You don’t need a jackhammer, saw, or nails to make a nice room divider.  A little bit of cardboard, some white paper, and a creative streak for the inside design is all that’s necessary!  From Instructables, here’s a Cardboard Shoji Screen,

To read the directions on making this great room partition, click through here.

My youngest son tore a window screen in my house, so to YouTube I went!

Say hello to warmer colors, and goodbye to minimalism. It
appears that several interior designers and industry insiders are saying you
should be ready to introduce color into your decor. According to Sean
O’Driscoll of the Associated Press in an article Hot Trends Of Home Design for 2008 , Minimalism is out.

“Susan Gutfreund, who designs for some of the most
expensive apartments in the U.S and Europe, said that minimalist white and
beige are being pushed out in favor of color, textures and layers. Speaking
from Paris where she is redesigning an apartment, Gutfreund said there is a
move toward warmer colors and away from the shininess and flatness of interiors
over the last few years.

In 2008, red tones take on a decidedly soft, warm feel,
such as watermelon or a carrot orange. Black and white continues to be used,
but with unexpected combinations of yellow, lime orange and fresh green,"
she said.

Janice Simonsen of IKEA Designs said

“fruit colors such
as lime yellow, kiwi and tangerine will be very popular in 2008, especially
when used in the kitchen. But blue will continue to be the number one color
choice for homeowners. In 2008, blue will be combined with camel and tan, pale green
and yellow,” she said.

Think you’re ready to try out 2008 colors but not sure
what fits your style? CALFINDER (the source for certified remodeling contractors) has an excellent post about basic color
psychology. They say,

"All too often homeowners choose colors without
understanding basic color psychology. Color impacts our mood, appetite, and
energy level. Years of color response research have shown

that certain colors
elicit specific and often strong responses."

Check out their awesome post Color
Options-Painting for a guide to help you narrow the choices when choosing
colors for your home.

Also remember you can get FREE ESTIMATES from CALFINDER for pre-qualified
contractors in your area to do the work for you when you’re ready to add that
splash of color to your life! From painting to general remodeling, to complete home renovations, they have the expert for you.

What colors do you plan to decorate with this year? Leave us a comment, we’d love to know!

Would you like a Christmas craft that is eco-friendly? Recycle your plastic bags and make a pretty wreath! Two Peas In A Bucket has a great tutorial here! I think you could make these a lot smaller and have some great ornaments as well.

Via: Craftzine

Finding a good contractor for your remodeling project can be a dicey proposition. A friend of mine recently interviewed a contractor who got into a screaming match with his ex-wife on his cell phone while she was interviewing him. My parents hired contractors who left the state, leaving their job unfinished and with their money long gone. We’ve all heard the contractor horror stories before.

If only you knew who to call, to avoid getting ripped off. Well, now you do; our friends over at CALFINDER has started a network that has taken the worry out of the process. CALFINDER was developed by homeowners for homeowners.They do the screening of contractors for you as well as conduct ongoing monitoring and customer satisfaction surveys. All CALFINDER’s contractors are carefully pre-screened and monitored. Here’s just a few of the services you get when you partner with CALFINDER to find your next contractor;

"Before we certify a contractor we perform a variety of checks. Below are just a few of those checks:In-depth check of current license and insurance coverage   

• Personal interview with at least 10 previous clients ensuring customer satisfaction and business reliability
• Ongoing monitoring and customer satisfaction surveys
• Follow up with each homeowner we work with to ensure that our contractors are providing a great service

CALFINDER’s founders, who have a diverse background in construction,
computer technology and business management, realized that planning and
executing home improvement projects are incredibly time-consuming and
expensive and believed they could fill a void by developing a reliable
source to help local homeowners find high-quality contractors. CALFINDER was established in 2005 covering main home improvement
projects including home remodeling, painting and window installation. Working with a vast network of 200 top-notch,
professional contractors, CALFINDER handles more than 600 homeowner service
requests per month."

We at Shakhammer think this is a great solution to taking the worry out of finding a good general contractor who is good
enough to work on one of your most valuable assets- your home. Check out their home improvement and remodeling blog too for the most up-to-date information on home rejuvenation trends and remodeling projects.

My kids love to make "forts", either by using the sofa as a prop, or the dining room table as a prop. The only problem with that is they use dang near every extra blanket we have and then I end up having to put the blankets in the laundry because kids and cats are messy.

Maybe I wouldn’t have to do this, if I had a nifty table cover like this! This is good stuff, I need to think about making something like this.

HT: Craftzine
Photo: Melissa Goodsell

Create You Squidoo Lens On A Shak Subject And You Could Be Featured On Shakadoo! Once you have built your lens, submit it to the group HERE.

