Home Interior Design – Connecting Little Rock

Archive for September, 2010

Indoor gardening is becoming more popular as technology improves and costs decrease for supplies and equipment.  Growing indoors can be very rewarding and the results are absolutely fantastic when done correctly, that said they can also be devastating when things go wrong.

In this article I would like to dispel some myths about indoor gardening as well as give some tips for simple ways to improve your harvest.

Myth #1: You can grow in any room indoors.

Growing indoors even in the best circumstances is more difficult than you would think at first, and depends a lot on “what” you are trying to grow.  For this article I will focus on food bearing plants such as tomatoes and cucumbers, and other succulent garden plants, as well as herbs and fresh flowers and orchids.  Plants such as garlic and carrots that create bulbs are even more challenging and will not be discussed at this time.

Tip #1:  No matter what plants you decide to grow indoors, you will still need to meet its basic requirements for growth.

Mainly, good ventilation from the outside, Light, and fertilizer as well as a exhaust for the heat from the lights and built up oxygen that the plants cannot eat.  Plants Breath CO2, but with global warming and all there is plenty of that in regular air, so just make sure your ventilation is good into and throughout the room.  Light and fertilizer depend more on what you are trying to grow. Be sure that water is nearby unless you like to carry heavy things a lot.  Even long hoses only go so far.

Myth #2:  Indoor gardening doesn’t involve getting down and dirty.

Cleanliness is close to godliness.  Growing indoors can be a messy job.  Weather you decide to use hydroponics or soil, there is usually some sort of spills involved.

Tip#2: Plan for the worst!  Enclose the growing area in a cheap and easy home-made reserve reservoir to prevent run-off and spills from damaging your home.

Create a wooden frame of 2x4s that sits flat on the ground and lay a giant plastic sheet (available at home depot) that tucks over the board on all sides.  Be sure to measure before hand, but often you can get 12 x 30 ft or more.  The idea is to create a giant tub below the plants in case of emergency. This is especially important for hydroponic systems that are not on the ground floor.

Rich Rifkin New Home Alliance – Rich Rifkin New Home Alliance Co
thepapertrail2
That old chandelier in the foyer has shed its light on birthdays, breakups, homecomings, and wakes. And that spidery crack in the hallway’s stained-glass window—wouldn’t you love to know whether it landed there during a storm, a fistfight, or a child’s headfirst tumble?

These mysteries may seem obscure, but there’s no reason they need to remain so. The clues for unraveling the hidden past of your old house lie all around—close at hand and, for the most part, completely free. All you’ll need to invest is a little bit of time and energy—but don’t old-house owners have plenty of those resources on hand? With a bit of dogged detective work, you can track down the clues lurking in old documents to begin the process of uncovering the secrets of your old house.

Rich Rifkin New Home Alliance Bio Floor
The framing crew is the next group of people on the site. They start by building the floor (unless the house uses a slab foundation, in which case the slab is the floor).
The floor starts with a sill-plate made of pressure-treated lumber in direct contact with the bricks of the crawl space wall. One interesting thing to note is that this house literally “sits” on the foundation — it is not held on or bolted on in any way.

Rich Rifkin New Home Alliance Article Cost and Benefit
Installing a wind turbine is pricey, often over $10,000, although you can recoup up to 30 percent of the cost via the recently enacted tax credit. Once installed, wind turbines generally cut electric bills by at least 50 percent and often by as much as 90 percent. Because of these savings, wind turbine systems typically pay for themselves in six to 15 years, and are designed to last for at least 20 years, with relatively low maintenance.

Don’t miss out, learn more: Rich Rifkin New Home Alliance News , Rich Rifkin New Home Alliance Co , Rich Rifkin New Home Alliance Org , Rich Rifkin New Home Alliance , Rich Rifkin New Home Alliance Org . * Kitchen Floors
Your kitchen floor gets a lot of abuse, so it’s important to choose a material that can stand up to punishment. Of course, you also want a floor that looks nice. The difficult part is finding a surface that combines both of these criteria. Common materials used for kitchen flooring are vinyl, linoleum, laminate, wood, rubber, ceramic tile, quarry and terra-cotta tile, and natural stone tile. We’ll weigh the pros and cons of these materials.

