Visit the Shaks

Say hello to warmer colors, and goodbye to minimalism. It appears that several interior designers and industry insiders are saying you should be ready to introduce color into your decor. According to Sean O'Driscoll of the Associated Press in an article Hot Trends Of Home Design for 2008 , Minimalism is out.

“Susan Gutfreund, who designs for some of the most expensive apartments in the U.S and Europe, said that minimalist white and beige are being pushed out in favor of color, textures and layers. Speaking from Paris where she is redesigning an apartment, Gutfreund said there is a move toward warmer colors and away from the shininess and flatness of interiors over the last few years.

In 2008, red tones take on a decidedly soft, warm feel, such as watermelon or a carrot orange. Black and white continues to be used, but with unexpected combinations of yellow, lime orange and fresh green," she said.

Janice Simonsen of IKEA Designs said

“fruit colors such as lime yellow, kiwi and tangerine will be very popular in 2008, especially when used in the kitchen. But blue will continue to be the number one color choice for homeowners. In 2008, blue will be combined with camel and tan, pale green and yellow,” she said.

Think you’re ready to try out 2008 colors but not sure what fits your style? CALFINDER (the source for certified remodeling contractors) has an excellent post about basic color psychology. They say,

"All too often homeowners choose colors without understanding basic color psychology. Color impacts our mood, appetite, and energy level. Years of color response research have shown that certain colors elicit specific and often strong responses."

Check out their awesome post Color Options-Painting for a guide to help you narrow the choices when choosing colors for your home.

Also remember you can get FREE ESTIMATES from CALFINDER for pre-qualified contractors in your area to do the work for you when you’re ready to add that splash of color to your life! From painting to general remodeling, to complete home renovations, they have the expert for you.

What colors do you plan to decorate with this year? Leave us a comment, we'd love to know!

Would you like a Christmas craft that is eco-friendly? Recycle your plastic bags and make a pretty wreath! Two Peas In A Bucket has a great tutorial here! I think you could make these a lot smaller and have some great ornaments as well.

Via: Craftzine

Finding a good contractor for your remodeling project can be a dicey proposition. A friend of mine recently interviewed a contractor who got into a screaming match with his ex-wife on his cell phone while she was interviewing him. My parents hired contractors who left the state, leaving their job unfinished and with their money long gone. We've all heard the contractor horror stories before.

If only you knew who to call, to avoid getting ripped off. Well, now you do; our friends over at CALFINDER has started a network that has taken the worry out of the process. CALFINDER was developed by homeowners for homeowners.They do the screening of contractors for you as well as conduct ongoing monitoring and customer satisfaction surveys. All CALFINDER's contractors are carefully pre-screened and monitored. Here's just a few of the services you get when you partner with CALFINDER to find your next contractor;

"Before we certify a contractor we perform a variety of checks. Below are just a few of those checks:In-depth check of current license and insurance coverage   

• Personal interview with at least 10 previous clients ensuring customer satisfaction and business reliability
• Ongoing monitoring and customer satisfaction surveys
• Follow up with each homeowner we work with to ensure that our contractors are providing a great service

CALFINDER’s founders, who have a diverse background in construction, computer technology and business management, realized that planning and executing home improvement projects are incredibly time-consuming and expensive and believed they could fill a void by developing a reliable source to help local homeowners find high-quality contractors. CALFINDER was established in 2005 covering main home improvement projects including home remodeling, painting and window installation. Working with a vast network of 200 top-notch, professional contractors, CALFINDER handles more than 600 homeowner service requests per month."

We at Shakhammer think this is a great solution to taking the worry out of finding a good general contractor who is good enough to work on one of your most valuable assets- your home. Check out their home improvement and remodeling blog too for the most up-to-date information on home rejuvenation trends and remodeling projects.

My kids love to make "forts", either by using the sofa as a prop, or the dining room table as a prop. The only problem with that is they use dang near every extra blanket we have and then I end up having to put the blankets in the laundry because kids and cats are messy.

Maybe I wouldn't have to do this, if I had a nifty table cover like this! This is good stuff, I need to think about making something like this.

HT: Craftzine
Photo: Melissa Goodsell

Create You Squidoo Lens On A Shak Subject And You Could Be Featured On Shakadoo! Once you have built your lens, submit it to the group HERE.

