Suitable Decorating Styles For The Nursery

You may one day decide to have a baby. This is a big decision, but in my mind the toughest decision relates to picking the right time to do so. It is not just about the body clock: you need to be at that place in your life where both your relationship and career are firmly grounded. You do not want to wait too long for this to happen though, as you will want to be around to see your child grow up! This exciting process starts with getting ready for baby’s arrival, and kitting out the nursery.

Have you thought of what goes into the decorating of a baby’s room? You have probably started to play around with a few ideas if you are about to have a baby. Decorating the nursery is a wonderful and exciting experience in itself, and an integral part of getting ready to become of parent. First of all you get to pick the color scheme, and paint the room in a color that you have chosen. This obviously depends on your taste but also on whether you’re having a boy or a girl. A lot of couples traditionally veer towards decorating the baby’s room with shades of blue if they’re expecting a boy and tend to choose pinks if it’s a girl. There’s actually no rule about this and I personally don’t subscribe to this point of view. When we were expecting our baby girl I wanted to create a stimulating environment for her, with a lot of interesting colors. I wanted my little girl to be able to peek at a wonderful rainbow of colors from her cot as visual stimulation is an important part of infant development.

While we are on the subject of cots and cribs, this was definitely the most challenging part of the process for me. My mother had bought us a wonderful oak sleigh crib as a gift. It looked absolutely stunning once carried upstairs and assembled. The carrying upstairs bit, though, was a project in itself. The thing was extremely heavy, and of course this is a job for dad. Suffice to say that I now understand how tough it must be to be a mover!

Wood Railings - An Elegant Touch for Your Home

Just picture a large, beautiful home with a spiral staircase in one corner. What material would you expect this staircase to be made of ? The most common materials for such a dramatic statement would be a wood such as teak or mahogany. There is good reason for this. Most people realize that if you want to complement a beautiful home beautifully, you have to do it in wood. For millenia, the preferred choice for household items has been wood. For centuries, man has been crafting beautiful pieces of furniture, such as tables and chairs, and beautiful accoutrements for his home, such as railings and balconies out of wood. Wood of any type gives a home an elegance that is unequaled in any other material. Add to this elegance the long lasting qualities of wood, and you have a perfect combination. To illustrate, there are wood railings in English castles built in the sixteenth century that still hold the mellow beauty of wood. You will not see a five hundred year old metal railing still standing!

A well crafted spiral staircase is not a do-it-yourself project. The intricate curves of a winding staircase are difficult to achieve by an amateur, especially the process involved in creating the winding cap of the wood rail. The pieces are heavy to lift, and cumbersome to put in place properly. To have a lovely spiral staircase, rather than an amatuerish looking job, you need to use the services of a master craftsman. Someone who loves wood railings will enjoy the care and nourishing of this beautiful wood, since teak and mohagany, when kept oiled properly, is a stunning sight to behold.

If you are handy, and want to construct wood railings, straight rails are certainly within the scope of the do-it-yourselfer. This is a project that can be done single-handledly and you do not need a complicated, special purpose workshop to do so.

You will need certain tools to construct your own wooden stair railing, however, and some experience in woodworking. You will have to have the following: a hammer, sanding tools, a power drill and drill bits of various sizes, a circular saw, and a hand saw, clamps for holding wood in place, 12" rough files, a 3/8" socket wrench, as well as sanding tools, sharpening tools and joining tools. Of course, you will also require the standard workshop items such as a level, tape measure, pencils and other drawing instruments, T-square, safety goggles, gloves and dust mask. As noted, a straight wood railing is fairly easy for an amateur wood worker to make, and with enough practice and experience, a dedicated woodworker may eventually be able to graduate to curved railings. With experience building a fence, then perhaps a straight railing on a deck or porch, then an interior railing on a stair or balcony, enough experience can be gained so that a curved railing can be attempted. Practice makes perfect, as we all know, and if one is willing to devote enough time and care to these projects, it can be done. Getting experience working with different types of wood projects will eventually lead to the skills necessary.

Wood Railings Add a Beautiful Touch to Your Porch

Wooden porch railings add character and class to your home's looks. Wooden porch railings add elegance to contemporary and victorian homes, as well as classic and traditional style homes. The look of traditional railings is best achieved by rails crafted from wood, rather than newer materials such as metal. There are many benefits to wooden porch railings besides their classic good looks, however. Designers like to work with wooden porch railings because of the range of freedom they can have in the design. Because of the popularity of wooden porch railings, there is a wide range of components available in wood, at very reasonable prices. The top and bottom rails, the balusters, the posts and all of the other accessories are available in wood of many different styles. These wooden parts are easy to customize to the homeowner's taste, and, once installed, are easy to maintain. Wooden railings are extremely durable while still blending beautifully with the exterior of most homes. Interior wooden trim and flooring also blend nicely with wooden porch railings; this lends a lovely cohesion to a home.

Wooden balusters can be cut into an infinite variety of shapes: square, flat, or round. No wonder wooden porch railings are so popular. There are few other materials that offer the beauty and variety of wood at such a reasonable price. Woodbis an abundant commodity, and so the price of wood is still relatively low. Wood can be cut, sawed and carved into so many different shapes and designs and wood railings are very easy and quick to install. Wooden railings can be weatherproofed with the proper material, making them very durable over time. Wrought iron railings are subject to peeling and corrosion durable if they are not painted frequently.

People frequently choose wood railings over other materials because they can be customized by hand crafting to create a unique look for their home. Lovely custom made railings are easily installed with nails or wood screws. The accessories and furniture people choose for their porches are set off much better with wooden porch railings. Wicker chairs, porch swings, wooden furniture and rocking chairs all look even pretty against the backdrop of a lovely wood railing. Hanging plants and potted trees also look prettier on a porch with wooden railings.

There are many other materials are available for porch railings. These include stone, concrete, brick or metal. You can even combine materials such as wood and metal. But for character and class, nothing beats wood. It is the material one always associates with a classic, traditional style. Add to this feature the fact that wood railings are inexpensive and easy to install, you have a perfect fit with wooden railings