Monthly Archives: August 2011

Interior Design – The Power of Blue



Wherever we go, wherever we turn, a shade of blue always follows: the sky, the ocean, blue flowers and birds, blue mountain tops and deep blue lakes. Blue is a calm, restful color, perfectly suitable for interior design, especially for bedrooms. It’s a Mediterranean color, one that reminds of the summer and the sea, a define mood booster. For this reason interior designers started to use this color in offices, day rooms and even to decorate summer gardens and kitchens.

Blue in offices has a good impact on the attentiveness of the workers. People are more productive in blue rooms, focused and creative. Even sportsmen perform better in blue rooms. Blue generally symbolizes harmony, peace, healing and happiness, but it could have “dark” meanings too. Lovers of blue tend to be introverted. While pale blue describes a happy personality, as the blue gets darker it becomes moody and depressing, especially when it’s not associated with “positive” colors. Too much blue for a room and that space will become gloomy and depressing. Interior design deals with shapes and colors, combining them to create a pleasant atmosphere in every home.

Navy blue is a dark color that requires careful employment in a design composition. But used in the right amounts and on the right spots, navy blue can be the decisive element to enhance a design transforming a primarily dull space into an oasis of joy. Navy blue is the color of the deep seas. It’s used often in designing the interiors of beach hotels and terraces. It reminds of handsome sailors (NAVY sailors do have those already famous navy-and-white striped t-shirts) and sailing adventures. What could better boost your mood than a dining room bathed in summery lights, where the 5 o’clock ice tea waits for you on a navy-and-white striped placemat?

If you are going to use navy blue to decorate your bedroom, you should always combine it with light, positive colors: white, camel, light beige, light gray, pearl. To make the blue d

Interior Designs – Home Design Trends



Home design trends keep changing from time to time. New ones quickly replace trends that were in vogue yesterday. Here are some of the home design trends.

Personal Space

Everyone needs personal breathing space. Another trend that has progressed is the conception of private space in homes. The amenity of a private and dedicated space for each one in the home is becoming popular these days with even couples wanting space to spend some time alone seldom.

Fashionable Garages

Today’s garages have gone under an entire reform as homeowners prefer contemporary garages equipped with various luxuries such as cabinet and storage systems, mini refrigerators, air conditioning and residential-looking flooring. Decked out, upscale garages have removed the image of gloomy and grease that is normally associated with them.

Rooms added for Serenity

A separate one-stop zone for relaxation is another very popular new design trend in homes. These serenity rooms are meant for a variety of relaxation and fitness activities such as yoga, meditation, exercising, steam baths, etc.

Renovate Your Outdoor Area

Convert your outdoor space into “warm zones” and spend more time outdoors, people living in colder climates can are now converting their outdoor spaces. A few great examples of such convertibles are patios, driveways and walk ways. This makes winter maintenance easy and spring and fall more enjoyable.

Add-on Extra room with the Master bedroom

People are attaching master bedrooms today with an additional room that serve up as a ‘snoring room’ for partners who snore. Instead of heading for an uncomfortable couch, now snoring sleepers can find their way toward a much more comfortable sleeping quarter. A typical bedroom for snorers is equipped with a double bed and chair, with easy access to the amenities of the master suite.

Home Design trends are changing with time, people are becoming more aware of fashion in every walk of life, be it self styling or doing the interiors decoration for the home.

Design of Roof Truss Layout and Correct Framing Drawings



Roof trusses are widely used in residential and wood framed commercial projects. A roof truss is usually cost-effective and quick in construction than a roof framed with rafters. A roof truss is crafted from small pieces of lumber; it is then fabricated in a shop and after that set up at the site.

When we start designing a house we first create a truss layout which shows places where trusses will be fit in the roof, anticipated shapes of the top & bottom of the truss, plate heights and estimation of load on the trusses. The builder then gives this layout to its truss supplier. The truss supplier prepares actual design of each individual truss according to our roof design layout. The truss supplier may propose some modifications in the design because they have slightly different preferences to construct the truss using available proprietary software and CAD tools. Truss drawings as prepared by the truss supplier are then sent to the Architect for a review.

The architect forwards these drawings to a truss engineer who further examines various parameters such as the size of home, dead/live loads based on geometry, required truss span and roof pitches and give final go ahead for fabrication. The completed truss drawings show precise placement of trusses in the roof structure and precise inter-relation of truss members.

A truss is normally designed to transmit dead and live loads to other members in the structure. With regards to new home construction, a dead load is the burden of static components like the truss itself, roof beams, roofing materials, sheathing and ceiling material. A live load is dynamic in nature, such as wind, snow, furniture, movable loads, etc. Trusses are crafted to prevent flexing and bending and are usually tied together with tooth like metal plates made from galvanized steel or metal.

The common truss contains parallel sides so as to have a nearly same pitch on both sides of a center point. A lot depends on the interior ceiling design and roof pitches of your home when designing a layout for roof truss. Roof truss design allows flexibility to change the interior space as the truss normally be placed on an outside wall, leaving the interior space free for you to design and decorate accordingly. Trusses come in a wide range of designs giving you a creative freedom to change the ceiling design!