Living room is almost done, pics tonight or tomorrow, but I am so excited on how the chair turned out, I am posting a teaser :) About 8 years ago, I had seen this chair in a consignment shop, fell in love with it and went back to get it when my father gave me some money for my birthday. In our home she is "mom's chair", but we started a tradition that whoever's birthday it is, they sit in my chair to open their presents, so we now have numerous pictures of our children in the chair on their birthdays going back several years now. After 8 years of a busy household, kids, cats, moves, she was looking very sad. She was dirty, both her back corners were pulled half apart by said cats, she has dings and scratches etc. So I literally shaved, with a hair trimmer, all the tufts and pulls, cleaned her with upholstery cleaner and gave her a bit of a paint job.

Your new home is one that you should be able to cherish for a long time, so how do you make sure that your hardwood investments keep their luster long enough for you to get your money’s worth? Here are some steps that you can take to keep your flooring looking brand new: Stain A stain can add a beautiful finish to your floors, but make sure it’s waterproof. It’s especially important to stain the bathroom and kitchen areas, since these are the areas that will experience the most water damage if left untreated. Dust Dust particles can actually scratch your wood flooring. Breaking out the duster is never a bad thing. Microfiber dusters attract dust mites and trap them, so you never need to go over the same spot twice. Additionally, using a microfiber duster is safer than using a broom, as brooms often contain microscopic shards of glass and other things which can damage the wood. Use Only Hardwood-Safe Products When it comes time to mop your hardwood floor, ensure that whatever you treat the mop with will not eat away at the beautiful stain you’ve applied. Erosion occurs over time, so you won’t know if you’re screwing up until you look back at years of faithful cleaning to find that it just doesn’t have the shine that it once did. Vinegar is commonly used in cleaning and should be avoided like the plague when it comes to washing hardwood floors. The pH in vinegar is so high that it can and will strip the lining off your hardwood even in trace amounts. Also avoid using furniture sprays on your floors. These leave an oily film, which not only takes the shine away, but poses potential problems with traction.

What I hope will die sooner rather than later are all the wires all over the place. Drives me nuts. I’d like to see table and desk lamps become wireless too. It would be helpful to easily move them about for certain tasks. What I think will die (although it will be a good 10 years or more) will be the TV. The idea of the family gathered around one black box is already dying, as everyone’s tastes are so varied that little is agreed upon. So, tween goes upstairs and watches Justin Bieber, son goes gaming, Mom watches HGTV in search of more bland granite counter-topped interiors, and dad watches news and sports. (We just keep the big TV on NPR or PBS in case the neighbours are peeking in.) I also see a day when, even when we want to watch communally, we sync up our iPads and each watch it, albeit in unison, from our corner of the room (no need to all be facing the same way). Or projecting from one device onto a wall, if we really want that common view the odd time. On a similar note, while not a tech thing, I think open floor plans will decline a bit in popularity. It’s just too noisy. Do I really want to share your xbox experience? Do you want your music drowned out by my food processor? Who wants to do homework with Adele lamenting her latest breakup all over the place? (That woman’s a mess. And now she’s divorced, gee, I wonder what the theme of the next album will be.) Now if you’ll excuse me there’s some kids cutting across my lawn...

The floating shelves look nice. Updating light fixtures is always a great way to update as well. Another accent that my clients seem to like is the fold out drying racks that surface mount to the wall and stick out about 2-1/2" then they tip out for drying. You can find them by googling fold out drying racks.