Family Life: More on mudrooms and cubbies

When you’re building or renovating a mudroom or laundry room, don’t forget the dogs! A very useful trick is to build dog crates directly under the counters. Of course, the doors need to be made of wire mesh, so there’s plenty of air. And of course, you don’t expect the dogs to spend all their time there – just bedtime, as they would with any other crate. You can put their blankets or beds inside, and the whole thing is out of the way.

In this case, the puppy looks a little bit sad. It’s not because he doesn’t like his bed; it’s because he started to come and play and was told to stop so we could take his picture.

Family living: mudrooms and cubbies

At our house, we’ve had many years of book bags and sports bags in the dining room. Apparently, that’s the logical place in our house to dump everything, especially when the dining room table was the homework center. But in other people’s houses (and yes, we are jealous), we often build new mudrooms and cubbies to catch all those things. A separate cubby for each child, with hooks for coats and book bags, with a bench they can sit on to take off their shoes, and with a shelf at the top for homework and special projects…… this is really a nice thing to have.

Design: Choosing Colors

Here’s a simple trick to help you choose colors: no matter what the combination you’re looking for may be, when colors are good together, they both look clean. Try it.

Saving money: “Weatherize” your house

Although replacing old windows is usually seen as a good way to reduce heat loss, in fact there are less expensive actions that accomplish even more. Read this in the New York Times.

www.nytimes.com/2008/12/30/us/30weatherize.html?_r=1&ref=us