Painting Ideas - 5 Low Cost Ways to Enhance Your Home With Paint

Need Painting Ideas? Below are 5 great ideas for doing it yourself and saving a lot of money when it comes to improving your new home and for adding resale value.

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1. Faux Painting -- good wallpaper can be expensive. And so is the cost of someone doing it for you. On the other hand faux painting if you are doing it yourself can save you a lot of money. So this can be a great low cost way to decorate.

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The secret is to find good faux designs and colors. Then after choosing a specific design, practice it on something before doing any walls. If you get yourself some faux brochures there are some basic finishes that look really nice and are easy to master.

2. Painting Stripes -- this is great for bathrooms and even bedrooms. By choosing the right colors and taking your time, your stripes can turn out looking really nice. The secret is to measure out your strips, use a plum level or regular level and painters tape that is bleed-resistant.

I painted a bathroom in stripes for a customer. Because of the colors they chose and us taking our time to do the job right, it turned out very nice. We saw another job done by someone that was so bad they did not pay him but rather told him to leave and not come back!

3. Painting Stars -- have you ever thought about having an accurate copy of the nighttime sky on your bedroom ceiling or in a game room? Most people usually go out and buy those plastic stick-on stars, which are O.K. if you are into plastic stick-on stars.

Another way to go about getting stars on your ceiling is to check out this inexpensive course from AmazingStarMurals.com. By getting this course you can easily add a night sky mural to any ceiling of your choice. Or you can always hire someone who specializes in this type of artwork.

Your ceiling will look like any other ceiling during the daytime. At night when the lights go out, it looks like the night sky. This is due to a special set of paints. You can make an accurate copy of the night sky. Even the Milky Way will look real. Another great low cost way to paint your home or business and to add value.

4. Texture Painting -- if you have old walls that are rough from being wallpapered in the past or just beat up from age, you can give them a whole new look super fast using texture paint.

When my wife and I were first together we textured our dinning room walls. We had old plaster and we bought a gallon of ready-mixed texture paint from Sherwin Williams in Spanish white.

We really did not know what we were doing. I used crumpled newspaper to put it on the walls and it actually did not look too bad. It a nice textured look.

5. Painting Woodwork with Oil-Base Enamels -- do you have an older home with the older style woodwork? By giving your doors, windows and trim a custom pant job using oil-base enamel paint can really enhance the beauty. There is nothing like a creamy smooth enamel finish done on woodwork this way. Most latex paints are inferior and are not worthy of fine woodwork.

A good example of woodwork restoration is an older home we did quite a bit of work in. It was in the student ghetto area that a guy owned and paid off early. He rented the upstairs out and lived in the downstairs. He had the money to do quite a bit of home improvement.

His house was one of these older homes and he had really nice woodwork. Nice solid doors, tall baseboards and wide trim. It needed to be restored though. It was all old, dark, stained woodwork and would have looked really good with a nice enamel finish in a "coffee with cream" type of color.

If you do the job yourself it would only cost you the enamel paint, the primer and some sandpaper plus a nice quality paintbrush. This low cost project will definitely take some time to do but the end result is beauty and a definite increase in your property value.

Painting Ideas - 5 Low Cost Ways to Enhance Your Home With Paint

Lee Cusano has owned his own painting business since 1991. Since 2004 he has helped others to start their own business and make good money doing it right from the start with his several painting manuals. Please visit http://www.betterpaintingtips.com/paintingideas.html for some free valuable painting techniques and painting ideas.

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Swinging Doors - Elegant Features That Can Enhance Office Interiors

Swinging doors for the office are not only functional. They can also give office interiors a visually appealing look. Well-designed and well-crafted entryways blend with the other interior elements to create a pleasant and professional atmosphere.

interior doors with glass

A swing door is one of the most common fixtures used in the office. It can open outward or inward, allowing for easier movement as people can conveniently push the door open when they enter or exit a room. Offices may use double doors for the main entryway and single doors for individual work areas.

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Though these staple interior fixtures are commonly made of wood, many of today's office entryways are built using glass set in a frame. Glass gives entryways an elegant look and feel. Different types of glass can be used depending on the room's function. Most work areas have entry fixtures with clear laminated glass. Rooms where privacy is needed - like the CEO's office, meeting rooms and storage rooms - can have frosted glass doors, which are milky and opaque. Linen glass is another option. This stylish material offers a measure of privacy while allowing some light to pass through.

