By Lance McCarthy
I don’t know about you, but I have gotten so bad that I can’t watch tv without having a laptop or a tablet in my lap. Sad, I know, but I’ll bet there are a few of you like that. The internet is no longer a casual visitor to our home. It has its toothbrush by the sink and leaves its shoes in the middle of the floor. It is here to stay. Since that is the case, the least it could do is help you improve your space, right?
Here are 10 great ways to use the internet to help around the house:
First you do some dreaming and exploring…
- Houzz.com If you haven’t heard of this site, we need to back up and define the word “internet”. This site features a treasure trove of professionally photographed spaces in houses. You can create “boards” to collect ideas for different projects
***Warning*** Using Houzz to plan your project is like using Cosmopolitan to figure out what to wear. If it made it on Houzz, it is probably really expensive in some way.
- Pinterest If Houzz is Cosmo, Pinterest is RealSimple. A bit less flashy, it is a great way to get ideas on all sorts of things. Careful though, you can be looking for a countertop and get distracted learning how to put in a mini braided hair band by someone named Barbette in Duluth.
- Younghouselove is a blog that makes anyone feel like they could start a blog while tinkering around their house with a toddler in tow. A husband and wife have progressively created a pretty impressive website based on their own lives in their own house. Ah, to be young, brave and in love. I’m too tired to crawl into rain barrels and paint stripes on my own porch anymore…
Then it is time for some shopping and planning…
- Sketchup is my favorite free 3-D planning software. There is a bit of a learning curve, but you can create anything you can imagine on this program. We use this for all our kitchen/bath projects so that it is easier to really see what the spaces will feel like.
- Ikea Home Planner is a pretty good free cabinet planning tool. It works pretty intuitively, and helps by providing the various cabinet boxes as options to plug in. ***Warning: use it to start the process, but then definitely hire a professional designer to help complete something as complicated as a kitchen. More can go wrong than you can imagine.
- AJMadison is my favorite place to buy appliances online. It has a filtering component that allows you to plug in exactly what you want in a particular appliance and then see which ones match those specifications. Want a bright blue microwave that is exterior rated, can cook a full pizza and also has a beer tap on the side? I don’t think that exists, but if it did, you could find it here. My wonderful, beautiful favorite appliance the Samsung counter-depth 23 cubic foot french door refrigerator with power freeze and water/ice dispenser was ordered on this website, then 2 weeks later showed up on my doorstep with two portly guys in t-shirts who rolled it into my house and into my heart.