With a TV Lift, the garage is the new place in the house to hang out
Only a few years ago, the home garage was characteristically known as the place for working on the car or the latest household task, or for just storing junk. But that changed in short order once we stopped relegating the TV to the living room and bedroom. Add a TV to the garage, and suddenly you’ve got that man cave you’ve always coveted, or an out-of-the-way space for your teenage children to hang out (and spill freely).
Regardless of its use, wall space in the garage can be hard to come by. Enter the TV lift.
Using that unused corner space
If you’re looking into TV wall mounts that swivel, consider utilizing a corner post. The angle of the swivel is controlled via remote so it can be adjusted easily whenever the light changes or you switch your viewing location.
Using the ceiling
If your garage has a ceiling, TV lifts that swivel can be installed there. When you’re ready to watch, the TV lowers into the garage and then swivels to the position of your choice.
Because of the thinness of the TV, a flat panel TV lift can usually be installed in the ceiling. Whether you choose a flip-down lift, a fold-lift, or a drop-down lift, the ceiling is often the favorite place for concealing a TV, and the garage is no exception.
Finding the optimal place for a TV in your garage ultimately depends how you choose to watch it. If you spend a lot of time there, consider your activities first. They’ll describe your viewing style—active or passive. The former prioritizes a prime location, more for you and your guests than the TV, because there are only so many places to sit. While the latter suggests an out-of-the-way spot that makes the most of as little space as possible.
Nice as they look together, your TV and fireplace aren’t best friends. Learn How They Can Get Along.
Marrying the TV and the fireplace is a popular design move because both tend to act as the focal points of the living room, which means one seating arrangement fits all. But that convenience can come with a price.
Why it’s not a good idea to mount your TV above your fireplace
Mounting a TV above a fireplace is not a good idea for one main reason: It’s far from optimal for the TV, and it may even dramatically shorten its lifespan.
Electronic devices run better at lower temperatures. So putting a TV directly above a source of high heat causes its internal bits to degrade very quickly. Even without a roaring fire immediately below it, a television generates a generous amount of its own heat, so compounding that with heat from the fireplace is even more damaging.
Smoke is far from ideal for a TV’s health. Much like cigarette smoke inside a car, smoke from a fireplace can deposit a film over the TV screen, dulling it.
Another deterrent for mounting a TV above a fireplace is the viewing height. Watching a TV that is mounted so high on a wall creates issues for most of us. Namely, neck strains. Binge-watching isn’t nearly as fun when you can’t turn your head the next day.
One way to put your TV near your fireplace without subjecting it to the heat or the smoke is to employ a TV ceiling lift a few feet in front of the fireplace. This hidden lift extends the TV down in front of the fireplace, leaving a few feet between them.
And because the length of the extension can vary, you can adjust the viewing height of the TV using a remote control. A television lift can also allow the plasma TV to swivel to offer the best view.
However you ultimately arrange it, remember that your TV is a significant investment, so make sure that it’s housed in a way that extends its life as long as possible.
Keep Your Business Safe From Cyber Crime And Data Breaches
The large-scale breaches, we hear about—Target, Sony Pictures, Yahoo. But hacking is a constant occurrence anymore. Most of us are operating under the belief that we’re flying under the radar, but, really, the odds are turning less in our favor by the day. We’re not sitting ducks, though. Cyber crime insuranceis designed, in part, to cover the cost of restoring lost or corrupted data, which could mean the difference in your business surviving such an attack.
Small to midsize companies comprise 85 percent of reported breaches. And more than 60 percent of them never recover.
“There’s nothing to be gained from stealing my data”
Everything from Social Security numbers to health records to seemingly innocuous contact information can be monetized in the wrong hands.
“My third-party vendor has up-to-date security”
If a corporation the likes of Target can be let down by a third-party vendor’s cyber security, the same can happen to your business. With technology evolving as rapidly as it is, it’s impossible to say with total assurance that any protection is guaranteed.
If you’re thinking that supplementing your current policy with cyber crime insurance is beyond your means, you could be jeopardizing everything you own. Crisis response and legal fees alone can run more than half a million dollars in a typical case. In less than a minute, literally, your world could be turned upside down. Being covered means your company will live to see another day.