Rich Rifkin New Home Alliance

A recent homebuyer’s report from Halifax shows a substantial up to 20% growth in the London property prices during the first six month of the year 2007. It sounds like a good news for the sellers. At same time the rising market is more demanding when it comes to the quality of accommodation and therefore it requires additional efforts from the sellers.London buyers are particularly aware of the recent trends and home standards and very often they would like to move in straight away without doing any improvements on the property.

To increase saleability of a property it should correspond to the buyers expectations. An interior designer with experience for pre-sale refurbishment can achieve amazing results in the shortest time. The new bathroom and kitchen are leading the hit parade of the home improvements that would increase the value of the property…..assuming it is done properly and preferably professionally. Low quality DIY jobs completed wihout any knowledge of building regulations and current interior design trends would not increase the value of the property but can even decrease it. To avoid costly mistakes it pays off to comission a professional interior design specialist. A designer would be able to conceive, organize and supervise the project making sure that the final result would greatly appeal to the prospective buyers.

Saving on materials used for the work is another reason to employ an interior designer who would know exactly where to purchase necessary materials and appliances and would pass 10-20% discount to the customer. Another reason is time management. Many property owners don’t quite realise how much input of time and knowledge their project will take. It is particularly difficult when one is in the regular employment, that means that the project might last for years robbing of relaxing week-ends and in the end the final product would not necessary be ideal.

The skills of an interior designer are frequently used by the property developers. Although most experienced property developers would nearly instinctively know what type of interior finish would appeal to their market, they find that contracting an interior designer achieve better standards thus increasing the price of the property and consequently their profits. Many prestigious residential developments around the country and in London in particular would pride themselves in the quality level of their new homes. An interior designer would add a “wow factor” and a special home comfort touch to the interiors which would make them more marketable among style-conscious new buyers.

It is a common knowledge by now that attractive properties have higher rate of success with the prospective buyers. They conquer the hearts from the first visit and as a rule never stays on the market for long time. Even if one doesn’t want to make a total refurbishment of the house it would make sense to invite an interior design specialist to advise you on some inexpensive but highly valuable improvement in the interior. We get used to our interiors but very often the interior created would only appeal to the limited number of prospective buyers and therefore some changes are essential to achieve a sale. In the recent years such interior design service as home staging is growing up in popularity. A professional interior designer would help to create a fresh appealing to the potential buyers look by de-cluttering the space, changing furniture layout and adding a few stylish accessories. The results wouldn’t make you wait…

There are many interior designers in London; look for their membership/affiliation to the professional bodies. So why not contract an interior designer and … increase the value of your property?

Kitchen Designs for New Kitchens and Understanding the Step Saving Triangle

Kitchen Remodels
New Kitchen Designs and Kitchen Layout 
Sizing Kitchens and Understanding the Step Saving Triangle

A family cook often walks 100 miles a year. As much as one third of this kitchen pacing may be wasted motion, due to appliances placed for saving dollars in the construction or remodeling process. Sizing a kitchen is very important prior to the start of a new kitchen project. Plan ahead and understand the best kitchen layout for your family.

In an efficient kitchen there are three ” activity centers”.  The kitchen activity centers consist of the refrigerator, the sink and the range. These activity centers in a kitchen should lie within easy reach of the cook – and according to a study made at Cornell University, better placement of these activity centers can eliminate as much as 40 miles a year from the kitchen marathon.
 
There are Four Basic Kitchen  Layouts
 (There also are variations to the four basic kitchen layouts

The corridor kitchen.
The L kitchen.
The U kitchen.
The one – wall kitchen.
 
Two variations are the Double L and the G kitchen layouts.

The 3 activity centers make up 3 points called the “work triangle”
(The refrigerator, the sink and the range)

Usually – The smaller the triangle the greater the efficiency

In an efficient kitchen – the sides of the triangle add up to no more than 23 feet.

