The NKBA recommends the toilet paper holder be placed 8” to 12” in front of the toilet rim and 26” above the finished floor. Since comfort height toilets and standard toilets are lower than 26” the NKBA recommended height of 26” is good for both.
There are a ton of interior design blogs on the internet and finding the best stuff can be difficult. To help you sift through it all, I'm going to share some of my favorite posts and columns from some of the most popular interior design blogs in NYC. A lot of the columns can spark up great ideas for your own home. A few more can help you make interesting decorative and furniture. The DIY’s are a definite must-see and try as most of the items are hard to find even in the vast interior retail stores accessible for residents in NYC.
Design Sponge’s Before and After Column
Design Sponge is a rare find of practically anything and everything that has to do with design: from living spaces to iPhone cases, clothing to rugs, entertaining wares to notepads and chairs, designer profiles to sneak peeks of stylish homes.
The blog features posts from various creative contributors. This naturally gives you generous servings of unique products, DIY’s, ideas, themes and concepts every day of every week. Design Sponge has carefully laid out its blog so that categories are easy to spot and ads are tastefully lined at the right side.
The person behind the design blog is one who never runs out of style herself: Grace Bonney has been featured on TV and has worked in various home and style and even food and wine magazines.
My favorite column: Before and After
There are plenty of home makeovers being featured on TV but there’s nothing quite like having a handy how-to guide or even just a set of pictures you can constantly refer to while working on your own project for your home.
Design Sponge’s Before and After column provides ample images of a space’s before and after looks. Photos of a noteworthy piece, a corner, or an entire room’s before and after are pitted against each other, side by side, one on top of the other.
Details like unique paint jobs, knobs, hardware, decor and artworks are often given their own moment on each post.
Scrolling through this section of Design Sponge should set off creative juices to inspire your own ideas for home projects. If you ever decide to pull off one of or a part of the looks, details on where to buy and what materials to use are often included in the posts. Otherwise, the blog and the column itself have more than enough followers that you can interact with at the comments section.
Little Green Notebook’s Creative DIY’s
It’s easy to love The Little Green Notebook. The blog comes off as very personal and warm even as it tackles furniture, fabric and DIY’s. These are things Jenny Komenda is very passionate about and her blog consistently showcases these passions along with her style and her expertise as an interior decorator.
Going through the blog will have you coming up with fresh new ideas: for a wall paint job you’ve been putting off or for a piece of furniture you’re undecided about. Jenny’s work has been featured in many design publications like the Wall Street Journal and Better Homes and scrolling through her blog is always time well spent. The best thing about it is Jenny lives just around Brooklyn. Any stores she mentions could very well be a stone’s throw away from where you live.
My favorite column: DIY’s
The thing about DIY’s is that they make coveted, hard to find pieces well within reach. The Little Green Notebook has just the right column for anyone who has the knack for making things or for those who simply can’t find a piece available in stores anywhere in NYC.
Jenny also makes sure you can replicate her DIY’s by letting you in on the materials and the entire process which are usually relatively easy to find and do, respectively. She’s very detailed so you shouldn’t miss out on anything. In instances that you do miss out on some steps, you’re always welcome to email her or comment.
These are just some of the pieces I’ve been fawning over at her blog.
This Sputnik Chandelier looks elegant and expensive and I’d wager one would never initially think this didn’t came out of a box as is and that this could be done overnight!
Another one of my favorite DIY’s from LGN to date is these Shades Made out of Mini Blinds. They’re particularly easy to do and significantly inexpensive compared to custom or retail ones.
You can even choose the exact folds you’d like to have.
Lastly, I have to feature this tufted headboard that I know many would want to have to fancy up their bedrooms.
You can pick out as many or as less tufts as you want and you get to make the whole thing out of the exact color and fabric you have in mind.
Material Girls’ Furniture Friday
Material Girls is best described as a fun interior design blog. It’s written in young and fresh tones by equally young designers that are based in five of America’s major cities, NYC included. The design finds anything and everything that has to do with design including home features, furniture pieces, rugs and hardware. Each post also seems infused with a little pop culture.
If you want to be in the know of the latest in design and architecture, this is a blog you’d like bookmarked or to be subscribed to. Material Girls also feature designers, books, events and places to shop.
My favorite column: Furniture Friday
Furniture Friday provides no nonsense features and posts of the more unique and interesting furniture available all across America and the web. Each post is basically composed of some basic yet good photos of notable pieces, the column writer’s opinions on each piece and the price, brand and retailer of each.
The landing page has the categories all lined up neatly in one page so you can skip to a page that has all the particular furniture you’re looking for. There’s a page for coffee tables, armoires and etc. Furniture Friday is a really organized resource for furniture finds and inspirations.
NY Design Agenda's New York Top 10's
The general concept of the blog NY Design Agenda is pretty much similar to that of Material Girls except that it focuses on just NYC alone and the tone of blogging is more neutral.
The author blogs about architecture, home and hotel interiors , books, events, trends, details, stylish places to see around New York, furniture stores and everything that has to do with design. It’s the best spot on the web to go to if you want to see all that NYC has to offer in terms of art and design.
Favorite column: New York’s Top 10
With all the information the blogosphere has to offer, I really appreciate the occasional posts that pare down those info for me. Extra points for when they come in numbered lists.
This is why I highly recommend looking out for NY Design Agenda’s occasional Top 10 posts. They don’t have their own category but they usually go under NY City Guide. Here are some of my favorite NY Top 10s to date:
The post makes mention of venturing outside of Ikea and discovering exotic pieces that just might work for you like this sculptural lounge chair from VOOS in Brooklyn…
Or a futuristic lighting fixture perhaps?
