Home Interior Design-Series-021

House Proud Book – 19th Century Watercolor Interiors from the Thaw Collection

Interior Design Who was studying the art and craft of Interior Design, watercolor drawings of interiors were one of the staple images they worked on. That’s why they was naturally attracted to a book such as ‘House Proud’ which is a collection of nineteenth century watercolor images from the Thaw Collection. The book is a celebration and example of the large collection given to the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York, the only museum focused on contemporary and historic design in the US.

It was fashionable in the 19th Century Europe for aristocratic and upper-class families to commission artists to represent their home interiors in watercolor paintings. These were collected in albums and became heirlooms to be passed down from one generation to the next. The most beautiful were also given to visiting guests especially if they were royalty. The House Proud book showcases these 19th century watercolor interiors together with historical facts on the social, political and economic developments of interior design for the domestic home.

‘House Proud’ is an ideal gift for someone you know who admires 19th Century Interiors and who has an interest in this period of time, particularly in Europe. The splendid cover of the book means it will make a wonderful coffee table book which can be displayed for casual reading when guests and family visit.

Passive smoking

("Second hand smoke")

Passive smoking is the inhalation of smoke, called secondhand smoke (SHS) or environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), from tobacco products used by others. It occurs when tobacco smoke permeates any environment, causing its inhalation by people within that environment. Scientific evidence shows that exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke causes disease, disability, and death.



Passive smoking has played a central role in the debate over the harms and regulation of tobacco products. Since the early 1970s, the tobacco industry has been concerned about passive smoking as a serious threat to its business interests; harm to "innocent bystanders" was perceived as a motivator for stricter regulation of tobacco products. Despite an early awareness of the likely harms of secondhand smoke, the tobacco industry coordinated to engineer a scientific controversy with the aim of forestalling regulation of their products.



Currently, the health risks of secondhand smoke are a matter of scientific consensus, and these risks have been one of the major motivations for smoking bans in workplaces and indoor public places, including restaurants, bars and night clubs.


The term thirdhand smoke was recently coined to identify the residual tobacco smoke contamination that remains after the cigarette is extinguished and secondhand smoke has cleared from the air. Preliminary research suggests that byproducts of thirdhand smoke may pose a health risk, though the magnitude of risk, if any, remains unknown.


Long-term effects


General:
Overall increased risk; reviewing the evidence accumulated on a worldwide basis, the International Agency for Research on Cancer concluded in 2004 that "Involuntary smoking (exposure to secondhand or 'environmental' tobacco smoke) is carcinogenic to humans."

• Lung cancer
• Breast cancer
• Renal cell carcinoma (RCC)
• Pancreatic cancer
• Brain tumor
• Ear, nose, and throat: risk of ear infections
• Circulatory system: risk of heart disease, reduced heart rate variability, higher heart rate

Kid’s Toy Box

Making Your Own Kid’s Toy Box:-4 Points to Consider

After the bed, your kid’s toy box is going to be the most important item of furniture in their bedroom. With this in mind it is important to bear in mind a few considerations before beginning to construct a new toy box for your child. Below collected together five tips to contemplate when designing the new piece of furniture for your son or daughter.

Materials

Most toy boxes in stores come in either plastic or wood. My preference has always been wood as it lasts longer, can be adapted with paint and just looks nicer.As well as this, wooden toy boxes can be re-painted and re-furbished for use with a younger child, perhaps of a different gender, at a later date.

For most people, wood is also easier to work with than plastic if you’re constructing a furniture piece from scratch. With basic carpentry skills, you’ll be able to put together an attractive toy box for your child that will last for many years and even become an heirloom.

Size

The benefit that comes from making your own toy storage box is that you can choose the size to fit the room and requirements. It can be a chore trying to find the right size box for your child in the stores and more often than not one has to settle for a size which is either too small or too big. This will largely depend on how many toys and games you need to store.

The dimensions also come into play depending on extra functions you require the toy box to have. Some can also be used as benches to be placed beneath a window or to the side of a bunk bed. These requirements will need to be measured so as to allow for comfortable sitting space for two or three little children.

Shape

The shape of a children’s toy box will merge somewhat with the theme considerations mentioned further down the page. Most toy boxes throughout the centuries have come in the regular rectangle or cube shapes. However, if you have some talent in carpentry and design, then a toy box can be any shape you so desire including circular, oval or even an abstract wavy form.

Themes

When it comes to themes, the sky really is the limit. Children’s furniture lends itself beautifully to a wide range of subjects, styles, colors and themes. There are so many characters on television and in popular childhood stories to take inspiration from. This too will largely depend on what your son or daughter asks you to create.

