DIY

Kid-Friendly Bathrooms

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Kid-Friendly Bathrooms-img

There are many things to consider when designing a bathroom, especially when you have kids. With a little human in the home, life is a little different, which creates the need for Kid-friendly bathrooms. First think about storage. Kids have their own towels, toys and things for bath time. If you can include a colourful toy box or cabinet just for storing your child’s belongings, it’ll be easier to encourage putting things away.

Then there is the all-important toilet in Kid-friendly bathrooms. From potty to normal toilet is a big step for a small child so a transition toilet is a great idea. And don’t forget the sound of your toilet seat. Little humans tend to let them drop so a seat with a silencer or at least the appropriate padding is a great idea.

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Food

Easiest Creamy Dessert for a Cold Winter’s Evening

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Many years ago high school students who took ‘Home Economics’ were taught to cook commonsense meals that were both easy, nutritional and budget-friendly. But that changed to a much more complicated version of cooking where students learned all about meals from other countries and cooked fancy meals that were more suitable for a celebration rather than a staple family meal.

There are now a few generations of people who didn’t ever learn the art of cooking wholesome family meals that could be done without having to read a cookbook or learn a whole new language. The rise of fast foods was helped by this lack, as people just want to get something to eat quickly and easily. And they didn’t really know how to do it without going to a lot of trouble to find out.

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Garden

How to Retain the Romance of Bali

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Romance of Bali

Travelling overseas for a holiday is an exciting time. Many places such as Bali are very popular holiday destinations for Australian tourists, because it is fairly close and we love the friendly Indonesian culture. But rather than forgetting all about it once you return home, why not retain the romance of the region by keeping something of it in your home or garden?

Much outdoor furniture reflects the culture of other countries. While you are in Bali take note of all the wonderful furniture – not in the hotels, but in the Bali villas and other similar accommodations that more truly reflect the Bali lifestyle. Then when you get back home you’ll be able to find similar styles or imports from that country for your own home.

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DIY

10 Kitchen Trends

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Let’s face it, the kitchen is the heart of your home and the kitchen is one room which reveals your personality and your style. With the year about to end, let’s look back at the top kitchen trends for 2013. According to the design experts at the lifestyle channel, here are the top 10 Australian kitchen trends:

High-Tech: If you like to keep up with the latest kitchen trends in design, gadgets and style then your cooking HQ will almost certainly have LED lighting and the latest in hidden hi-tech gadgets. Pop-up range hoods and dishwashers hidden behind kitchen cabinetry are all common design elements in new and upcoming kitchens.

Retro: Of course modern kitchen trends can include older styles in the ‘everything old is new again’ situation. There’s nothing like a touch of retro to show how modern you really are.

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Parenting

Tips for Car Travel with Children

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Tips for Car Travel with Children-min

Travelling long distances in the car with children can be less than pleasant because kids love to move around rather than sit for long hours. They get bored and restless sitting in their car seats so it is up to the parents to find some way of entertaining them. This is easier to do these days with the technology that is available.

Older children can listen to their music or watch a DVD, but there are other things they can do when they get sick of that. Games such as counting certain coloured cars or writing down place or river names are interesting to older children. Puzzle books or colouring in can also be a good choice so long as the road is bitumen and not a bumpy, dirt road.

But if your children are still toddlers it can be difficult to amuse them. Here are some tips to keep them happy in the car: –

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DIY

Big Ideas for Tiny Bathrooms

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There is nothing more frustrating than having tiny bathrooms that feel cramped and has little to no storage. However there are ways to turn an uninspiring and small bathroom into a stylish and practical space. These ideas are simple, can often be DIY and are inexpensive. Bathrooms are essential and so too are the many implements and products we store there. But where to store is often the taxing question.

One brilliant solution is to install a medicine cabinet on the walls of tiny bathrooms; these cabinets are slim but capable of holding a variety of products safely. White such cabinets look great and when attached to a wall in your bathroom gives you storage without much if any hindrance. The ideal spot is over the toilet but because of the shallow size of the cabinet, there is little or no chance of banging your head. Just keep the toilet lid down before opening the cabinet!

