Adjustable beds were once found only in hospitals, but now you can have all the comfort and health benefits of one in your own home. Most models thankfully, look more decorative than those you would see in a hospital so that you can relax in style.

Some of the medical conditions an adjustable bed can help with include sleep apnea, acid reflux, lower back pain, arthritis, high blood pressure, diabetes, and Restless Legs Syndrome. Of course, there’s more than just medical advantages to consider. A completely healthy person can still sleep better on an adjustable base because of the bed’s ability to customize how they sleep.

With just the push of a button, you can silently set up your adjustable bed for customized comfort, and some will even fit inside your existing bed frame for a more stylish appearance!

What is an Adjustable Bed?

An adjustable bed, sometimes known as an electric bed, is a bed base topped with a series of panels. These panels tilt upward with the press of a button, elevating the head or foot of the mattress.
Because of its electronic components and high-quality metal structure, an adjustable base is one of the more expensive types of bed support. However, many people find the cost worthwhile to be able to get a better night’s rest.

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We spend much of our life sleeping. Naturally, where and what we sleep on forms an essential part of our quality of life. Mattresses are the most common bedding material that people use all over the world. We seldom give it a second thought unless we need to buy a new one—but what’s the story behind this one item in our home that we use more than anything else?

Research at Border Cave, South Africa

The development of mattresses began as soon as early man discovered fire. They left the security of trees and started to sleep on the ground as the fire kept night predators at bay. They often used stones covered with grass, straw, and animal skin to sleep. Later came the cave dwellers, and just last year researchers discovered fossilized bedding used by ancient humans dating back about 200,000 years at a site in South Africa called Border Cave*. This bedding even used a base of ash to deter the crawling critters!

In ancient Persia and Egypt evidence shows that goat skins filled with water were also used to lie on—the first waterbeds perhaps? The powerful Egyptians also decided to make platforms to raise themselves above the nighttime crawlers and many very elaborate ones were discovered in Tutankhamen’s tomb. The common people had a mat on the ground or a simple wood platform with stuffed cushions and their pillows were often a stone! However, wool was already being woven at this time so warm blankets kept them cozy. The wealthier Greeks and Romans followed Egypt’s elite with their raised metal beds and used woven supports to hold long cotton, feather or straw filled bags: the first mattresses?

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Living in the jungle is an experience like no other, waking to the sounds of monkeys and exotic birds, surrounded by plush green jungle. But there are also some challenges living in a tropical environment. There’s no such thing as indestructible furniture, but there are steps to help your home and everything in it stand up to life in the jungle.

By Shelagh Duncan

My guess is that none of us came to Costa Rica to live a high maintenance lifestyle in high maintenance homes. We’ve come here to slow down and smell the ylang-ylang in a relaxing, beautiful location. We want to enjoy our surroundings, including our tropical home and everything in it. Furniture, just like our home is an investment, and we carefully select exactly what we want and plan to enjoy it for many years to come.

However, living in the tropics has its challenges, and keeping one step ahead of what life and Mother Nature hands us is a constant battle. Furniture disintegration being one of them! It’s not even just furniture actually, almost everything here falls apart way sooner than it would back home.

Some products are very durable—steel, porcelain tile and granite for example. But who wants to sit on a granite sofa?

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We all know that scents, aromas, fragrances (however you describe them) can be used to trigger specific responses. For instance; to encourage relaxation, aid sleep, promote concentration, stimulate creativity, increase motivation and intensify those romantic evenings. In addition, there’s also a whole raft of religious, aesthetic and practical reasons for using fragrances.
Below, we explore these attributes and uses for some of the fragrances that are available in incense, highlight their various benefits and suggest fragrances for specific occasions and purposes.

1. Meditation

Incense is used widely in many religious practices to deepen attention, heighten senses and uplift one’s own spirit when practicing meditation. Sandalwoods and Lotus are used most frequently for meditation as well as Agarwood, Musk and Cedar. Choose what suits you best, one that transports you to the place you need to be, without taking over your thoughts.