Little boys tend to like action heroes, airplanes, cars and fire engines whilst little girls prefer themes along the lines of princesses, fairytale castles and friendly animals. More neutral themes can also be employed such as toy boxes painted in one color such as blue, pink, red or even left as natural wood. Small stencil art can be applied if you want a more understated decorative design.

Home Interior Design-Series-020

Buying Loft Bunk Beds for Children

When it comes to its most basic format, a loft bed is defined as a bed on stilts. It makes use of an elementary twin size bed frame connected to the inner braces of the construction. That’s why, if you decide you basically need to elevate your youngster’s bed so that you can regain floor space, it is possible to produce your very own loft bed.Obviously, a loft bed (like the Dufur Full Loft Bed in the picture above) doesn’t have to be constructed from scratch.

There are many loft options which might be purchased at the local household furniture store or online. Most of these are made like a bunk bed devoid of the lower bunk. Loft beds have proven to be most regularly occurring within college dorm suites.

Having space at a premium, moving the bed off the actual ground is going to ensure enough room for a couch or possibly a laptop or computer table. At the same time, loft beds have moved into the home in support of added versatility with regard to kid’s bedroom furnishings.

This unique open space offers a good deal of opportunity. Many loft beds are fashioned with an added attribute set up beneath the bed. A few have a futon for the purpose of seating which can readily morph into another bed, handy for sleepovers. This spot might also be employed to keep a toddler’s room organized with the addition of closets, compartments, chests, and other storage spaces. A loft bed that has a table could possibly convert into the most effective study zone.

In the event you obtain a loft bed that doesn’t come with one of these elements, you can always purchase your own desk or chest of drawers or perhaps a futon. Alternately, it can be left entirely open to your child’s creativeness.

Project Management-004

Completing a Feasibility Study

A Feasibility Study needs to be completed as early in the Project Life Cycle as possible. The best time to complete it is when you have identified a range of different alternative solutions and you need to know which solution is the most feasible to implement.

Here's how to do it...

Step 1: Research the Business Drivers

In most cases, your project is being driven by a problem in the business. These problems are called "business drivers" and you need to have a clear understanding of what they are, as part of your Feasibility Study.

For instance, the business driver might be that an IT system is outdated and is causing customer complaints, or that two businesses need to merge because of an acquisition. Regardless of the business driver, you need to get to the bottom of it so you fully understand the reasons why the project has been kicked off.

Find out why the business driver is important to the business, and why it's critical that the project delivers a solution to it within a specified timeframe. Then find out what the impact will be to the business, if the project slips.

Step 2: Confirm the Alternative Solutions

Now you have a clear understanding of the business problem that the project addresses, you need to understand the alternative solutions available.If it's an IT system that is outdated, then your alternative solutions might include redeveloping the existing system, replacing it or merging it with another system.Only with a clear understanding of the alternative solutions to the business problem, can you progress with the Feasibility Study.

Step 3: Determine the Feasibility

You now need to identify the feasibility of each solution. The question to ask of each alternative solution is "can we deliver it on time and under budget?"

To answer this question, you need to use a variety of methods to assess the feasibility of each solution. Here are some examples of ways you can assess feasibility:

Research: Perform online research to see if other companies have implemented the same solutions and how they got on.


Prototyping: Identify the part of the solution that has the highest risk, and then build a sample of it to see if it's possible to create.

Time-boxing: Complete some of the tasks in your project plan and measure how long it took vs. planned. If you delivered it on time, then you know that your planning is quite accurate.

Step 4: Choose a Preferred Solution

With the feasibility of each alternative solution known, the next step is to select a preferred solution to be delivered by your project. Choose the solution that; is most feasible to implement, has the lowest risk, and you have the highest confidence of delivering.

You've now chosen a solution to a known business problem, and you have a high degree of confidence that you can deliver that solution on time and under budget, as part of the project.


Step 5:


It's now time to take your chosen solution and reassess its feasibility at a lower level. List all of the tasks that are needed to complete the solution. Then run those tasks by your team to see how long they think it will take to complete them. Add all of the tasks and timeframes to a project plan to see if you can do it all within the project deadline.

Then ask your team to identify the highest risk tasks and get them to investigate them further to check that they are achievable. Use the techniques in Step 3 to give you a very high degree of confidence that it's practically achievable. Then document all of the results in a Feasibility Study report.

After completing these 5 steps, get your Feasibility Study approved by your manager so that everyone in the project team has a high degree of confidence that the project can deliver successfully.

6 Career Killing Facebook Mistakes

With more than 400 million active visitors, Facebook is arguably the most popular social networking site out there. And while the site is known for the casual social aspect, many users also use it as a professional networking tool. With that kind of reach, Facebook can be a valuable tool for connecting to former and current colleagues, clients and potential employers. In fact, surveys suggest that approximately 30% of employers are using Facebook to screen potential employees even more than those who check LinkedIn, a strictly professional social networking site.

