Archive for the ‘Furniture and Accessories’ Category
Bedroom fashion
Two children plus a single small bedroom? The answer will be bunk beds!
Bunk beds can be an excellent way to provide extra sleeping space while saving floor space, but they need to be utilized with a measure of caution. A recent study discovered that nearly 36,000 adolescents and children are treated for bunk bed-related accidents each year. Between 1990 and 2005 about 573,000 kids from infants to age 21 suffered injuries significant enough to warrant a visit to the ER. Almost one half of the injuries occurred in children under 6, but there was also a surprising jump in injuries among 18 to 21-year-olds, who were more than twice as likely to be hurt as kids ages 14 to 17.
Almost three-fourths of the children were harmed by falls, with about 30 percent suffering serious cuts, almost 25 percent reporting scrapes and bruises and about 20 percent suffering broken bones. Worse yet, more than 10 percent sustained concussions. The study revealed one half of the children suffered injuries to the head, neck or the face, and that children younger than 3 years old were roughly 40 percent more likely to experience head injuries than older children. About 60 percent of the kids injured were boys (which is not very surprising!)
There are voluntary safety guidelines for bunk bed manufacturers that have been put out by both the American Standards of Testing and Materials (ASTM) and the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Be sure to determine if the bed you are thinking about buying meets these standards:
(1) Carefully check and test the frame of the bunk bed for stability. The best test is for someone to climb onto the bed and move around; the bed should easily support a parent’s weight without feeling any movement of the frame or hearing any squeaking sounds. Better yet, make the salesperson climb up on the top bunk to show its strength.
(2) Inspect the entire bed from top to bottom to make certain that there are no potentially hazardous parts protruding, that there aren’t any sharp edges, and that the complete assembly is smooth. Make certain the bedposts don’t have knobs or finials that can catch clothing and other things.
(3) The top bunk should always have safety rails on both sides, even if one side is up against a wall. To stop a kid from slipping between the rails or stuck between the mattress and the bottom rail, no gap should be more than three inches, to prevent entrapment and strangulation. The top rail should be a minimum five inches above the top of the mattress to prevent the child from falling over it.
(4) The space between the mattress and the frame should not be more than three inches anywhere all around the bed. If there is a space larger than three inches, then you will need to get a different mattress. A youngster who falls into the gap between the bed and the mattress while they are sleeping could be strangled, which unfortunately has happened.
(5) Make certain that the ladder is well made and well attached to the frame. A secure ladder should be able to hold an adult’s weight with no moving around. As suggested above, have the salesman demonstrate the strength of the ladder by getting on it and moving from side to side. The ladder must not move at all.
(6) There have been more than a few reported injuries in which the mattress on the top bunk is moved by a child on the lower bed shoving up on the upper mattress supports. The mattress supports for the top bunk should be firmly attached to the bed frame with screws or bolts. A floating support system might cause injuries if anything is unfastened and this style of assembly ought to be avoided.
(7) Occasionally inspect the bunk bed for any wobbly or missing fasteners and replace them immediately. Immediately! During your inspection be sure to look at both the horizontal supports holding the top mattress and all of the hardware holding the bed together.
(8) Never allow a child under six years old to sleep or play on the top bunk. As mentioned above, half of the injuries occur to children under six.
(9) Locate the bed away from ceiling fans and light fixtures (that should be obvious!) Also you should be certain there is plenty space between the top bed and the ceiling.
Another type of elevated bed you might consider is the loft bed which has an open space where the bottom bed would usually be. This space can be used for a dresser, desk and chair, a TV, or even storage. The safety procedures for bunk beds also apply to loft beds and the same consideration must be taken when visiting a furniture retailer. If you purchase either style of bed from an Internet dealer, be certain it adheres to the ASTM standards.
