It’s frustrating when your home isn’t quiet. If your house isn’t peaceful and quiet, then considering how to reduce noise in your home is probably near the top of your “to do” list. When you first moved in, you might not have minded the barking dogs, blaring car horns, and noisy neighbors. But now this noise pollution diverts your attention and disturbs your sleep. Now you’re thinking, “I’ve had enough. It’s time to come up with a solution.” After all, everybody deserves uninterrupted periods of concentration and a peaceful night’s rest. Unfortunately, many older homes don’t have the sound-dampening construction that newer homes do. With a few small tweaks, however, you can turn your home into a noiseless paradise. Below, we share six effective ways to reduce noise in your home. Hang Heavy Drapes The first tip for how to reduce noise in your home is: consider the drapes. Drapes and curtains not only make a room feel homey, they can complement the other décor in your … [Read more...] about How to Reduce Noise in Your Home
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Go Green with These Eco-Friendly Home Renovations
Many people want to be more environmentally conscious these days. Luckily, going green is easier than you may think. These four eco-friendly home renovations prove that you can help save the earth without sacrificing on style and efficiency. 1. Go low-flow to start eco-friendly home renovations Even if you don’t live where droughts are common, water conservation is important. Installing low-flow toilets and shower heads is a great way to conserve water. Today’s low-flow fixtures and appliances make saving water easy and automatic. New models of low-flow shower heads provide plenty of water pressure. The same goes for low-flow faucet aerators and faucets in the kitchen and bathroom. Not only do newer faucets use less water, they are also sleek and stylish. Another great upgrade is a new toilet. New water-conserving toilets get the job done while using far less water than models from previous decades. All of these new fixtures will reduce the amount of water used in … [Read more...] about Go Green with These Eco-Friendly Home Renovations
Attract Butterflies to Your Garden
If you’re like an increasing number of gardeners, you want to attract butterflies to your garden. Butterflies are truly the winged jewels of our landscape. Not only are butterflies beautiful, they serve the greater purpose of helping to pollinate plants and provide food for other important insects in the pollinator food chain. While monarch butterflies are my current focus, they weren’t always. But as most gardeners soon learn, one thing in the garden leads to another. When you plant a seed, you learn about soil. When plants grow in your garden, you learn about weather and the insects those plants attract. With more insects, more songbirds are likely to visit your property, too. See what I mean? One thing in the garden really does lead to another, and another, and … So, if you want to attract more butterflies to your garden, it’s helpful to know what plants and plant attributes butterflies enjoy. Keep the following tips in mind and you’ll be on your way toward having a … [Read more...] about Attract Butterflies to Your Garden
Build an Instant Rusted Corrugated Metal Fence
Our master bedroom garden was an unsightly mess. What it needed was an instant rusted corrugated metal fence, although it took me a while to figure that out. The space was initially designed as coyote-safe place for our small dogs and a sunny location for our raised bed gardens in galvanized stock tanks. But the native grasses had taken over, and the heavy-gauge open mesh fence offered no privacy. It was time for a serious landscaping remodel. Bee Zollo, my life partner, and I decided we wanted a space with a cleaner, more modern aesthetic than the over-grown “natural” look that we currently had. The most important element in the new garden was making it more private. This necessitated replacing the open mesh fencing with a new design. We considered a range of wood options, but finally decided we liked the contemporary appearance of a rusted corrugated metal fence using the existing redwood framing which was in very good shape. Inventing the Instant Rusted Corrugated Metal … [Read more...] about Build an Instant Rusted Corrugated Metal Fence
