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Wednesday 16 September 2015

Quick and Easy Bathroom Decorating Ideas

If you’re tired of walking into your dated bathroom and dream of a change, we’ve got bathroom decorating ideas for you that are inexpensive and simple to do.
The most important upgrade you can make in your bathroom involves lighting. A Swedish study found that lighting, paired with the right color, affects mood. Changing out your lighting is not difficult or expensive to do, but makes a bathroom look fresher and larger.
Older lighting fixtures and fluorescent lighting cast unattractive shadows and odd color hues on your skin. If changing a fixture isn’t possible, you can upgrade the bulb with some of the new fluorescent bulbs that are similar in color warmth to the light cast on a bright, sunny day.
Once you’ve upgraded the lighting quality of your bathroom, paint is the next quick and easy upgrade to the bathroom. Pick light colors for large surfaces like the walls and save the darker, richer tones for accents. Check how your color choices look in your upgraded lighting before you paint, since color temperature can change a color’s shade.
Set a weekend aside, invite friends over and try a few of these ideas to give your bathroom a facelift.

Here is an overview of our quick and easy bathroom decorating ideas:

Paint

Paint your walls with the perfect shade you selected. It’s no longer necessary to choose gloss in a bathroom to combat moisture, ask the paint shop to add an additive to matte paint to keep it from mildewing.
Don’t just paint the walls — purchase an eggshell or semi-gloss paint and paint the cabinets, too.

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Lighting Fixture Replacement

There’s a great variety of affordable lighting fixtures available. Replace outdated lighting fixtures with new ones from your home improvement store. Electrical projects are best left to professionals, but with some guidance, switching out lighting fixtures shouldn’t be difficult for a DIY-er.
Be original when upgrading lighting. Bathroom lighting trends include hanging pendants and light bars that diffuse light in a room. Select LED lighting fixtures since they’re the most energy efficient and don’t heat your bathroom up.

Bathroom Works of Art

There’s no need to stare at unadorned walls in your bathroom. Treated canvas prints are water resistant and affordable. Go for oversized proportions for the best visual impact. For a unique look, have a local printer blow up a favorite photo into customized wall art. Nowadays, custom printers can create canvas prints and even laminate them for water resistance.
When thinking of bathroom decorating ideas for art, think beyond a canvas print. A wall gallery of favorite objects like starfish or baskets can be another way to decorate your bathroom walls.

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Redecorate existing tile

If your tile is boring and there’s not much you can do about it, try removable adhesive tiles like the ones shown above. They’re easy to cut and install, look like the real deal and can be removed without damaging the surface behind it.

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Hardware upgrade, and we’re not talking laptops

A quick and easy bathroom decorating idea involves changing out your bathroom’s hardware like drawer pulls, towel bars and the toilet paper holder. Especially if you’re bathroom is “adorned” with gold brass circa 1978.
Replacement is as simple as unscrewing or popping off the old hardware and adding a new one. To keep this project quick and easy, be sure you are replacing old hardware with similarly sized screw hole spacing, especially on bar style drawer pulls that require to screws. It’ll mean less holes to make (and hide) in the cabinets and walls.

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From the Ground Up

There are DIY-friendly flooring options today that are modern and easy to work with. Affordable, resilient vinyl floor planks are available at most home improvement stores and come in a variety of wood species and patterns. They’re realistic looking (white washed oak shown above) and include texture and imperfections on the surface, much like a real wood floor or stone tile would. Installing is as easy as scoring with a blade, peeling and sticking. The best part is that they’re waterproof and come with long warranties against wear and tear.
The addition of a woven vinyl floor rug by Chilewich is another option. The rugs are industrial strength, can be ordered in custom sizes and have a rubber backing that adds padding and comfort to your bathroom floor.
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Maximize Storage

Decluttering the bathroom will give it a freshly updated look. If you’re space challenged, look at how you can improve on existing storage. Adding pull-out drawers (that sort items easier) into a cabinet is an easy weekend upgrade. Standard sizes of pull-out drawers are available at most home improvement stores.
Other ways to maximize storage include:
–Floating wall shelves
–Wall mounted baskets
–Adding a small furniture-style cabinet to the room

Upgrade Your Textiles

You’re now on your final bathroom decorating stages. This part’s like adding a giant bow to a present. Donate or throw away your old, mismatched towels and add new soft goods to your bathroom. An accent color or pattern would be a modern design touch. Add the following new textiles to your bathroom:
–Towels
–Floor mat
–Shower curtain. If you have a color you’re working with for your towels and floor mat, choose a patterned or printed shower curtain that contains some of that color to add pop to your bathroom

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Accessorize

Your bathroom should have an updated look now. It’s time to add personality. Some bathroom decorating ideas that add the finishing touches to your bathroom include:
–A wastebasket and bathroom soap dish or soap pump
–A silk floral or live plant if there’s natural light available. Orchids are a great bathroom plant — they love the humidity in a bright  bathroom
–Elements like a candle or room diffuser that add a nice scent to the room

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Designed Shipping Container Homes for Life Inside the Box

The hottest trend of shipping container homes fulfills many design desires: living simply, lessening clutter, being environmentally conscious, building a home on a budget, and the chance to do something totally modern and different that makes your neighbors’ jaws drop.
But there are other practical aspects to living in a shipping container home. Your house is fireproof and low maintenance. You can live in a container home almost anywhere, and lock it up when you’re away. Even better, smaller container homes can move with you. Shipping container homes can be modular: just stack two or three or more as needed. 

