Showing posts with label Living. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Living. Show all posts

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Keeping Your Living Room Furniture Clean and Looking New

Cleaning Tips For Your Living Room Furniture


Buying living room furniture is a big investment that requires a lot of search time and preparation. Daily use can have a great impact on the longevity and look of your furniture, and you want to make sure you properly care for it in order to extend its use for as long as possible. Here are some great cleaning tips to keep your furniture looking as fresh and beautiful as the day you bought it.


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Avoid Harsh Chemicals

Stay clear of upholstery cleaners that use harsh chemicals or toxins to clean your furniture. These furniture cleaners may leave your furniture smelling and looking clean for some time, but there are risks associated with cleaning your furniture with them. For starters, these cleansers are typically full of harsh chemicals and toxins that can actually cause more harm than good to your furniture. Additionally, they are known to actually foster resoiling, resulting in more cleaning. These cleaners may also remove the protective layers of your furniture fabric, resulting in furniture that looks more worn, as well as causing harm to your upholstery.


Stay Clear of Steam

Steam cleaning initially sounds like a great idea when it comes to cleaning your furniture. However, it is important to consider what moisture can do to your furniture. Excessive moisture can cause odors, mold, and soil build-up. When steam cleaning is done the excess water must be sucked up, which can take days to fully dry. Even when the fabric appears dry on the surface, the moisture can still be present deep down. Steam cleaning may also strip your furniture’s upholstery, leaving it more prone than before to stains and soil.


Bring Out the Vacuum

Vacuuming your furniture regularly is a great way to clean debris and dirt off of your furniture before it has a chance to seep down and cause problems. Vacuuming will also allow you to prolong the need of more extensive and deep cleaning. Vacuuming should be done at least once a week. Make sure you not only do the visible parts of your furniture; you will also want to make sure you vacuum under the cushions and in the crevices of your furniture.


Spot Clean as Soon as Possible

Accidents happen frequently, and most likely your furniture will not be able to avoid them. Spills are likely to occur, and can lead to permanent stains if not taken care of quickly. Here are some ways to take care of these spills quickly and properly:


Always blot from the outside to the center of a spot. Doing so will control the spread of a spill

Test your fabric in a hidden area to make sure the color doesn not come off with the stain, or that a ring is not caused by the cleaning agent.

If the spot is liquid, use an absorbent white cloth or white paper towel to gently blot up the excess.

If the spot is solid material, remove the excess by lifting it off with a dull table knife or spoon.

Never rub, scrub, or brush a spill.

Never use strong chemicals such as bleach, solvents, or acids unless they are recommended by a specialist.

Never use sudsy detergents, as they leave a soapy residue that attracts dirt.

Avoid using tap water. Use distilled water or plain seltzer water. Minerals in common tap water can cause rings, even on treated fabrics.

Know Your Furniture Needs

There are a wide range of furniture fabrics and styles available. It is important to know which ones may or may not be best for your particular lifestyle. A leather sofa may not fair well with a home full of cats, but can work great with children because it is simple to clean and wipe spills. If you are decorating a room that will be low traffic and more for entertaining you can choose virtually any furniture fabric. You should also be aware that certain fabrics are more resistant to sunlight damage than others. If you need help finding out what fabrics fit your lifestyle, our trained associates will be happy to assist you at any store location.

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The sofa and other various items that comprise the living room are often the center piece and the focal point for guests that you invite into your home. You want to make sure you are caring for them properly in order to keep them clean and increase their life. Following these tips will assure that your living room furniture is properly maintained and cared for.

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Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Buying Furniture Online: Elegant Bedroom Furniture Sets, Discount Living Room Furnitur

Safe, browser-based payment systems with multi-layered security make purchasing bedroom furniture sets, discounted living room furniture and all other types of furnishings online fraud-proof and hassle-free. Buying furniture online is now the standard for worldwide furniture shoppers who understand how to maximally stretch the value of their currency. They know that the finest bedroom furniture sets are available online from virtual furniture megastores offer an incredible selection and big savings.

Buying your next bedroom furniture sets online:

? Saves your valuable time by allowing you to shop conveniently from your computer;
? Saves you loads of money because online furniture stores don’t have to maintain buildings, employees, insurance and more;
? Helps to keep the planet greener by leaving your car parked in the driveway while you shop for discount living room furniture and more from home;
? Keeps you from having to deal with slick, commission-driven furniture salespeople;
? And when you use a credit card for safe online payments, the Federal government protects you from fraudulent activities by limiting your possible losses to .00;
? And there are so many more benefits to experience when buying furniture online!

Discount living room furniture, classically-crafted bedroom furniture sets and other types of furniture that you’ll find online represent the epitome of beauty and high-quality workmanship. You’ll shop between products from some of the planet’s most prestigious furniture designers and manufacturers. Just a few of the notable contenders for your business will be Ashley, Coaster, Millennium, Catnapper, Butler, Signature Design, Simmons and Modloft. You will be stunned when you see the selection, and the prices, presented to you!