Laminate Flooring Guide by JonitasKalimpo

Laminate Flooring, Make a Dream Home

Unlike hardwood, laminate floors will not stain, fade, dent and are far more scratch and water resistant. Warranties range from 10 years to lifetime and cover such factors as mentioned above. Entry level laminate wood flooring is designed for light traffic areas and come with warranties ranging from 10 to 15 years. Most people set their expectations too high and expect that entry level floors will perform under heavy traffic conditions and still look good for the duration of the warranty. This is however not the case, as an entry level floor subject to high traffic will start to show wear and tear within three to five years.

We hope this guide will help to understand better what laminate flooring is and how can improve your home, ALOT!

Everything You Need To Know on Laminate Flooring

Laminate Flooring mimics the look of traditional woods while offering easy installation and lasting durability. At first glance, it can be difficult to spot the difference between hardwoods and laminate flooring. What appears to be a natural wood grain pattern is really a thin layer of decor paper (a photographic image) under a tough-as-nails protective film that is glued and pressed to a high-density backing board. Laminate Flooring comes in an array of wood effects as well as stone and ceramic effects.

Laminate floorings main advantages are that it is easy to install, is very hardwearing and relatively inexpensive compared to real hardwood flooring.

Laminate flooring is a floating floor, which means it does not fasten directly to the sub-floor. Instead the planks are clicked together. This enables the floor to be fitted fast and with no real mess.

Most laminate floors today fit together with a click system with the most common being the UNICLIC system as used by Quick-Step. This is extremely easy and fast to fit. The ingenious UNICLIC-system has a special shape of tongue and groove. You simply place the tongue of one plank into the grove of another at an angle and press down. Their sophisticated and very accurate milled shape makes it possible to create a very tight connection during the installation. The floor can be walked on straight away.

If you are laying laminate flooring over a concrete sub-floor then you will fist need to lay down a damp proof membrane (DPM). This is basically a sheet of plastic usually around 5mm which helps protect the Laminate from moisture. On top of this goes the foam underlay this acts as sound absorption and also helps even out minor irregularities in the sub-floor.

Most manufactories now offer a combined DPM and underlay along with several underlay's that have better sound absorbing qualities
Most of the leading laminate floor manufactories now also have ranges of flooring that also include built in underlay. This underlay is pre-fitted to the bottom of the flooring and is usually of sound absorbing quality. You do not need to install this type of floor a secondary but if you are laying over a concrete sub-floor you still have to lay down a D.P.M. (Damp Proof Membrane) first.

Laminate flooring has been around in Europe for around 15 years and has seen massive growth in the past few years read the rest....... 

To learn everything you ever wanted to know about laminate flooring, visit the entire lens by clicking: Laminate Flooring Guide

Maybe you need a swell new way to organize your spices, or perhaps you have decided to make your Christmas gifts this year and want to give something useful but still cool. Here are two ways to make spice containers.

First, we have Mookie Moo's spice boxes. (pictured) This is a great way to store the bulk spices you've picked up in various places. The cork keeps them fresh yet easily accessible.

Second, we have magnetic spice containers from My Aim Is True- she used watchmaker's tins and super strong magnets to make them. You could hang them on the refrigerator if it's close, or on the wall as shown here.

Both are innovative and cool ways to store spices, or they could make great Christmas gifts. Melinda at Mookie Moo suggested giving "theme spices" as a gift, chili spices, for example.

[photo credit: Mookie Moo]

I've used the Habitat for Humanity ReStore to buy building supplies for my home. The prices are very reasonable and you're helping your community at the same time.

Wise Bread has a great post today about the ReStore. Check it out!

Happy Halloween from all of us at Shakhammer! Over at Shakyard, I've given the readers a treat. Lucky Shakhammerers, you guys are going to get a treat as well. That can only mean the poor, poor Love Shak Baby readers are going to get a trick. Check back there later to find out what the trick is.

Your treat, is a story that comes with a tip. See, one Halloween, my grandma got the idea to rearrange her furniture. She enlisted the help of my brother and me and we pushed and shoved and lugged furniture around the room for much of the day. My mother got home from teaching school and took one look at the new arrangement and said it would never work.

"That chair totally interrupts the flow of the room," she told my grandma. "People are going to run into it all the time."