So many Americans struggle with the feeling that their bodies just are not working as they should. From low energy levels, to stiffness and pain, they feel the effects that both physical and mental stresses have on their bodies. They want to regain a sense of vitality, so that they can enjoy their lives to the fullest, rather than feel like they are moving in slow motion. The health and wellness industry well knows this, which is why we see endless infomercials offering the latest supplements, hottest exercise programs, and more. They make millions of dollars selling “cure-alls,” while we continue to search for solutions to overcome these struggles.
If you feel like your body just isn’t fulfilling its potential, now is the time to discover how Rolfing® structural integration may provide that missing piece of your individual wellness puzzle.
Structural integration bodywork aims to address an integral part of your body that many of us never really know about: your fascial system. Your fascia is the network of connective tissue that runs throughout your body, bringing together all of the parts into one, functioning whole. However, sometimes, issues with your fascial system, such as parts that have become thickened or fibrous, end up pulling your entire body out of alignment. At first, you may not notice this issue, but over time, that stiffness, poor posture, and general sense of discomfort all start creeping in. Rolfing aims to correct these aberrations through deep tissue body work, which helps correct any fascial aberrations. As a result, Rolfing helps people improve posture and ease of movement while also reducing chronic pain and restoring a sense of vitality.
About Author: As a trusted structural integration practitioner, Certified Advanced Rolfer® Bob Alonzi believes that our own paths to personal wellness our as individualized as we are. However, he is also passionate about educating his clients on how their fascial systems contribute to their overall health. If you want to learn more about Rolfing, and how it can help you feel better, stronger, and more in tune with your body, contact his office at 310-451-3250 for an appointment.
Burning through fat really is this simple. But don’t infer that simple means easy.
By Todd Soura
We live in an interesting time. A lot of the long-held conventional thinking about exercise and nutrition has been debunked in rapid succession over the last several years in favor of methods that are, for the most part, more conducive to our nonstop lifestyles. Never really able to make time for those 10K training runs? Good news. Turns out that 10 minutes of sprinting are more effective anyway.
A lot of what seemed radical at first glance, like the above, now feels closer to common sense. Yet, the onslaught of so-called revolutionary workouts and diets just keeps coming. Understand that it’s a business, first and foremost, and you’ll begin to see it for what it is: an attempt to profit off of misguided information.
To show you just how simple it can be, I’m going to outline a 10-minute workout that’s designed to boost your metabolic rate long after you finish, as well as a recovery plan for the hours immediately afterward. No gym’s required. Nor is a nutritionist. If you’re cramped for time, you can do the workout and leave it at that. But if you supplement your current regimen with it, save it for last. You’re not going to have anything left in the tank. For that reason, my clients have come to refer it as the “10 Minutes of Hell.”
Perform the circuit twice and without rest between the exercises or the rounds, unless you absolutely have to. Aim to do the maximum amount of repetitions you can within each timeframe. If you’re not thoroughly exhausted when you finish, try the advanced version next time:
Once you pull yourself together, try not to head straight for the kitchen, unless you need to grab some more water. I know. The popular thinking is to eat within 20 to 30 minutes of finishing your workout. Your metabolism’s still raging, and anything you consume is more likely to be used as fuel rather than stored at fat. That’s all true. But it neglects the other half of that equation: You stop burning fat as soon as you eat.
In other words, you just ruined yourself for 10 minutes, and now you’re going to negate those gains in a single bite. What you should do instead is abstain for the next hour. Let your body eat into its fat stores while you go shower and prep your meal. Then, reward yourself with a palm-size portion of lean protein and all the veggies you can stomach. (Note: If you’re building muscle or trying to enhance your athletic performance, a different set of guidelines apply.)
Polished as her Northampton home may seem to her thousands of followers, Julia Konya’s life is in constant upheaval. And that’s just how she likes it. By Sean Downey
Julia Konya isn’t comfortable in the spotlight. She’s never thought of herself as a writer, much less an Internet personality. Yet her face is front and center on the interior design blog, Cuckoo4Design, she created from scratch and relentlessly updates each day. The blog has become a source of inspiration for the tens of thousands who regularly return for the never-ending flow of whimsical design and clever decorating ideas. Check in once and you’ll soon be immersed in painted curtains, secretary desk makeovers and an endless stream of other intricate DIY projects.
But beyond all that, she’d prefer to be left to her own devices. “When I’m alone, I can be creative,” Konya says. “That’s pretty much how I’ve always been. As a child, I used to lock myself in my room and just color or do craft projects.”
Konya grew up in Germany, where she studied art and visual merchandising before moving to the United States at 21 for a marketing internship at an engineering firm based in Bethlehem. That’s where she met her husband, Jarrid Konya.