I like exploring or browsing through chic establishments. Hotels in NYC are simply some of the more modish establishments in the world and this post highlights the bests of the bests.
The Bowery Hotel Crosby Street Hotel
Lastly, I love the post that covers the 10 best places to wine and dine in NYC in terms of aesthetics.
Bouley, 163 Duane St.
River Café, 1 River St.
When it comes to kitchen remodeling, New York City residents have a well-earned reputation for being quick to adapt in the latest innovations. In recent years, however, trends in high-tech features and components having been advancing at a faster pace.
Here are the top six high-tech appliances every NYC kitchen should have:
‘As Use’ or ‘On Demand’ Water Heaters
They're commonly referred to as both “as use” and “on-demand” water heaters. No matter what you call them, they are one and the same. These appliances get hot quickly and are able to heat up without using as much power. They’re a great option for somebody who's looking for a way to cut their carbon footprint during a remodeling project.
As use or on-demand water heaters don't use a tank and that is where the energy savings comes in, because there's no tank to keep hot when it's not in use. The hot water is produced immediately on-demand as it comes out of the faucet, and these water heaters are also available in several sizes. There are larger models to heat water for an entire home and smaller compact models that tuck in easily under a kitchen sink.
Ultra Realistic Synthetic Polished Stone Countertops
Another trend NYC residents are catching onto is synthetic polished Stone countertops. It’s difficult to tell between these countertops slabs and real cut and polished marble or granite. So why would someone opt for fake stone when it's actually more expensive than real granite or marble?
This newer polymer-based product fuses together seamlessly to give countertops a solid one-piece appearance. Scratches also sand out easily, and these countertops aren't as vulnerable to staining like real stone is. It's also lighter, too, so it's a perfect choice in boats and recreational vehicles.
Spotlight on New LED Lighting
LED lighting has been around for decades now, but it was it's high cost that kept it out of reach for only but smaller, more limited applications. New, improved methods of manufacturing, however, have led to more affordable pricing, so now for kitchen remodeling NYC residents have yet one more new option when it comes time to design their lighting scheme.
LED lighting comes with several benefits. First, you don’t to have to change bulbs. Also, the light emitted by LED crystals also diffuses more evenly, so there is no bright center and no dim region in an area that's being lit. The LED technology is also an energy-saver, as it uses only 12 volts of power.
Kitchen Sink Resurfacing Kits
New technological developments have made kitchen sink renovations a cinch for just about anyone. Resurfacing products have been around for decades but they just couldn't hold a candle to what's available now in today's kits that contain everything you need for the job.
There are more choices in brighter, more vibrant colors and the finished results resists cracking and chipping and deliver a longer service life. With resurfacing, not only do you save money by not having to purchase a new sink, but you also save money on labor.
Green Alternatives to Hardwood Flooring
When it comes to flooring and kitchen remodeling, NYC residents tend to not think high-tech. The bottom line: modern advancements in manufacturing technologies have created alternatives to hardwood flooring that are beautiful, affordable and renewable. Now, you can have the look of a hardwood floor without any of the guilt.
Bamboo flooring is one of the more popular styles, and no, it doesn't look like bamboo. Bamboo is actually a grass, so it grows readily without the heavy use of fertilizers and insecticides. Another renewable domestic alternative is eucalyptus-flooring tiles that are made from trees grown in arid areas of Australia, rather than environmentally sensitive rain forests.
Using Appliances Via the Internet, Mobile Phones
When it comes time to start in with kitchen remodeling, home and condo owners will also find that it's time to buy new appliances. Manufactures have been in direct competition with one another to see who can cram more features into refrigerators, stoves and ovens.
These days, you can activate appliances when you are away from home. With the help of the Internet or a smart phone, you can have a hot meal ready and waiting when you arrive home. Then refrigerators are also available with technology that allows them to track how fast and how much of your favorite foods that you're using and even automatically re-order them and have them delivered.
When it comes to kitchen remodeling, Long Island homeowners don’t have many resources to teach them how to do it. So it's 'learn you go', which in turn can have you learning some real tough lessons. Nobody wants to flub up the kitchen, as it’s the most expensive room in your home to remodel.
Many different decisions have to be made throughout the project, and all of them have money riding on them. Then, don't forget that you're going to be left with the results, so you'll be stuck looking at your bad choices for years to come.
Here are five common mistakes that you don't have to make.
Overdoing it through Overspending
One of the first most common mistakes in kitchen remodeling is going overboard on a project. Homeowners start out with a reasonable budget, and as the project unfolds, they just have a way of continuously stepping up the ladder in terms of overspending.
This isn't to say that you can't make expensive choices on a kitchen remodel job, but the extravagance of a project has to match the home. You need to keep your choices in compliance with the overall value of the home, to be sure you get a solid return on your investment.
Doing Projects Out of Sequence
Another mistake in kitchen remodeling is when homeowners do a project out of sequence. Keep in mind that the entire job is made up of a series of smaller projects, and they really do go together in a layered fashion to keep costs and labor down.
For example, if you paint your walls before you install your cabinets, appliances and fixtures, you can turn a two-day project into just a few hours of work. Then, the baseboard goes on after the wall is painted, and after that, the flooring has been laid down, so they could sit down tight on top of it. Make sure you do all your projects in their proper sequence to save you the headache.
Making Poor Use of Space
Having a bigger wish list than square footage is another mistake in kitchen remodeling. If you feel that your kitchen is a little bit short on space, don't worry, you're not alone. Be ready to compromise on the size and quantity of features and appliances that you can fit into your kitchen.
Meredith Leigh Weiss