House Improvement Tips

Decorative Candles Add Warmth and Comfort to Your Home

Decorative Candles Add Warmth and Comfort to Your Home

By: Raluca Ratiu

If you’re decorating on a budget - and who isn’t these days - candles are the perfect inexpensive accessory to add warmth, comfort, and elegance to your home. If you haven’t shopped for candles lately, you may be surprised at the variety of types of candles that are available. Here’s just a sampling:

Taper Candles

Taper candles are the traditional candles that fit in candlestick holders and add a touch of romance or elegance to the dinner table. They’re perfect for weddings, as taper candles come in a wide variety of colors that complement autumn, spring, and summer weddings. Although taper candles come in a variety of lengths, the standard length is 12 inches. When shopping for taper candles, look for those that are fragrance free, smokeless, and dripless. You don’t want the scent of the candles to overwhelm your dinner guests’ palates, and you certainly don’t want wax puddles on your good table linens!

Votive Candles

Votive candles are wonderfully diverse. Once associated only with churches, today votive candles are a wonderful accent to the home. When placed in votive candleholders, you don’t have to worry about wax drips and spills. Because of their small size, more is always better. Place a dozen around your bathtub and enjoy the luxurious feeling of a relaxing bath by candlelight. Line them up in varying heights on your fireplace mantle to add a warm glow to your living room. Votive candles come in a wide variety of scents, so you can control the mood of your room. Go for the strong scent of magnolias in the summertime, and the cozy scent of vanilla in the winter.

Five Accessories to Brighten Your Home
Five Accessories to Brighten Your HomeBy Dakota Caudilla Home accessories come in all shapes, colors and sizes and there s an accessory for every room in your home. Finding creative ways to use pillows, lighting, mirrors, flowers and candles can make all the difference if you are feeling trap...

Lightening up the Occasion with Floating Candles
Lightening up the Occasion with Floating CandlesBy Randy John Most already know that adding the special touch of a candle to any situation can be a great way to lighten up the celebration. For those that are looking and debating at the types of candles that are available, floating candles may...

Highly Scented Candles - With Fragrance Or Essential Oils
Highly Scented Candles - With Fragrance Or Essential OilsBy Peter Clark The majority of highly scented candles use fragrance oils, which means the intention is to scent the air of a room. However, you can also have highly scented candles that use essential oils. This type of candle has many t...

Clear Wax Candles vs. Gel Candles
Clear Wax Candles vs. Gel CandlesBy Lisa Robbin In the last five years a new type of clear candle has emerged - freestanding resin-based (aka clear wax) candles. Using a base of mineral oil, the candle uses a patented resin as the stabilizer, creating a candle that outshines both traditional...

Decorating With the Stature of Large Long Candles
Decorating With the Stature of Large Long CandlesBy Chrystal Holman From the wide selection of types of candles available on the market, large long candles are perhaps amongst the most treasured. Almost all candle manufacturers offer beautiful large long candles in their collections in a rain...

They are available in a wide variety of colors to complement your decorating scheme, and are often lightly scented to add a fresh or warm ambiance to your room.

Pillar Candles

As their name implies, pillar candles are chunky columns - candles that are the perfect inexpensive home accessory. Because the come in any number of varying heights, pillar candles are perfect for arranging in sets. Remember to always use three or five candles when creating a pillar candle setting, as the odd number draws the eye’s attention and is aesthetically pleasing.

Floating Candles

If you have a pool, consider incorporating floating candles into your party decorations. At night, the light on the water has a dazzling effect - one that will help make your party memorable. Whether you’re serving appetizers or dinner outdoors, or whether your dining room overlooks the backyard, floating candles will capture the attention and imagination of your guests.

Tin Candles

If you work involves traveling, you no doubt tire of sterile hotel rooms. Travel candles come in tins with covers, and allow you to take a bit of home with you on the road. Tin candles come in a variety of scents - from avocado and vanilla to green tea and ginger - and in a small size that’s easy to tuck into your suitcase or overnight bag.