After the couple settled in Northampton to raise their two children and four cats, Julia continued working with her hands. And every time she would refinish a piece of furniture, remodel a bedroom or fashion new drapes, her friends would ask how she created such a distinct look. “So I decided to start a blog and put everything in there,” she says. “I figured it would let my family in Germany see what I was doing too.”
Her visual approach to blogging turned out to be perfect for Pinterest and Instagram, where she quickly developed a following of 28,000 strong.
“I had to get over my fear people might think I was saying something wrong,” Konya says. “But I’ve grown to love blogging because I get to do what I love and I make my own hours.”
For all her time and effort, the posts that prove the most popular seem to take on lives of their own, like the outdoor enclosure she built for their cats. “I built them an outdoor play area with tunnels that are connected along the fence to our living room window, but I was scared to write about it because I thought people would think I was completely nuts,” Konya says. “But that post has received the most traffic ever.” The project even caught the eye of modern cat magazine.
Design is temporary
Spend any time on Cuckoo4Design and it’s immediately apparent how much Konya looks at her home as a work of art. Graphic lines on the front porch and in the living room give way to geometric patterns in the bathrooms and bright accents in the kitchen. Every corner, every surface is fair game.
“I get an idea, I get an inspiration and I do it. And if I don’t like what I’ve done, I just redo it or take it down,” she says. “When I complete a project, I take pictures and write about it.”
She’s also adamant about not plotting her projects well in advance. That’s too structured for her liking. “I feel like the people who follow me like the spontaneity.”
Who’s afraid of a little heavy lifting?
Konya’s designs and her home life often bleed together as one, and she’s quick to point out that her house doesn’t always look as perfect as it does in the blog. Most of the time, actually, it’s a mess. “My family is used to the house being torn apart most of the time,” she says.
She also tackles the handyman work—“I’m a perfectionist, and I don’t like it when Jarrid helps.”
Her approach, she says, is always even-keeled, even in the face of the kind of trauma that usually sends a couple into a fiery rage. Case in point, earlier this year, the Konyas bought a new sectional for their basement. It wasn’t until they got it home that they realized it wasn’t going to fit down the stairs. After much deliberation, Julia took it upon herself to bring it down in pieces.
“When it came to cutting the sofa in half, I just figured I’d be able to put it back together again later,” she says.
She carefully stripped the upholstery, cut the feet off and then, impossibly, put it all back together downstairs.
Home is where the heart is
While Konya’s built her following around letting people into her home, she’s cautious about making her blog too personal. “But I realize that I have to keep things somewhat personal or else the readers don’t have anything to connect with,” she says.
A few years ago, Konya confided about her daughter’s sensory issues and candida overgrowth. The emotional posts conveyed a deeply personal and difficult struggle to help her daughter get through painful periods in her young life.
“I felt like it connected with a lot more people and helped them in some way because there are a lot of people going through the same thing,” Konya says.
For the most part, though, Konya’s posts are focused on her insatiable desire to make all the spaces in her home—“Half of my husband’s man cave is ripped apart right now”—as dynamic as she can. The attention’s flattering, but it’s by no means an affirmation. Interior design, for Konya, is about the means, not so much the end.
“I’m a big believer in going with the flow and not dreaming too big,” she says. “I want to stay focused on doing what I like to do. And if something happens, it happens.”
At least so far, it’s happening.
Photos (interiors) courtesy Cuckoo4Design / Julia Konya; (portrait) courtesy Cuckoo4Design / Jules & George Photography
Some modest, seasonal tweaks to your interior design will work wonders on your perspective.
By David J. Witchell
Before you start scattering dead leaves around the house, there are other ways to go about introducing those fall colors.
Neutral hues have always formed the base layer around my home. I get bored with colors quickly, and the vanilla canvas allows me to overhaul the accessories from season to season. Honing in on a new part of the spectrum every few months has a way of refreshing all of the fixtures, not to mention my own spirit.
Still, it’s a bittersweet time of year. It’s invigorating to reintroduce fall’s shades, but it’s just as hard stowing away the summer stuff. Turquoise encourages communication and clarity, and indigo is the color of intuition. Blues, in general, tend to facilitate peace and grounded order, which makes them the ideal palette for the year’s most carefree, restorative months.
