Best of Bring Science into Your Next Big Backyard Adventure

Exploring your backyard is not only a fun activity, but it can also educational. There are a large number of living, breathing creatures that can be found outdoors. All children love exploring nature, but there are some who may enjoy this exploration more than others. Those children are likely to be toddlers or elementary school aged children. Since young children may need your assistance, you will want to pick backyard activities that you will also enjoy doing.


One of the many ways that you can incorporate science into your backyard is by studying the plants that can be found in your yard. While all backyards are likely to have a number of different plants or flowers, yours may have more. For the best type of environment, you are encouraged to explore the wilder areas of your yard that have yet to be mowed or cleared.


Your backyard is also likely full of a number of different insects. Like plants and flowers, your child may enjoy examining these bugs. It is not only fun to see what bugs live in your backyard, but it is also exciting to learn about how they survive and what they eat. There is also a good chance that your children may leave your yard with a new pet.


In addition to the living things that can be found in your backyard, you and your child may also want to examine the weather and the impact it has on the yard and everything inside of if. Backyard conditions change as the weather changes. By examining your backyard after a rainy day, your child may find that many of the plants, flowers, and bugs have either changed or retreated to safer grounds. Examining the effect the weather has on the things in your backyard is not only fun, but educational.


To make the most out of your child’s next backyard adventure, you may want to consider purchasing them some science supplies. These supplies may include, but should not be limited to containers, butterfly catching nets, magnifying glasses, picture books, and resource guides. If your child is planning on capturing a few insects, a small cage or breathable container may be just what they need. These supplies, along with others, can be purchased from most retail stores. These stores may include department stores, home improvement stores, and toy stores.


To keep your exploration focused on education, science books and nature resource guides may be a nice addition to your child’s science collection. Many books and resource guide have a focus on insects, birds, plants, and flowers. Many of these resources will provide you with information and pictures, from which you and your child can more easily identify the things you find. For a large selection of science and nature books, you are encouraged to shop online, for instance at Amazon, or visit your local book store.


When examining the plants, bugs, and flowers in your backyard, you and your child may want to document what you see. This can easily be done with a notebook or a camera. By taking pictures, your child will always be able to remember their exploration adventures. Those pictures could also be used for other crafts. Scrapbooks and collages are a great way to turn traditional photographs into something much more.


Whether your child plans on exploring your backyard or they do so without intending to, it is likely that they will interested with what they see and learn. Incorporating science into your next backyard adventure is just one of the many things that you and your child can do outdoors; however, it may be the most beneficial.

New Turn Your House into a Lovely Home

We all want to live in a fully furnished beautiful place. An abode where we can have peace of mind, spend quality time with the family, and won't be ashamed to welcome our friends and guests. In short, we want our house to be called a home. So we typically improve its appearance by using modern furniture, wall arts, and adding decorations inside and out.

Some of the most fascinating addition to our home are plants and flowers. They not only add beauty to our surroundings but they can also give us fresh air and help save Mother Nature. Today, a backyard garden is no longer necessary just to add a greenery outside our home. Though our gardening giftswill never go to waste because there are already a lot of ways on how we can grow plants inside and out of our homes.

1. Hanging baskets. They can be fascinating decorations on our porch, patio, or any other outdoor spaces. Put cascading plants on hanging baskets and they will definitely make your home more charming and attractive.

2. Window Box. Accentuate your windows with colorful flowers by placing them in a window box. There are different styles of window boxes that you can use to perfectly match the color or design of your house. You may use metal, PVC, fiberglass, or hay rack. Using any of them will definitely add pizazz to your windows.

3. Planter Box. Bring the charm and aroma of your flowers inside your home by placing them in planter box. Even your herbs can be brought in too. With the wide selection of planter boxes today, it will not be hard for you to choose which fits in your interior or exterior decorations at home.

With the variety of gardening ideas today, it is up to your creativity to use them and make your house turn into a beautiful and lovely home. You can look for designs of home decorations using hanging baskets, window boxes, or planter boxes on the internet and follow their patterns. You can even follow the designs of luxurious hotels even if you do not use expensive materials. Just mix and match the various resources that you can afford and you will achieve the beautiful home that you have in mind.

