Give your kids a room they can be proud of by adding design features that bring out their personal style. You can encourage creativity and curiosity in kids with fun features that make their playroom or bedroom just as educational as the classroom. And when you ensure their safety every step of the way, you can sit back and relax while they enjoy playing on their own or with siblings and friends in their stylish sanctuary. Check out these top tips for designing the ultimate kid’s room.

Make it Fun

Planning a room that’s fun to be in is your best bet for ensuring this kid-friendly space gets plenty of use. Ask your child about his or her favorite colors or characters, or find inspiration in a beloved toy when coming up with a design scheme for the room. Bright colors give the space a lively feeling. Rather than just painting the walls one color, consider fun details such as stripes, removable wall stickers, or glow-in-the-dark paint.

To encourage lots of creative play, give kids a cozy rug where they can sit on the floor and enjoy their toys and games. A child-sized art station is another popular feature. Consider setting up a small easel with an oversized pad of art paper and cups filled with crayons, markers, or colored pencils.

Make it Educational

Image via Flickr by Martha W McQuade

Give your child a boost of brain power by making the playroom or bedroom an educational space. Set up a desk where they can work on homework after school. Consider facing the desk into the room so kids don’t feel like they’re boxed in when working on these tasks.

Tap into his or her interests when choosing décor for the room. Kids fascinated by exotic places can learn from large maps hung on the wall or a cool globe set up on their dresser. You can hang photos of adorable creatures for kids who love animals or paint constellations on the ceiling for those who love astronomy. 

Create a cozy reading nook with shelves for favorite books and a comfy chair or beanbag to lounge on. Consider creating a chart where kids can proudly list all the books they’ve read or track how many pages they read per day.

Make it Safe

While playing and learning make any kid’s room more fun, it’s critical to make sure the space is safe for them to enjoy. Cover electrical outlets, and make sure cords for blinds are kept out of reach. Make sure all furniture is secured to the wall in case little ones attempt to climb it. Install mesh or metal guards over the windows.

Besides following these child-proofing suggestions, parents should make sure the space doesn’t trigger allergies or respiratory issues. A child’s room should be free of allergens and have a good flow of AC or heat. To make sure your child’s room is well-ventilated, schedule an HVAC inspection and inquire about installing an air purifier in your home.

Create happy memories for your children by giving them a comfortable, fun, and safe place to play at home. Use these tips to design a kid’s room they’re sure to love.

If you’re like many homeowners, you plan to travel during the holidays. You’ve got your flight tickets, and you made the hotel reservations, but did you really plan to leave your house unattended? While you may think that locking up and setting an alarm will do the trick, there are some things to consider before you board the plane. Discover these four ways to prepare your home for the busy holiday season.

If you plan to be gone this holiday season, consider enlisting the neighbors. If there’s a teen in the area, pay them a few bucks to bring in any late arriving packages, water the plants, and rotate the lighting. Studies show that keeping a single lamp on day and night is a red flag to burglars. Instruct them to alternate which lights are on and off, and which shades to draw each visit.

Have your house sitter come over during evening hours when many are arriving home from work, and at varying times during the day, so a watchful burglar never feels certain your house is empty. Also, leave your travel plans and contact information with a trusted neighbor in the event of an emergency.

Unplug Small Appliances

Vampire appliances use electricity even when they’re turned off. The Department of Energy reports that these small electronics account for 10 percent of the average home’s energy use. Unplug all TVs, sound systems, computers, and your internet routers. Use power strips in your home office to make life easier, and turn them all off with a single switch.

Head to the kitchen and avoid a breakdown while you’re away by unplugging the coffee maker, toaster, and the microwave. Flip the breaker on large appliances like the dishwasher and washing machines to save electricity and protect your home from the risk of fire.

Install a Programmable Thermostat

A programmable thermostat not only lets you monitor the temperature in your home but also lets you control it. Needlessly running the furnace while you’re away is an added expense.

What if an unexpected cold snap comes through? Relax on your travels, and remotely set your thermostat to a temperature that protects your plants, pets, and keeps your pipes from freezing. Your programmable thermostat can also prepare for your return home, and ensure that the house is toasty warm when you arrive or nice and cool, depending on your climate.

Tidy Up the Kitchen

Before you pack up the car or head to the airport, spend a few minutes in the kitchen. Dispose of any food that may spoil before you return from your holiday vacation, such as meat and milk products. Take out the trash, and run a half-cup of vinegar and some water down your garbage disposal for a fresh, clean-smelling kitchen when you return.