Fall, for me, looks like warm metals and hits of crimson, cayenne, rust and goldenrod. I may be especially partial to the season because orange is my favorite color. I’ve also come to learn that it represents optimism. Blending in reds helps me feel energetic and fuels my ambition and determination, a particularly productive cocktail of qualities. Yellow just makes me smile. I throw in some green or magenta for balance and harmony. And somewhere in my office, visible from my desk, I make sure there’s a splash of purple to spark my creativity.
Beneath it all are the browns, grays and whites, the ideal companions for my seasonal whims. It’s easy to look straight past them, but without them, there’d be no anchor, no context. Instead of flowing with the landscape on the other side of the windows, the accents would appear to be at war with the spaces around them. It all works and, just as importantly, it all transitions relatively effortlessly because there’s a consistent, objective platform upon which I can express some personality. Less discretion would back me into corners that I’d be stuck in for years at a time.
And those neutral colors have some personality of their own. Brown embodies warmth and bit of gravity. Gray represents compromise. Little wonder, then, that I’ve used it so liberally. And white connects us to innocence and a sense of fruition.
Interior design is not unlike how we go about dressing ourselves. If I was to go around draped in jewelry, a loud-patterned sweater, putting-green colored khakis and a pair of Christmas-red boots, what would that say about me? I know mixing patterns and colors is having a moment, but with that kind of wild abandon, it all turns into white noise. I love my home. And when I switch out a few well-placed variables, it reminds me why I love it, because those pieces manage to cast it in new light. And that’s all it needs most of the time. To constantly repaint walls and interchange furniture and art would only be masking that appeal.
You remember the first rush of new love. Your heart thumped at the sight of him. You ran yellow lights just to get home faster to see her. You know, the lust-filled, weak-willed, can’t-stop-thinking-of-him phase of being in love. It was wonderful, of course, but no one can keep it up forever or you’d explode. At some point your hormones calm down and you move on to a deeper, saner kind of love.
That’s when it’s nice to add a little romance to your relationship. Here are some ideas:
Dine—don’t just eat dinner. Set a beautiful table. Find some vintage tablecloths and napkins. Maybe some antique plates. Put some posies in a pitcher—or just forage for something in your yard. Maybe small branches of a tree or greens from a juniper. Be resourceful. Don’t forget candles—arrange them in all shapes and sizes on the table. And play some romantic music. The food itself doesn’t need to be fancy as long as the atmosphere is.
Dance in the kitchen. Or anywhere. Put on some slow music and hold each other, the old-fashioned way. You don’t even have to dance. Just move your bodies to the music. Whisper in his ear. Serenade her while you dance. Softly sing the lyrics as you glide together. Be spontaneous.
Read out loud to her. Select a sexy novel and find the love scene. Turn off all the electronic devices so you won’t be interrupted. Get comfy and cuddle together on the sofa. Read slowly, with expression. Or take turns reading. And if sexy novels aren’t for you, try romantic poetry like Kahil Gibran’s The Prophet. Discover something new and beautiful together.
Say more than “I love you.” Yes, it’s good to say you love her frequently and often. But sometimes it becomes a bit perfunctory, like “love you” at the end of every phone call. That’s fine, but try adding to it. Like, “I love the way you smile.” Or, “You really look spectacular in that dress.” Or, “ I’ve always loved the way you captivate people when you tell a great joke.” Appreciate the wonderful things about your partner—large or small—and let him know it. Better yet, say it in front of his friends.
Deliver a Tender Touch. Every once and awhile, it’s nice to connect by touch. Invite your partner outside to look at the stars and hold her hand. No words required. Or rub his shoulders while he’s doing the dishes. Or linger a little longer with what is usually a quick hello kiss. Or just touch her arm gently as you pass by her on the sofa.
Of course you can do overtly romantic things like bring her flowers or kidnap him to a romantic weekend getaway, and those are great to do. But you don’t have to spend much to put romance into your relationship. Being thoughtful about your partner is the sexiest thing there is.
About the Author: Nancy Travers is an Orange County Counseling professional. If you need safe, effective counseling services, please get in touch. You can reach her here: http://www.nancyscounselingcorner.com/contact-us.
Decluttering your home has become a major theme in the past decade.
In turn, many methods have emerged for paring down the material possessions that once comprised your life and now consume it. Some, naturally, are far more effective than others. The approach that suggests talking to an item, asking if it would like to stay, may not get you very far. But if you tend to avoid confrontation, it’s about as gentle as breakups get.