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Garden

Why Colorbond Roofing is Better Than Tiles for Your Home Design

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What you choose for your home design depends on several things; personal preferences, budget, availability and even what the council may or may not allow in your suburb. Two of the most common materials for the roofs of homes today are tiles and Colorbond roofing. Most of the cheaper tiles are made from concrete, although you can get slate and terracotta tiles. Whether you are building a new home or doing a roof restoration, there are a few things to consider.

Colorbond roofing is often considered better than tiles for your home design for several reasons: –

  • It is much lighter at only 10% the weight of concrete tiles. This has several advantages such as a lighter roof framework with rafters further apart.
  • Colorbond roofing does not absorb water like tiles do, so it remains lightweight even in wet weather. Tiles become even heavier as they absorb the water and so all engineering specifications have to take this into consideration. The framework and rafters of the home need to be much stronger and heavier to bear the weight.
  • Since steel roofing does not absorb moisture, if you want to harvest the rainwater from your roof, you will get much more from Colorbond. In addition, the water will be cleaner because debris and dust tend to blow straight off, rather than stick to it like it does to tiles.

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LifeStyle

Finding a Place to Really Relax

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outdoor relaxation area

If you have ever been on a luxury yacht, especially one like Amara, designed by Sam Sorgiovanni, you will have seen just how many relaxation and entertainment areas there are.  All are a little different and many areas are designed especially for other cultures where chairs and lounges are not so important, but piles of cushions on the floor or on a large, raised, padded platform provide comfort to anyone wanting to use them.

While many furnishing trends travel from home to ship, sometimes that is reversed, with up-market homes following trends that are seen in luxury yachts, especially the really big ones where opulence is key. Almost any home can be improved with more relaxation areas that offer the ultimate in comfort, whatever that may be to the owners. If you are feeling stressed out and tired, it could be that there is no truly welcoming and comfortable space in your home that calls you in to relax.

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Food

SUGAR! Delicious and Deadly

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More than 30 years ago I noticed that eating sugared foods made me extremely tired in the mornings. A little sugar in the water to boil carrots gave me “sugar eyes” – that’s what I called the sense of glue in the morning as I tried to open my eyes. A cup of coffee and a donut would literally keep me from getting out of bed – I was habitually late for work. I did not realize it was the sugar until I stopped putting sugar in my coffee and replaced donuts with hot unsweetened cereal. After three days of this new regime, I got up early and I had clear eyes – no sugar eyes! I was alert and awake! What a discovery!

Feeling well is a great incentive. After that experience I pretty much cut out refined sugar from my diet. Every so often I’d stray, but the fatigue and the “sugar eyes” kept reminding me. What I also noticed is that my moods changed dramatically once I quit eating sugar. From my usual slight malaise, a vague sensation of sadness or minor depression, I went to feeling normal and OK pretty much most of the time. What surprised me was that such experiences were dismissed by the mainstream nutritionists, and other parents were horrified when I mentioned that I gave my children no sugared cookies, ice cream, or candy – ever. (If they got it themselves, that was not my problem; they just didn’t get it in the house from me.) That was because I had found, early on, as do many parents, that the kids often go crazy when they get sugar.

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Health

Preventing Childhood Obesity

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There have been a number of articles about obesity and children, and frequently there are words used such as “surge,” “epidemic,” and “growing problem.” Let’s take a look at what the issues are.

Obesity has a popular meaning (just plain fat – we know it when we see it) and a technical meaning. Overweight (chubby) is the same. And here comes the interesting thing: official technical meanings of these two words have changed. They deal with the body mass index, or BMI, which is the ratio of weight to height, and is arrived at by the following method: multiply the weight in pounds by 703, then multiply the height in inches by height in inches, then divide the first number by the second. If using the metric system, the numbers are weight in kg divided by the square of height in meters.

Before 1998, a BMI of 27 or more was considered overweight. But in June 1998, new cut-off weights were implemented. The BMI for overweight became 25 to 30, and anything over 30 became obese. Thus, overnight a lot of people became overweight who were considered normal the day before.

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