Don't make these Facebook faux-pas they might cost you a great opportunity

1. Inappropriate Pictures
It may go without saying, but prospective employers or clients don't want to see pictures of you chugging a bottle of wine or dressed up for a night at the bar. Beyond the pictures you wouldn't want your grandparents to see, seemingly innocent pictures of your personal life will likely not help to support the persona you want to present in your professional life.

2. Complaining About Your Current Job
You've no doubt done this at least once. It could be a full note about how much you hate your office, or how incompetent your boss is, or it could be as innocent as a status update about how your coworker always shows up late. While everyone complains about work sometimes, doing so in a public forum where it can be found by others is not the best career move. Though it may seem innocent, it's not the kind of impression that sits well with a potential boss.

3. Posting Conflicting Information to Your Resume
If you say on your resume that your degree is from Harvard, but your Facebook profile says you went to UCLA, you're likely to be immediately cut from the interview list. Even if the conflict doesn't leave you looking better on your resume, disparities will make you look at worst like a liar, and at best careless.

4. Statuses You Wouldn't Want Your Boss to See
Everyone should know to avoid statuses like "Tom plans to call in sick tomorrow so he can get drunk on a Wednesday. Who cares that my big work project isn't done?" But you should also be aware of less flamboyant statuses like "Sarah is watching the gold medal hockey game online at her desk". Statuses that imply you are unreliable, deceitful, and basically anything that doesn't make you look as professional as you'd like, can seriously undermine your chances at landing that new job.

5. Not Understanding Your Security Settings
The security settings on Facebook have come a long way since the site started. It is now possible to customize lists of friends and decide what each list can and cannot see. However, many people do not fully understand these settings, or don't bother to check who has access to what. If you are going to use Facebook professionally, and even if you aren't, make sure you take the time to go through your privacy options. At the very least, your profile should be set so that people who are not your friend cannot see any of your pictures or information.

6. Losing by Association
You can't control what your friends post to your profile (although you can remove it once you see it), nor what they post to their own profiles or to those of mutual friends. If a potential client or employer sees those Friday night pictures your friend has tagged you in where he is falling down drunk, it reflects poorly on you, even if the picture of you is completely innocent. It's unfortunate, but we do judge others by the company they keep, at least to some extent. Take a look at everything connected to your profile, and keep an eye out for anything you wouldn't want to show your mother.

Facebook Can Help You Get Hired … or Fired

The best advice is to lock down your personal profile so that only friends you approve can see anything on that profile. Then, create a second, public profile on Facebook purely for professional use. This profile functions like an online resume, and should only contain information you'd be comfortable telling your potential employer face to face. Having a social networking profile is a good thing it presents you as technologically and professionally savvy. Just make sure your profile is helping to present your best side not the side that got drunk at your buddy's New Year's party.

Puthandu Messages and Quotes

This is a collection of favorite Tamil New Year Quotes, messages and greetings that we have read, received and some which we have sent and also some that we made for this Puthandu. Tamil New Year is observed on the first day of Chitirai month. People greet friends and relatives by saying Puthandu Vazhtukal.

This is a time of new beginnings and for the celebration of life – Puthandu Vazhtukal

Let this Puthandu bring peace and prosperity in the lives of all.

May this Puthandu be a good one for all of us.

Let this Puthandu usher in a Good and Sweet Year, both materially and spiritually.

Puthandu Vazhtukal! Let this be a delightful year, filled with delightful things in each of its days.

From this Puthandu let us go forward with great hope that all things will be possible.

Puthandu Vazhtukal, let this year be filled with the things that are truly good.

Puthandu stands for new and fresh – Life is always new and fresh – Let us strive to make all days Puthandu.

Let this Puthandu give you the strength to do all that you dreamed to do during last year but didn’t dare to do.

Let us welcome this Puthandu with great hope, eagerness and anticipation. Let us lookforward to a plentiful year of joy, satisfaction, peace and prosperity.

Let us vow to take life in our stride this Puthandu and make it tolerable as well as beautiful by accepting sorrow and happiness with sanity.

Puthandu Vazhtukal. Let this New Year herald new optimism, zeal and cheer.

I hope this Puthandu will bring cheer, prosperity and peace in your life. Let us pray that we gain enough strength to accept the highs and lows of life with equanimity.

Puthandu Vazhtukal! Wish you a happy and prosperous year with love, peace, hope and joy for the year ahead.

From this Puthandu let us only spread love, peace and laughter. Puthandu Vazhtukal!

Another Puthandu here, Let us banish our worries and mistakes and start afresh. Puthandu Vazhtukal!