Everything You Need to Set Up an Ergonomic Home Office

Working from home has become the norm recently, with COVID-19 sending whole countries into lockdown. For many, it has come with considerable benefits. You now have the freedom to set up a completely ergonomic home office, which will support your health for years to come.

As more and more research emerges about the negative impact of staying seated all day, workers are becoming increasingly committed to promoting their spinal and overall health. Now that we know better, it’s important to do better, which is why an ergonomic home office is the perfect solution.

What Is Ergonomic?

It’s a word that has been thrown about in recent years, but is still not fully understood by most people. Simply put, when referring to the home office space, it’s about fitting the set-up to the person. There are many benefits that come with a ergonomic home office, such as:

• Less muscle fatigue

• Increase in productivity

• Reduced risk of diabetes

• Less risk of heart disease

• Reduced muscle strains

• Prevention of back injuries

When we work from home, it’s tempting to lounge on the couch or stay under the covers in our bed, balancing our laptop on our laps. However, doing this for the long run will lead to musculoskeletal issues. An ergonomic desk and office chair can prevent these problems. 

Ergonomic Office Chair

Let’s take a look at your seating arrangement to begin with. Ideally, you should maintain the following position while working:

• Your feet need to be flat on the floor with your knees at a 90-degree angle.

• If you choose to have armrests, they need to be used correctly. Your arms should be supported at 90 degrees and your forearms should be parallel to the floor. Your forearms should never rest on the armrest while you’re typing.

• Your back should be completely flush against the backrest of the chair, with your entire body sitting back fully. This will encourage your entire body to be stacked, with your shoulders over your hips and your head over your shoulders.

One of the best investments you can make is into an ergonomic office chair. You want to find one with adjustable settings that allow you to find the best support for your body shape and style. Here are some of the features you should be on the lookout for:

1. Adjustable seat height, so your feet can be on the floor

2. Adjustable seat tilt, to put your pelvis in the optimal position and take the pressure off your lower back

3. Seat width and depth that provides enough space for you to sit flush against the backrest with about two to three inches between your knees and the chair

4. Adjustable lumbar support to achieve the into the optimum position against your lower back for comfort and stability

5. Adjustable armrests

Ultimately, it all comes down to positioning. Your feet must reach the floor, and your armrests should support your arms at the optimum height with your elbows bent at 90 degrees. Your lower back should be right up against the back of the chair, fitting comfortably against the lumbar support. Your computer should be at arm's-length, with your eyes in line with the top of the screen. Finally, you want to make sure your shoulders, neck and head are all stacked.

All of these steps can be achieved with the Biomorph ergonomic office chair, which come in a range of designs so you can find the best fit for your needs. 

Ergonomic Standing Desk 

While a supportive chair is critical to your health, sitting for long periods of time isn’t ideal for you. For this reason, it’s essential to pair your ergonomic chair with an ergonomic standing desk. Here’s how to get the most out of your set up:

• Stand correctly: Have your feet hip-width apart, with your hips stacked directly above them. Make sure your weight is being distributed evenly.

• Wear supportive shoes: If you’re going to be standing in them all day, make sure your shoes are as comfortable and supportive as possible.

• If you’re experiencing any pain, readjust: Listen to your body to determine what’s not working in your current set up.

• Check your posture: You don’t want to be hunched over your monitor, or find yourself leaning on your desk throughout the day. It can help to switch between standing and sitting in your ergonomic chair. This will allow you to maintain strong posture for the entire day, even as your body tires.

Getting the right set up for your home office will have many ongoing health benefits. Plus, you can move easily between sitting and standing for ongoing comfort, which could even help you increase your productivity throughout the day as a result.

Audio/Visual Home Updates That You Should Make to Prepare for Smart Home Upgrades

A renovation is the best time to upgrade your home and take advantage of the trending smart home technologies. The smart home industry is growing rapidly, and several manufacturers are beginning to provide devices that easily integrate into a home's architecture. If you are looking to turn your home into a smart home, the potential rewards of complete home automation are almost endless.

Home Automation Systems

If you want to install multiple smart home devices during your home remodeling, a smart home system will enable you to automate every device's features. A smart home system provides compatibility with a variety of specific devices across a number of standards and can be incorporated directly with your voice control assistant.

Smart Thermostats

A smart thermostat is an excellent upgrade for your cooling and heating system. Still, these gadgets will more significantly boost your home's energy efficiency if you add a few additional temperature sensors. During your home improvement project, you can configure sensors directly to your smart thermostat, enabling you to adjust the heat in each room automatically.

Built-In Speakers

Audio devices and speakers can consume a lot of your space, and unpleasant cables can really disrupt the stylish atmosphere of your living room. Fortunately, an audio/visual company sells customizable speaker systems that directly integrate into your home's architecture.

Home Security Cameras

Interior cameras, perimeter cameras, and doorbell cameras can be monitored and assessed on your mobile device while you're at work or on holiday. Discreetly disguising video surveillance into the layout of your home's entrance and frequently visited sections can enable you to protect your house and belongings without making family or friends feel uncomfortable. Doorbell security cameras are minimally invasive, have a low-profile, and you can conveniently fix one when you update your doorway.