2. Relax and unwind

Soft fragrances will further enhance this time, allowing you to give yourself time and space away from the hassles of everyday living. Frankincense, Sandalwood and Cedarwood are all ‘calming fragrances’, and work well for general relaxation.

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Designing for Tomorrow

According to the US census projections, within 7 years all of the nation’s 74 million baby boomers will be 65 or older. The most senior among them will be on the cusp of 85. Many will be leaving the US to retire elsewhere.

You may already be aware about a recent ranking issued by International Living that places Costa Rica at the top of their global list of Best Places to Retire in 2021. That is some achievement for a small isthmus with a population of just about 5 million!

If you live here you will totally get this. Agreed, nowhere is perfect…but this part of Costa Rica can feel pretty close sometimes.

Many people are choosing to relocate in Costa Rica from younger age brackets too of course—working remotely has opened the world in one way, just as Covid has closed it in another.

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We all know that we are a better person when we’re calm and happy. Being happy these days however, is a challenge to say the least.

The Covid-19 pandemic is having a significant emotional and psychological effect on people from all walks of life and in every affected country. The effects on the most exposed groups, like health workers, can even lead to post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as severe anxiety, depression, and other symptoms of distress.

The social distancing and isolation have affected us and we all feel stress and anxiety in one way or another. We feel powerless and things can seem out-of-control.

Maybe it’s time to say “enough” and take some responsibility to try and control our micro environment – our homes. Our homes should be a refuge – not a jail, so why not turn our homes into feel-good spaces?

With a mood-altering coat of paint we can do wonders. “Colour is so influential in relation to how a room feels, therefore it can easily affect our mood and behaviour,” says Dulux colour expert Andrea Lucena-Orr. “As soon as you enter a room that’s bright or has a certain positive essence, you can’t help but feel uplifted and reinvigorated.”

Research by The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health in Melbourne scientifically proves that different colours on walls can strongly influence a range of emotions. They can make us feel relaxed and calm, or cheerful and excited, while the wrong colour scheme can make us bored, sad, tense and even irritated.

Colour, of course is a fundamental building block of interior design, but beyond imagining how colours will look together and work in your home, it’s important to consider how they make you feel.

Colour psychology is the theory that colours can affect how you feel, think and act. For example, deep red hues are associated with passion and energy, whereas cool blue shades are considered calming and serene.

Here are some tips on how to use colours to set the right mood in your home, and try painting just one accent wall to see a big difference!

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4 Easy Ways to Choose a Colour Scheme For Any Room or Your Whole House

Building a new house in Costa Rica is an exciting venture for many of us. Sometimes it is our first custom home—our dream home.

There are always so many details to think about and many decisions to be made it can be confusing. One of the first decisions will be the floor colour. What size and what colour tile do I use? This is hard if you have not selected your whole house colours yet. Selecting items piece by piece does not make for a cohesive flow through a home.

Choosing an interior designer is an obvious choice. They can work with you on just your colour scheme and you do the rest, but they can also help you to coordinate all your furnishings, art and décor to work together beautifully. This is especially helpful if you are not here all the time.

If you prefer to take the reins and try doing it yourself here are some helpful ideas.

There are different options for the way this can be done:

1. Traditionally, the colour palette would be selected by using the designer’s “Colour Wheel”.
2. You can look at artwork and fabric you like to find pleasing combinations.
3. You can look to nature – there you will find beautiful colours and no end of inspiration.
4. You can also look at other rooms online or in a friend’s home to get ideas, or you can just choose your favourite colours and go from there.

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With stately presence and fewer grout lines, this versatile material brings elegance and style to walls and floors.

Large-format tiles were originally limited to commercial venues like hotels and restaurants but they have crossed over and are now being widely used in residential settings. Thanks to their large size and minimal grout lines, they create a smooth look and a feeling of spaciousness, bringing unexpected drama to your home. Side perk: less grout to clean!