 

Elegant Turn Your Porch into a Sunroom for Year-round Use

Everyone enjoys an open porch in warm weather. It provides an extra space in the open air that is unmatched my patios or decks. It shades you from the sun and protects you from the rain. Some porches have a hanging swing or a hammock for maximum relaxation. But when the weather turns cold, an open-air porch can lose all its appeal and doesn't get much use until the weather warms up again. Enclosing your porch and turning it into a sunroom is a compelling option for porch-enthusiasts who want to add square footage to their house and enjoy the many benefits of a porch all year round.

Because much of the porch structure is already in place, turning it into a sunroom is a pretty uncomplicated project. Most of the time, depending on your specific porch, all that is required are installing some windows, adding insulation and possibly providing some extra heat - either through your home's existing furnace or adding a wood or gas fireplace. For maximum energy efficiency, use double-pane, low-e, tempered window glass.

A sunroom is ideal for entertaining guests, relaxing and adding to the resale value of your home. They can be a variety of styles and designs, including sloped roofs, gable roofs, solarium-style curved glass roofs and Victorian-style conservatories with glass or polycarbonate roofs. A sunroom addition can add more light to a home that might not have a lot of southern exposure. The extra ambient light can make a smaller home appear larger.

Adding a sunroom costs less than a conventional household addition, and can be built where local building codes and zoning ordinances restrict backyard additions. Because of the financial and usage benefits, sunrooms are a popular amenity requested by potential homebuyers. Homes with an appropriately designed sunroom are likely to sell faster and for more money than those without. Usually, a sunroom addition is not considered to be a square footage addition to your home. Check the local ordinances to be sure.

Sunrooms give a sensation of being outdoors while providing indoor comforts. They can be the perfect place for a hot tub, an exercising / recreation room, a child's play room, a home office, or a peaceful, relaxing spot to unwind with a good book. Many sunroom owners plant bushes and flowers around their enclosure to enjoy nature from the comfort and protection of their sunroom.

Create a sunroom that will add to the architectural beauty of your home. It can save you money on your energy bills, create extra space, increase the overall value of your house, add striking natural light to your home, and bring you closer to the environment and surroundings in which your family lives.

Elegant Custom Water Fountains Bring Elegance into Your Home

A personalized and custom water fountain installed in your home or office will have a lasting impression on friends or customers. They also make perfect gifts for friends and family or as corporate incentives. Custom water fountains will make the ideal fit for anyone looking for that extra special décor.

You may be looking for a sophisticated and elegant indoor fountain or if it is an outside fountain, a dazzling outdoor wall mounted fountain for the atrium or patio.

When searching for a floor fountain, tabletop fountain or a wall mounted fountain, you may not always find exactly what you want. Rather than settling for the closest fit, why not have a custom waterfall or fountain designed for you?

By opting for a custom water fountain, you can create a unique piece of art. Having a custom water feature installed in your home, you will find it brings a new sense of peace and relaxation as well as sophistication unparalleled by any other style of decor.

Imagine having your custom water fountain installed as a room divider, a water window or a breathtakingly beautiful masterpiece that fits into an alcove. By adding a custom waterfall to your home or office, you are creating a new mold that has not duplicated.

You can customize an existing design to create a unique effect or create from your own design. Creating your very own custom water fountain allows you to do almost anything you want with the color, lighting type, materials etc. Lighting is definitely an option to consider on your custom water fountain. 

There are some other things to consider for your custom water fountain. There are freestanding fountains, tabletop fountains and wall mounted water fountains. If it is a wall mounted custom waterfall or a room divider, you will need to know the exact width and height of the area that you are working in. The style of décor that you are going with will play an important role in the style of custom water fountain that you should go for.

This is where you can get carried away if you are not careful because there are so many options to choose from. If you go for a glass effect, you will need to choose whether to have glass or mirror. You will then decide whether to have rippled glass or a smooth glass finish and its color.

