessed to live in one of the warmest climates in the United States. And because Florida gets most of its rain in the summer, the winter months could well be the prhyme ones for enjoying time on your deck.

Getting outside and enjoying the fresh air might be vital to our health and sense of well being. Thanks to a variety of innovative deck heating systems, the outdoors might be a cozier place. What better way to enjoy the end of a day spent doing fall yard-work or walking in the neighborhood, than curling up beside your deck heater and grilling something nice on the barbeque?

For homeowners, creating a truly usable deck space increases the value of your home, almost creating a whole other room in your home, but with far less effort than an actual interior renovation. So what are any of the options for making outdoor living comfortable?

A covered deck has the advantage of never getting wet, and of keeping any heat in. For some, a roof over their deck might take away that open-sky feeling they love, but for others, it is just what they want to keep it cozy. It is a matter of personal choice. Translucent plastic corrugated roof panels might provide the best of both worlds, and are relatively easy to install for a person with carpentry skills.

To keep the deck cozy, think about one of the many options for deck heating. There are several sizes of the lamp-post style of gas heater. Table-top heaters will give you about a 10-foot circumference of heat, although the taller heaters can give off about 20 feet of heat. These might be quite stylish, and an old fashioned design and made of sleek metal. These tend to come with safety features that shut them off completely if they get tilted, so there is no worry of it catching your wooden deck or wicker patio furniture on fire.

Infrared heaters are another option for deck and patio heating. Some are free-standing and any can mount to a wall. While they’re a little less stylish than the lamp-post variety, they’re surprisingly energy efficient and don’t have any burning gas fumes.

If your outdoor space is cement, you may be able to have an outdoor, wood burning fireplace. There area variety of ceramic outdoor stoves. If you are considering this, check local bylaws to find out if wood fires are legal in your area.

With the variety of options available in deck heating and weatherproofing, you should be able to find an affordable and attractive way to make your deck or patio comfortable all year long.

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Friday, March 25, 2016

Our Built-Ins {before and after}

I mentioned a few months back that one of the next projects on our list was to install built-ins on each side of the fireplace. Well they are completed, I love them and wanted to share them with you today.

A look back on where we started…

living room before

A quick summary of how Jason built these:

*He used MDF board from Lowe’s for the frame

*The finishing surfaces are all pine wood

*For the shelving he installed wood supports and screwed shelving on top of that, then used finished hardwood to make a trim around the shelves to hide any imperfections.

*Once the frame was built and painted, we bought cabinets and door faces from here, and then Jason built the drawers and just added the front.

*We painted the built-ins Alabaster by Sherwin-Williams (2016 Color of the Year) That is our go to color for doors, trim and cabinets. Love it.

I added a few simple Easter decorations, books, and pictures. Super simple.

I printed one of my favorite quotes out and put it in an 8×10 frame I got from TJ Maxx. It’s from Joseph B. Wirthlin and is always one I think of on this day – We all have our Fridays. Here is a beautiful video that has excerpts from this talk.

And that’s a wrap! I hope you have a beautiful Easter weekend, thanks for stopping by!

Home Decorating

No matter if you’re running a home business or simply need a room in which you can use your computer and catch up on your paperwork, you’ll need home office decorating ideas in order to make that important space a pleasant place in which to spend your time. Home office decorating has a very important purpose, which is to make the room functional, and yet still relaxing, so that you are able to do your best work there.

To achieve this, the most important decorating home office tip is to organize yourself. Decorating a home office simply cannot be done among a jumble of papers, pens, and computer accessories. In fact, you should consider the most important home office decorating idea to be removing the clutter so that you will have the room to work.

No matter how big the space may be, decorating the home office begins by using the space to its fullest. You’ll need to be able to work properly in the environment, but you’ll also need to have easy access to all of the important tools and files that you’ll be using all the time. Interior decorating home office discovers the dimensions of your space, and lays out the best possible way to work around them. The furniture will all have to be moved to suit this function.

If you’re looking for a home office decorating tip for the furniture, function is what you’ve been waiting to hear. Certainly, you need the furniture to be appealing, but beauty alone will not help you succeed in your work. Though this home office decorating idea may make you think that function means the sacrifice of fashion, you’ll quickly discover that this needn’t be true. When you look into the different kinds of office furniture available, you’ll discover that there is an awful lot out there that can combine the best of both worlds.

However, if it does come to the point where your home office decorating requires a decision between the more attractive piece and the more functional piece, go with the function; you’ll thank yourself in the end.

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Thursday, March 24, 2016

Mt. Rushmore and Caribbean Dream

bathroom paint colors, vanity and wall color

Wall paint color: Mt. Rushmore by Kelly Moore

Vanity paint color: Caribbean Dream by Kelly Moore

Hey Let’s Make Stuff

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Home Design

You will spend the vast majority of your life in your home – yes, sure, much of it will be sleeping, but there will also be plenty of times where you just sit and relax, in the evenings and at weekends. With that in mind, don’t you need your home to be nice to look at?

It’s difficult to underestimate the importance of good home design when it comes to your overall quality of life. Your home should be a place where you can relax, but at the same time get things done that you need to get done. If you’re always fighting against your home’s design to do simple tasks, it can seriously affect how happy you are with your life overall. More than one couple has broken up only to find that it was not really their partner that was bothering them at all – it was the shabby home they had together.

Most people think that they can design their home perfectly well themselves, but in reality few can. You have to have a very specific idea of what you want, be able to accommodate everyone who lives there, and then actually follow through and get the job done quickly and to a high standard. If you miss one of these things out, then you end up spending years on home improvements, or with a finish you’re not happy with, or simply with a compromise design that no-one really wanted.

If you need your home designed properly, you should probably bring in a professional, who will take everyone’s needs into account and design an elegant solution to your problems. It can be truly shocking just how much homes improve with a minimal amount of professional design – it’s like the difference between an amateur newsletter and a real newspaper, or a landscape garden compared to a random set of plants. The best part is that you only really need to have it done once (at least until you move), meaning that it’s a very worthwhile investment that will likely improve not only the quality of your life but also the sale value of your home.

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