Additional Kitchen Considerations: Each activity center must also have a minimum of counter area and storage volume. 48″ between facing base cabinets or appliances. (There is Enough space to stand at an open cabinet, refrigerator, or oven while another person edges past)
Wishing You The Best Life Can Bring And Kitchen Remodeling Success!

Kitchen Remodels
New Kitchen Designs and Planning Kitchen Layouts 

It does not matter whether you put your kitchen scraps in the compost or the bin, did you know that you could grow many of your favourite fruit or vegetables from those scraps. Indeed, unless your compost is very well matured you will find stray veggie seedlings may appear wherever you deposit the compost.

Take for instance those potato peelings, if it is a fairly thick section of peel with an eye (shoot), then you can often get these to grow into full potato plants. Another indication that a potato is only good for planting or throwing out is the colour. If the potato is starting to look fairly green on the skin then *DO NOT EAT*, as it is an indication that it is producing a poisonous substance common in the nightshade family to which it as well as the tomatoes, chillies and capsicums belong. You can also get sweet potatoes and taros to grow from sections of the tubers.

Have you ever tried to plant or thought about trying to plant the seeds from a particularly nice tomato, capsicum, chili, watermelon or pumpkin? While any plants grown from such seed may vary quite a lot from the parent fruit, you can still achieve fairly good results from them if you are on a tight budget.

The plants grown from seeds of many of your kitchen scraps will not produce fruit to the same high standard as the original fruit/vegetables because of the complicated interbreeding programs put into place by the big seed companies. However the progeny can give a very wide range of resulting offspring. But if you come across one or two particularly good plants in the resulting season, then reuse the seeds of that and always-in future pick the best fruit from the best plants for your future propagation material.

Though there are some veggies in the kitchen where it is not possible to grow them from the seed in the fruit. These are those vegetables where the edible fruit is still in an immature state and the seed is not yet viable. These fruit/veggies include the cucumbers, okra and squashes to name just a few. This is because the fruit when it reaches a stage where the seed is viable is just too big and coarse for human consumption.

If you leave the top of a pineapple out in a shady spot for a week or so during warm weather, then strip back the lower dead leaves. You may even notice some small juvenile roots already forming at the base of the plant top. One thing to remember with pineapples is that it is a species of bromeliad. And as such it requires the same moist but well drained growing conditions.

When the garlic cloves are starting to get a green sprout coming out of the top, it is a pretty good indication, that it might be a good idea to plant them out individually for a good harvest in about 8-10 months time of this fairly expensive herb plant.

Treat it like any member of the onion tribe, because they like moist, well drained soil and a fair amount of feeding during the growing season. Harvest as the tops are dying back. But let them dry out in a cool but airy place, before you try to use them back in the kitchen.

Another fruit/vegetable along a similar line is corn, try leaving a fresh, uncooked cob of sweet corn in a shady dry spot for a couple of weeks, then you can strip the kernels away from the cob and plant them. A quicker suggestion is to grab a handful of corn kernels out of a packet of popping corn, The only comment would be that corn grown from these seeds would not be as sweet or juicy as sweet corn, and in reality would be better dried and used as popping corn.

Why not try growing your own peanuts? Always only using the raw nuts, and only choosing those nuts, which are still whole and encased in the brown skin. Peanuts can be grown during warmer weather in most parts of Australia. One of the fascinating things about peanuts is that they are one of the only plants which flower set fruit and then bury and pre plant their own seed ready for later germination. Yes the peanut, which is dug from the ground, is actually a fruit buried by the parent plant, after flowering.

You can always grow your own ginger; all it takes is a section of the root, purchased from a greengrocer. Plant it in a well drained but moist soil. Allowing plenty of room for the plant to spread out. You can be harvesting your own ginger roots within about 8-12 months.

Whether you have got a long fence, chook pen or an unsightly shed to cover, why not try planting a choko. The Vine can be very prolific, as long as you keep the moisture and fertilizer up to it.

Though once it is established, it can be left to fend for itself, and will still produce a steady supply of fruit for the family. If you have a few dollars why not look at purchasing some of the heritage or heirloom seed ranges of Fruit and vegetables. Many seed firms as well as organizations like the Seed Savers Network have many fascinating and unusual varieties of plants available for the home gardener to grow.