Getting a good night’s sleep with an adjustable bed
There is a direct correlation between the quality of your sleep and the quality of your health, and for a good night’s sleep you need a good mattress. Mattresses that are old and lumpy may not allow you a chance to get quality sleep on a regular basis, and it is recommended that you replace your mattress every 7 to 10 years. Given this recommended length of service for any mattress, it is never too early to begin looking around for an adjustable model for your next mattress. Although conventional beds are less expensive than adjustable mattresses, you can’t place a price tag on the quality of your sleep. Adjustable beds offer better body support for a more pleasant session of sleep, and by eliminating unnatural pressure points on the body you’ll endure far less pain in your neck or back. All the well-known bedding makers also make adjustable beds, including Simmons, Tempurpedic, Craftmatic, Serta and Sealy. Since you can spend a lot of money on this kind of mattress, it pays to do your research and shop on-line for the available good deals.
Canopy bed curtains
To arouse the romantic ambiance of your bedroom decor drape some lovely canopy curtains over your bed and immediately add grace and charm to your bedroom. Canopy curtains for the bed offer a feeling of privacy and royalty, and can elevate the self-esteem of a young princess, or inspire the amorous moods of a king and queen. Neutral, soft colors are usually the recommended design scheme for both your curtains and bedding, and you can always add vibrant accents for a brighter look. The most common method of hanging canopy curtains is on a four post bed, but you can also secure a wire frame to the ceiling, or use an attachment that goes on the headboard. For a greater sense of seclusion you should choose thicker curtain fabric, or use thin or semi-transparent fabric whenever you desire a sense of openness. You will feel the difference in ambiance immediately upon draping your curtains, and you will be surrounded in luxury without leaving your bed. For an added effect some folks choose to position the bed near an open window to enjoy the billowing sheets of curtain fabric.
Buying an air bed for a more restful sleep
You are likely to discover that an air bed can provide you with a more restful sleep than a traditional mattress. Manipulating the softness of a mattress will help ease fatigue for the reason that the body’s mass is more equally spread out. Unlike the weak vinyl tubing that is employed in common air mattresses, the cells of an air bed are tough and durable. The idea for air beds was initially proposed for hospitals to eliminate the number of bedsores in their chronically ill patients. The sleeper can alter his or her half of the bed to the degree of firmness that is most comfortable because the air baffles or chambers inside the air mattress are the central elements of support.
Assuming the above items were beneficial, you could also obtain additional suggestions relating to bedroom furnishing on the following Internet sites. A similar resource is Buckwheat Neck Pillows which gives you information and recommendations for buckwheat neck pillows. You will also run across other articles concerning wood bedrooom sets at Solid Wood Bedroom Sets Now. Lastly, suggestions concerning down comforters will be found at Use Down Comforters, a site that has proven to be very helpful and informative.
Plan a charming living room with new furniture
Mission style furniture
“Mission furniture” was the label given to the furnishings produced around 1890 by a church congregation in San Francisco who were inspired by the hand-crafted furniture designed in Spanish missions in Mexico and the American southwest a century earlier. An expression of the simple, humble lives of Catholic monks, this design is very practical and always built with top quality craftsmanship. Dissimilar to the ornate Victorian styles popular around that time, Mission furniture features clean, straight lines and very little embellishment. Despite its humble beginnings out West, this style of furniture was first mass produced in New York by Joesph McHugh, an East Coast designer. The period of highest popularity for this style was from 1890 to 1914, and it was an important element in the Arts and Crafts movement that emphasized high quality craftsmanship and simple designs. Oak has always been the favorite wood material for this style of furniture, as it is strong, durable and has a natural beauty which requires no finishing. Either as a collector’s item or as an ideal modernistic decor element, this type of furniture has grown more and more popular in recent years.
Air Sofas
An air bed sofa will be an inexpensive and relaxing option to sleeping bags or standard bedding when having house guests guests or when camping. They are inflatable mattresses made of sturdy plastic or vinyl that are inflated by either an electric pump, or a hand or foot pump. The many advantages are portability, light weight, and the fact that they are quickly inflated and deflated. The main advantage, based on whether a person desires a firmer mattress or a softer mattress, is that they can be pumped up to the degree of firmness most suited to the user.
Many of these mattresses will fit two people, and good ones can be obtained for roughly $60. One must determine the style of pump they need, manual or electric, when purchasing an air bed. A person will wind up spending much more time pumping up the bed when a manual pump is utilized, and most users favor an electric pump for this task. Most beds currently are offered with an automatic pump, and many people consider that the most economical and convenient way to go.
