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Furniture Placement 102: Odd Shaped and Unusual Rooms

(cc) image by Christopher Barson/flickr In Furniture Placement 101 I gave some basics about placing furniture that will help you greatly in arranging a room. The rules are simple enough to follow in a normal rectangular room with only one traffic pattern, but what do you do in rooms that are oblong, filled with windows, or L or other oddly shaped rooms? Long Rectangular rooms: Create multiple furniture arrangements in a long room. Have each portion of the room serve a different purpose. You should however avoid splitting the room evenly in two. For example, you can have music or … Continue reading →

Furniture Placement 101

(cc) image by Christopher Barson/flickr I grew up in a home with one basic furniture placement rule. Line up the furniture against the walls, and place a chair by the window. That was it. My parents were much more interested in function that style. Besides with 9 kids in the house, we needed as much floor space as possible, and mom and dad needed a chair to sit in when they were taking turns watching us play outside. As I only have two kids of my own, and am a visual person by nature, I am much more interested in … Continue reading →

Tips for Making Your House a Home

Is your house really your home or just some shelter that keeps out the cold and gives you a private place to sleep? With the economic downturn, many people are rediscovering the joy of having a place to live that is a true home, cozy, warm, inviting, and a place of sanctuary. Here are some tips for turning your house into more of a home. Good cooking Forget take out or convenience foods. Forget the diet fads and just concentration on healthy meals. Relax in your home and get familiar with the kitchen. Nothing says home more than anything else … Continue reading →

Leave Your Appliances Open to Save Money

The rule in our household is to leave a room the same way you found it. That means turning off lights that you turned on, closing doors you opened and putting away anything you took out. But there are at least two ways when it is a good idea to actually leave appliances open. The biggest money saver when it comes to leaving an appliance door open is the dishwasher. After we run the night’s load of dishes, I will open the dishwasher before it gets to the dry cycle. I pull the racks out and let the dishes air … Continue reading →

The Frugal Blog Week in Review: Jan. 27 to Feb. 2

Hello there! It is a quiet Saturday evening on the day before the Superbowl. my husband is getting the last kid to bed, I’m listening to my new Nora Jones music, and I am seriously thinking of taking a nice hot bath. Before that, though, I wanted to bring you the week in review for the Frugal Living Blog. I know you read every blog faithfully, so I’ll just assume you want to reread them all again. Saturday, January 27 Save on Paper: Take Advantage of Junk Mail In an earlier blog, Save on Paper: The Three Best Ways, I … Continue reading →

Rearrange Your Furniture to Save Money

I am the last person who knows anything about Feng Shui, the ancient Chinese practice of arranging your living space to achieve harmony. My living space is usually filled with bright colored plastic things that beep and buzz, misplaced sippy cups, and little people shoes that always wind up under the couch. Pressed for storage, the under the bed space is a sea of stockpile, organized of course, but still a sea. Our furniture is arranged in such a way that allows the exersaucer to fit in the living room and the baby swing to fit in the office, where … Continue reading →

Home Editing

How often do you edit? If you are a writer like myself, you edit after every article. You remove excess words. You correct errors. You reorganize and you clean up. The same must be done in our homes regularly. The reasons we must practice home editing is human nature. We live in our space and things get out of order. We purchase new things and add them to what we already have. Before long, our homes get crowded, decorating don’ts just do, and we must clean up and re-arrange to make sense of it all. If you think of your … Continue reading →

Using Blankets to Block Drafts

Right now in my house we have the “blanket brigade.” It is the only way to keep warm when the wind-chill is negative 10 and we don’t want to pour our energy cost out the window (and doors). The blanket brigade is in charge of making sure that there is always a heavy blanket blocking the drafts in the house, particularly the outside doors. We fold the blankets, so that there is a good number of layers and then we place them along the bottom of our doors. Whenever a family member needs to go in or out of the … Continue reading →

Conservation Equals Frugality: A Review of Articles

Did you know that you can search articles in the Frugal Living Blog by category? Off on the right side of your screen, below the list of blogs is the “frugal categories” list. You can click on a category to go straight to blogs related to that category. It is a great way to find exactly what you need. One of our newest categories is conservation. This is one of my favorite topics. Not only does conservation save you money, it also saves on resources for the world at large. Conserving resources helps the planet, and also provides additional resources … Continue reading →