Of course once you have various plants growing in your veggie garden don’t forget to keep some propagating material back ( whether it is root sections, seed or divisions), for future plantings. Also you should think about letting certain plants like lettuce, parsley and basil go to seed, for planting later. I regularly have to weed my lawns around the gardens for rouge seedlings of the above plants. Such spare seedling weeds are easily replanted or swapped with other gardeners for plants I don’t yet have, or given to school and/or charity plant stalls. It is useful to have weeds that other people want and are willing to pay for.

While it usually not a good idea to try and propagate most of the tree fruit, simply from a time perspective and again because the results can also be very variable. It is still interesting to try even if you only end up getting a pot plant out of the results. It is possible to grow the seeds of such trees as mangoes, citrus, avocado, apple, pear, etc. While the fruit of some species simply have no viable seed at all eg, bananas. There is however a few, which readily lend themselves to home propagation eg, pawpaw (papaya), tree tomatoes, unroasted coffee beans, etc. I remember as a child, accidentally germinated a coconut palm, from throwing the mostly eaten out shell onto a garden bed for a few months.

Another suggestion for those of you out there, who are visited by birds to your garden, why not take a handful of birdseed and plant it out in an out of the way section of your garden. These bird friendly plants like Sunflower, oats, sorghum, etc, can be a real bonus for many native birds to supplement their diet. Many of the seeds in any packet of birdseed are very viable.

When my kids were younger and I was showing them such wonders, I used to have trouble convincing them that I could not do similar things in growing and multiplying with a variety of items of importance to them at the time, from toys to chocolate, lollies and even coins.

Few people are aware that the USDA also provides home loans. Financing is available for eligible applicants who are looking to purchase a home in many small towns and rural areas. Benefits of a USDA Home Loan: • No Down Payment • No PMI (private mortgage insurance) • Low Fixed Rates • Finance your closing costs • No maximum purchase price • Perfect credit not required • Low up front closing costs • In some cases closing costs can be financed • Minor credit problems OK • No maximum loan amounts • Fixed Rates Only USDAHomeLoanApproval.com is committed to helping more people achieve the American dream of homeownership. A USDA home loan is a government insured loan created to increase the population and strengthen the economy in rural America. A common misconception is that USDA home loans are only for farmers. Almost any area outside a major metropolitan city will qualify. When you inquire with USDAHomeLoanApproval.com you will be contacted by an experienced rural development loan expert from our network of approved lenders. You will not be contacted by more than one loan consultant and we don’t require your social security number or a credit check to inquire. The loan consultant will determine your eligibility and answer all of your questions about the USDA Home loan process. Don’t let someone you don’t trust handle one of the most important financial transactions in your life. Allow one of our rural development loan experts to analyze your situation and determine if a USDA home loan meets your needs. Visit our website at USDAHomeLoanApproval.com to learn more about the USDA Home Loan process.

In prosperous economic times, New York residential interior design is a highly profitable and exciting area of work for interior designers. Interior design is a luxury expense that usually only the affluent can afford. Thus, designers are busy in a good economy. If the economy is in a down turn then many interior designers may find it difficult to keep busy. Still, residential interior design is an excellent field for the aspiring designer to forge a career in.

If you are thinking of a career in residential interior design in New York, you should look for a program that provides a foundation in textiles, architecture, life sciences and business. Residential interior design involves a large variety of design knowledge. The designer must be able to work with all kinds of people in order to deal with clients and various contractors hired to do the actual physical work. The designer must be able to provide the client with a drawing or computer printout of the finished job to give the client an exact idea of what the finished product will look like. The interior designer must be knowledgeable in all aspects of designing living spaces.

The designer involved with New York residential interior design needs to be financially aware of all expenses and he or she must have the ability to stay on or under budget for the client. Residential interior design requires plenty of patience on the part of the interior designer as things can and do go wrong on many jobs.