Unfinished wooden furniture
Unfinished wood furniture might be exactly what you need to add beauty and warmth to your home. This kind of furniture is most usually built out of high quality wood including birch and mahogany. The natural wood decor accent that is added by these furnishings can be the perfect touch for those areas of your home where you want quality and comfort. There are so many terrific furnishings that you can choose from including coffee tables, dining tables and bookcases. Because it is so easy to spot the flaws in this type of furniture they are usually well made with the finest wood. Among the variety of furnishings on the market, Amish designs and styles have become famous for the simple lines and top quality craftsmanship. You can easily add a finish coat of your choosing to keep your wood furniture from being damaged. This step helps you to get top quality furnishings for a great price and then perfectly match it to the pieces that you already own.
Having trouble obtaining the advice you are looking for from the articles above? Perhaps the following sites can be more appropriate. Have an interest in mission rustic furniture? Then visiting Moms Rustic Furniture will be recommended.
Plan a stunning guest room with new furniture pieces
Loft beds
Utilizing a loft bed in a bedroom can be an ideal way to create a great deal more floor space as you are furnishing a smaller or compact room. Regrettably over the years loft beds have become synonymous with decorating on a budget, since loft beds can be relatively affordable. The simple truth is that a high- quality loft bed can certainly add functionality plus great style and looks to the bedroom and that means you do not have to sacrifice one for the other.
A loft bed works by just raising a bed on top of a frame and then lifting it several feet above the floor. This resembles a bunkbed, but without the bottom mattress and frame, and so you have an open area under the bed. This open area could be excellent for a table and chair to create a work area, or perhaps a small couch, chair or love-seat for more seating, or as a play area for children. Bookshelves, dressers, stereo systems, and televisions can be neatly located beneath the bed. You can also put in a fold-up bed so that you can make a temporary bunk bed.
When looking for a good loft bed for any bedroom you need to take into account the height of the ceiling along with the dimensions of the room. This is essential since you don’t want to pay for a loft bed and then have a confined room because you bought one that was too large for your room. You’ll generally need the bed to be high enough that you would be able to utilize the space underneath for practical uses, but you won’t want the bed to be so high that the person sleeping on the bed will scrape their head on the ceiling when sitting upright. You may also buy a shorter loft bed in case you are merely looking for extra storage space for a dresser or cabinets.
Loft beds are often more prevalent in children’s rooms and student dormitory rooms. It is typical nowadays that the college-age student will have to share his / her dormitory room with one or more individuals, resulting in a very crowded and cramped space. By purchasing a loft bed for their room, you’ll be able to help make a more comfortable as well as relaxed space for everyone living there. Among the many wonderful things about loft beds in kids rooms is that if you have a couple of kids they have a tendency to fight over which one will get the upper bunk when you’re using bunkbeds to save on space. With two individual loft beds in the room, each child may have their very own top bed and they will still get a lot of floor space for playing or studying. It’s also possible to utilize fabrics to hide the area beneath the bed by merely hanging them over the edge of the bed, therefore setting up a separate, secret play area for each child if they wish to have a quiet time.
In this day and age loft beds have come into style due to the fact that so many more families live in older homes, smaller apartments or condominiums. The additional space created by these beds is fairly important and can go a long way towards reducing the problem of putting “ten pounds of stuff in a five pound bag” without exceeding your budget.
Want to store your winter clothing? A large vacuum storage bag should do the trick
People looking for an affordable way to use space wisely and maintain various items in top condition are using vacuum storage bags. Everyone who has ever lugged those big plastic tubs upstairs to the attic or downstairs to the basement know that those bins are cumbersome and heavy. These new storage bags come in an incredible selection of styles and sizes to answer many of your storage issues. Hanging bags are a perfect solution for storing all those out of season bedding sets and articles of clothing, and they will take up much less room in an extra big bag. Vacuum storage bags not only provide you terrific space savings but also allow you to look inside so you can easily find exactly what you need when you are ready for it. They are an excellent method of keeping all sorts of items protected from moisture, dust and bugs. As a result your items remain fresh, clean and ready to go whenever you want to open them up.
