Category Archives: ORGANIC HEALTH & HOME

Tips from fixing the room to finding health remedies in the kitchen.

These Home Upgrades Benefit You Both Now and In The Future!

March 19, 2017 TipsfromTia

These Home Upgrades Benefit You Both Now and In The Future!

The great thing about owning property is any money you invest into it, you generally get back (plus more) if you sell in the future. Whether a house move is on the horizon or you donâ€™t plan on going anywhere for a while, there are certain upgrades that are worth doing. These allow you to enjoy and get the most out of your home in the here and now, and are something that homebuyers will love in future too. Hereâ€™s how you can go about it!

Think About Curb Appeal

The way your home looks from the outside is so important. After all, do you really want to arrive home every day to a property that looks shabby and unloved? This will be the first thing homebuyers see when they look at your home, but for as long as you live there itâ€™s something you will see every day too. So create a finish that youâ€™re proud of and happy to come home to! Think about having it repainted or the rendering repaired if it needs it. Repaint your garage door, front fence and front door if theyâ€™re looking worse for wear. Tidy up the front garden and driveway. It will look far nicer, which is something both you and buyers in the future will appreciate.

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Kit Out Your Kitchen

The kitchen is possibly the most important space to get right when youâ€™re selling a home. It can be a total deal breaker, and if your buyers are undecided between two properties, you can bet that theyâ€™ll go for the one with the better kitchen. Itâ€™s such a well used space- the heart of the home. A beautiful and practical kitchen will not only benefit you in the here and now, but is something homebuyers will love if you sell later down the line. Choose a kitchen that will suit most tastes and donâ€™t go for anything too trendy which will date faster. Solid wood or white units with marble or granite tops will always be in style. If you want to make the kitchen look more personal, do it with things like drawer pulls, wall hangings and other accessories that are easy to change. That way it will appeal to as many buyers as possible if you put it on the market. Kitchens with built in appliances look super sleek. You could go with a gorgeous island and an American style fridge freezer, complete with ice machine and water dispenser. A company such as Nashville Plumbing would be able to plumb all of this in, make sure you get these things done before having floors and other finishes completed. That way youâ€™re not having to pull up and re-lay tiles or ruin the finish of things. LED strip lights are another cool feature and look fantastic underneath cupboards and kick boards.

Make Your Bathroom Into a Spa- Like Sanctuary

Another crucial space to get right in the home is the bathroom. Having it professionally tiled from top to toe is by far your best bet. It will last longer than having to constantly repaint and look smart year after year. You might need to scrape and re-grout between the tiles every few years to keep it looking fresh, but once the expense of the tiling is paid for itâ€™s not something youâ€™ll need to bother with again for a long time. Again, donâ€™t choose very modern looking or trendy tiles because these will look frumpy and old fashioned when trends change (which they will). Donâ€™t choose anything too out there, while you might love it future home buyers probably won’t. Using white or natural stone tiles on the walls again will never go out of fashion. For floors, some gorgeous slate or grey limestone floor tiles will finish the look. Unlike vinyl which can peel, wood which can warp and carpet (which should never be used in bathrooms!) properly fitted floor tiles wonâ€™t get ruined from wet feet. If you wanted to go a step further, you could even have underfloor heating installed first. Choose a white suite for your bathroom as again, a coloured choice wonâ€™t appeal to everyone. And consider splashing out (pun intended) on things like nice taps, and a heated towel rail which will bring an even more luxe finish to the space.

Install Wooden Floors Throughout

The problem with carpets is they wear out. If you invest even in excellent carpets now, in a few years, they will probably need replacing. They can stain, fade in the sun and hold onto smells which aren’t pleasant for a new owner. However wooden floors stay looking beautiful for a long time. Solid wood can be sanded and re-stained many times, allowing you to get up to twenty-five years of stunning flooring. A great investment for the future and the perfect way to transform your home to enjoy now too.

