Adding color to a room is a great way to make a beautiful change to the mood in your house. The best part is that adding color to a home can be simple. There are tons of different options for doing it.

My favorite ways to add color to a room are:

• Paint the walls. I am a huge fan of regularly repainting my walls. I’ve tried just about every color there is.
• Wallpaper. Getting colorful printed wallpaper is a bit more of a commitment than painting. The end result can be great though.
• Hang colorful art on the walls. I did this one a lot when I lived in apartments where I was not allowed to paint. I would also hang colorful fabrics from the walls and ceilings. It gives an easy burst of color to any room.
• Buy a beautiful rug. A colorful rug can really change the mood of a room. The rest of the room builds upon it so you can just add a few little colored objects and art pieces to bring out the color in the rug.
• Grow plants. Indoor plants naturally add color to a room. Green is the obvious color but the flowers on plants will bring other colors to the room as well. Regularly getting cut flowers for the home is another option.

You should also know that making use of good lighting in your home can improve the colors that you choose to place there. Play around with color in your house until you find something that you like.

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My husband is a home inspector, and he says that as the economy gets worse that it’s amazing how much he finds stolen from homes that have been vacant on the market but are now ready for inspection.  We’ve all heard on the news that people were going around cutting and stealing copper pipe from warehouse sites, but now its spread to private homes.

For instance, he’s been into crawl spaces only to find that all the piping has been cut and taken away from underneath the house!  He says it used to be just copper pipe, but now it’s everything including galvanized pipe.  He says he’s been in bank-owned houses where people have broken in and even sawn into the drywall to get to the water and gas pipes.  They do this because they know that the banks have turned everything off, plus these houses typically get less traffic. 

But no house is immune:  he’s finding water heaters and furnaces stolen, air conditioning units and even outdoor appliances.  If the house has a drop in grills or an outdoor sink, that’s a target for theft as well.  And it’s getting worse and worse:  I saw on the news that a fully occupied house had the tubing leading up to the air conditioning unit stolen in the night!

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You know, you don’t even need a crib at first!  There are so many trappings that are out there that you can get for a new baby, but be careful just to buy the essentials and not all the fluff because it will be expensive enough without all of that crap!

Obviously, you need a car seat.  Besides food, clothing and diapers, this is a must!  They vary like crazy, so devote a lot of your early time to shopping for this.  Then, somewhere to sleep.  Now, if you really really want a stroller-car seat combo, your tiny baby will be fine in the stroller for a few weeks.  If you’re holding off on a stroller, newborns do like small spaces, so maybe a cradle is better.  You can find them all over on Craigslist since they’re used for such a short amount of time, but maybe you should get new cradle bedding. 

You can save tons of money improvising shiny toys and rattles until they’re old enough to mouth them, and even then don’t fall for the innumerable “best” toys that are out there.  You can get buy for months and months with blanket sleepers, a few clothes and burp cloths, safe toys eventually a crib (Craigslist!) and baby first aid.  Don’t improvise crib bedding though;  There’s plenty of places that sell discount crib bedding.  Maybe a sippy cup, hats, creams and sunscreens….really!  You’ll honestly be all set!

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I’m so excited.  I just finished refitting the basement as a bright, cheery (windowless) home office with one of those crazy huge monitors (I ended up going with Dell hardware over Apple because at the end of the day, I know Apple is amazing but I’ve had Dells all my life and I know how to work with them).  The website programming is done, not that I’m expecting to be bug-free from here on out, and our go live date is next week. 

At a last minute thought, I switched the basement to its own line of internet access (this will be easier to determine the necessary bandwidth and also for billing and tax purposes).  I was thinking about getting an internet via satellite setup, but not really knowing the ins and outs I wasn’t sure if it would work in a basement.  Also, I didn’t want my kids picking up the line on their laptops upstairs, so I also nixed the wireless internet service; so much for running my business from my couch.  Actually, that’s a lie, I bought a really long Ethernet cable to compensate, and a ridiculously plush chaise lounge.  Hey, a working girl needs a little TLC.

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Everywhere you look, it seems like we’re surrounded with Mischa Barton pictures of her on the beach or Katy Perry bikini pictures. And don’t even get me started on AnnaLynn McCord.  It always makes me wonder:  do any of these people live in cold weather states, or do they all reside beachside?

Maybe they live in Alaska or Wyoming or something, and just vacation on the beach in some tropical isles.  All I know is that regardless of the time of year it is, someone has just snapped a photo of some starlet or model in a bikini.  How is that possible?  Doesn’t any of these women wear sweaters or jeans?  Ever?  Can’t women look hot in a nice ski outfit?  I’m sitting here reading these magazines that just came out last week, with snow coming down outside, and these women have tans.  It’s January!  Where do they find time to go to the beach in the winter? 

Then again, if I had money, I can’t say that going somewhere in three feet of snow would be my vacation of choice.  It just seems weird is all I’m saying.

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