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Here are the latest month's daily tips from Right at Home Daily.
 Add elegance to a living room entrance by creating an archway adorned with ornamental plaster moldings. Add columns on either side of the arch to support it in a grand manner.
If you have a fireplace in an apartment or home that either doesn't work or doesn't have a flu, why not convert it into an electronic hearth? Another trick: fit a framed mirror in the opening of a non-working fireplace. It makes the room look larger.
Use your dining room at least once a week and not just when you host a dinner party. Set the table with your best placemats and china. Even pizza tastes better on fine china!
Have your curtains cleaned, dust all blinds and baseboards before you place your furniture, and have your windows washed. Your house will sparkle.
Assign a chore to each family member to make life run more smoothly in coming months. For exmaple, have one child set the table nightly, and another do the dishes. Rotate tasks so everyone gets to learn something new.
If you have an older home with broken tiles around the fireplace hearth, contact the nonprofit Tile Heritage Foundation (look on the Internet for resources), which maintains a list of ceramic restorers with experience in a broad range of antique, old, and handmade tiles.
If you have an extra large living room, consider separating it into more than one seating area. Configuration possibilities include a large sofa with accompanying club chairs, oversize ottomans that double as coffee tables and soft, plush area rugs.
Rejuvenate an old sofa or chair by applying a piece of old material to make an ornamental ruffle on a pillow, seat or cushion covering.
Personalize existing curtains with drapery pins. Insert pins into the window molding at each end, then adjust spacing in between and pucker fabric as desired.
Put in an underground sprinkler system that will water your grass and flowers better, save you time and labor and ease your back strain.
Put out a candy dish and keep it filled -- and not just during the holidays.
Don't bring an old broom to a new house. Buy a new one to start fresh. After you use it to clean, change the furniture arrangment in your new living room and rearrange the accessories on your coffee tables. Don't throw out anything, just stash away in you
Organize your makeup area and throw out old makeup; place perfume bottles on a nice tray and add a vase to display fresh flowers. Your bathroom should be a haven of relaxation and cleanliness.
To inject a little heat into the winter, throw a dance party with a theme. Invite friends over, clear away the furniture and spend the night rocking and rolling, swinging or tangoing away. Buy enough CDs for an entire night of music.
Put out a tray, basket or old fashioned silver toaster rack in your hall for placing mail for family members.
When laying down a new hardwood floor, consider mixing and matching dark and light hardwoods to create a patterned effect. Then, paint one wall in a deep color such as cinnamon or Chinese red and paint stripes in a lighter color to create faux wallpaper.
In the dead of winter when you're looking for projects, take out all the books in your bookshelves, dust them, give away books no longer of interest, buy a new book and re-read a favorite novel.
For an easy-to-change art gallery, rest photographs and art--framed, of course--on the floor against a wall. Be sure they're large enough to view easily.
Maximize visual space in a tiny bathroom by installing a large wall mirror and glass-topped sink. The gleaming mirror opens up new vistas and expands the small space.
Create a candle garden by arranging pillar candles of different heights and diameters in various colors in a shallow bowl. Surround candles with dried beans - i.e., red kidney beans or pink lentils. The beans at the bottom make wax cleanup easy and unify the candle arrangement into a centerpiece.
To retain a lingering sense of summer, use avocados to make soup, an avocado and shrimp cocktail, in sandwiches or as guacamole. An avocado slice can even be substituted for an olive in a martini.
Have a good laugh by buying a good joke book, renting a silly movie, reading a funny book, and remembering what it's like to get very goofy with friends.
To update your new kitchen without a dramatic remodel, consider changing the countertops, repainting the cabinets and changing knobs. If that's too big a job, try a new dish draining rack and utensil jar, for starters.
Shop at flea markets for architectural fragments such as wooden mantels, doors and cornices. Hang them on the wall as found art.
Buy a scrapbook or photo album and keep a visual record of the changes you make in your home.
Hold a family hour so everybody can tackle their bedroom and is assigned one room where they change accessories and maybe move a piece of furniture. Celebrate afterward with a special meal.
If you have a guest bedroom, spend a night in it so you see it as your guests do. You'll quickly figure out what comforting items to keep handy, such as a fluffy robe, bedside lamp, magazines, potpourri and mints on the pillows.
Punch up your master bath by purchasing a new upscale fashionable bathroom scale. These scales offer both accuracy and design. Some even fold up like a laptop computer to be stored horizontally.
Pull out a kitchen appliance you haven't used in months or years. Make a delicious Dacquiri with that rarely used blender or prepare a creamy pumpkin-acorn squash soup with a food processor.
Start an annual entertaining tradition and decorating theme for a religious holiday, New Year's, Thanksgiving or open house because everyone will come to expect and look forward to it.
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