Bamboo sheets
One of the most popular recent trends on the market today are bed sheets manufactured from bamboo. This type of bedding is ecologically friendly and is produced with the refined fibers of renewable bamboo. Usually the bamboo used to produce sheets is obtained from the discarded materials used to construct other items such as flooring. Some of the numerous benefits of bamboo bedsheets include the fact that it is naturally moisture resistant and is grown without the use of pesticides since it is biologically pest resistant. These sheets have a natural patina and can be manufactured in either dyed or natural styles. Nowadays you should anticipate paying a top price for this innovative fabric which usually outperforms cotton in a number of ways. The main two reasons for the greater price of bamboo bedsheets are the lower overall production and the complex process which is employed to create them. While bamboo bedsheets increase in recognition they are becoming much easier to acquire and can be purchased at numerous shops that highlight eco-friendly goods.
Foam neck pillows
Getting a decent night’s sleep will be an absolute challenge for many people without the comfort and support of a memory foam neck pillow. A decent pillow can keep our head and neck in the correct posture and alignment to ensure that we will sleep soundly throughout the night. The thick substance of a foam neck pillow is what will firmly but softly give the proper amount of support for your neck. While purchasing a new neck pillow make sure you find one which is exactly formed to match the contours of your neck and head. Choosing the perfect pillow from the extensive selection available will be simpler when you take time to consider your own sleep style and support requirements. Foam neck pillows can normally be found having densities from 3.5 lb to 4.5 lb. In the case where you usually like a firmer pillow you need to look for a more dense memory foam pillow.
There are many other websites which address bedroom furnishings topics. Require additional information about custom fleece blankets? Then zFleece Blankets will be the place to start looking. This link will take you to additional details about memory foam mattress toppers. Or a person might want to find out more about king size bed headboards. If this is the case, All Metal Head Boards should be of help. Last but not least, there is Cathys Iron Beds which will have advice about iron beds and has previously proven useful on numerous occasions.
Today’s furnishings and accessories
Using mission furniture to enhance your home
We can credit Catholic monks who lived several centuries ago for the evolution of mission style furniture, the plain looks of which were an expression of their modest lifestyle and their love of unadorned natural beauty. The natural beauty of oak is well matched for any old-fashioned design plan, while the clean, simple lines of the mission style also complement more contemporary accents. It will cost a pretty penny to put oak furniture in your home, up to five times more than furniture made of cheaper wood in fact, but the elegance and long-lasting sturdiness of oak is well worth it. You ought to think of your new oak furniture as a family asset which must be preserved with care, and so you never keep it in a place that gets a lot of direct sunshine or the color might fade unevenly. If you decide to have your oak furniture in a location with high humidity, it’s good to use a dehumidifier to take excess moisture out of the air, but try not to over-use a de-humidifier since you don’t need to dry out the wood either. Careful maintenance of oak furniture is a necessity, a practice which should include a thorough dusting, some beeswax polish which you buff up every so often, and at least once a year clean it with a some vinegar and clear water. It is a cardinal rule of oak furniture preservation that you place your glasses full of liquid on coasters, not on the surface of the wood since moisture rings will readily form. While it is readily apparent that oak furniture is not only expensive but also requires careful maintenance, it is equally obvious that the long-lasting durability and beauty of such furniture is well worth the time and money you spend.
Massage chairs
One of the finest luxury items that you can bring into your house is a massage chair. Important criteria to use when arriving at your buying decision include style, comfort and budget. It is wise to look for a design that is an appropriate match for the other furniture in your house. Because massage chairs are a long-term commitment it’s wise to select one constructed from durable materials. Various chairs are designed to target specific places on the body and you want to select one that can give you the relief you need. Try to avoid chairs that include so many components that they become too complicated to use. There are lots of manufacturers to pick from and it is usually a smart idea to study up on their reputation for quality and durability before you spend your money. The best way to find one that works for you is to try out as many different styles and brands as possible.