My grandma, irate because we had spent all that time on the room and my mom had assessed it in 30 seconds and said it wouldn't work, said, "Well, if you're too fat to get past this chair, then I suggest you lose some weight!"

She turned on her heel and started to storm out of the room. Except she ran into the chair on her way out. Mom was right. The chair did interrupt the flow of the room.

Your tip for the day: Test the room for proper flow of traffic by getting irate and fleeing the room. If you run into anything, you may want to consider moving it.

I don't know about you, but one thing I hate doing at my house is hanging pictures.
Remove most pictures from my wall and you will find at least the three holes hidden beneath from the previous attempts I had made before getting it right. One discovery I did find a couple of years ago was the Ryobi Air Grip Laser Level that really made it much easier.

But tonight, I just discovered a site called Expert Village where you can find thousands of how-to videos on hundreds of different topics. I just found a whole collection on how to hang pictures. On this video clip you can watch this interior decorator show you how to do-it yourself with ease. (But I still suggest the Ryobi laser!)

Happy Hanging!

This is an incredible idea. Jennifer at The Felt Mouse has made Halloween surprise tins for her lucky nieces and nephews. Like the "snake jumping out of the can" joke, these Halloween characters will be jumping out. I so totally have to make these for my own kids.

HT: (who else?) Craftzine

I always get an attack of drain flies in the fall. I've found there are 2 things to do that help shorten the duration of the drain fly attack. First, I pour bleach down all the drains in the house. I've never figured out if this actually works or if it's just a placebo, but it makes me feel better.

The next thing is to make a drain fly trap. This works on all kinds of gnats and tiny flies, like fruit flies. Get a small bowl and fill it with vinegar- preferably apple cider, but white vinegar will do also. Put a squirt of dishwashing liquid in and stir gently. Flies will be attracted to the vinegar, but will be unable to climb out of the water due to the surfactant properties of the dishwashing liquid. Soon, you will have a bowlful of dead flies!

Is there always an argument in your house about whose turn it is to do the dishes? Do you constantly forget to change your furnace filter? Having a cleaning schedule with a handy-dandy checklist is the easiest way to keep up with everything.

What chores do you do daily? Weekly? Monthly?

It's the most wonderful time of the year! Better than school starting, better than Christmas, it's nearly time to start decorating for Halloween. Have you got your black cat yet?

Email me with links to pics of your halloween decorating, DIY, and other Halloween related decorating stuff, and I'll feature you on Shakhammer. My email address is badbadivy [at] gmail [dot] com.

There are some things that I wouldn't, personally, DIY. Killing yellow jackets is one of those things. I am allergic to bee stings. I have never been stung by a yellow jacket, but I can only assume it would be a very bad scene if I was.

Carol at May Dreams Gardens is super brave- she decided to try to dust a yellow jacket nest herself. While she did get stung, she did manage to kill at least some of them and has learned a lot from the experience. Go read her story, it's terribly interesting.

Now, here's a contest I could really, ahem, sink my teeth into. Halloween is absolutely my favorite holiday (all the candy that comes with Christmas with none of the "did I get the right presents for everyone" guilt). It's also my daughter's favorite holiday, especially since her birthday falls the day before Halloween.

There are several categories you can win in, but keep in mind, I'll be entering many of them, so beware. (muahahaha!) Head on over and check out the official rules and all the categories.

When I was a kid we lived in a house that was built in the 1940s. The owners at some point had laid carpet over the hardwood flooring. My parents pulled the carpeting up and refinished the hardwood floors, making them simply beautiful. 

It's hard to believe that someone would put crappy shag carpeting over beautiful hardwood flooring, but it was all the rage many years ago. Will the trend swing back toward carpeting or will hardwood floors remain in style?

I think carpeting is better in a bedroom, especially if you live in a colder climate- there's nothing worse than putting your feet down on cold floors first thing in the morning. However, for major living areas I vastly prefer hardwood. People that have nice carpet generally have a rule about wearing shoes in the house- it keeps the carpet nice, but it gets tiresome to take your shoes off as soon as you come in the house, every time you come in the house. I like to wander around with shoes on. I know, I am strange.

What do you think? Hardwood or carpet?

Design Sponge has an awesome story today of a d*s reader who had these designs silkscreened onto their cabinets. The idea absolutely energizes me- I'd love to do something similar with my own cabinets. There are so many things you could do with this.