Office doors require sturdy frames for durability. Frames can also add an attractive visual element as they come in a wide variety of colors and textures that can complement or contrast with office interiors. To enhance the office's professional atmosphere, the frames must allow for a smooth swinging motion and close as quietly as possible.

Business owners that want to enhance their office interiors can easily do so by installing sleek, stylish and durable swinging doors. A high quality design shop can help them explore all design options.

Swinging Doors - Elegant Features That Can Enhance Office Interiors

The Sliding Door Company has designed innovative swinging doors to enhance the look and feel of any office. The company uses only high-quality materials and installs safety features to ensure its swing and sliding doors, room dividers and other products last for years. Find a showroom in your region by visiting SlidingDoorCo.com.

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Enhance the Street Appeal of Your Home With Residential Garage Doors

You can elevate the beauty of your home with trendy and modern residential garage doors. They come in many styles, designs, colors and dimensions that there is always one that would complement any contemporary home style.

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As a replacement to a traditional-looking garage door, a modern one would be the best addition to your remodeling ideas. There are many online retailers such as Lowes, Sears and Home Depot, that offer a wide array of residential but also commercial doors. Check out several products, their prices and features, to get your money's worth.

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Eastman Estate Vintage Garage Door by Garaga:

This door is designed with a distinctive modern approach, estate elegance and authentic heritage styling. The estate elegance is seen in the door's traditional design, forged iron look hardware, woodgrain finish and an array of decorative windows. Door thickness is 1 and 3/4 inches and comes with an R-16 insulation factor. It's highly durable and requires no or less maintenance and repair. It comes in five colors-desert sand, dark sand, claystone and moka brown-- and six designs in custom and standard sizes.

Model 200 Tough Duty Sectional Steel Overhead Doors from Windsor Republic Doors:

This heavy-duty sectional steel door is constructed with 20-gauge hot-dipped galvanized steel, primed white on both sides. It has pre-painted sections, Tog-L-Loc mechanical fastening system, a weathertight tongue and groove meeting rails, intergral reinforcing ribs for roll formed, steel ball bearing rollers that come with case hardened races and 14-gauge galvanized graduated hinges. Optional features are insulation, joint and full perimeter weatherseal.

Model 724-The Economical Performer:

This door has Ruff-Tex finish that looks like wood, raised panel design of deep embossed and tongue and groove construction to align and seal sections for a weathertight and snug fit. It also features durable Tog-L-Loc construction, vinyl bottom weatherseal in full width to make sure that it fits tightly against the floor to prevent the leak of moisture, energy and light. It is available in 3 decorative insert options in acrylic and 15 standard window inserts. Available colors are bone white and polar white.

Traditional Style Residential Garage Doors by Amarr Garage Doors:

This traditional set of doors is available in wood or steel composite. The Heritage Collection has 4 panel designs, 38 window and 4 color options. The Fimbel Olympus Collection has only one panel design with the door having an R-value of 15.67. It comes in 4 color and 10 window options. The Stratford Collection has 4 panel designs, 6 color and 38 window options. Meanwhile, the Jeld-Wen Traditional Collection is available in long and short panel designs, energy efficient insulation and 11 window options.

Classic Wood Garage Doors from Clopay:

The natural handcrafted wood beauty of this door makes it stand out among other residential doors. The raised panel door, model 44, has 1 and 3/8 inches section thickness, short and long panels with optional windows, stain or paint grade wood. Your wood choices are hemlock, redwood and cedar. The recessed panel under model 20/10 has also short and long panel with thickness of 1 and 3/8 inches. It is constructed with grade wood ready to be painted or stained and hemlock wood frame. The flush panel, model 32/33, has three-layer construction with fir exterior panel and energy-efficient insulation.

Custom Garage Door from Industrial Door Co. Inc.:

The door is designed to integrate the elegance and natural beauty of traditional wood garage door with Neufoam insulation for a high R-value. Choices of wood species are vertical grain or knotty cedar, fir, redwood, African mahogany and cypress.

Enhance the Street Appeal of Your Home With Residential Garage Doors

For more information concerning Residential Garage Doors, visit http://www.thecontemporarygaragedoors.com.

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