Motion Detectors and Smart Security Devices

Install sensors that reveal motion, window or door access, carbon monoxide or smoke, broken glass, and flooding. These sensors are specific inputs incorporated into your home automation system and modified to the distinctive architecture of your home.

When you link your home alarm to your automation system, you can get alerts on your mobile phone of every window or door access. This can enable you to flash your lights repeatedly to notify neighbors of a possible break-in. When you’re getting alerts directly to your phone, you can also call emergency services in case of a fire or break-in, even if you’re in another city.

Whether you are remodeling your house yourself or hiring a professional, you shouldn't miss the chance to upgrade your home's technology. A smart home will make your daily activities and tasks more convenient and pleasant while keeping your household and possessions secure.

5 Handy Tips To Renovate Your Front Garden

The front garden is a home's first thing that people see before they get into it. For this reason, it should be a sight to behold. It should be inviting, showcase your unique touch, and, most importantly, leave people in awe. You’re probably thinking, “that sounds expensive and hard.” It’s not.

Giving your front garden a new lease of life is effortless. And the good news is that you won’t have to break the bank to renovate your garden. We’ve provided some useful tips to make your front garden from drab to fab.

1. Choose the Right Plants

The type of plants you have in your garden will also go a long way in improving its aesthetic appeal. While choosing front garden plants, the goal is to pick low maintenance and steady plants. It’s also an ideal method to select plants that flower every season. This way, you have something welcoming throughout the year.

You can combine colors in the window boxes to achieve a unique and attractive look. Some of the must-have plants in a front garden include:

• Evergreens: Plants that maintain their green color throughout the year ensure a stunning look all-year-round. Hebes and sarcococcas are an excellent option. Choose the perfect size to help you achieve the look you’re going for and fit your budget.

• Trees: They add life to your garden. However, you need to plant them a bit far from your house. If they’re too close to the house and grow too big, any attempt to take them down can cause severe damage.

• Climbers: Avoid self-clinging climbers. These grow into all areas uncontrollably and may ruin your house. Go for climbers that need support. This way, you can control how they grow.

• Edibles: You should also add some edible plants to improve your garden’s aesthetic appeal and functionality. Some of the best vegetables for the front garden include kale, USSOY, basil, and any type of pepper.

2. Less is More

If you’re an avid gardener, you probably leap at the sight of a new attractive plant. You want to add it to your collection, and there’s nothing that can stop you. However, if one is going for a show-stopper kind of look, they need to resist the temptation. Moreover, to achieve a stunning look, your front garden shouldn’t have too much going on. 

As a rule of thumb, you should limit perennial plants to no more than 10, shrubs shouldn’t be more than 5, and you shouldn’t have more than two trees. This way, your garden looks neat and orderly. It’s best to plant similar species together and repeat the pattern throughout your garden to add a unique touch.

3. Keep Your Pots in Tip-Top Condition

Sometimes, the smallest act can breathe life into your front garden. If you’ve been gardening for a while, after some time, you may notice your pots looking dull and covered with mineral deposits. This is bound to happen because the pots are exposed to a lot of external factors.

But there’s a simple trick to deal with this. Create a mixture of one part vinegar and three parts water and use it to clean the pots. This DIY mix is more effective than using soap or trying to hose down the mineral deposits. After a few trials, your pots should look as good as new.

4. Touch Up Your Lawn

Mowing the lawn will instantly give your front garden a new look. You should strive to keep the grass short and neat at all times. If you’re going for a new look, consider reshaping the lawn. You can choose any shape that complements the patterns in your garden. For instance, if the idea is to frame your house entrance, a square-shaped lawn would be the way to go.

5. Deal With the Rain Effectively

The last thing you might require is to renovate your garden only for the rain to ruin the appearance. It happens a lot if your garden has areas where water can’t flow. After a heavy downpour, these spots will appear soggy for days before they dry up — not a beautiful look.

Some innovative ways to prevent this include installing downspout diversions into sub-irrigated planters. Rain chains and cool rain barrels would also do the trick. It may also be a good idea to reconsider the arrangement of your garden. Layering techniques improve the flow of water, thereby preventing stagnation that ruins the aesthetic appeal.

Final Thoughts

You can transform your garden by doing a few things here and there. As we mentioned, a quick way of achieving a new look is by giving your lawn a new shape. Also, consider reducing the number of plants you have and planting with the entire year in mind. Most importantly, make your garden work for you. Planting edibles is the gift that keeps on giving. It adds to your menu and gives your garden a unique look throughout the year.

5 Adorable Home Design Ideas That Will Also Save Your Electricity Bills

Who doesn’t want a beautiful abode and who doesn’t want to save energy? Fortunately, both can be achieved simultaneously.

Energy is a big deal. If you look at some statistics, the world's electricity consumption is on the rise.

