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Sacramento St. Jude Dream Home Giveaway

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Enter to win your very own dream house in Sacramento, CA through the  St. Jude Dream Home Giveaway  raffle, with the chance to win a house, or other great prizes! Every ticket helps St. Jude kids and the mission of St. Jude: Finding cures. Saving children. Because of the support of people like you, families never receive a bill from St. Jude for travel, treatment, housing or food-because all a family should worry about is helping their child live. Open house prize $10,000 furniture shopping spree  Courtesy of  McCreery's Home Furnishings

8 Mistakes Everyone Makes During a Home Renovation (And How to Avoid Them)

Taking a sledgehammer to your outdated living room may sound like fun, but realistically, reviving your home is a process that requires a lot of time and care. Deciding to gut the bathroom and add a master walk-in closet is a great idea until you realize you need to do a plumbing update throughout the house and you already blew your budget on a heated floor, clawfoot tub, and those lighted closet bars you had to have. Focus is key, as is a bit of thoughtful planning. Interior designer Nicole Fuller, whose designs are as thoughtful and practical as they are covetable, has a keen sense for upgrading a space. Below, she explains the eight most common mistakes that nearly everyone makes before and during a big renovation, and she shares how to avoid them before making that huge, gaping hole in the wall. Overlooking the most-used rooms. "People often do not invest in the rooms that are the heart of the home, like the kitchen or living room. It's important to prioritize thes

Living in a House of Straw

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As opposed to common notion, a straw bale house is not as fragile as the house of the second little pig in the story of The Three Little Pigs . So don’t think that you’re going to live inside a flimsy house if you choose to have a dwelling place made of straw bales. Don’t confuse straw with hay. Straw bales are made with rye, rice and oat straw. Bales are stacked on a raised foundation with a capillary break. Some straw bales are bound with two strings while others with three. Three-string straw bales are, of course, larger in all of the three dimensions. Straw bale walls are commonly tied together with wood or bamboo pins. A surface wire mesh can also be used which can, afterward, be plastered or stuccoed with clay, earth, or a lime-based mixture. There are now many reasons to choose this - believe it or not - sturdy material - Straw Keeps You Warm Imagine the coldest day of your life. With straw bale homes, you can stay warm because it has a high R-value. The R-valu

Where Is That Standout Piece? Tips in Choosing the Focal Point in a Room

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Every room - it goes without saying - must have its own focal point. If you won't even exert an effort to create one, then you're missing out on the whole point of interior design. Remember that the focal point is that one thing where the eyes of your visitors will rest when they drop by your home. This means that the focal point would need to be visually engaging. Before you finalize your decision on what focal point to use in the rooms of your home, take a careful look throughout the house. See what each room has to offer. You could begin by simply rearranging the furniture. By doing so, you might already have the focal point that you’ve long been looking for. In the living room, should you decide that the sofa would be your focal point , then let it rest on the longest wall. Add a mirror or an artwork right above it so that the eyes would immediately go to that part of your living room. A room will look and feel more inviting if you offer a comfy seat for your visi

5 Distinctive Guidelines In Creating Glamorous Small Bedrooms

There are many interior design mistakes that are unknowingly committed by many people. One of such errors is packing a small bedroom with the biggest sets of furniture, leaving very little room for foot traffic. Small bedroom designs   often asks for smaller furniture but this is, of course, not always the case. You can also use a chunky bed provided that no other bulky furniture will be fitted in – this and many such rules govern the minds of those who want to beautify bedrooms with limited space. Coziness Is Key A lot of people also try very hard to make their small bedrooms appear bigger. They forget to maximize the space and, in the process, they are no longer able to take advantage of what could have been effective small bedroom designs . You could incorporate a little quirkiness or weirdness even if you are dealing with a little space. Just make sure that it remains cozy throughout, if not, you are simply making it obvious that you are creating a visually larger roo

Eclectic Style: Nostalgic Yet New

Everyone always needs a reason to do something, live or defy rules, and even manage his own life. This reason must not always push you to conform, after all, everyone has his own preference and is attracted to different things. This is also true when it comes to interior design. The design sphere is a highly creative field, hence, tastes can greatly vary. This is what defines  eclectic style  and why it is a design standout. It can be difficult to have a complete definition for eclecticism. Just to put a certain margin to this term, this is the art movement that was considered as a separate style in the design world. For many, eclecticism is still seen as a distinct movement, with eclectic as the term used for the combination of Renaissance and classical tradition. The History Behind the Name Eclecticism first came into existence in the late 19 th  century when architects searched far and wide for a style that held a historic precedence while offering never-before-seen de

Monochromatic Color Scheme: Its Effective Use In Interior Design

Monochromatic color scheme , simply put, utilizes just one color on almost every surface inside a home. With this kind of scheme, there are multiple darker hues, grayer tones, and even paler colors of the chief tint that was chosen on the palette. Also, this chief color is generally paired with white or any neutral color. To give you an example about monochrome, say you set up a blue-colored room, you can use this single shade throughout the room but it may also be properly combined with white. The room could also contain navy blue accessories and upholstery. The walls can be painted with a pale blue while the draperies come in medium blue. To complete the look, you can just go ahead and place that patterned rug on the floor which, naturally, comes in blue and white. If you want to go all out, then go ahead and put a tinge of blue on the door and window trim, even the ceiling. Going monochromatic is one of the most basic ways that you can harmonize the look inside a home. The