Wood Bar

what kind of wood can I use to make an ooutdoor bar top? How do I prtect it from the elements?

I am looking to make a bar on my deck with a wood top. Just need to know what kind of wood and how to protect it

Just about any wood will do. Pick one with a nice grain, 2x6 to 2x8 planks. Don't use pressure treated. it looks ugly, weighs a ton, and it warps. Make your bar top, stain it, then apply several coats of exterior polyurethane, sanding lightly between coats. The polyurethane will keep the wood looking like new. For the first couple of years I'd sand lighly and re-apply 1 or 2 coats of polyurethane each Spring.

Bar Stools UK Kitchen Classics

As living spaces shrink by the day, more and more people are considering decorating options that lets them seat as many people as they want but with a minimal amount of space, and more often than not, that option is bar stools. UK families from London to Exeter are snapping up bar stools for every room of the house, but the most popular room for bar stools remains the kitchen. What makes kitchen bar stools so much fun is that they are extremely versatile. No matter what décor or design look you're going for, you can find kitchen bar stools to suit your every need. Let's take a look at a few popular styles of bar stools. UK residents, take note!

Perhaps the most popular and most versatile style of kitchen bar stool is the simple wooden bar stool. What makes a simple wooden bar stool so popular is that it can be adapted to whatever changes you plan on making to the room around it. Let's say you have a bright, airy décor in your kitchen now. A set of unvarnished, natural wood bar stools would fit in perfectly with a natural colored table. Not only would you save room in your kitchen or dining room, but bar stools are a fun alternative to chairs that kids love. Now, let's say a few years from now, you decide to redecorate and you introduce dark woods and stains to your kitchen. You don't have to go out and buy new kitchen bar stools, you simply have to paint or stain your bar stools. UK families love the versatility of natural wooden bar stools because they have a chameleon like quality that can blend in perfectly each and every time.

Another fun option with kitchen bar stools is leather or fabric coverings. If your kitchen bar stools are showing some signs of wear and tear, you can have the seat portion covered with high grade leather or with fabric that features a comfortable padding layer underneath. Along with some sanding and some refinishing on the legs of the stool, you suddenly have a whole new set of comfortable kitchen stools for a fraction of the price it would of cost to buy new ones. Most people don't realize that fabric seat covers are as popular as they are, since most seat covers are made from traditional leather, but you can create a design or use a particular fabric that matches your kitchen wallpaper, your wall paint or anything else you like. Versatility is the name of the game when it comes to kitchen bar stools. UK residents can save money and time, every time!

Finally, more and more kitchen bar stool makers are adapting their previous designs with backs so sitting for long periods of time is more comfortable. If you have kids that will be using the kitchen table for homework or if you will be using the table as a makeshift home office, look into getting a backing on your kitchen bar stools. UK families need to get the most out of their decorating dollar and nothing brings the value home better than kitchen bar stools.

About the Author

Leo Collins is the marketing manager of
Simply Bar Stools
a leading supplier of
Bar Stools in the UK
. Suitable for all types of Breakfast Bars, Cafe Bars or Kitchen Breakfast Bars.

Wood Bar

How to Improve your Home Décor with a New Ottoman

Perhaps you have walked around your living or family room and something seems a little off. In many cases, it is not your furniture. The pieces of furniture in the room can be brand new and arranged to your liking. The sofa is exquisite, the rug is beautiful and its colors match the rest of the room, yet something is still amiss. Something is preventing this room from achieving the magazine-styled looked that you had envisioned when you purchased the furniture. If this sounds familiar, there is a solution. What your room needs is simple. You may be missing an end table or perhaps an ottoman. It can be an amazing experience to see how one piece of furniture can really make a room pop, and bring all the styles and colors together.

An ottoman is an excellent way to accent the décor of your home. The styles, varieties, and colors ottomans are available in are so vast that you are sure to find at least one ottoman that will look great in your home. There are ottomans that have a more contemporary style and design which can enhance homes with a more of a modern feel, as well as those with furniture pieces that pay homage to the style of your parents and their parents.

Ottomans come in either traditional or modern styles, and can serve a wide range of functions. Certain ottomans can be used for storage and as space savers. Style, though, is usually the most important attribute of an ottoman. Brightly colored ottomans can add a sense of modernity to an otherwise retro styled home. Homes and living rooms with a softer feel may need a more striking looking ottoman, perhaps upholstered in a bold microfiber fabric, to create balance or variety. Soft to the touch, and great for cozying up to, ottomans inspire relaxation and comfort.

