Adding character to your cook space doesn’t have to put you in the poor house: The secret’s in the finishing touches. See how fresh paint, new lighting, and smart use of colorful tiles and vintage accents can personalize the hub of your home.

Reinvent dark wood or white cabinets by painting them a refreshing hue. Here, a pale sage green reminiscent of vintage jadite dishware balances the intensity of the red floor. Premium Plus Ultra interior semigloss acrylic latex in Frosted Jade, $34 per gallon; behr.com.

As of April 22, 2010, federal law requires that all U.S. contractors be certified to work with lead-based paint in homes, child-care facilities and schools built before 1978. Details of the new RRP (Renovation, Repair and Painting) rule appear in a brochure, “Renovate Right,” which contractors must give homeowners before work begins. The law requires certified renovators to be on-site to ensure that employees follow specific practices to prevent lead contamination. These include posting warning signs, taping up heavy plastic to contain the work area, minimizing dust by wet sanding, then cleaning with a HEPA vacuum and a wet mop. Certification takes 8 hours of training by an EPA- or state-accredited provider and costs from $200 to $400 per trainee. Not every employee of a remodeling firm needs to be certified, but the firm itself pays a $300 fee to obtain EPA certification. Contractors failing to comply could get hit with a civil penalty of up to $37,500 per incident, per day.

Did you know that almost $2 billion is spent on the production of paint every year, and almost 60 million gallons of that paint becomes left over in the United States alone? Become apart of the movement and help save the environment by butting back your paint purchases.

Spend your hard earned cash on paint that pays for itself, like recycled paint. Recycled paint can cost half the price of new paint, and you help the environment by reusing.

Hazardous ingredients are among the least expensive and most widely used in the paint & coatings industry, perpetuating a legacy of environmental damage for generations to come. Many paints and stains are petroleum-based, with toxic additives that are designed for a narrow benefit, such as killing mildew.

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One of the greatest ways to decorate the walls and ceilings in a home is through imaginative painting techniques called “faux,” which is a French word for “fake.” As much as faux painting copies items like marble and metal the techniques goes back to Mesopotamian Empire of 3000 B.C. In the Middle Ages faux reached its glory days and a painter of “the guild” had to apprentice for 10 years or more before the master let him touch a finish.

The Art-deco craze of the 1920′s and 30′s brought the style back. And since the great trees of the country were being decimated clear wood was becoming scarce so faux wood painting became popular.
Wallpaper became popular for a bout 50 years or so and then began to vanish as faux filled the gap.

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The goal of every painter is to paint neatly and quickly. This can be challenging. My neighbor recently spent an entire week painting his bedroom, and ended up with nearly as much paint on himself as on the walls and ceiling. And in the end, believe or not, his wife decided she didn’t like the color. He’s now spending most of his time outside working on the lawn. Fortunately, there are dozens of tricks, shortcuts and trade secrets devoted to painting, many more than for any other home-improvement activity. Listed below are my five favorite painting tips, gleaned from years of personal painting experience and by watching pros on many job sites. Try one or all of the following techniques and I’m sure you’ll end up with a paint job nice enough to show off to the neighbors.

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A selection of handy tools that can help you plan improvements and troubleshoot existing problems – providing all kinds of solutions for your home, lawn and garden.

Virtual room designers
– Virtual kitchen
– Virtual gararge

Lawn & Garden
– Grass seed calculator
– Plant symptom finder
– Pest & disease libraries

Painting
– Paint Caluculators
– Virtual color (helps you choose the right color)

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