A New York residential interior designer when designing a room must consider what the room is used for and who will be using the room. This is especially important if children are going to be using the room or not. You do not want to have some beautiful carpet or furniture ruined because of young children playing in that room. Living rooms can be more colorful and vibrant than bedrooms, since a bedroom is where people relax and you cannot relax if your walls are bright orange! When designing a room the designer must keep in mind that the client needs the ability to have easy and unobstructed movement throughout the room.

The designer must pay attention to the needs and wants of their clients. Practice in your own home or the home of friends or relatives who are receptive to your ideas. Create a plan for each room and provide drawings with accurate measurements to properly convey your ideas to your ‘practice’ clients.

New York residential interior design students or design students from any large urban area should attempt to secure an intern position with a reputable design firm in order to gain as much experience in different areas of design as possible.

When having a kitchen modeled or remodeled, it is crucial that the kitchen contractor has the kitchen layout very well planned out and a good sense of how the work triangle works. If the work triangle is not established in the kitchen then it will be a very difficult kitchen to work in. The point of this work triangle layout is to make it easier for the person in the kitchen to get from one place to another of the essential items. Therefore, kitchen contractors will strategically locate certain kitchen areas such as the sink, stove and refrigerator all into a triangular area so that one does not have to walk form one end of the kitchen to the other. This is also known as kitchen efficiency.

The work triangle is not necessarily a perfect 90 degree triangle but the work triangle does exits and it creates efficiency. One kitchen layout design that does not incorporate the work triangle is the corridor layout. This kitchen design is like a narrow hall which the homeowner has to walk back and forth down the hall to get his or her work done. In certain remodeling cases, the work triangle can still be achieved depending on the space that the kitchen contractor has to work with. Nevertheless there are tons of kitchen layout designs which do incorporate the work triangle well. The following is an extensive list of these kitchen layouts which you can use for your home:

• L- Shaped Layout
• U Shaped Layout
• G Shaped Layout
• Double L Shaped Layout
• Single Wall Kitchen Layout
• Galley Shaped Kitchen Layout or the Corridor Layout.

The most popular of these kitchen designs with the work triangle is the L shaped layout kitchen design. It is popular because it can be used in small and large kitchens alike consisting of a longer kitchen leg and a shorter kitchen leg to form the actual L shape.

The approximate distances for these work triangles to be the most efficient is by having the total distance of the perimeter from the sink to the refrigerator to the stove and then back round to the sink should be between 12 inches and 27 inches, no more and no less but anywhere in between. It is approximated that each kitchen triangle leg should measure anywhere from between four feet and nine feet long. When contemplating the walking space in the kitchen, there should be approximately six feet of a kitchen aisle walking area.

If you are interested in hiring a kitchen contractor to create one of these kitchen layouts then it is advisable that you find someone who adheres to the National Kitchen and Bath Association guidelines which ensure that you receive the best quality remodeling kitchen and bath jobs. These guidelines provide standards as to how much space should be between kitchen appliances and standards for cabinets, kitchen efficiency and counters. Furthermore, your kitchen contractor should be evaluated as a Certified Kitchen Designer or what is commonly referred to as a CKD.

Choosing the correct kitchen remodeler with the right kitchen layout and work triangle, this can increase your kitchen efficiency.

Robert Kiyosaki was the first and has been the only financial pundit to suggest that your home is not an asset. As they so often do, Kiyosaki?s statements fly in the face of prevailing financial wisdom.

David Bach, author of Automatic Millionaire, not only says that your home is an asset, he asserts that home ownership is the first wrung on the ladder of wealth creation in America. He encourages everyone to buy a home as soon as possible to begin building their wealth.

CNN Money does their Millionaire in the Making profiles and I am shocked to find that in almost all cases 50-75% of the wealth of the families profiled is locked in their home. Given that people have to have a place to live, this is a problem.

Does home ownership produce wealth or are wealth and home ownership produced by sound wealth-producing financial habits?

The Economist, tracking real estate over the past decade, has concluded that the economics no longer support home ownership.