Practical desks for home enterprises
Chances are your office workers spend a a lot of time at their office desk everyday and you need to be sure you are providing excellent working conditions. There is such a full array of options on the market these days that it is often hard to know which kind is preferred. One essential thing to consider when making your selection is the type of work that is usually performed in this specific workspace. Evaluate the necessity for drawers and shelves for storage, in addition to the necessary work space on the top of the desk. Things that most employees will need to be able to accommodate in their work area include books, files, computers and monitors. If your employees are comfortable they will likely spend more time there and get more work done. There needs to be sufficient room for employees’ legs to move comfortably underneath. It pays to get a sturdy piece of furniture that is well constructed from quality materials.
Unfinished oak furniture
When the time comes to remodel your home, think about replacing the existing furniture with rustic oak furniture. With oak furniture you will be able to produce the ideal ambiance in your home which will make it excellent for parties. Oak furniture has a long record in this nation that goes back a few hundred years and is recognized for its attractiveness, durability and strength.
When you choose to refinish in a rustic motif, you will have to find the proper oak furniture to complement the new look. A good source for the rustic look can be either ranch style or mission style oak furniture. Ranch oak furniture is becoming increasingly common as folks search for a back-to-nature decor for their homes, while Mission style furniture has been in style for over a hundred years. You will get character and comfort from these big durable pieces. You can establish a very warm and relaxing environment in your home by only adding a single piece of rustic oak furniture. An entertainment center or book case fashioned from oak is certain to bring many years of enjoyment and compliments. After you have a clear vision of what you would like your entertainment center to include, you can either obtain the piece already finished, unfinished, or custom made. In today’s furniture market you are able to have your furniture custom built to your exact specifications. Once you decide to have custom made, it is time to contact a furniture builder to do the construction. All you need to do is contact the sales representative and tell them just how you would like your furniture to look. By having an entertainment center or other pieces made specifically for you, there will be no doubt that it will meet all your needs, especially television, other electronics, and storage.
Buying completed furniture, either from a normal dealer, or from a custom furniture producer, is not necessarily the only way to go. Though most people do not have the financial resources to make a complete home workshop, or the skills to use it, nearly everyone has the capability to use stains and finishes. You can do a first-rate job staining and finishing with minimal tools and only a little experience. The good news is that if you make a mistake all you need to do is strip off the finish and begin again. There are businesses which offer unfinished furniture for those who are searching for this type of job. You can usually locate a fairly good choice of furniture styles in different woods, including oak, pine, and others. You will have the option of purchasing individual pieces, such as a bookcase, desk, bed or armoire, or a full collection.
Unfinished furniture, also called raw furniture, could present the problem of determining the preferred way to finish it. You have many options possible with stains, paints, or clear coats. Stains are available in natural wood colors and with more bright color shades such as purple and red. Stains will permit the unaffected charm of the wood to stand out. When it comes to paint, it will completely cover the wood regardless of which color you pick. The most important things you have to buy to finish furniture will be various sandpaper grits, high-quality paintbrushes, rags, and a large amount of patience. Even though you will be able to speed up the job with an electric sander (an orbital sander is an excellent tool for refinishing), a little hand sanding will still be necessary.
When it comes to a clear coat, or top coat, you get three available selections: gloss, semi-gloss, or flat. There are several new water-based polyurethane finishes which have lots of benefits, but the two most important are no noxious odors and the clean up is very simple. These finishes also go on very easily and dry quickly. Hand painted finishes are increasing in popularity. For instance, you can create a stylish French country look or an appealing folk style. You can even put on a custom faux finish, creating a look that varies from stunning marble to elegant metal. You can enjoy the finishing project most if you take your time and don’t fret if it does not come out exactly as you had envisioned. You will appreciate over time that some of your favorite pieces are those which came out differently than you had initially intended.
These are a couple of sites which should be beneficial in exploring the category of furniture. If, for instance, you are interested in teak outdoor garden furniture, then Teak Furniture Designs will have a lot of valuable tips. Are you also searching for information relating to contemporary coffee tables? Then New Contemporary Coffee Tables will be able to provide the help you need.