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Plant a Gorgeous Garden

One thing homebuyers love is pretty gardens with well-established plants. Getting some shrubs and even trees planted up is a good idea for both now and the future. You could choose pretty flowering or fruit trees, or go with large fast growing varieties if you need to create a privacy screen. If you plant bulbs in your flowerbeds that bloom at different times of the year, your garden will always be pretty and colourful with no additional hassle to you. A lovely garden to relax in is one of lifeâ€™s little joys, if youâ€™re not currently making the most out of yours, then you should consider sprucing it up. Decking looks smart and adds considerable value to homes if you want a maintenance free deck choose composite. This is wood fibres, and plastic blended so lasts pretty much forever without rotting or the need to sand or oil it like regular decking. Add a seating area to entertain family and friends, you could even consider a pond and water feature too. If your garden is in a bad way, you might need to get professional landscapers in. Otherwise, you could do it yourself with the help of online tutorials and sites like Pinterest for inspiration.

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Tia, and TipsfromTia.comÂ is trying to keep you looking good and
feeling good, from the inside out. If youâ€™ve got a problem or a tip email me! Be sure to Like and share on Facebook or Follow on Twitter or Instagram

ORGANIC HEALTH & HOME

Home Improvement Secrets No One Ever Tells You

March 14, 2017 TipsfromTia

Home Improvement Secrets No One Ever Tells You

There are hundreds, maybe even thousands, of blog posts and articles floating around that tell you how to improve your home. Whether you’re looking to sell it or you simply want to makeÂ it little more livable, then there’s plenty of advice out there for you. However a lot of the time it’s the same old advice over and over again. Clear out the clutter, rearrange the space, etc. This advice is incredibly helpful and can make a huge difference to the quality of your home. But these are far from the only things that you can do in order to improve your home. In fact, there are plenty of ways to improve your home that you might never have even thought about. With that in mind, here are just a few, slightly less obvious, home improvement secrets that you just might want to try.

Safety first

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It’s hardly the most glamorous thing in the world, but the safety of your home should always be your number one priority. As important as creating a pleasant environment in your home is, few people would say that they’d choose their home dÃ©cor over their family’s safety! Make sure that your smoke and CO detectors are all working and that you test them regularly, keep an eye out for damp and mold, and get your appliances regularly checked to prevent gas leaks. If you’ve got something more significant that needs dealing with, such as an asbestos problem, then it’s probably a good idea to call in a company like www.Schemel-Tarrillion.com. Don’t assume that just because you’ve lived in your house for a long time that you shouldn’t still consider safety to be incredibly important, houses can change over time and something that might not really have been a problem a year ago might cause some serious danger now.

Think about the ceilings

This is something that you rarely hear people talk about for one simple reason. Ask yourself this, when was the last time you actually look at your ceiling? It makes sense that you wouldn’t really give it that much attention. After all, no one spends their time constantly looking up. The walls tend to be the major focus of most people’s attention as they are pretty much constantly at eye level and they’re the place where you can hang pictures and really give your home a sense of personality. But your ceiling can make a lot more difference to a room than you might think. Natural light is an incredibly important aspect of any interior design, and your ceiling can really make or break the feeling of natural light in a room. If it’s clean and bright, then it’s going to reflect plenty of sunlight bringing a fresh energy into the room. If it’s painted in a dark color or it hasn’t been cleaned in a long time, then it’s going to leave the room feeling dull, dark, and drab.

Go natural

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Just because you’re indoors, that doesn’t mean that you can’t bring a touch of nature into your home. Flowers and plants are one of the best forms of decoration that you can have in your home for a bunch of different reasons. For one thing, they’re constantly changing so you can have a dynamic dÃ©cor in your home, preventing it from ever becoming stale. Not only that but plants help naturally improve the air quality in any room, making life indoors just that little bit nicer. There are plenty of places in just about every room where you can put potted plants and, if you’re feeling creative, you could even try some hanging baskets attached to the walls.