I bought my first home in 1991. The housing market in the North East had not recovered. The savings and loan collapse of the mid 1980?s depressed home prices and brought the condo market to a halt. Multiunit condominium properties were vacant. Many of the properties continued to sit vacant because banks had strict owner occupancy ratios for condominiums. Mortgage money was tight. First-time home buyer programs were coming on the market and the minimum down was ten percent. I was raised to think that a home was an investment. My mortgage broker sat me down and said, ?it is best that you think of your house as a roof over your head, not as an investment.? That was incredible advice. Prices dropped another 10% after I moved into my home. After 3 years of living in my home and 2 years of renting it out, I sold it for what I paid for it. After closing costs and realtor fees, I received a check for 447 dollars, significantly less than the $14,000 dollars that my family gave me for closing costs and the down payment. I always intended to pay them back with the proceeds from the sale. All told the housing market was depressed in the North East for over 10 years.

Even in an appreciating market, home ownership is no bargain. And a home is not an asset.

Let?s tackle the issue of equity as a component of wealth. Let?s say you buy a $100,000 home and put money down. That down payment is 20%. In real terms at the time of closing you have 20% equity in your home. If you had $20,000 dollars in your bank account, you had $20,000 in wealth. If you move that money to your home in the form of a down payment, you may have $20,000 in wealth as long as the market at least stays flat. For this illustration, we will say that is the case. You have $20,000 wealth stored in your home. Now what can you do with that?

If you borrow against your home, you erode your equity and your wealth. If you sell your home and get your $20,000 back, then what? You have to live somewhere and living somewhere costs money. The equity in your home is essentially dead. You cannot do anything with it. Sell your house and you reinvest that money into a new home, borrow against your equity and you lose it.

In short, the equity in your home, once in your home, will remain there. Useless to you in real terms. That equity will do something that is quite dangerous, however. It will cause you to feel wealthy, wealthier in fact than you are and spend money, money that you, in reality don?t have.

It might be helpful if I defined an asset here. Kiyosaki calls an asset anything that retains or appreciates in value that pays you. For Kiyosaki a house does not fit that definition. I define an asset as anything that retains or appreciates in value that I can sell and dance around my house throwing the proceeds of the sale in the air and have a jolly good time. Can?t do that with a house because, once again, I need someplace to live.

Someone might say that they want to downsize. Sell their home, pick up something smaller and bank the rest of the profits.

The numbers don?t add up. One of the columnists for the WSJ wrote that he doubted that he had made much money on his home although it was valued at half a million dollars. He had lived in his home for 10 years and paid just under $300,000 dollars for it. When he factored in taxes, insurance and maintenance, he figured that he broke even. Broke even!

What that means is that he actually spent the $200,000 on his home in other ways and the sale of the home would just result in returning that money to him. Two hundred thousand dollars equity and wealth gone when you actually look at the numbers. So much for great profits! So much for down sizing and banking the difference.

Here is an example of what happens when you refinance or draw equity out. For the amount of time that I have actually lived in my home I have made $82,800 dollars in payments. These payments went primarily to interest so let?s deduct the top tax rate. The top tax rate is the best-case scenario, a lower tax rate means you deduct less and pay more. Deduct $27,324 and get $55,476. Taxes and insurance paid amount to $20,460. Now the total paid is $55,476 + $20,460 = $75,936. Maintenance, landscaping, updates, repairs total $29,779. Add the two, $75,936 + $29,779 and get $105,714. I refinanced the house in order to take money out and buy my first investment property. Add in the unpaid mortgage balance and the total owed, paid and put into the house is $188, 715.

Critical concept: Improvements on a home don?t necessarily increase the value of that home. Every neighborhood has a trading range. The trading range for an area is based on location, size of the homes in that area and amenities. Homes will trade at the high end or low end of a neighborhood based on those factors. If my home sold for $170, 000, the financial gurus would say that I have $87,000 dollars of wealth based on the difference between the unpaid mortgage balance and the sale price. Because you have seen the numbers, you know better. In fact I lost $18,715 dollars. When I take into account the money I borrowed out to buy my first investment property, I broke even. I am assuming that I sell my home myself. Using a realtor would increase my losses by 6% of the sale price.