I especially love the soothing colors and the silhouettes. It makes for a restful kitchen.

What, have a cool-looking fish tank and irritate my cats all at once? I'm so there. I grew up with a fish tank in my home, and I really miss watching the fish. The only problem is, my cats would consider a fish tank to be an all-you-can-eat buffet, so I don't have one.

When I ran across this fish tank, I about jumped with joy. My cats are rather talented, but cannot scale a wall. If I put this far enough away from any furniture, I think I could actually have a fish.

Alas, the only trouble is what the commenters at Amazon are saying- they say it is cruel to keep a fish in such a small tank. Other people say betas enjoy small spaces, so who knows what is really the truth. I still like the idea of being able to have a fish tank without my cats eating the fish. Being eaten by a cat would be truly cruel to the fish, no?

CraftZine pointed to this awesome idea today. Theoretically, it's more craft/DIY than home improvement, however, by crafting, you can usually come up with things to decorate with, so expect some crafting posts here at ShakHammer.

At any rate, the Craft Leftovers blog is selling monthly subscriptions to an awesome zine/leftover craft items package. Here's what you get:

+++A kit for a pattern from the previous month of Craft Leftovers
+++Reclaimed Craft Leftovers goodies (flat quarters of vintage fabric, buttons, iron on patches, etc)
+++Craft Leftovers Monthly - A 10 page zine filled with as much tips on leading a stress free crafty lifestyle, a Craft Leftovers Monthly only project, cutout bonus projects, and reclaimed leftovers sprinkled throughout as a 10 page zine can hold.
+++Little handmade goodies that go along with the zine’s content.

How awesome is that? Act fast if you want one, though, there are only 20 available. Neat stuff, to be sure. 

I've seen lots of neat things in the blogosphere over the past couple of days and wanted to share them all with you. Let's get started with the Orange Slice Table. It's filled with awesome and win, but the $2,900 price tag on it is a little more- okay, a lot more- than I would spend on a table, no matter how nifty. However, I think this could be fairly easily DIYed. It might not have the same finish on it that this table does, but it would look good just regularly painted.

Cassa Sugar has a list of 10 things you can stop cleaning. I don't know that I can agree. As the Casa Sugar author points out, it leans fairly heavily on throwing things away, and that's not a good way to live- not for your wallet and not for the planet. One that I totally agree with is the grill gate. I have always cooked off the residue and then hosed it off. Then, prior to the next grilling, I just handwash the gate with soap to make sure there's no germs on it. Easy peasy.

Since I joined this site, I kept hearing about Life In A Venti Cup. For some unknown reason I assumed it was the same as Triple Venti. When someone recently asked me if I had heard of Life In A Venti Cup, I said, "Jay? Sure, I've been reading him for a long time." "Um, no," said my friend, "The blogger at Life In A Venti Cup's name is Franki, and she's a woman." Once I got all that sorted out, I added Life In A Venti Cup to my feed reader and I am so glad I did! Not only does she have one of the slickest site designs I have ever seen, but she wrote this post, "Lessons I've Learned From Ben Moore" that absolutely cracked me up. Go on over and read it, anybody who has ever struggled with painting will be able to totally relate.

Want a spa-like bathroom but can't pony up the cash for a total remodel? Wise Bread has tips for making your bathroom more spa-like on the cheap.

Finally, we'll wrap this up with a link to pictures of Ree's porch remodeling project. Ree at Confessions Of a Pioneer Woman has the most beautiful photojournaling skills, I can't wait to see how her porch remodel turns out!

My dad always said if you can't fix it with WD-40 and/or duct tape, then it can't be fixed. I largely agree. There's something very awesome about WD-40, the smell takes me back to my childhood, so not only does it have 2000 uses, but it also is useful for making me cheery.

My fave use for WD-40 is definitely using it to remove gum from walls, floors, and anything else it might get onto. I have a three year old who likes to chew gum but hasn't figured out how to keep it in his mouth yet. WD-40 has not yet failed me in removing the gum from whatever places he might get the gum into.

What's your best WD-40 tip?

