Some lucky folks have marble or granite floors, which are not only extremely beautiful to look at, they’re also extremely expensive. Most people have linoleum or vinyl tiles installed on their flooring. They’re not only practical; they can also look good without being overly costly.

They can sometimes become a pain to clean though, so here are some tips to help you maintain you linoleum or vinyl floor. One of the things you can do is leave your shoes at the front door. The soles of most shoes usually have sand and dirt deposits that grind at your floor, scratching it, dirtying it up and shortening its life.

Wear slippers or socks instead, as the oil in your feet will also add to the dirt on your floor. Remember to always vacuum or dust your floor before you mop it. Mopping may just spread the dirt around and scratch the floor even more.

You will usually only need warm water to clean up your floor, but if you need to use detergent, you may use some dish washing liquid diluted with water as it may be too harsh in its pure form.

Doing the tips above will help you keep you linoleum and vinyl floors in top shape for a long time.

Painting the outside of your home is usually an exhausting and tiring endeavor, usually best left for someone else to do. However, even with the right person doing the painting, the results may still be a disaster if the right kind of paint is not used.

So, what exactly is the right paint? Well, it actually depends on what you need. But first, what is in paint anyway?

Most paints have three major components: pigments, binders, and thinners or solvents. Pigments are what give the paint its color, binders hold the pigment together after the paint has dried and determine how it is in the long run, and thinners or solvents combine with the first two components to determine the consistency of the paint.

Most paint manufacturers have different quality paints, and they usually charge more for the more premium ones. To help determine whether the paint is good or not, you can do the “touch” test. What you need to do is shake the paint can, open it and literally touch the paint. If the paint feels smooth and silky, then it’s good. Lower quality paint has cheaper materials like talc that can’t be ground as finely as more expensive components, giving low quality paint a gritty feel.

Find the right paint that will suit your home, prepare the surfaces to be painted, and your home will be on its way to a brighter and more colorful future.

Air-conditioners keep our homes cool and comfortable, especially during the hot summer months. They work by taking the warm air from inside the room, cooling it, dumping the heat outside, and then re-circulating the cooler air back into the room.

However, even with recent advances in technology, air-conditioners are still some of the most inefficient machines we have.

This is why it is important to check the efficiency of all air-conditioning units. For this purpose, all air-conditioners come with an Energy Efficiency Ratio or EER. The EER is the unit’s cooling output in British Thermal units per hour (BTU/hr.) divide by its energy input in Watts at specific indoor and outdoor temperatures.

A higher EER value means a more efficient air-conditioner. The most efficient ones have an EER value of about 13.

Finding the right air-conditioner for your home isn’t just about cooling output and EER though. A/C units, on the average, consume about 2000 kilowatt-hours of electricity in a single year, and this amounts to about 3,500 pounds of carbon dioxide emitted at the power plant. Efficient air-conditioners can lower these values by about 20 to 50 percent, with the most efficient ones able to reduce consumption by up to 70 percent. This not only helps save money, it also helps save the environment.

When looking for your next A/C unit, always remember to check the EER value.

With food and crop prices going higher almost everyday, it’s a pretty good time to start your own little garden.

You can start your garden anytime you want, as long as the soil is not soaking wet or frozen solid.

Start off by finding a suitable place for your garden. Look for an area that gets at least six hours of sunshine everyday. Make sure that the place you find is near the house, and of course, near a water source. Also, stay away from older trees which may invade your soil with their roots, and from underground power lines to keep your plants, and more importantly yourself away from harm.

Ensure that the area you choose for your garden has good air circulation and has no solid walls nearby to prevent weed and fungus attack.

Mark your garden’s perimeter with strings on stakes or even with your garden hose. This is to keep grass (and other people) away from your little plants.

This is just the beginning, of course. You may face problems, like weeds, bugs, and plant diseases, but you shouldn’t let those bother you. With just a little time and effort, the plants in your garden will be growing with no problems at all.

Most people are used to seeing chrome in cars and their wheels and bumpers, but inside the house, well, not really. This is because a lot of folks see chrome as something that projects a cold and frosty image, or think of it as something that should only be used in cars and the like.

Well, that is about to change. In combination with the right materials and at the right amount, chrome can be used inside the house and still lend a feeling of warmth to your home. Chrome of course, is the shiny metallic substance that usually covers some car wheels, door handles, bumpers, and other parts.

Inside the house, chrome can be used in kitchen sinks or in stoves. It lends the said items a very modern look, which when paired with the right old-fashioned pieces, helps balance the over-all look.

The harshness of chrome can also be offset by using fabrics and textures that are extremely soft. Old wooden pieces can also help imbue a room with some warmth even if it has a big chrome piece in it. The best way to go is have chrome pieces paired with deep and rich colors that don’t get washed out easily.