If your home has been designed with a more contemporary style in mind, consisting of furniture pieces that are made of leather or a similar material, you consider highlighting this style with a leather ottoman. Though not as warm or inviting as the upholstered ottomans, leather ottomans are quite popular.

Generally speaking, leather furniture helps to create a classic or even professional environment in rooms in which these pieces of furniture are placed. Homes that welcome patients, clients, co workers, or other professionals can benefit greatly from the addition of a leather piece of furniture, such as an ottoman.

Even if you decide on a leather ottoman, there are still many choices. There are ottomans that are even designed to be half upholstered and half leather. If you have a home office, a leather ottoman can also double as a place for your client’s to sit while waiting.

Ottomans that can double as a storage unit are another way to add style to your home’s décor. As previously mentioned, ottomans can serve more than once function if constructed for those purposes. Ottomans such as these have a storage compartment, usually right under the lid (or cushion), giving you a great place to conceal items such as board games, or book and papers that are used frequently.

If you are person who likes to solve suduko puzzles or crossword puzzle books, read and collect newspapers or coupons, or need a handy place to put mail, then this ottoman would be perfect for you. When you think of storage units, style may not be the first thing that comes to mind. However, these ottomans are just as fashionable as they are functional.

Choosing the right ottoman to accent your décor will most likely depend on the size of your family room or living room. Round and cubed shaped ottomans are a great way to compliment smaller rooms or more confined sitting areas. Ottoman styles such as these allow you to maintain traffic flow, and keep your living space from feeling overly crowded.

If you have more space than you know what to do with you should consider a larger ottoman. These ottomans can be coffee table ottomans or bench styled ottomans. Such ottomans emphasize your available space in a positive way. Bench styled ottomans can also be used as extra seating for guests.

Although certain ottoman styles can add to the décor of your home, the color that you choose can act as an accent piece or serve to enhance the vibrant color of your accent wall, throw pillows, or other accessories. Ottoman colors can add warmth to a room and creativity as well. Yet, ottomans that are leather, black, or cream colored can produce a really classy look.

Despite their size, ottomans can make a big difference in a room. By their presence alone, an ottoman can open up a room or highlight subtle tones. The variety of ottoman colors and styles are sure to compliment any and every type of room. Though once seen as a way to prop up your feet. Ottomans have come a long way. Ottomans have quickly become one of the best ways to accessorize a room, being the perfect blend of comfort and practicality.

Wall Shelf Ladder

Shelves and Decorative Shelving ideas

When we realize that Shelving is very important factor of storage its great to brush up our grey cells and think about innovative ideas of storing all different things like clothes, books, papers, cleaning products, collectibles, shoes, office items, warehouse goods and decorative items too.

Their are variety of shelves

1. Wall shelves are easy to mount to your wall and can add a great decorative element to any room. Wall shelves are usually mounted on the wall with several anchored screws or brackets usually driven into the studs within the wall itself.

2. Corner shelves are a great option that can provide purpose to areas of a room that are usually neglected. Corner shelves are great in smaller rooms where floor space is at a premium as they provide storage for all sorts of objects such as photographs, collectibles or sports memorabilia.

3. Ladder Shelves are a great option for some extra floor space. Ladder Shelves can be used in a variety of ways, from storing supplies in office to displaying photos, books and more in living room.

4. Suspension or Hanging shelves consists of any number of shelves that are hung one below the other by a rope or a nylon webbing. The great thing about Suspension Shelves is that they hang from the ceiling leaving the floor space below free to use.

5.Floating shelves preferred over most wall shelves in homes as well as in business settings. Like wall shelves Floating Shelves maximize space by not using floor space. The thing that floating shelves offer that other wall shelves don’t is their ability to hide the mounting hardware between the wall and the Shelf – so you never see it – keeping your walls and Home looking Great!

Most popular way to decorate walls is shelving. Location of shelving depends part on where the shelving is located, whether or not you want to use your shelves in a practical manner or for decoration, or both. It also depends upon the shelves themselves, whether or not they can be painted or otherwise enhanced.

Below given are some ideas for shelving in different situation.

1. Practical
First, think about where your shelving is located, and whether or not you need to use that shelving to hold practical items. Even if you do, you can still make it decorative. Decorate these practical shelves by placing a pretty candle next to the stack of towels or a crystal bowl full of decorative soap. In a kitchen, shelves may be used to hold dishes or other practical items.