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Related Tags: fireplace mantle, votive candleholders, pillar candles, traditional candles, candlestick holders

Simple Home Improvement Ideas to Maximize Appeal

Simple Home Improvement Ideas to Maximize Appeal
By John Rutledge

If you want to improve or update your home, but aren t ready to take on major demolitions or rebuilding projects, this article will show you six ways you can make a big impact with minimal effort.

1. Landscaping

The average resale return on any landscaping project is 100 percent. That means every dollar you put into your lawn will come back to you at sale time. If you re not sure where to start, most garden centers either offer free consulting services or can refer you to a garden designer.

2. Paint

Inside or out, paint is the most cost-effective improvement you can make. For just a couple hours work and a few dollars a gallon, you can dramatically change the appearance of your home. Before any paint job, remember to wash the walls, patch up any holes or dents, tape the trim and lay down a tarp to protect the floors.

If you want to create the illusion of space, opt for softer and lighter colors like pastels and light, neutral tones. These will make a room seem larger and more open.

3. Organize Your Closets

If you re wrestling for space, one of the simplest solutions is basic organization. By updating your closets, you can unearth an enormous amount of unused space and make your closets functional again.

Usually, prepackaged closet kits are going to be more economical than purchasing individual components. You can typically get a good closet organization system for less than a few hundred dollars.

4. Update Your Accessories

If you don t have time to redo your flooring, buy a new couch and totally overhaul your living room, try simply updating your accessories. It s amazing how quickly new rugs, light switches, pillows, ceiling fixtures and window furnishings can update a room. In the real estate business, this is called “staging” a room.

Small Space Bathroom Remodeling - Maximize the Space and Save
Small Space Bathroom Remodeling - Maximize the Space and SaveBy Gregg Hicks Is your bathroom small? Are you trying to figure out how to accomplish magic with small space bathroom remodeling? You ll be amazed at what you can accomplish by using a few tips form the pros. First off, you re not...

Small Kitchen Remodeling - 5 Ideas To Maximize Your Kitchen Space
Small Kitchen Remodeling - 5 Ideas To Maximize Your Kitchen SpaceBy Tim Lee With the ability to take moderate sizes of kitchen appliances, small kitchen can still be remodeled and maximize its function without having to add extra space. The idea is to maximize the space left and conceptualize...

Practical Ideas to Maximize Storage Space
Practical Ideas to Maximize Storage SpaceBy Lester Fong Those looking for practical ideas to maximize storage space, here re some tips. First, try looking beyond the obvious to the slightly more unusual - the angled area beneath the stairs or the space beneath the eaves, for instance. Look, t...

Using Interior Decorating Magazines to Decorate Your Home
Using Interior Decorating Magazines to Decorate Your HomeBy Andrew Caxton How in the world do you find the right decorating scheme for your home? Everywhere you turn, there are different and new ideas that you can use, but which one will work for you? Each room in your home presents a differe...

Garden Landscaping Ideas - Beautify Your Garden With 5 Simple Tips
Garden Landscaping Ideas - Beautify Your Garden With 5 Simple TipsBy Tim Lee Garden landscaping, like other home activities require proper planning. There are many typical garden landscaping ideas, features and design available to inspire you to begin with an eye-catching landscape project. T...

Bathroom Remodels

Because bathrooms are small, they re not as huge of an undertaking as redoing a whole kitchen or refinishing a basement. While plumbing and wiring can get expensive, bathroom overhauls offer a great return on your investment.

For simple fixes, you can re-caulk a tub or have it re-glazed for less than $400. Meanwhile, tile fixes can be cheap if you find great tile on sale.

6. Update Your Lighting

New lighting and fixtures can cost anywhere from $100 to about $500 per room, and you can dramatically alter both the mood and the appearance of your dcor along with the cost of your monthly electricity bill.

For information on practical home flooring recommendations, please visit http://www.home-flooring-styles.com, a popular site providing great insights concerning help with floor renovation ideas, such as Armstrong Vinyl Flooring, Mannington Flooring, and many more!

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Related Tags: closet organization system, free consulting services, home improvement ideas, john rutledge, simplest solutions