Other materials to consider are the different varieties of slate, copper screen or stainless steel. Slate and copper are often paired together to create dazzling effects. You may want to have an auto fill and drain system installed. Discuss your design with the supplier and make sure the design will work. When designing your custom water fountain, whether indoors or outside in the garden, take children and pets into consideration.

Businesses can also benefit from custom water fountains in many ways and can put the customer into a relaxed buying mood.

A custom water fountain in your home or office will create a lasting impression with all who see it. Design your own custom water fountain and impress those around you.

The author recently installed a water fountain in his own home.

Awesome Chicken House Designs - What to Take into Consideration

When making a chicken house, also known as a chicken coop, there are a few things you need to take into consideration before you make the actual commitment. People who go about making a chicken house without taking the following things into consideration usually end up failing or they produce a shoddy coop that is not so durable.

One thing to take into consideration is the type of design, obviously - and there are more variations in design that you may realize. The chicken house design you choose is going to depend on a number of factors. How many chickens are you going to house? (and remember to allow for an expanding flock over time) How much space in your backyard do you have to work with? How much money do you have to spend on the various building materials? All these factors are going to differ from situation to situation, of course. But once you know the answers, a resource book on building chicken houses will be able to hold your hand through the design process.

You also want to take into consideration any predators in your area. Do people in your neighborhood keep pets like cats or dogs? Do you live where wild animals like foxes or possums are common? It's important to consider such things since you may have to create a more secure chicken coop to safeguard your hens. You may want to bury any mesh wire deep into the ground, so predators can't dig underneath it.

You also need to think about the inside of the chicken house. Of course, you want your chicken(s) to have maximum comfort at all times. Small things like having a feeder and water basin full at all times and thinking of your comfort make sure they are both easy to refill as well. Spots for your hens to nest in style, with quite a bit of space. You also need to ensure that your chicken coop is well ventilated, having a mesh wire window might be a good idea.

Remembering the above things and you can't get it too wrong. You really do need to ensure you get a hold of some quality chicken house designs though. There are plenty of resources out there that you can use to obtain some quality designs.

New Four Ways to Make an Outdoor Patio into an Outdoor Kitchen

The backyard can be a source of relaxation and a place to hold family gatherings. It's a place of barbeques, friendly chats and leisure. Those who love to spend time in their yards would do well to look into remodeling it to serve even more functional purposes. There are several ways to improve upon any yard. One of the most popular ways to remodel a yard and patio these days has been to install an outdoor kitchen.

A beautiful way to start creating an outdoor kitchen is to install a fireplace and mantel. These could be made out of beautiful wood, stone or brick materials. It will be like stepping out of the comfort of a home to experience the wonder and warmth of a real fire burning in the backyard. No one will need to pack up the camping gear and drive to the nearest camping destination in order to enjoy a fireplace if they look into installing a beautiful mantle in their backyard.

Of course, it would really help with the roasting of marshmallows in the fireplace if a stone counter was included in the remodel. Counters have multiple uses and can serve as a table for family and friends to gather around outside in the yard. This will also serve as a preparation area for cooking in the beautiful fireplace that has been added in the remodel as well.

No counter would be complete without a sink. These days, more and more people are installing workable sinks in their backyards. It really brings together the countertop and fireplace to have a working sink. Now, the backyard does not just have a patio, it has an outdoor kitchen. Instead of running inside for a glass of water or to wash the dishes, a sink is provided so that everyone in the family can enjoy one another outside even during the clean up.

Speaking of clean up, a great way to improve upon the outdoor kitchen is to put a dishwasher in the counter. Why tote all the dishes inside just to load in the dishwasher inside when a fully functional dishwasher can be installed outside? No kitchen is a real kitchen without a dishwasher. Installing a dishwasher into the outdoor counter in the backyard would definitely be the finishing touch to a perfectly created outdoor kitchen. With these changes, the backyard will have more meaning and more functionality so that every visitor and family member will be able to fully enjoy their time spent together with all of the kitchen amenities at their fingertips.