2.Decorative only
Many people use shelves to display decorative items only. Displaying a collection on a shelf is a great way to decorate it. A row of bud vases placed on a shelf, with a single flower in each vase, can really dress up a room. Frames arranged on a shelf are a classic way to display your favorite pictures.

3. Special tips
Paint is a great way to decorate shelving as well. Often, people are reluctant to hang or use shelving because it is the wrong color. An inexpensive can of spray paint can easily fix that. If you can’t paint and the shelving unit is still unappealing, try placing pieces of fabric on each shelf to hide the structure.

About the Author

CAEM Shelving Engineering is one of the leading manufacturers of Modular shelving and ShopFitting Solutions and supplies Shelving, Shelves, Shopfitting, Gondola shelving, Gondolas and modular shelve solutions for Office, Home Office and Homes.

Michael Cera stars in sweet teen sex comedy 'Youth in Revolt'
Nobody plays self-conscious teens better than Michael Cera these days, as he proves once again as a nervous 16-year-old ready for love and trying to rebel, in "Youth in Revolt," new on DVD.

Wall Shelf Ladder

Traditional Bookcase

What color paint would look best with dark brown furniture in a home office?

We recently bought a home with "unique" taste. I am looking to renovate a bedroom that will become our home office. It used to be an 8 year old's bedroom with aqua blue walls and a dolphin border.
I am looking for a traditional/contemporary look- crown molding, big dark brown leather chair with ottoman, bookcase, and dark colored desk. There will be a lot of dark wood and dark leather in the room and I would like to pull up the carpet and lay very dark, thick wood flooring. Other than a tasteful colorful rug, what recommendations would you make for wall color, trim/crown molding finish and accent pieces?

I think that you should paint the room like a light brown or tan because this color goes really well with dark brown colors.

Bookcase Buying Tips

As we all know that the internet has ruled our lifestyle and everyday activities, especially in terms of getting information from different kind of resource. Internet has also change people in many ways, particularly reading behavior. Meanwhile most people read from print put paper and from the computer screen in stead of read from books. This situation seems to be increasingly continued and the importance of book has become decreased among this group of people. However, there is other group of people who still see the importance of reading from books and they still be kind of books lovers no matter how much the internet has changed our life style.

This group of people continues to seek the best way to keep their books securely and one of the most popular ways to keep books is bookcase. Generally, book case is not the same as book shelf. As books case is something that you can contain just one or two of your favourite books to make sure that they are kept in a good place with maximum protection but book shelf is something that we use for keep bulk of books and book shelf does not provide enough protection. However, in some case, book case could be referred to book shelve as they have similar functions, many libraries defined bookcase as same as book shelf.

The material that commonly used for bookcase is wood due to its sturdy, handsome and traditional, reasonable price as well as durable and resist to severe temperature changes. There are some type of book case that made from metal but they still not popular because metal does not provide elegant look and aesthetic appeal, which sometime do not match to the taste of home users. Moreover, there are book cases that made form other type of materials such as granite stone or marble. But they also not popular as book case itself needs intensive care and they are very expensive.

About the design, the traditional design of book case still be the square shape with plain colour or wood color. This trend seems not to be changed in the near future as people still focus on form and function rather than design and color. If the book case could provide maximum protection to their favourite books so the design and colour are not the top priority. However, there is a great development of book case colour and design. New book cases have been developed in different shapes in a modern, stylish fashion, with shelves of different sizes and lengths. Some design even more fashionable by adding some decorative items.

Some type of book case especially if it refers to book shelf, require users to manual assemble it. By having this kind of book case, sometimes you have to spend sometimes with it. However, as mentioned above that there are many kind of book case available so you probably do not have to choose the most expensive one as they may not always worth its value. Just to make sure that you get the one that good function at reasonable price. Now you have better idea about what is book case actually as well as how to choose the proper one to fit to your need and budget.

About the Author

PisanK is the writer of http://www.bookcaseonline.com site, if you found this article useful, visit us to get more information.

Traditional Bookcase

Club Chairs
Ferndale Boys and Girls Club sets grand opening for Wednesday
FERNDALE - More than three years after its Ferndale clubhouse was heavily damaged by an electrical f

Best decorative recliner chair at Hooker Furniture

For your optimal satisfaction, we suggest you to buy from a dealer in your local community. We also depend on our dealer to serve you in different ways including service, delivery and deluxing the product after the sale. By selecting a dealer in your community, who is nearby proximity to your home, your frustrations must be minimized when service issue takes place after your purchase. At our website, only you need to enter your zip code in the box to find out the close by hooker furniture retailers.