Never underestimate lighting

Lighting is one of the most important things in a room that many people almost never notice. Oh, they notice the effect that it has alright, it’s just that they tend not to realize what it is that’s causing it. If you walk into a room that feels dingy and cramped, ask yourself, is it really because of the size of the room? If you take a second look you might find that the room is actually a decent size, the only difference is that it’s so poorly lit that the place feels that way. The same works in the opposite direction, even the smallest home can be made to feel spacious with clever use of lighting. Of course, natural light is always the best option so make sure that you’re allowing as much natural light any room as possible, but you should also look into using lamps around the room. That way you avoid the slightly clinical feeling that overhead lights sometimes cause, and you can easily control the light levels depending on the time of day or the kind of mood that you’re trying to set.

Replace your doors

Picture From Max Pixel

Once again this is a part of your house that you simply couldn’t ever do without and yet ignore all too often. Doors are often to plainly functional that people forget that they are as much a part of the house as anything else. People often miss out on the doors when they’re cleaning their home, leaving them to collect dust and grime over time. Not only that but there are even smaller details on your doors that can make a big difference to your home as a whole. There’s nothing stranger than a house with a singular, charming sense of dÃ©cor and style and yet something as simple as the door knobs spoils it. Try to find knobs that fit with the overall aesthetic of your home, it’s a small touch, and you might think you wouldn’t notice, but the smallest details can often make the biggest difference.

Doing these things alone is obviously not going to turn your house into your dream home, but they will make a big difference when used along with the more usual advice. These little details are really designed to get you to look at your home just a little more closely and to think about what you might have previously missed.

ORGANIC HEALTH & HOME

The Home Space Special

March 14, 2017 TipsfromTia

The Home Space Special

Space in a home can be a luxury not many can afford. As you age you accrue all kinds of different items that you want to keep, but the space to store them becomes hard to find. The same is true as you have children. They grow, and collect items they want to keep too. The more this happens, the less space there is in your home, meaning things can become cramped quickly. There are ways to get around this, and ways to increase the space in varying rooms across your house. You may have already considered some of these, but others can give you the inspiration you need to make the most of the space you have.

The Bathroom

You may not store too many things in here, but if you had more space you could use a linen cupboard to store towels and sheets, meaning you can store other items in their older locations. One of the best ways to make space in the bathroom is by merging the bath and shower into one easily accessible shower bath. You can save a glut of space in other areas of the room. You could also consider removing the bath completely. Lots of people only use showers as they donâ€™t have the time to use baths. Doing this gives you a huge amount of space that you can utilise as you see fit. You could build in cabinets or even just enjoy the extra space gained. You can answer many of your storage needs by using this method.

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Kitchen

The issue in the kitchen comes with a multitude of appliances used and needed in this day and age. Sometimes you canâ€™t fit them all in, especially if you donâ€™t have an attached utility room in your place of residence. Trying to fit in a washing machine, tumble drier, oven, dishwasher, etc can be problematic. You can get around this by using an oven that is built into a cupboard. This means you have the floor space available to use another appliance. The only issue you need to consider is that building an oven into a cupboard means you canâ€™t really use that specific cupboard as a storage unit, so you need to balance the appliances youâ€™re using against the storage you need for food and such like.

Bedrooms

These are where people store most of their personal possessions. They can become cramped quickly unless you take a proactive approach to storage management. Be clever and use all you can. When you buy a bed, make sure it isnâ€™t touching the floor, meaning you can use under bed boxes to place items. Or, use a bed that comes complete with storage, meaning draws underneath the bed or a mattress you can lift with ease to get to the items underneath. You should also be looking to the walls. You can get storage boxes which you can access that donâ€™t take up floor space. They are better than shelving as they are deeper, meaning you can store things like clothes.

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ORGANIC HEALTH & HOME

Six Quick Tips For A Spick and Span Home

March 11, 2017 TipsfromTia

Six Quick Tips For A Spick and Span Home

We all know that cleaning your home can be an extremely time consuming task. You want to kick back and relax after a hard way of work, but itâ€™s impossible when you see the list of household chores stretching out in front of you. Luckily, there are a few things you can do to save yourself valuable time and free up your schedule to do more of the things you care about. Here are just a few ideas to get your spring cleaning started.

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Use Aluminum Foil…To Do the Washing Up!

