Barbara's Yarn Garden

The world had become really unpredictable lately that people from science can’t seem to determine when a disaster is coming. After the Haiti earthquake that took hundreds of thousands of lives, people should be extra careful with the things that they do and take care of. It just goes to show that once Mother Nature is the one acting, we can do nothing about it and if there’s any, we could only watch from the sides. For garden enthusiasts, this may be good news because there are disaster restoration networks now that are ready to help, in case of uncontrollable and unforeseeable things happen to the house, specifically the garden. Things like floods, earthquakes, fires, catastrophic accidents or explosions are covered by these networks of organizations that are willing to help a fellow garden lover in need. It surely is a heartbreaker if a garden that has been created by your own bare hands is disintegrated into rubble or burned down in just minutes when it took you almost half a year to design it. These networks will surely get your spirits back up until you find it in your heart to smile again and be happy that your garden is back in full shape, restored back into its great form.

The Haiti earthquake really came in as a big shocker, especially because it happened literally just a few days after the whole world celebrated New Year. There may be some new things that the governments around the world are doing right now, but we have to keep in mind that the only people that can really help and save us are ourselves and the people that have the same passion as ours. In case you get in to this kind of trouble with your garden, be rest assure that the disaster restoration networks can basically help you because they know everything that you might feel after a certain calamity and the only way to somehow ease the pain of the bad things that occurred is by at least, giving you back one of the things that matters to you and you gave lots of time that you lost. That way, you can continue with your form of hobby and have the beauty brought back, the greenery reborn and it could also give you a boost of confidence that amidst the catastrophic times, people will be there to support and help you

If you want to create a great ambience in your home, you will need some sort of décor. The problem with décor is that styles change all the time, trendy room pieces cost a small fortune, and you need plenty of room for most décor styles. Many trendy decorators are finding that living walls are a perfect solution to all these problems.

Vertical gardening with modular living walls means that you arrange flowers over the surface of a wall, creating a live hanging. These vertical gardens are affordable, take up virtually no room at all, and since plants never go out of style, you don’t need to worry about trends.

There are many ways to make living walls work as great décor. You may want to start by taking snapshots of each room in your home. Photos allow you to see your home far more objectively. What seems fine in real life jumps out at you in photos. It’s a trick that interior designers use all the time. After you take your photos, look carefully at each one.

In some photos, you will see big bare spots which leap out at you on the walls. Usually, this happens because you have something large (a bookcase) on one side of the room and nothing to balance the large object on the other side of the same space. These blank spots are the ideal spot for living walls, as vertical gardens in these spaces will bring balance and proportion to a room.

In addition to blank spots, look for ugly spots. The wall with water stains, the wall with the crooked slant or the terrible drywall can be hidden very quickly and effectively with vertical gardening. Where there was once an eyesore, you can enjoy a gorgeous modular living wall in just two hours of work.

Another great option is to look for rooms that are hard to decorate. For example, many people leave their dining room walls quite plain because they have no idea what to put up. You can create a magical indoor vertical garden in your dining room that will make visitors gasp with envy. Start by filling in large amounts of your dining room walls with modular living walls filled with beautiful plants.

String tiny lights around your plants and finish off with a gorgeous bistro set for the center of the room (instead of a complex and heavy dining room set). The effect is an outdoor urban garden – chic and completely fabulous. You’ll feel as though you’re sitting in an outdoor café each time you sit down to eat. This same idea works wonderfully with any sort of home office.

Of course, you don’t have to go big or go home. Small living handbags around your home look amazing and offer a quick way to redecorate. Place your living handbags anywhere you would place a flower arrangement and you’ll enjoy a showpiece décor item that you can take anywhere.

The year of 2009 may have already ended but the fact is, we are still feeling the effects of the economic problems that we have since 2008. Call me anxious, paranoid or whatever, but I strongly believe that we all must see to it that we are always properly protected in any harm that could come to us. If you were lucky enough to dodge the bullets of recession, better make sure that you try to have any form of home security for your house.

This would prove useful and one of the best investments that you ever had because whether we like it or not, low economy means higher the possibility of crimes committed by desperate people. It may sound harsh but truth be told, it is one of the possibilities that all of us must face and be prepared of so our family and properties will be safe and sound.