By visiting Hooker Furniture, you can find SmartLiving ShowPlace dealer, Paris Flea market dealer, dining designs dealer and Waverly Place dealer. An admiration for nature is wonderfully expressed in the Kinston collection of Hooker Furniture that is thoughtfully made of high sustainable bamboo veneers as well as hardwood solids. With a subtle Asian flavor, Kinston brought a relaxed feeling for your dining room, home entertainment furnishings and bedroom.

Our decorative recliner chair are the upholstered in the best leathers and fabrics. They are shaped with intricate carving and curves. They are trimmed with silver, gold and weathered accents. Our side chairs collections dress up any room and enhance its appearance. These chairs are versatile used with kitchen tables and in the living room. Our ottomans and stools line is best for you to put your feet up in style.

Our leather chairs have a perfect and dynamic personality, comfort, charm and character. Its quality makes a wonderful combination in our club chairs, cigar chairs and reading chairs. The advantages of SmartLiving ShowPlace offered by Hooker include well-versed and welcoming sales staff, detailed product information, up-to date factory product data through our web-based system, special offers, absolute inventory of on-site products from our complete range of furniture categories such as home office, bath, bedroom, dining, leather goods, living rooms and home entertainment. It provides you creative home decorative ideas and motivates your own personal touch.

We have created a charming shopping experience, which will surely make your furniture shopping more exciting and pleasing. By visiting our SmartLiving ShowPlace, you have access for our line of furniture and take best benefit of our QucikShip Express Delivery. You can also make a request for a brochure and product inserts of SmartLiving ShowPlace. In order to obtain special offers, design trends and decorative ideas, you need to sign up for our e-newsletter and SmartLiving ideas. The legends collection provides you casual designs in furniture. Its styling can recall primitive Home furniture, look of solid wood antiques and relaxed Asian décor.

About the Author

Nicole Brunette writes blogs about furniture and interior design. She is currently gearing up for furniture market in High Point, NC and looks forward to all the new home furniture to blog about.

Club Chairs

Home Office

Making the Most of Your Home Office

As the cost and time spent commuting rises all across the nation, more and more professional workers are choosing to work from home offices. The home office is convenient. It allows parents to be home when their children return from school. It allows children to assist their aging parents during the daytime. It allows greater flexibility in working hours. But none of these aspects appear when your home office is not comfortable, organized, or styled towards productivity.

First, consider how comfortable you are. If you are working every day from a laptop on your dining room table, you aren't going to be comfortable. Dining room chairs just aren't designed for long periods of sitting and support for a computer user. If you find yourself squinting at your screen because of the glare of the lights, you also aren't doing yourself any favors. An office is an office, no matter where it is. Invest in furniture which meets the needs of an office environment. Consider a good office chair, a desk which is at the height and angle for your computer, and proper lighting for your space.

Second consider your ability to function in the home office space. If you can't print, connect to the internet at a good speed, or teleconference where you are doing your work, you are not going to be productive at any job. You may need to install a second phone line, or purchase upgraded internet speed. You will need to maintain your printer and other equipment, such as a backup hard disk drive without help from the IT staff down the hall in the corporate offices. You also need to keep your work papers and your personal life papers separate. This means having a space which is for work only. If you sit down to pay your bills at the same desk you work from, fine, but don't leave your personal files intermixed with your work files. As a rule of thumb, if it isn't appropriate in the corporate office, don't do it in your home office.

Finally, make sure your space is conducive to the feeling of being at work. Ideally, home offices are completely separate spaces within a home. This separation allows the home worker to differentiate between work and home in their connected space. Make sure your space is quiet enough to hold professional phone calls uninterrupted. If this means closing the door, do it. If it means not running the dishwasher, or the laundry while you hold calls, do that too. If you must have your work space in a common room, stylistically differentiate that space with a rug, pictures, or furniture.

Working from home is a luxury not everyone is afforded. Make the most of it, but don't let poor planning of your space in a home office lead others to question your productivity, sincerity, or professionalism. Also don't allow yourself to get caught in the trap of working all the time you are home. If your hours are 9-5, work 9-5, not 9-whenever you finally turn off your computer and go to bed. An organized, clearly defined, and comfortable home office will help keep you on track.

About the Author

Robert Crager thinks it is important to have the right
office furniture
in order to set up your business from home. He believes it is important for people to understand that not only should they look for comfort and style in their
office furniture
, but efficiency also.

Home Office to clamp down on car tracking cameras
Home secretary Theresa May has announced that a national network of cartracking cameras must be regulated more stringently.

Home Office