There's this lamp you really love, but it needs rewiring. Don't throw it away, you can rewire it yourself! Tutorials.com has a great guide to rewiring your lamp. It seriously takes about 15 minutes or so to rewire a lamp, less time if you know what you're doing. The hardest part, to me, is scoring the sheathing without cutting or nicking the copper wire. Just make sure you have a very sharp knife so you don't have to work too hard at getting the sheathing off.

Have fun rewiring your vintage lamp!

Looking for some great ideas for decorating the kid’s bedrooms? Well you could do no better than taking a quick look at the Style Kid blog.

On this blog there are some great ideas, some are fairly grand and complicated, while on the other hand there are some that come in with some great visual effects but are very reasonable in cost.

On this page there are some fantastic ideas, which look great, any child would love to have a room that is decorated in this manner. But that is not all, because all of the rooms featured on this page actually cost $200 or less, which is incredible value.

It really great to find sites where they concentrate on design and value, after all if you spend hundreds of dollars on a room, it bound to look great.

While you do a major job, maybe replacing flooring or some other major alteration. It may be a good idea to move all of the furniture out of the room, preferably out of the house, as this would prevent too much furniture building up inside.

The alternative could be something found on Charles and Hudson, this solution is a temporary storage solution called PODS, these are like shipping containers, but what they do is delivery the POD, you fill it up and then they take back to their secure storage facility, until you are ready to have the POD returned.

This is a great post from Reluctant Memsahib, regarding DIY and what peop le wear. Personally I just things as I am and be done with it.

Yet this blog is a personal life story, but this part is very funny and in the case of some men and DIY very apt indeed. It is nice to get an angle from a normal person, without any cover story, just normal people doing a normal thing. Mind you yellow goggles! Now is that normal?

It would be a great idea if we find out what everyone else wears when they do their DIY, naturally in some cases we do not want to go into to detail, especially from those who like to decorate with no clothing at all!

This is a great way to get yourself a nice, cheap and easy laptop table for your laptop computer or even just to have your lunch on while watching the TV, not that I’ll do anything like that!

Home Tech Apartment Therapy have found this great hack from the blog Ikea hacker, this is a great and cheap way of producing your own fantastic table to work on, while relaxing.

The table starts of as Ikeas own “Benjamin” stool which costs just $19, the only other items required are a saw, to cut the stool down and some sandpaper to rub it down.

When we think of tiles, normally the first impression would be that of a kitchen or a bathroom. Yet after seeing the tiles that designer Bryan Kerrigan has on offer I think that you may just change your mind.

The tiles are manufactured and designed by Bryan Kerrigan, and are normally in stock. The glaze used is from the Mason Color Works; these are available in either high gloss or matte finish depending on your individual taste.

With some of the tile designs it is possible to buy a limited amount and make a feature on a plain wall. By doing this what was once a plain and unattractive wall, has now become a feature and talking point.

Bryan Kerrigan has been commissioned on many architectural installations, which include:

Playboy Club, The Palms Hotel, Las Vegas, NV
The W Hotel, Las Vegas NV
Ghost Bar, The W Hotel, Dallas, TX
Graze Restaurant, Downtown, Chicago, IL
Shapiro Residence, Miami, FL
Wicker Park Residence, Chicago, IL
Effen Vodka Headquarters Showroom, Chicago, IL
Liars Nightclub, Chicago IL
Fly Bird, Oak Park, IL
Morlen Sinoway Atelier - lobby & vestibule, Chicago, IL
The Firm Management Company, Los Angeles, CA

A great feature on the Website is a calculator where the dimensions can be entered, along with the style of tile; the calculator automatically works out how many tiles are required and the estimated cost, which is very helpful indeed.

Source  [Materialicious]

For a touch of class in your home, there can be nothing more exotic than having wallpaper that has been hand made, this wallpaper is so unique that it is sold in sheets, no rolls.

Nama Rococo have been making hand made wallpaper for a while now, their process begins by hand painting the design onto sheets of acid free French paper. Because the design is painted by hand, all the design will different and therefore they will appear to be unique to that batch. Once the first step has been completed, then the printing can be done.

Using the silk screen and some other traditional printing systems, the wallpaper sheets are printed; this again is done by hand giving the wallpaper that special touch.

So if you are looking to get a really luxurious touch to one of your rooms, or even just one wall, then the Nama Rococo collection could be just what you are looking for.

Product Page  [Nama Rococo]