How can I call home ownership the greatest financial scam of the 20th century? I call it a scam when you buy something (a house) expecting it to lead to something (wealth) when that purchase can in no way produce that result. I call it a scam when the brokers who sell you the house know it won?t.

Sound financial habits will lead to wealth but home ownership in and of itself will not. Home ownership can in fact lead to poverty as people struggle to make payments and find that they are unable to maintain their homes. Sell and they risk owing more than the home is worth. Stay and their standard of living is reduced to pay for the house. Sounds like a winning formula for wealth to me.

While 20% of the homes in this most recent real estate bubble went to investors who were speculating in the markets, 80% of the homes went to people who believed that home ownership, not sound financial habits, were the first wrung on the ladder to wealth creation. They just believed what the gurus, the realtor, the mortgage broker and the banker told them. In a consumer society where everything is reduced to the lowest common denominator, they believed that a home could be purchased for little more than a moderately-priced flat screen TV and that down payments were a nuisance. They did not understand that as a worse case scenario, down payments are actually insurance against downside fluctuations in the housing market. Many people are finding that instead of the wealth they expected, they have a financial nightmare.

Perhaps moving forward into the 21st century, we will decide that sound financial habits and financial education are the first steps on the road to wealth. Maybe we will decide that wealth is created through work and due diligence and not by betting on the financial product of the day.

As the family meeting ground and the room where it all gets done – cooking, entertaining, conversation, math homework – the kitchen is the heart of the home. Whatever lifestyle revolves around your kitchen, making it a place you want to spend your time is an exciting venture. The folks at The Detroit News recently highlighted this fact in an article titled “Remodel your kitchen, the heart of your home.”

Therein, the newspaper cited Remodeling magazine’s 2008-2009 “Cost Versus Value” report to reveal that “nationally, the average cost for … a major kitchen remodel is about $56,000, while the cost of a minor remodel is roughly $21,000.” While that may sound like a lot of cash, fortunately, a kitchen remodel affords homeowners an excellent return on investment.

In spite of a firmly entrenched recession, the phrase “The kitchen is the heart of the home” holds especially true today. And “with more people staying in their homes rather than moving, kitchen remodeling is a hot topic” even at the hefty price tags quoted by Remodeling magazine. The economy is simply causing homeowners to approach kitchen remodeling differently. “Today’s typical homeowner is more cost-conscious and is leaning toward more sleek and simple designs. For example, “people [are] remodeling with general cabinets, but spending more on their countertops and backsplashes to provide the accent.”

Other kitchen remodeling trends the recession is spurring include a toning down in design choices and a leaning toward “green” kitchen designs. Homeowners are yearning to get back to basics and many of them are opting to make their kitchen makeovers an environmentally friendly one. Price, of course, is still the determining factor when it comes to implementing eco-conscious kitchen elements.

Perhaps that’s why, then, many kitchen remodeling experts are seeing their “remodelers coming in to buy the low-end cabinets because their customers just want to replace their old ones at the least cost, or do-it-yourselfers who are buying the high-end cabinets because they are saving money on the installation.”

Cabinetry isn’t the only place remodelers are cutting corners, however. They’re also opting for less expensive countertop surfaces. Because its prices have remained stable, granite is still a very popular kitchen countertop selection. And no kitchen makeover would be complete without new appliances, where the global financial situation is leading to “a shift away from all-stainless appliances toward a fully integrated look that blends in with the kitchen design.”

It’s in their new appliances as well that homeowners can realize their yen for a greener kitchen without breaking the bank. That’s because “appliances are much more energy efficient today.” In fact, many of today’s refrigerators can be run for “about the same cost as a 100-watt light bulb, which is around $70 a year.”

An online kitchen super center can provide ideas, sparks of inspiration, assistance and advice, so that homeowners can save money while still getting the kitchen of their dreams. With links to major manufacturers of kitchen cabinets, countertops, appliances, hardware, faucets, sinks, flooring, lighting, windows and wall coverings, it can also assist homeowners in making that single focalized impact they’re craving.