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There are many businesses out there which rent furniture by the month. You need a couch? Rent one for only $40 per month. Need a lamp? You can get one for $12 a month. Now, let’s see, in one year you would have paid $480 to use the couch and you wouldn’t own it. The lamp would have cost you $144 and it’s the same situation ~ at the end of your lease, you still own nothing.

Most of us would think it foolish to rent furniture. But, that isn’t always the case. There are situations where renting may be the best option. Consider these scenarios:

• Your company transfers you to a new location but the rest of your family is staying in your present home until the school year ends and that’s 4 months away. You buy a house and live in it until your family arrives. Do you go out and buy new furniture or do you rent a few necessities in the meantime?

• Right after you get married, you move into a new home. You and your spouse haven’t decided how you want to decorate your home. Do you rush your decisions or do you rent furniture until you find the style that will please you both?

• You graduate from college and accept a position in an unfamiliar city. You find an apartment that has everything you want, except furniture. You can’t afford to go out and purchase the items you’ll need right away. What do you do?

If you find yourself in any of these situations, renting all or part of your furniture may be a viable option. The thing you have to keep in mind is that it’s never a long-term solution. From the figures in the first paragraph, you can see how expensive renting is over the long haul.

However, when you find yourself without furniture, short term rental may be your best option. If you don’t have the cash or credit to purchase what you need, or if you only plan to be without furniture for a little while, short-term rental may be the best solution.

Most furniture rental companies offer several options from which to choose. Most of them also offer packages in different price ranges, depending on the style and quality of the furniture you require.

• The bedroom package usually includes a double or queen-size bed, night stand and lamp, and 1 chest.

• A living room package provides a couch, end table and lamp, cocktail table, and a chair.

• A dining room package includes a table and 4 chairs.

• A complete home package includes all of the above.

• You can also rent any accessories you may need, including cookware and china, rugs, additional lamps, TV’s, stereos, etc.

As long as you rent only what you need and do so for as short a time as possible, furniture rental may be the solution you need. But, don’t forget to calculate the cost of your rent or mortgage along with the cost of your furniture rental before you decide which package to choose.

If money is an issue, one question you need to ask yourself is this: do you really need the most expensive package or can you get by with the more generic and economical choice for 2 or 3 or 4 months? Unless you plan to do a lot of business entertaining, the answer is obvious.

In short, furniture rental can be an economically sound solution to your problem, if you use your common sense and don’t get in over your head. It beats sleeping on the floor any day!

There are many good reasons that redwood decks are popular among today’s homeowners. Not only do they provide an area for enjoying the outdoors, they also add to the value of a property. In fact, research shows that owners can recoup 100 percent or more of the original investment in an outdoor deck when they sell their home.

Your redwood deck can be as simple or complex as you care to make it. Building it can be a satisfying project if you are a do-it-yourselfer. It’s also a perfect project for learning basic construction skills.

Why choose redwood? Redwood is naturally stable, which means that redwood decks maintain their appearance longer. Redwood deck boards nail down flat and stay in place, resisting warping, cupping, splitting and checking. And there’s a grade of redwood lumber for any deck — whether it is a luxury or economical deck.

Taking care in planning, choosing materials, double-checking measurements and adding personal finishing touches goes a long way in making your deck look professional. Some finishing touches, like stairs and railings, may be necessary, while others, like benches, planters, privacy screens and shade shelters, are simply a matter of taste and style.

Before you build your deck, survey your yard and decide what problems it can solve. Do you want to level a sloping yard? Create a central activity area? Upgrade a side yard? Minimize landscape maintenance?

In selecting a site, it is important to think about privacy, safety, access to the house and yard, and protection from wind, noise and weather. Also, consider factors that will affect landscaping.

Don’t forget to locate underground utility lines. In some cases, it may be wise to reposition the deck slightly to avoid interfering with utilities. In all cases, it is important to be aware of their placement.

When your redwood deck is finished, you can either leave it as is — redwood is one of the few woods that you can let weather naturally — or apply a water-repellent finish.

Duct Tape is a fabric based, adhesive material mainly used for sealing joints in sheet metal ductwork. This cloth tape, an indispensable item in tool kits, has polyethylene resin coatings on one side and a rubber based sticking material on the other side. Duct tape is nickname ‘the ultimate material’ because of its high holding power and versatility.

Duct tape originated in 1942, during World War II. Permacel, a former division of Johnson and Johnson Company, invented the tape as a waterproof material to seal ammunition cases. The tape, initially made from cotton duck, was also used to repair various military equipment including guns, aircrafts, and jeeps. After the war, the color of the tape changed from its original olive green to silver and the material was found very useful in the housing industry. As a result, the demand of this adhesive material increased great deal and it was made available to the public under the name duct tape.

Before the final product is made available, duct tape undergoes a serious of processes, which include adhesive compounding, adhesive application, coating, respooling and slitting, and packaging. Once the manufacturing processes are over, the duct tape is checked for quality as per the directions of the American Society for Testing and Materials.

Duct tape is available in a variety of colors, of which the most common are silver and black. This malleable and soft material usually has a width of 1.88 inches. Duct tape comes in various grades, which differ in the tensile strengths. The application varies as the grade varies. Commercial grade tapes are classified into utility, general purpose, and premium grades. There are specialty grades, which include nuclear tape for reactors and a ‘200-mile-an-hour’ tape for racecars.

Eventually, someone you know will move house – and this idea will come in very handy indeed when you want to come up with a house warming gift that is a little bit more meaningful and interesting than just handing over a pot plant.

There is an old Celtic tradition which involves the humble snail.

Now the snail carries its house on its back and so it is never homeless; but more, the spiral design of the snail shell was always very special to the Celtic people, so it makes perfect sense that any kind of snail makes the perfect house warming present.

To be warm, safe, snug and protected inside one’s own home is a wonderful idea and the snail symbol, or the more abstract spiral, lends itself to all manner of wonderful house warming gifts.

You can make a card very easily by cutting out a spiral and affixing it with glue; any snail motif on a greeting card, or a picture of a snail drawn or cut out from another source will make the house warming card special.

Snails are very popular as ornaments, so you can get an enormous variety of all sizes of snail figurines, from small brass snails to large garden ornaments made from marble and they’re all easily found, online and off.

An exotic snail shell, or the shell of a sea snail is an extension of this idea and particularly good for beach front properties.

As the basic snail/spiral shape is natural and easy, you can even just find a beautiful stone and paint a spiral on it for a superb and extremely personal and lovely house warming present; further, it is the type of gift that the recipients will treasure and keep, and that will remind them of you and your good wishes every time they see it.

There are many other ways in which the snail design can be used for house warming gifts. If you really need to give a pot plant, you can decorate the pot in which it comes with a spiral. Any budding artist can make and paint a basic snail from self hardening clay; snail and spiral mobiles are easy and always fascinating, too. You can make a small painting that can be hung in a hallway and depending on the recipient, grandchildren can get involved, just the same as famous interior designers, artists and goldsmiths – it only depends on your budget.

I think that the idea of the Celtic house warming snail is a wonderful way to convey good wishes to someone in their new home, and to give them your intention that they should always be snug, happy, well cared for and safe.