Buying furniture online also has the added advantage of tracking your orders while in route to your home for timely, professional delivery. Additionally, you can count on skilled technicians to assemble and position your furnishings exactly how you like them. And if that wasn’t enough, delivery is completely free in a majority of cases.

Buying furniture online allows consumers to maximize the value of their money and purchase the finest bedroom furniture sets, furniture accessories, discounted living room furniture, office furniture, outdoor patio furniture and so much more – all at rock bottom prices. Brick-and-mortar furniture retail stores are truly struggling these days. Sad is that may be, it’s simply a result of powerful technologies at work. When these retailers have to pay for their buildings, staff, insurance and all other expenses associated with a brick-and-mortar establishment, they just can’t stay afloat. But that’s no reason for you to suffer.

Experience the pleasures, freedom and various benefits associated with purchasing bedroom furniture sets and other types of furniture safely on the Internet. Buying furniture online is the new planetary standard – so enjoy the benefits!

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Living in Emergency

by Pierluigi MusarĂ², Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Bologna at Forli, and a visiting scholar at NYU’s Institute for Public Knowledge

A few months ago I organized a conference in Bologna on the topic of humanitarian emergencies and communication. I invited the communication manager of one of Italy’s most famous and most influential NGOs, called Emergency. He accepted but told me, “You should know that we do not deal with emergency, but rather than with development and health.”

According to their website, Emergency is “an independent NGO, founded in Italy to provide high quality and free of charge health care to war and poverty victims.”

As they admitted, their concern is not emergency. So why did they name their NGO Emergency?

I believe their choice (consciously or not) reflects the way discourse in the humanitarian space has increasingly come to describe global problems as “emergencies.”

A hallmark of mainstream economic and political thought in the West is the optimistic belief in Development as a more or less steady, linear progress towards a clear goal.? But a combination of factors in the post-Cold War era has made the deviations from this narrative increasingly visible. For one, the media’s increasing ability to confront us with shocking images of suffering from places previously too remote to be imagined have created a demand that “something be done” urgently in the face of that suffering. For another, shifting international norms and commitments have generated an obligation to help distant strangers. At the same time, charities and NGOs have grown and proliferated, professionalizing their fundraising and marketing efforts.

As a result, we find ourselves living in a world of constant emergencies.

Nowadays, issues of human rights, governance, gender inequality, conflict, and poverty are all packaged and sold to us as humanitarian emergencies! Don’t agree? Watch this video from the UK’s umbrella organization for funding NGO appeals. As sirens wail, the compelling voice recites: “It is not about the right and wrong of the conflict. This people simply need your help.” But under what definition of the word is the 60-year Israeli-Palestinian conflict rightly called an emergency? In Algeria, 200,000 Sahrawis are waiting out a 36-year stalemate in refugee camps. Is it an emergency or a long-term political problem? Does the concept of “emergency” help us to grasp or solve these problems?

The title of this blog post is also the name of a new documentary about the NGO Doctors Without Borders.

Emergencies by definition are sudden, unexpected exceptions to the natural order of things. They are an aberration, a tear in the fabric of normalcy, a disease in an otherwise healthy body. As such they demand urgent action, a quick cure. As NYU social sciences professor Craig Calhoun has written, “The term emergency became a sort of counterpoint to the idea of global order. Things usually worked well, it was implied, but occasionally went wrong….Where there is a discontinuity, there must be intervention to restore linearity and predictable functioning.”

With your donation, NGOs and aid agencies will rush in to set things right.

What is at stake? The rhetoric of emergencies creates a powerful illusion that shapes both perception and action. Intractable problems that reveal the contradictions and limits of development are framed as emergencies, and NGOs as low cost managers that can intervene to solve these “exceptions” to the global order and put things right again.

If only it were so simple.

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Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Feng Shui Bedside Tables – 10 Feng Shui Tips to Unlocking the Secrets to a Better Home Living in Your Bedroom

Feng Shui Bedside Tables

One of the most important places to bring in good feng shui is your bedroom. If you want to activate your career luck, wealth luck and have good luck, good health and good fortune, feng shui-ing your bedroom is the most important aspect. We have people asking us on how to feng shui your bedroom and we really do have a few amazing feng shui tips that will help you to bring in good fortune and good luck through your bedroom. Feng Shui Bedside Tables

The ancient Chinese method of Feng Shui can help us to balance our home living and create a happier and healthier lives. In the context of feng shui, we often turn our attention to the bedroom, the sanctuary where we rest and rejuvenate. By tapping on the effectiveness of good feng shui, it’s easy to feng shui your bedroom according to feng shui rules and principles so that you can create more good fortune and more harmony in your bedroom.

