There is several simple rules that you have to follow, to save yourself time and avoid costly mistakes:

- Mirrors always should be hang strictly vertical.

- Position your mirrors so direct open light from lighting fixtures wouldn’t reflect in the mirrors, in other words the lighting source reflected in the mirrors shouldn’t “blind” the person.

- The distance from the floor to the top of the mirrors should be no less than 6 feet.

- The distance from the floor to the bottom of the mirrors should be at least one in a half foot.

And one more important thing, when placing a mirror you should count on at least three to five feet of open space in a front on it so a person has an opportunity to step back while looking at the mirror.

 In a well composed room, mirrors were used to emphasize the symmetry of a space. A good room, unless perfectly square, would have a major and a minor axis and mirrors would be used to emphasize one or both.

In a modern room, a mirrors hung on the wall might occupy the position that a built-in mirror might have had in earlier times. And: While large mirrors accentuate some spatial attributes of a room, small mirrors, even tiny ones, can acknowledge a room’s symmetry. Small mirrors might be used above a door if the door is occupying the center of the room, or in the middle of a bookcase if that would corroborate the room’s symmetry.

When incorporating corbels into your home for purely decorative reasons, choosing the correct sized corbel is based upon the proportions of the surface you’re working with, as well as the physical details of the corbel itself.

If you intend to place the corbel above the fluting of a pilaster, the key dimension you are working with is the width of the corbel. The corbel should measure as wide, though no wider than 1/2 inch of the pilaster.

If you intend to place the corbel underneath a structural beam, the key dimension you are focused on is the width of the corbel. The corbel’s width should measure as wide as the width of the beam, or no smaller than 1/4 inch of the width of the beam.

If you intend to place the corbel beneath a countertop, the key dimension you are focused on is the depth of the corbel. The same rule applies when using the corbel as means of support: the corbel should measure at least 1/2 of the depth of the countertop’s overhang; or more preferably, exactly 3/4 of the depth of the overhang.

If you intend to place the corbels inside a door opening or entryway, the key dimensions you are working with is width. The corbels’ widths should measure the same as the width of the doorway. They should never measure smaller than 2 inches of the doorway’s width, with 1 inch on either side. Also, special consideration should be given to the sides of the corbel, since the carved details will face outwards. The carved details will be the first glimpse of the corbels one sees when passing through the doorway.

If you intend to place the corbels on either side of a kitchen’s stove hood, you are working with both dimensions of width and depth. The corbel should be rather large; at least 12 inches deep. If cabinets will abut the corbel, the sides of the corbel should be flat, so it will be flush with the cabinets

Our lines of Molding and Adhesives for molding installation also do not contain harmful chemicals such as formaldehyde. It is a colorless, strong-smelling gas that has been used quite profusely in building materials and many household products.

Its most common use is in adhesives and the adhesive that is used in pressed wood products such as MDF moldings and baseboards. You might have heard about it in the news in regards to the FEMA trailers used in the recovery effort after Hurricane Katrina.

It is usually present in no more than .06 parts per million, but if it ever reaches. 1 parts per million or more it may cause side effects such as respiratory problems, burning and watery eyes, burning sensation in nose and throat, nausea, coughing, tightness in chest, wheezing, and/or skin reactions (such as rashes).

Formaldehyde was put on the list of carcinogenic elements. There is no certainty in the amount that would cause it—depends on the exposure type and duration of the exposure to the chemical. In a recent article in the New York Post (Friday, February15, 2008, “FEMA’ cane aid is Toxic”) Mike Stobbe described the situation where “Health officials are urging hurricane victims be moved out of their government issued trailers as soon as possible.

Apparently “in some trailers the levels were nearly 40 times customary exposure levels, raising fears that residents could contract respiratory problems.” Our homes should be our refuge not our undoing.

This is why InvitingHome.com has made such an effort to provide “people safe” and “environmentally friendly” moldings. They may be a bit more expensive, but since these moldings will be in our home for the rest of your life why would you want to fill your home with moldings that are harmful to our family and hazardous to the environment?

