Lighting systems can make or break the look of your house. Good lighting gives your room a different character. Decors, for one, can look different depending on color and intensity of lights. Subdued, soft toned lighting creates a romantic ambience, and can create a homey feel. Full and strong lights give warmth to the room. Blinking lights of course, suggest fun and festive mood. But of course, this would be for those holdiay seasons.

If you want varied moods every now and then, dimmers and mood lighting allow you to achieve the best effect. Dimmers are the in thing today. Not only do they enhance the look of your room but they also break the monotony of any normal lighting system.

There is a new trend in interior design, where ducting is exposed instead of being hidden away in the crawlspace in between the roof and the ceiling. This supposedly saves energy.

As it turns out, ductwork that carries cooled or heated air through the house tend to leak, and the air leaked through the crawlspace makes up for a big loss. This leaked air cools or warms the crawlspace instead of the interior of the house.

Go to any attic in winter and you’ll see. Instead of heated air warming up your wintertime, it’s warming up the attic instead!

Even the most professional of installations will inevitable result in a leak or two in the ductwork. So this still wastes energy from the power spent cooling or heating.

So the new approach is exposed ductwork, which can sometimes be very ugly. People try to find better ways of concealing these. Some design their interiors as if the ceilings were intended to look that way. Faux finishes, moldings and cornices can work to add some creative flair. You can also be creative in painting. What’s important is that you save on your electricity and gas bills in the long run.

Blue and yellow is a classic combination that will never go out of style. By adding white into the mix, a very interesting color scheme will come out.

For the bathroom: to make this three-color mix harmonious, the yellow of the wall above the tiles must also be integrated, even in small doses, into the lower half of the bathroom. A yellow bathroom rug or bath mat or a yellow storage basket for toiletries can do the balance.

Try the shade primrose yellow. For the bedroom, have one wall painted in blue and teal green stripes and the rest with solid baby blue. To contrast, use white furniture. With this, both the blue-ness and the busyness of the stripes will be balanced out.

Wires and cables make modern living possible. But they are also the most unsightly parts of a modern home. Without provision for wiring and cabling, like ample power outlets, hidden raceways, and such, these would snake around hour house and become copper eye-sores. Most of us would want to do without this problem.

There are a lot of methods of hiding wires, such as with base boards and cornices that look like the real thing, but after closer inspection actually have built-in raceways where you could route your snaking cables inside. Not only do they hide messy cabling, they also give additional good looks to a room, getting rid of the multi-colored wire bundles usually causing trips and falls.

If wires cross a pathway, or snake through the floor, metal, plastic or wood channels that look like speed bumps only with a lower profile can be used. Be sure to get them installed properly so you won’t get into accidents, if installed too tall. If you have kids, get cables routed through the ceiling to prevent electrocution hazards.

Of course, if you’re running your home computer network, you can always consider wireless!

Vinyl

Vinyl tile is the most affordable material that you can use to achieve a wooden flooring look. New designs simulate planks of light, medium, and dark wood tones; others have built-in parquet or geometric patterns. Since they can be easily cut to size and shape, vinyl tiles are flexible in any room orientation or shape. Apart from ease of installation, vinyl flooring also boasts of a very low maintenance requirement. Cleaning it with damp cloth and occasional sweeping are all you need to keep it shiny.
Vinyl is relatively thinner and softer than other materials, so it may not be advisable for high-traffic areas. However, if you really intend to use vinyl on high-traffic areas, choose one that has its wood color and pattern throughout the entire thickness of the tile, and not those whose pattern is only printed on the top layer. Opting for the former assures you that although it may be prone to scratches, it will still have the same wood color and not black.

Ceramic and Porcelain

The latest alternatives to achieving a wooden flooring look are ceramic and porcelain tiles with wood designs. Since ceramic and porcelain tiles are made for use with wet areas, you can easily incorporate them in powder rooms and bathrooms. The wood designs are so creatively crafted that you have to touch and feel one to confirm that it is indeed a ceramic tile. They also come in several wood tones and are typically sized at 15cm by 60cm.
The hygienic quality of ceramic and porcelain tiles tops the list of their advantages. Because they can be easily cleaned and used with sanitary sprays; institutions like hospitals and health centers can get the wooden flooring look without sacrificing hygiene. Aside form this, they are also resistant to all weather conditions, insect attacks, and heavy loads. They also require low maintenance as simple mopping can keep them looking like new. However, it is the installation that requires proper skills. It is bets to hire a professional tile-setter for this job.
Most ceramic and porcelain tiles with wood designs are imported and this makes them more expensive and hard to find.