This may be one that you have simply never considered before, but aluminum foil can be a useful tool when you are washing up. We have all experienced the nightmare of trying to scrub stuck on food off casserole dishes or baking trays. Screw a clean piece of foil into a ball and use a couple of drops of dishwashing liquid to scrub away those stubborn stains.

Use A Pillowcase…For Dusting!

So far, this blog seems to be using various items for jobs they were never intended for, but using a pillowcase for dusting will work – trust me! If you have some ceiling fans around the home, a pillowcase can be the perfect tool for stopping dust going everywhere. Slide it over one blade at a time, slowly drawing the fabric back. The dust will then be contained in the case rather than being spread back all over your room.

Use A Rubber Glove… To Pick Up Fur!

Though you may adore your cat or dog, you certainly wonâ€™t love the fur that they leave all over the house. Even vacuum cleaners can struggle to pick this up. A simple way of picking up the fur that has been left on furniture is by putting on a pair of rubber gloves and running your hands over the upholstery. Any fur will then end up sticking to the gloves.

Use A Vacuum Cleaner…For Vacuuming!

This one may not exactly seem revolutionary, but so many advances have been made in the world of vacuum cleaners in the last few years, buying a new one will save you a huge amount of time and energy. Check out http://www.bestvacuumfor.com/ for guides and recommendations. You will need to work out the type of surfaces you will be using it on, how mobile it will need to be and whether you want an upright or a canister model.

Use A Toothbrush…For Scrubbing

Okay, weâ€™re back on track again. A toothbrush can be used to get into those hard to reach areas – the nooks and crannies that regular brushes and cloths simply cannot reach. If youâ€™re a stickler for making sure everything is clean, this could be the choice for you.

Use A Towel…For Curtain Cleaning!

Many people vacuum their curtains, which can be immensely difficult and time consuming. Instead, hit them with a towel so the dust falls onto the floor and vacuum from there.

BEAUTY, ORGANIC HEALTH & HOME

3 Key Practices For A Healthier Look

March 7, 2017 TipsfromTia

3 Key Practices For A Healthier Look

We are often very used to seeing health and beauty being lumped together, and there is a good reason for that. Although having one does not necessarily mean that you have the other, if you are healthier there is a good chance that you will also be better looking, and vice versa. However, this is only going to be true as long as you are using natural and usual means of achieving both of those goals. In this article, we are going to discuss this in more detail. Letâ€™s take a look at three of the key areas you might want to focus on for a healthier look, starting from today.

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Skincare

This is one area where it is definitely true that health and beauty are bedfellows. The more that you look after your skin, the better you will look – and the healthier you will actually be. Skincare is something of a difficult art to master, and part of the problem is that there is often so much conflicting information. However, as long as you follow some basic rules of thumb, you should find that the ongoing results are everything you hope for. The most important thing to bear in mind is not to over wash. If you use soap too often, it dries out the skin and you actually cause more damage than if you wash less often. When you do wash, use soap and other types like gels intermittently. This reduces the amount of damage done by either, and ensures that your skin stays moist. You should also remember to use moisturiser after every wash, as this makes a huge difference.

Smile

It is something that we all know to be important, and yet looking after oneâ€™s teeth is often more difficult than one would hope. If you are keen to effectively keep your mouth looking great, then you might want to think about going on regular visits to both your dentist and your orthodontist, as they each have their uses in keeping your smile healthy and clean. Whether you need braces, a filling or just a regular clean-up, getting it done professionally is going to make a huge difference to the quality of your smile – as is your practice of brushing twice a day, of course.

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Hair

People are often under the illusion that if you do not have much hair there is not much to do with it to keep care of it. While having less hair means that you wonâ€™t have to do as much, it is still as important to keep on top of your hair care – even if you shave your head! Really, hair care also includes caring for the scalp, and this is a surprisingly important thing to watch over. As with skincare, a major rule is not to over wash. You shouldnâ€™t be using shampoo more often than three to four times a week, as any more than this actually damages your scalp Â -and can even lead to increased dandruff, believe it or not. Make sure you wash it this often however, and also that you dry it properly, as leaving it wet can damage both the roots and the tips. Looking after your hair ensures that you remain as beautiful as possible.

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Everyday Tips from Tia