Decorating your home for the holidays does not need be stressful or expensive. Being one of the most popular times of the year to decorate, get your family involved and have fun making your home beautiful for the holiday season.
Most experts agree that a fireplace wastes more energy that it supplies. A roaring fire can draw three to four hundred cubic feet of air per minute; this air has to come from outside the home to feed the fire. It may be warm in front of the fire but cold air entering the home through cracks or around door seals will more than offset any gain produced by the heat from the fireplace.Christmas decorating is a great time to create traditions and spend quality time with your family. Get out some snacks and drinks and create a little �decorating party� that you�re family will love and look forward to year after year.15. Don�t forget to decorate your fireplace mantel and hang your Christmas stockings. A few fireplace mantel decorating ideas are adding garland, different styles and sizes of Santas, teddy bears, and candles. You can also display your favorite nativity scene if you have a large enough mantel.When to buy or gather: Firewood needs at least 6 months to season, so early spring is a great time to buy or gather your wood. Any insects living under the bark are dormant and likely to die before fall. Prices are generally down and supplies are good. Try to buy only what you will use in a year. You can carry over some wood into a second year, but it may give off more smoke than recently seasoned wood and it is more likely to harbor insects. You will find that land owners whose property has been logged will welcome you if you ask permission to salvage firewood. Loggers leave behind about 50% of each tree, cluttering the landscape but providing you with free firewood. With a chain saw, safety goggles, and a wood splitter, you can tailor your firewood to the dimensions of your fireplace while you save money.There can be many problems with primarily ornamental type fireplaces that can put your home and family at risk. For occasional use these fireplaces may be safe enough, but continual heavy use can cause design and material problems to put your safety on the line.13. Attach garland and Christmas bows to your chandelier. You can also weave strings of red beads in the garland that will dangle down from your chandelier and reflect the light, which will add sparkle.Happy Holidays!9. To dress up your chairs, tie Christmas bows around the chair so that the bow is on the back of the chair.So, if you just use your fireplace for romance and relaxation, buy a half cord of firewood each spring and let it season until fall. If you supplement a heating system with a woodstove or fireplace insert, buy two cords. If you heat exclusively with firewood, you�ll need about 4 to 5 cords, depending on the severity of your winters.Here are 15 Christmas decorating ideas:10. Using a small brush or q-tip, paint the edges of pine cones with glittery gold craft paint. After the pine cones dry, place them in a decorative basket.4. Place a collection of Christmas books on your coffee table.Over a period of time, quite a bit of creosote can build up coating the inside of the chimney with a combustible material. This combustible material only has to reach ignition temperature to become a roaring un-controllable blowtorch. A pro-longed fire in a fireplace may bring the flue temperature up enough to cause ignition�and let me tell you�I speak from personal experience, that chimney fires are no fun and will scare the ever-loving daylights out of you and possibly burn your house down.3. Decorate your house plants by hanging small Christmas ornaments on them.6. Wrap your staircase banister with indoor Christmas lights, garland, and bows.12. Tie bows around door knobs using festive and colorful Christmas ribbon.What�s a cord? Glad you asked. A cord of firewood is 128 cubic feet of closely stacked wood, including the air space between fire logs. The terms �face cord,� �rack,� �truck load,� and �pile� have no agreed meaning or legal meaning. In fact, Oregon consumer laws ban the use of these terms in commerce! So, a stack of firewood 4 feet wide, 4 feet tall, and 8 feet long is a cord, as is a stack 2 feet wide, 4 feet high, and 16 feet long. When buying wood, try to negotiate with the seller in terms of real cords or percentages of real cords. You can also use the examples above to estimate amounts, or you can just look at the amount he is offering and decide if it�s worth the price to you.5. Fill a glass bowl with pine cones and Christmas balls and place on a shelf or table.
Happy Holidays!
Author: Lesley Dietschy
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