The holiday season is often hectic, and traveling during this time can be stressful. By taking advantage of these four ways to prepare your home for holiday travels, you can relax and join your family and friends in celebrating the reason for the season.

Buying a new mattress can be daunting. It’s important to remember that this is a long term investment that will pay for itself with the right diligence. Here are some tips to help you find the right mattress for you without causing a headache.

How do you Sleep?

What seems like an irrelevant question should be at the very core of your quest for a new mattress. How you sleep, on your side, on your back or stomach, defines what material you need. If you experience back and neck pains, it could be that your current mattress isn’t properly supporting you for how you sleep, where others have experienced a wonderful night’s sleep on the same model.

This is because of how the mattress responds to the pressure, curvature and heat of your body. Memory foam mattresses are renowned for their ability to mold to the shape of your body, but if you are a restless sleeper this can be a problem.

Check Online Reviews

Reviews are your best tool for finding a great quality product. Find reviews with similar needs to your own; a restless side sleeper’s review may not be relevant to a peaceful stomach sleeper. Click here for the best rated reviews taking into account many factors to find the best brands.

It’s also worth noting that only a customer can tell you honestly if they’re happy with their purchase. It might be that the product degrades after a year into a much lower quality version, or if there was trouble with deliveries. Companies will go to great lengths to prevent bad reviews so a sharp eye is needed to find the best retailers.

Misleading Information

Some brands claim to have qualities such as high-density memory foam when in reality only the top layer is what they claim. This can severely affect the lifespan and comfort of the mattress. Another tactic used by brands is to claim their product is “made in the USA” when they are only assembled in America from materials shipped from China. This is important as it can tell you the quality of the materials used and if they’ve been treated with harsh chemicals and perfumes. For such an important part of your life, it’s worth taking a little extra time to dig deep and find out where the mattress really comes from.

Look for Guarantees and Warranties

One good indicator as to whether a product is genuine or not is the quality of the warranty; if a manufacturer claims their mattress will leave you happy for ten years, they could just be trying to win you over, but if they offer a 10 year replacement guarantee then they must have incredible confidence in their product. On the other hand, if a m

attress looks great on paper but only offers a 6-month replacement warranty then it’s quite possible they don’t expect the product to retain its quality after the warranty is over.

The staggering 30% of your heating bill is eaten trough old and inefficient window installations in your home. It is more or less a known fact to all these days and it seems that nearly all household owners throughout the world are planning that transformation for the modern and energy efficient frames. Today we will cover various facts that you need to know in order to once and for all forget about all the problematic possibilities regarding energy efficiency, and never again have that nervous feeling before opening the heating bill.

It Is Finally Time for an Energy Efficient Transformation

There are few things in this world that your utility company loves more than your old traditional wooden window frames. Therefore many of us have already conducted front door window repair and tried to replace all energy insufficient doors in our house. It is still a very surprising fact at what number the old window frames are still presented all around the world.

These old frames consume so much energy that all the additional energy that wasn’t intended to be consumed can be put at the end of a year in the amount consumed with an average of three mounts of energy consumption for one year! And no one wants to have such an unpleasing feeling while taking a shocking discovery that his heating bill has tripled itself all of a sudden. How does it happen? And why do advanced PVC technology in window making save so much energy?

The so-called U-value specifies how much heat energy is lost to the outside. You need only to remember that the smaller the U-value, the better the thermal insulation. And the greater the savings in energy costs. Windows make up a good third of the facade. They define how much heat stays indoors. PVC doesn’t conduct heat well, therefore, doesn’t transfer temperatures from inside to outside, or outside to inside.

Next time you are near an aluminum framed window, put your hand on the frame and feel its temperature. You would be surprised to see the difference… In winter, a single-glazed, 3mm-deep pane of glass can lose from ten to 15 times more heat than an insulated wall of the same area! In summer, single glaze standard windows of an average home account for over 25% of total heat gain.

Also, a very important thing next to windows are of course the exterior doors. Choosing the right exterior door for a home should be a carefully thought-out decision. When you choose a door, you should first consider the doors’ energy performance ratings. This score lets you know how well each door does in preserving the energy in your home by trapping heat or cool air inside.

From the same principle, you can conclude that replacing the exterior doors can cut your bills nicely. It is also advisable to install double glazing to reduce the need for heating in the rooms. This is especially important for windows.

This home improvement may not come as cheap as initially planned for most of us, but a thing worth mentioning is that such replacement is something that will probably be the once in a lifetime replacement for your household and needless to say will relieve you of worries for heating bill in these surprisingly cold winters that are only getting worse.