Laminate Flooring Guide by JonitasKalimpo

Laminate Flooring, Make a Dream Home

Unlike hardwood, laminate floors will not stain, fade, dent and are far more scratch and water resistant. Warranties range from 10 years to lifetime and cover such factors as mentioned above. Entry level laminate wood flooring is designed for light traffic areas and come with warranties ranging from 10 to 15 years. Most people set their expectations too high and expect that entry level floors will perform under heavy traffic conditions and still look good for the duration of the warranty. This is however not the case, as an entry level floor subject to high traffic will start to show wear and tear within three to five years.

We hope this guide will help to understand better what laminate flooring is and how can improve your home, ALOT!

Everything You Need To Know on Laminate Flooring

Laminate Flooring mimics the look of traditional woods while offering easy installation and lasting durability. At first glance, it can be difficult to spot the difference between hardwoods and laminate flooring. What appears to be a natural wood grain pattern is really a thin layer of decor paper (a photographic image) under a tough-as-nails protective film that is glued and pressed to a high-density backing board. Laminate Flooring comes in an array of wood effects as well as stone and ceramic effects.

Laminate floorings main advantages are that it is easy to install, is very hardwearing and relatively inexpensive compared to real hardwood flooring.

Laminate flooring is a floating floor, which means it does not fasten directly to the sub-floor. Instead the planks are clicked together. This enables the floor to be fitted fast and with no real mess.

Most laminate floors today fit together with a click system with the most common being the UNICLIC system as used by Quick-Step. This is extremely easy and fast to fit. The ingenious UNICLIC-system has a special shape of tongue and groove. You simply place the tongue of one plank into the grove of another at an angle and press down. Their sophisticated and very accurate milled shape makes it possible to create a very tight connection during the installation. The floor can be walked on straight away.

If you are laying laminate flooring over a concrete sub-floor then you will fist need to lay down a damp proof membrane (DPM). This is basically a sheet of plastic usually around 5mm which helps protect the Laminate from moisture. On top of this goes the foam underlay this acts as sound absorption and also helps even out minor irregularities in the sub-floor.

Most manufactories now offer a combined DPM and underlay along with several underlay’s that have better sound absorbing qualities
Most of the leading laminate floor manufactories now also have ranges of flooring that also include built in underlay. This underlay is pre-fitted to the bottom of the flooring and is usually of sound absorbing quality. You do not need to install this type of floor a secondary but if you are laying over a concrete sub-floor you still have to lay down a D.P.M. (Damp Proof Membrane) first.

Laminate flooring has been around in Europe for around 15 years and has seen massive growth in the past few years read the rest……. 

To learn everything you ever wanted to know about laminate flooring, visit the entire lens by clicking: Laminate Flooring Guide

Maybe you need a swell new way to organize your spices, or perhaps you have decided to make your Christmas gifts this year and want to give something useful but still cool. Here are two ways to make spice containers.

First, we have Mookie Moo’s spice boxes. (pictured) This is a great way to store the bulk spices you’ve picked up in various places. The cork keeps them fresh yet easily accessible.

Second, we have magnetic spice containers from My Aim Is True- she used watchmaker’s tins and super strong magnets to make them. You could hang them on the refrigerator if it’s close, or on the wall as shown here.

Both are innovative and cool ways to store spices, or they could make great Christmas gifts. Melinda at Mookie Moo suggested giving "theme spices" as a gift, chili spices, for example.

[photo credit: Mookie Moo]

I’ve used the Habitat for Humanity ReStore to buy building supplies for my home. The prices are very reasonable and you’re helping your community at the same time.

Wise Bread has a great post today about the ReStore. Check it out!

Happy Halloween from all of us at Shakhammer! Over at Shakyard, I’ve given the readers a treat. Lucky Shakhammerers, you guys are going to get a treat as well. That can only mean the poor, poor Love Shak Baby readers are going to get a trick. Check back there later to find out what the trick is.

Your treat, is a story that comes with a tip. See, one Halloween, my grandma got the idea to rearrange her furniture. She enlisted the help of my brother and me and we pushed and shoved and lugged furniture around the room for much of the day. My mother got home from teaching school and took one look at the new arrangement and said it would never work.

"That chair totally interrupts the flow of the room," she told my grandma. "People are going to run into it all the time."

My grandma, irate because we had spent all that time on the room and my mom had assessed it in 30 seconds and said it wouldn’t work, said, "Well, if you’re too fat to get past this chair, then I suggest you lose some weight!"

She turned on her heel and started to storm out of the room. Except she ran into the chair on her way out. Mom was right. The chair did interrupt the flow of the room.

Your tip for the day: Test the room for proper flow of traffic by getting irate and fleeing the room. If you run into anything, you may want to consider moving it.