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All of us here at Home and Garden America are excited to be bringing you quality articles and products that you can use for your own homes and gardens. Whether you’re an expert or a newbie to gardening and interior design, you will surely find the information you need to make your place just the way you’ve always imagined it to be. We have tons of useful tips and tricks for you, plus lots of amazing deals on our gardening products! So what are you waiting for? Go ahead and check our posts and pages now and feel free to contact us if you have any questions. You may also continue reading below for some easy home and gardening tips.

Basic Home Decorating Tricks

Living Room

• Introduce more life and color by adding a vase of flowers on your coffee table or end table. They’re a great and inexpensive way to decorate your living room.
• Try adding some patterns on your cushions or area rug to make the room more interesting. Stripes, chevrons, dots, zebras and damasks are some of the many prints you can try.
• Mount a mirror on the wall opposite your window to easily reflect light and make your living room look much brighter.
• Going for a modern look? Keep your design minimal yet functional at the same time. Choose modern furniture and palette colors such as white, chrome and black. Then add little hints of bright colors to liven up the room.
• When decorating your first home, make sure to choose a neutral palette for your main color scheme. Neutrals like white are very flexible to decorate because they go with everything. It’s easier to just add accent colors to your cushions, vases, lampshades, pots, pans, countertops, placemats, towels, linens and other stuff whenever you feel like changing it up, rather than repaint the entire house to get a new look.

Kitchen

• To save more space, consider hanging your pots and pans from the ceiling or on the wall. Hanging equipment always looks good on any kitchen.
• Another simple way to upgrade your kitchen is to repaint your cabinets. If you’re on a budget, use colors that complement your walls so you won’t have to redo everything.
• Install more cabinets especially if storage is a problem. Get rid of the stuff you don’t need to minimize clutter in the kitchen and hide the items you don’t always use inside drawers and island
• Got a shelf that you want to redo? An easy fix is to add some nice wallpaper or paint on the insides. For example, if you have a charcoal-colored shelf, paint the insides a nice pale red for a surprising touch. Other combinations to try are brown and light blue, white and blue, black and salmon and so on. There are many possibilities–it’s just a matter of selecting the best style for your kitchen’s design.

Dining Room

• Create a, intimate atmosphere in your dining area by getting a dimmer switch or lighting some candles on the table.
• Add a centerpiece of flowers, fruits and others for a more attractive dining experience.
• If you want more interaction during dinner, consider getting a round table. More conversations happen when everyone can see each other.
• For those with smaller dining areas and household members, get a table that you can easily place against the wall to save space. When you have people coming over to eat, you can always take the table to the center to add more seats.

Bedroom

• Sick of that blank wall in your bedroom? Simply hang an artwork to fill up the space. Patterned quilts, classic movie posters and frames are some good examples. But no matter what type of artwork you use, the important thing is that it always goes together with the colors in the room.
• Another quick solution to decorating your personal room is to make your linens an accent color.
• If your room is painted with neutral colors, the best solution is to add accent colors here and there. For instance, if you have light gray walls, you can pair them up with some orange or mustard linens so that the room doesn’t look too monochromatic. Nightstands, headboards, artwork and area rugs are also some things you can bring color to.
• If the bedroom is small, you can paint one side of the wall in a different color to make the space seem wider. For it, you can choose a darker hue than your current walls, or you can go with a new color entirely. Again, make sure it matches the palette you’re going for.
• Try positioning some of your furniture at an angle. It’s an easy way to give your bedroom a new feel to it.
• Remember, your room is your sanctuary, your happy place–which means it should be designed according to you. Show off your personality when you decorate so you can really make your bedroom your own.

Practical Gardening Tips for Beginners

Watering Plants

• During dry or windy weather conditions, water your plants at least once daily. Do this at night to keep the water from evaporating too quickly.
• If you notice a wilting plant, be sure to water it right away.
• Never water a plant while in direct sunlight because that can cause scorching on the leaves.
• If you’re going on a trip and will not be able to water your plants regularly, you should definitely move your potted plants to a shaded area to prevent wilting.
• For newly-planted seeds, remember to moisten the soil instead of soaking it with water. Also water them lightly but in a regular fashion.
• Whenever you boil vegetables, make sure to keep the water you used afterwards because they’re very good for watering potted plants.
• Don’t forget that certain types of plants have certain requirements. For instance, the Devil’s Ivy needs to be watered twice daily, while the cactus needs water just once in every two days.

Exposure to Sunlight

• The ideal spot for a garden is an area that receives at least six hours of sunlight.
• It’s also critical to know what types of plants need more sunlight or shade so you can properly choose what to plant on your new garden. Some plants such as the African Violet and the Devil’s Ivy require more exposure to the sun, while others like the Lily-of-the-Valley and Forsythia thrive even when under the shade.

Other Useful Tips

• Got some used coffee grounds and tea? Well don’t just throw them away! Excess tea and coffee grounds can provide more acidity in the soil, which is good if you have acid-loving plants like hydrangeas and daffodils. Simply sprinkle 1/4 of an inch on the soil once monthly and you’re good to go!
• Banana peelings are also an inexpensive substitute for commercial fertilizer.
• Plastic pots work better for indoor plants because they can prevent the growth of fungi on the pot and keep your place clean.
• Before planting in a pot, put a paper coffee filter at the bottom of the pot first to keep the soil from falling out.
• Instead of using artificial pesticides, consider adding companion plants in your garden. Companion plants such as marigolds are great insect repellents and a much safer alternative.
• Remember though that not all insects are harmful. Ladybugs, earthworms and ants can actually be very beneficial for the success of your garden.

Get more information about home decorating and gardening by reading our content here at Home and Garden America. Happy browsing!