You can rest assured that all of our architectural products are green and that we are conscious of any other ways to be proactive in helping keep the environment clean. For example, our manufacturer has switched from petroleum to gas at its main manufacturing plant. Petroleum is mostly made up of hydrocarbons. As the hydrocarbons burns they create carbon dioxide, water, sulphur, and carbon monoxide. When natural gas is burnt, one molecule of carbon dioxide for every two water molecules is released, making it the cleaner fuel alternative. This change ends up lowering the carbon monoxide emission at the factory by 660,000 lbs a year. At InvitingHome.com we are also conscious to reuse packing material and all cardboard is sent to a recycling facility.

Our quality molding is incredibly durable (as strong or stronger than wood) with a tough, but extremely smooth surface. The high density molding save you time and money due to the fact that you do not have to prime them—they come pre-primed. It is not cumbersome because of how lightweight it is which makes it much easier to install and more fuel-efficient to ship.

With InvitingHome.com you are not sacrificing style or quality to help the environment or protect your family.

It is natural for people to strive for the best. Even a few decades ago, no one even dreamt of having the kind of architectural ceiling details that have easily become a defining characteristic of our lives today with the new materials and possibilities. Those particular characteristics and ceilings embellishments can be easily achieved with the products found on InvitingHome.com.

Through the centuries, people have been decorating their homes by beautifying them and creating a sense of calm. There is a great assortment of ways to make your house more appealing and creating an original personality with your own signature ceiling. To be at home, there is a desire for it to feel incredibly warm, cozy, pleasing, and calming. Is it simple to achieve such an effect.

You can take different approaches with the goal of redefining the interior of your home. For many, to beautify their home means that they are to do so themselves - to rely on your own skills, taste, and mistakes to create your own interior - but don’t forget that there are times to get help from an interior designer or architect. The ceiling is one of the largest blank canvases of your home, but slips from the mind as the possibility of adding character to your house. With the modernization of materials and creativity, there are new breakthroughs in ceiling designs. The ceiling is a great way to tailor the room to a certain feel or to give the room structure that is not simply reminiscent of a box. The amazing items that give birth to such possibilities include ceiling medallions, ceiling rims, ceiling domes, as well as panel molding with decorative corners. It is not only a great way to bring life to a new home, but is suitable for restorations of historical interiors.

Of all the elements of the decoration of the house home accessories are the most revealing. These little details sprinkle your love of life in all directions. Through home accessories you can increase your affections, multiply your pleasures, feel a deep sense of being on your path, and always be awake to the new interests, ideas, and inspiration that comes with each day.

With home accessories your creative energy longs to be released, and here, in the privacy of your home, you can unselfconsciously reveal your passion and creativity. You can keep pastel candles in the hurricane lamps and colorful flowers in beautiful vases throughout your rooms to compliment and enhance your art and upholstery.

Open your closets to see which colors you like to wear when you are not at the office, and this will give you clues to the colors you are instinctively drawn to.

Today’s home interiors are not only a thoughtful combination of architectural forms and decorative elements, but lighting has become an integral part of home design. Home lighting plays a very significant role in the overall look and feeling of the home. With the help of lighting fixtures we can accent different areas, define functional spaces, and visually improve a flow of the living space.

With different lighting the same room can drastically change appearance. Some professionals can base whole interior design on lighting alone. There are endless possibilities of incorporating lighting fixtures into the home interiors, and interior designers are constantly coming up with innovative solutions, transforming rooms using lighting. For example, using paintable wall lighting fixtures that direct light upwards you can add a soft ambiance to a room. You can also customize the look of this type of fixtures to meet your decorating needs by painting or faux finishing them. Another example of popular lighting effects used by interior designers is a ceiling highlights. Using specially designed crown molding for indirect lighting where light concealed inside the molding diffusing light upwards. This type of lighting not only create a beautiful affect but visual lifts up the ceiling, making it appear higher.

Lighting should be flexible. Take into account the various activities that will take place in a room: reading, game playing, TV watching, sewing, conversation, cocktail sipping. Think about your personal visual comfort. Overhead illumination may provide minimum level lighting requirements and general lighting distribution. Decorative lighting can meet specific lighting needs—over a chair or in a nook—independent of overall needs. Decorative lighting can also impart an atmospheric effect. It is unnecessary to turn on all the lamps in a room at one time.

Redecorating with molding gives you a chance to create new warmth and beauty in the home you originally fell in love with. To use molding with confidence, you’ll want to make design choices appropriate to your space and decor.