One of the reasons for this is people are getting richer and they have now more money to consume energy every day. And with the rapid advancements, electricity is now available to a larger portion of people. We are able to lit, beautify and make our life feasible with a variety of products and appliances.

A glad thing though, but it does arrive with some caveats. As per EIA, the world's energy demand is expected to increase by 48% before 2040. This raises the risk of energy scarcity, and the adverse environmental impacts from power plant facilities also need to be considered.

The solution? We also need to conserve energy while meeting our electrical energy needs. Creating a balance between our needs vs the supply will keep the ball rolling for us. Efficient energy management will not only trim our electricity bills, but will also contribute to a healthier, greener, and safer earth.

So moving ahead while keeping above things in mind, this article will share you 5 home interior design ideas that’ll help you to meet the bottom line you carve for.

1. Use latest energy-efficient appliances

Using energy efficient products and appliances can save a lot in energy costs.

Start replacing your old incandescent bulbs with the LED one’s, the cheapest retrofit option in the product list. Not only LED bulbs save energy, they also run longer and are brighter than CFL or incandescent bulbs. And yes, the beauty which they add to your home is worth mentioning.

Now, if you are having a budget, then you may optimize your kitchen with smart and energy star appliances. Kitchen is the most active room inside any home, so not taking heed is losing a lot of energy opportunities. 

Let’s talk about, say, dishwashers. Using a standard size dishwasher with Energy Star accreditation will cost you just $35 per year to run it. And it’s not just about energy and their bills, they can also save you will gallons of water wastage. On an average, an Energy Star dishwasher can save around 3870 Gallons of water(that’s a huge number) over its full lifetime. Day by day, as they are getting smarter with their cleaning technology, you'll have less energy and water bills at your hands, plus neat and shiny utensils inside your kitchen adding to its beauty.   

Same goes for washing machines inside your house. You can save around $34 on e-bills as compared to standard one’s in the market, and 2000 gallons of water each other. Of-course, manufactures are keen enough to care for the design part so that it doesn’t look like a big box asking you to cover it. So, utility and beauty goes hand by hand. 

Your refrigerators can also be a saving point. You can save around 9% on your monthly electricity bills and savings goes more than $200 over the complete lifecycle of your Energy Star product. 

And finally, there’s one more glad news. Saving from appliances in a longer run is on one side, but you don’t want to wait too much, then you may become eligible for a rebate from your state for purchasing these aesthetic and energy saving appliances!. Make sure you check out the website of Energy Star to get more details on this.

2. Window Treatments

We all use various window treatments just for decorative purposes, we’ll have to admit this. But, you can achieve more than this, and the complete bottom line. And what’s more, it comes quite inexpensive. 

With a variety of colorful window treatments, you can control how much air or light you need inside your home. Not allowing too much light which ultimately means heat inside your home will help you to save your AC/HVAC bills in summer. And doing contrary in winter will give you feasible energy bills on your room heaters in winter seasons.

So, go with thin and light clothes if you want to warm your house in light winters with a breath of fresh air and natural light. Use shutters, blinds and drapes for a cooler environment with your AC turned on, which also turns out to work well if you want a warm air-trapped environment with your home heating appliances.

3. Ceiling Fans, that reverse too!

Hang ceiling fans inside your home, if you aren't using them till now. Now also comes ceiling fans with reverse direction flow. So better to opt these one. Why? We're going to know soon.

You’ll need to invest one time on their cost while purchasing that comes around $200 on an average. And guess what? It just consumes energy equivalent to a bulb for its running!. They can help you to save around 40% on your electricity bills in summer and 10% on an average in winter.

In summer seasons, it works by pulling the hot air above the ceilings and the cool air needed downwards. Using a combination of your fan and AC is also a good idea to save energy costs due to electricity. And in winter, you can make it to work by changing its direction of rotation, where it’ll push hot air downwards and cool air in reverse direction.

Finally, as ceiling fans come with a variety of designs and style, something eye-catching inside your home would definitely make your visitors give a glance at it, at least once.

4. Smart landscaping ideas

Go green with your home landscaping. Planting small easy to maintain trees and herbs not only add beauty to your house yard, but the greenery also helps in sustainability. If you want to feel it, then visit a green area in summer and you’ll find it cool and soothing to your nerves.    

5. Aesthetic Home Insulation

Which means home insulation keeping house aesthetic in mind. 

Insulation is important to maintain house temperatures. If your house doesn't have any, then you have it. You don’t have to worry if you were, or now thinking it means like living in a plastic bag, which actually doesn’t. Consult a Home Insulation Contractor to audit your house and you’ll get the assistance you need.

So, a home insulation with style and sustainability will save your bills and make your house more adorable.

Finally

So, these were some design ideas for your home to save your bills on utilities  with goals of sustainability in mind. Some are quite easy, (Do It Yourself)DIY and some require expertise and substantial costs. But most importantly, all are worth in the long run. So, make sure to start your planning for the implementation of all these ideas. And for DIY activities, like replacing bulb fixtures and drapes for your window, start doing not from tomorrow or today, but NOW itself.