By contrast, one of the best solutions to declutter your home is to clean an area by the square foot, or even the square inch. Doing so not only makes the task feel more manageable, it forces a closer examination of the area in question.
Whether it’s a desktop or a countertop, looking at a certain area by removing everything that sits upon it compels us to assess the value of each item. How you rate them will depend upon your own private value system, but we’d like to make a recommendation: Only keep the things that are valued in one of the following ways:
It’s beautiful and/or it gives you pleasure
It’s useful in some practical way
It’s necessary for record-keeping
If an item doesn’t meet these criteria, either give it away or throw it away. You’re basically decluttering your house as if you were decluttering it for a move. In fact, a move is one of the rare occasions when we find ourselves motivated enough to strip down to the bare essentials. A move’s a fresh start. And who wants to lug even one more box than necessary?
If you can approach each surface, each drawer and each cupboard with this same mindset, you’ll find yourself with a lot more breathing room in no time. You’ll be surprised, once you get there, just how much all that stuff was weighing you down, figuratively and literally.
About the Author: Cheryl Perkins is a certified holistic nutrition consultant and professional residential organizer in the Southern California’s beach cities and the Los Angeles surrounding areas. In short, a Wellness Coach!
Beginning this weekend, you’re not going to be able to turn around without running into some kind of street fair. Which means more-than-ample opportunity for eating with your hands. But you need to be smart about it. You can only consume so many calories. Allow us to show you the way.
By Christine Olley
The old saying goes, “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” but with the overloaded slate of festivals, and their smorgasbord-like food courts, on the horizon, it would be downright wrong to discriminate. Here, a rundown of the most appetizing gatherings across the region over the coming weeks.
The former is a bit of everything—demos, cook-offs, eating (of course), even exhibits—packed into one nonstop weekend. Whether you go for an hour or set up camp, just don’t forget to buy mushrooms to go. They’ll be sold in front of the east and west gates and the growers’ exhibit. The latter is far more straightforward, though way more diverse: 30 trucks (and counting), covering every conceivable niche, from Caribbean-American soul food to Liege-style waffles.
Don’t be deceived by the name. Hit the Doylestown Arts Festival this weekend for the local art and the artisanal goods, but stay for the food. Two food courts will be crammed with the usual festival fare—sausages, fries and ice cream, oh, my—along with samplings from Doylestown’s textured restaurant scene and a bevy of food trucks. This may be the one street festival that doesn’t disappoint a vegetarian.
Yardley Harvest Day, the following Saturday, Sept. 17, is evolving into the ultimate collection of the region’s most promising small-batch foodstuff makers, from Bucks County Cookie Company and Carol’s Pizzelles to Gourmet Jelly and Jak Jeckel Pepper Sauce. There’ll be Brewscuits, too, for your four-legged best friend. You’ll owe him for panting patiently at your side throughout this shopping/tasting spree.
Peddler’s Village, in Lahaska, can always be counted on for some seasonal gorging. OctoberFEAST, October 15 and 16, delivers an onslaught of German specialties, including, most notably, bratwurst pork schnitzel and the ever-delectable Bavarian crème pie. A couple weekends later, on November 5 and 6, it’s Apple Festival, complete with a pie-eating contest, which’ll be divided by age, naturally. I mean, what satisfaction is there in out-eating an eight-year-old—again?
Not enough to eat local? You need to see where it comes from, too? Then plan to head to Bethlehem Sept. 17 for the Monocacy Farm Food Festival, where you’ll be able to munch on a smattering of stuff grown on the 10-acre organic farm as you tour the grounds. The Monocacy Farm Project, which the festival benefits, was established a few years ago. Under its umbrella resides a CSA, community gardens, all-ages educational programming and a community service garden dedicated to supporting low-income families, soup kitchens and homeless shelters.
And we’d be remiss if we didn’t include the TASTE Philadelphia Festival of Food, Wine and Spirits October 21 through Oct. 23 at the Valley Forge Casino Resort in King of Prussia, because, full disclosure, we’re a media sponsor. Every day’s loaded with celebrity chef demos, featuring the likes of Charles Oakley (yep, that Charles Oakley), Ashley Sherman (lead cook from “Hell’s Kitchen,” season 13) and Will Brown (a frequent enabler on “The Real Housewives of Atlanta”). And they’re not even the headliners. That’d be Ayesha Curry, whose demo is Oct. 22, and Kevin O’Leary, who’ll be hosting a tasting of his wines Oct. 21.