In some contemporary homes, for example, elaborate molding could be out of place. But don’t underestimate the amount of molding that rooms can tastefully accommodate. We offer a variety of beautiful moldings designed for contemporary homes. Clean lines, vivid profiles, and modern durable materials make our moldings a perfect fit for contemporary environment. Contemporary crown molding nz51 featured on the left-hand-side picture.

The architectural style of your home and your personal taste will a play large parts in selecting moldings. But there are other considerations that should guide your molding purchasing decision.

First of all, the size and scale of the molding should be appropriate for the room. Low ceilings (8 feet or less) have a harder time supporting large ornate crown moldings than 10- or 12- foot ceilings. The scale of the molding relates to its profile as well as molding size. For low ceilings we recommend choosing crown molding which projects on the ceiling more then it comes down on the wall. Application of such crown molding visually will make ceilings appear higher.

A small room can be easily overwhelmed by large, elaborate molding, just as a plane slender molding disappears in a large room. Deep and heavy molding detailing creates vivid shadows and has a greater visual presence than subtle molding profiles. As you consider adding a crown moldings in combination with other molding types, you might be concern that extensive trim-work will make small rooms appear even smaller. In fact, the opposite occurs. Through magic of geometric illusion, trim-work often makes room appear larger and wider. Long horizontal lines created with moldings can make you perceive that a room is longer and wider than it really is. In a same manner, long vertical lines created with moldings will make a low ceiling appear higher.

Traditionally, the Craftsman and Mission artists of the 1700s used simplicity and natural beauty as a guideline throughout their design and carving process. Both groups used new world hardwoods, such as oak and maple, as the basis for their distinctive creations. In the Craftsman and Mission style corbels were carved and polished so that the quality natural beauty of the wood was always apparent. Staining was usually reserved for woods of lesser quality, but today can be done to match new pieces to an existing home décor or color scheme.

InvitingHome.com’s Product Manager, Mr. Albert Delaney, says that the introduction of the collection was a direct response to a gap in the home decor market. “The new collection is based on customer requests for clean line corbels that are geometrically balanced yet functional to offer support for granite countertops and shelves,” he said. So far, Albert and the rest of the company are enthusiastic about customer reaction to the new line, “Feedback on the new collection of mission and craftsman corbels has been, in a word, tremendous.” Delaney emphasized he personally felt that “simplicity and harmony of shapes and the craftsman’s creed of honesty in materials,” were all contributing factors towards the new collection’s positive reception.

The Craftsman and Mission style woodwork, such as furniture, kitchen cabinetry, and mill pieces, have recently made a considerable comeback into today’s world of design. InvitingHome.com’s new line of corbels reflect the root of this traditional style: authentic carving favored over factory mass production. Although it may be hard to believe, each corbel is individually hand-carved by highly skilled craftsmen from a variety of solid woods.

The new corbels typically come in three sizes and a variety of different woods which make them easy to fit into a wide range of designs and desired applications. Do-it-yourselfers can even choose the same design of corbel to carry a theme in a room, but utilize the varying sizes to fit specific nuances in the room. In a kitchen, for example, the smaller corbels may be used in the design of cabinetry, while medium and large corbels may be used as support structures for countertops and shelves.

Corbel installation is extremely simple, and with the beautiful designs of the Mission and Craftsman style the finished project is sure to look beautiful and breathe new life into any room.

As you can see from the photos, we painted the area in-between the rim and the light fixture a “chocolate milk” color, while the rest of the ceiling is an antique white, and the rim itself is bright white. You will notice that we were able to incorporate the rather inconveniently-located ceiling sprinkler head into the design, exactly in the middle of the inner circle area.

The finished result is striking, and it actually makes the light fixture look even bigger, as through the light fixture, the rim, and the area in-between is now all “one thing” five feet in diameter.

A word of encouragement to your customers… don’t panic if the four-piece rim you install has gaps between the pieces and doesn’t look perfect when you nail it up at first. As long as you have it aligned closely, it will all look A LOT BETTER as soon as you caulk it… the caulk takes up all the gaps and seams, and gives it a one-piece-look with barely-visible seams.

By the way… I am the world’s largest dealer of rare and antique Bibles (see my website at WWW.GREATSITE.COM) and you can see several ancient Bibles on the bookshelves in the
background of one of the photos.

Best Wishes,
John L. Jeffcoat