In terms of yin and yang perspective, our bedroom is a more yin, peaceful and quiet enviroment. Hence, you need to create your bedroom’s ambience into one which you will feel protected and free from distracting and powerful chi that will disturb your rest. In addition, it is also essential that the circulation of chi in your bedroom is good and being distributed evenly and fresh air is available to recharge you.

10 Feng Shui Tips To Unlocking A Better Home Living In Your Bedroom

1. Do not display too many electrical components and equipment in your bedroom

The good feng shui energy or chi in your bedroom will be destroyed when there are too many electronics items in your bedroom. Electronics are known to have negative ions which in terms of feng shui are bad chi or bad energy that will be an interference to a good night sleep.

2. Open the windows in your bedroom

Open the windows in your bedroom frequently to let the good air and energy to enter into your room and bad energy to escape to the outside. Remember to open your windows wide to allow air to be purified and keep the air in your bedroom fresh and full of oxygen. From a feng shui perspective, you cannot have good feng shui in your bedroom if the air you breathe in your bedroom is stale and full of pollutants.

3. Position your bed so that you can see the door from where you sleep.

It is a fact that the dead are being carried out with their head facing the door. If you sleep with the door behind your head, it is an extremely bad feng shui and you will attract bad luck and misfortune. Position your bed so that you can see the door from where you sleep as this gives you a deep sense of inner security.

4. Keep all the doors in your bedroom closed at night

You must close all the doors in your bedroom, be it the closet doors and the bathroom door. By doing this, you will allow the best and most nourishing flow of energy to strengthen your health and also bring your relationship with others to be in good harmony.

5. Have a good headboard

When you are sleeping on your bed, make sure that you have a good solid headboard behind your head while you are sleeping. The reason behind this is that, when you are drifting off to sleep on your bed, your whole body system is undergoing an extra busy energy repair and rejuvenation on many levels. Hence, your head needs good solid backing, protection and support just like your back needs a support when you are seating on a chair for a long period of time. Feng Shui Bedside Tables

6. Position your bed to have more space for each other if you are sleeping with another person

If you are sleeping with your love partner, you must take note of the position of your bed relative to the wall that it is up against. Make sure either of you is not crammed into a corner of a room. Place your bed in a spacious area so that both of you have space to move around on the left or right. This is because, a shared bed crammed into a corner of a room is giving more freedom of chi to the individual on the open side while the other individual will be squeezed to a corner against the wall which is not conducive to good energy flow. This is a very significant feng shui principle if you want to have a good relationship with your significant other.

7. Induce good dimming lighting in your bedroom

Have good levels of lighting that are not very bright in your bedroom. You can even use a dimmer switch to adjust the energy accordingly. Light is one of the strongest manifestation of energy and by placing some dim lighting in your bedroom, you are creating a soothing and relaxing atmosphere. Light also helps to prevent the chi or energy from being stagnant in one corner and helps to distribute these energy evenly around the bedroom. In fact, candles are the best feng shui bedroom lighting, but be sure to buy candles with no toxins.

8. Place your bed in the area further from the door

Never place your bed near to the door or worse still, in line with the door. In other words, you want to be able to see the bedroom’s door while in bed but not be aligned in a straight line with the door. By saying this, it is not only your bedroom’s door that you must take note, your bed should also not be in line with your bathroom’s door, your door to the balcony or your closet doors. In short, you do not want your bed to be in line with any of the doors in your bedroom.

9. Place matching bedside tables on either side of your bed

If two sleep in the bed, make sure you have matching bedside tables on either side of your bed to add stability and protection in the relationship. In addition, make sure that your bedside tables do not have square edges as the sharp points at the end will cause cutting shar chi or killing energy to being focused towards the occupants. Instead, choose bedside tables that have rounded edges.

10. Make sure your bed is in a good height and do not have storage items below your bed

One of the most important feng shui tips for a good bedroom is that your bed must have a good height above the ground. This is to allow for a balanced feng shui chi or energy to flow under the bed. In addition, you must not have built-in storage drawers underneath your bed and these are considered bad feng shui beds. The reason behind is that, the energy or chi needs to circulate around your body when you are sleeping, which is not possible if the space underneath your bed is being blocked. Pay attention to what is under your bed. Keep the space clear and get rid of any unwanted items there. Hence, the ultimate taboo is not to place any storage items beneath your bed and make sure that your bed is in a good height and not too low to the floor.

Conclusion

The truth you need to understand is that very few bedrooms have perfect feng shui. Unless, you had the luck to design and build your house with good feng shui in mind, most probably, you will be facing some challenges to create a good feng shui bedroom. Nevertheless, the good news is, you can check up our website stated below to learn more amazing feng shui tips on how to feng shui your bedroom for a better home living. Feng Shui Bedside Tables

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