Besides installing or putting home security devices inside the house, it would also be a nice idea to try and get things changed inside your garden, of course if you have one. Remember that this is not only the start of the New Year, but also the start of a new decade so making sure that our homes would look exceptional to the eyes of many.

If you got the fund, making a complete 180 turn and get things differently in your garden may be appropriate. But of course, if funding is not that high, buying some new garden accents may also be a good idea and would definitely make your house look brand new. It would also be a good idea to try and move the plants in different places so that even though they are old, the look would certainly be new to your eyes and through the eyes of your family and friends.

If you don’t have a garden, you might want to try getting things in its futuristic sense for your interior design. If you got the money, it would certainly help if you would really want to have a futuristic look inside the house, starting with the paints of black and white within your house or apartment. You can try to have a change on your walls and ceilings by putting other shapes like diagonal linings for the edges of the walls instead of the normal straight, vertical edge.

You can also go for plain furniture with straight lines to keep the look clean and complement the style that you are trying to get. This would only work of course if you have the money and determination to get things looking great and new. There should also be lots of web sites out there that you can take advantage of so you could get good deals.

A new year could also mean something bigger than just changing the look of your house, but it could also mean changing the whole house itself. I am talking about buying a home and getting the best out of it. Now I know that money is really hard to come across these days but keep in mind that you don’t have to buy something entirely new as you can easily find foreclosure properties.

This way, you don’t have to pay too much and you can try to experiment in home renovations at the same time because it would be like having a blank piece of paper and a box of crayons in your hands. You can try to get things looking great, depending on your preferences because you know you can have your hands on it and get all of the designs that you want in there. just make sure though that you have an idea already before even trying something.

Speaking of foreclosures, of course the only way to get one is if you have a good real estate agent by your side to fix everything for you. So before you even try to think of what would be the best looking interior design you might be able to afford, you must think first on how you could get yourself a reliable person to find you a foreclosure or brand new house.

Right after that, then it would be the right time to think about all of the improvements that you want to have in your new home and get things started towards the completion of your dream house. It will all go down to how much would the property be, how well the location is, how good the construction was (for brand new) and how you could be able to redesign and refurnish the house (for foreclosure properties). Just know your people and everything should be fine.

If you’re not down with buying a new house, just go back in planning the best way to get your house set for the new decade. Kitchens are one of those things that people really give attention to. I remember my mom always having a comment whenever we watch a movie and she’s able to see really nice kitchen designs. We were watching Disney’s “The Game Plan” featuring The Rock and she really fell in love with the kitchen that they showed in the movie.

It has got to be my favorite design as well because it really showed an authentic contemporary style kitchen, not to mention the huge refrigerator that Rock had in there. I guess I am just a sucker for contemporary styles that I just see myself day dreaming of having the same thing, every time I see a good design on TV or movies… a trait that I got from my mom.

To get things really working on your quest to get a different look in your house, home appliances have to have one of the biggest funds and deep thinking of all because you cannot just go ahead to the nearest store or online marketplace and buy anything that you think is nice to look at. You have to remember that buying an appliance is like buying a shirt for yourself.

You have to know and make sure that the appliance will be just the right one for your kind of house and your kind of living. Take air conditioners for example… you don’t have to buy a unit with a very high horse power if you’re just planning to install it inside a small room. You have to understand that you’ll probably consume too much electricity that way and probably kill the person inside because it would feel like a refrigerator in there.

Then of course, we go back o gardening/landscaping of your house. I just thought I’d get back to this because with all the abnormal weather we are having nowadays, it would certainly help if all of us would try to put more greenery everywhere. Plants, as my old biology teacher would tell me, absorb carbon dioxide and it can certainly help clean the air that we breathe, not to mention keeping things cool during summer time. The more plants that we have, the better our atmosphere will be.

But of course, we still need to find the aesthetic factor so make sure to never overdo it because you also wouldn’t want to make your house look like it is in the middle of a virgin forest. Just go Google for more information in landscaping and you will surely find the designs that you want, as well as tips on how to make it work to your advantage.