The Previous Life of a Shipping Container Home

Shipping containers are made of steel and built to withstand weather, heavy stacking and ocean travel. While their lifespan can easily be 30 years, most shipping companies use them considerably less before putting them out to pasture. A typical shipping container work lifespan is 10 years or less.
Because of this there are reportedly 30 million unused shipping containers sitting around. A decent one can be bought for as little as $2000.

Shipping Container Home Plans

The standard container sizes measure 8’ wide and 8’6” high and come in two lengths of 20’ or 40’. There’s a third option which may be harder to find but offers higher ceilings called the high cube. A high cube container measures 40’ long and is 9’6” high.
While a shipping container home plan of 150 square feet is really small, the beauty of working with storage containers is the ability to group them to create a bigger space. The 8747 House overlooking the James River uses several cargo containers.
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Shipping Container Home Challenges

Before heading out to buy a plot of land and build your dream container home, address the following potential issues:

Do I need a permit?

You will probably need several! Some areas don’t allow residential construction using shipping containers, so check with your local planning department first.

What is the weather like in my  area?

Insulating a shipping container can be tricky. Bigger issues include extreme weather changes that can lead to interior moisture condensation and container homes built in windy areas that can create noise problems.

How am I going to get the container on to the property?

An empty 20 foot container can weigh almost 5000 pounds. You’ll probably need the container delivered. Make sure a large truck can enter your property easily and place it on site or you’ll have to deal with very expensive cranes to lift the container into place.

What was the previous life of the container?

Buyer beware on this issue. The contents of many containers are often sprayed with pesticides for ocean travel. Even worse, some shipping containers for sale previously transported toxic chemicals that will ruin your chances of creating a green home. Do your research on the previous life of the shipping container you’re choosing.

Will I need an architect or engineer?

If you’re making cuts and major changes to your container, it’s probably a good idea to consult with experts. The long, vertical walls on a container are load bearing and need reinforcement if cut out for windows or doors. Planning for electrical and plumbing requires professionals, especially to pass permit and planning requirements.
If this all sounds too complicated, go with a prefabricated storage container home. There’s a good variety of companies creating prefab storage container homes for all budgets. HyBrid Architecture offers prefab container homes starting at $29,500. The c192 Nomad model shown below costs $59,500 and is made from a 24′ container with 192 square feet of living space.
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While the thought of living in a cargo container house sounds great, certain creature comforts are necessary to make it worthwhile. After all, the goal of a container home is not to make the owner feel like a stowaway in a box. Here are some shipping container homes that are well designed and comfortable enough to feel more like a home and less like a shipping container. Some of the following shipping container homes ignore the concept of simple, small living by going over the top, but they’re stunning and innovative enough to be worth a look. Enjoy!

Studio Arte Nomad Living, Portugal

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Studio Arte creates small container homes as perfect weekend getaways or guests houses. The interiors are modern and vibrant. Plenty of windows and sliders are incorporated to expand the space to the outdoors.

Cargo Container House, California

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Set in a beautiful forest setting, the project, designed by Modulus, cost about $250,000 and used six stacked cargo containers. The feeling is more treehouse, less shipping container.

Modern Shipping Container Cabin, Colorado

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The stunning home by Tomecek Studio goes well beyond a cabin. It houses 2 bedrooms, 2 baths and separate guest quarters using a total of 7 containers.

Weekend Surf Shack, New Zealand

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MRTN Architects designed this container house to be a vacation home that takes advantage of the outdoors. Almost entirely off the grid, the roof is designed to be a water collection system.

Viña del Mar Apartments, Chile

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The firm James and Mau is well known for their innovative container homes. This apartment project is built on a terraced hillside overlooking the city and coast of Viña del Mar. Each apartment has its own outdoor living area with integrated cargo containers as part of the floor plan.

Container Guest House, Texas

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This backyard guesthouse by Poteet Architects uses a 40 foot long container with 320 square feet of groovy interior space including a wet bar and bathroom.

Casa Incubo, Costa Rica

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The 4300 square foot home and work space is made from 8 containers. Maria Jose Trejos  designed the space to maximize natural air ventilation and light with windows and skylights throughout to reduce the use of electricity.

Maison Conteneur, Canada

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What makes this container home by Collections Dubreuil most spectacular are the interiors. The corrugated steel walls remind you that you’re in a container, but the house is designed to be as luxurious as a standard home.
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Wood panels add a rustic look to the second level of the home. The homeowner can enjoy a soak in the freestanding bathtub with the custom glass garage doors open to bring the outdoors in.

Jaora Shipping Container House Australia
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This ambitious home by Ziegler Build took 31 shipping containers to build and has over 6000 square feet of living space. The master bath above is housed in a container of its own.

Home Contained, Missouri

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Debbie Glassberg says she sees homes where others see containers. She built this home from five containers and 2600 square feet of retro modern design with environmentally conscious options like geothermal heating, plant foam insulation, solar power and a green rooftop.

Art Studio, New York
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Conceived by architect Maziar Behrooz for a client that wanted an art studio for under $60,000. The minimalist space was built from two 40′ containers that cost $2500 each, delivered. The split-level studio is bright and spacious at 840 square feet.

Caterpillar House, Chile

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It’s hard to believe that such an iconic, contemporary house by Sebastian Irarrazaval was built from 12 containers in order to stick to a reasonable budget. The home’s interiors and views overlooking the city of Santiago feels like a million bucks.

Containers of Hope, Costa Rica

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This shipping container home was built out of two containers for $40,000 with enough room (1000 square feet) for the family that commissioned Benjamin Garcia Saxe to build it. The architect hopes to expand his affordable container living project to other parts of the world.