What Are Large-Format Tiles, Exactly?

Large-format tiles offer a clean, sleek, modern aesthetic, but they can also work well with traditional decor. They are available in a variety of materials, including natural stone, glass and porcelain. Thanks to advances in digital printing, porcelain tiles can be made to look like natural stone, concrete, metal, wood and even fabric.

Large-format tiles can be installed on both walls and floors. When used on a wall, they can be a durable alternative to paint or wallpaper. There’s no repainting or worrying about staining the wallpaper in your future. Since it is tile, you can just wipe it clean.

Tiles are considered large format when one edge is greater than 15 inches. In the past, 12-by-24-inch rectangular tiles were the most popular large-format size. Today, 18 by 36 inches is common, though, thanks to new technology, tiles can be manufactured as large as 5 by 10 feet.  The most popular size here according to Porceramica in San Jose is the 60 x 120 cm (24 x 48 inch), but they offer sizes up to 120 x 240 cm and have a wide variety of designs.

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Building your new home is a unique experience filled with stories you will never forget. Especially when it is in a different country with a different climate, culture and language! It will be a challenge and it will be an adventure, and almost everyone who has built their home here in Costa Rica feels they could write a book about it, some even do.

Always keep in mind that you may one day want to sell your house, so Resale should always be considered when making decisions along the way. Stay away from current fads or trendy finishes; keep those for the furniture and décor, and remember to leave money in the budget for the pool, outdoor kitchen and other landscaping needs.

Hopefully these tips will help you keep your sanity and actually enjoy the creation of your new home in paradise!

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Here are 10 basic layout rules to help you create a polished, pulled-together look in any room

Like a blank page or canvas, an empty room can be either an opportunity or a challenge. With so many ways to fill it, how do you know where to start?

Here are some of the basic rules of furniture arrangement that have been distilled into 10 simple tips. They’ll help you or your interior designer to determine where to put things, where not to put things and how to prioritize the choices you make.

Step 1. Think About How the Room Will Function

Consider how the room is used and how many people will use it during the day. Many of us have homes with a great room that includes not only the entry and living area but the kitchen and dining areas too, so there are many activities take place here.

As well as reading and relaxing, you may use it for entertaining small or large scale gatherings, for the kids’ homework or crafts and as a home office. These uses will help determine the type of furnishings you’ll need and the amount of seating required.

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It’s hard to imagine any kitchen these days without some sort of bar stool. Bar stools have become the norm, and for good reason. They allow family and friends to get together around the kitchen for casual dining, pot lucks, or just to chat over a drink and keep the chef company while they cook.

The bar stool as we think of it now, has been a part of society since the early 20th century, and was initially designed to seat more people at a commercial bar in the most economical way. It was an evolution from the traditional stool, which can trace its origins back as far as the Byzantium Varangian guard, and beyond.

Finding the right stools for your kitchen can be challenging because there are so many factors to consider including style, comfort and of course height.

If you are lucky, your home will have a standard height bar or kitchen counter so finding a stool should be more straightforward, but always check before you buy. However, you may find that your home was custom built to the owners preferences rather than to any international building standards.

There are many different styles of bar stools available today, but there are only really three basic designs—a seat as the base with a low back and short arms, a seat as the base with a low back, and the most simple of all being the seat only.

But first, let’s cover a bar stool basic: height. In my years of helping people furnish their homes, I learned there is lots of confusion about this subject, so let’s try to clear that up.
“Bar stool” is a general term that refers to stools that come in two primary heights: counter and bar.

Counter stools, are designed to be paired with a standard-height kitchen counter, which is 36 inches tall. So counter stool seats range in height from 24 to 26” from the floor.

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Making Your Dream Bathroom a Reality, and How it All Began.

Haven’t we all imagined soaking in a bubble-filled tub, champagne glass in hand and looking out to a glorious view or to birds flying overhead?

Every home has a bathroom, usually two or more in reality. Since the inception of indoor plumbing, bathrooms in homes have transitioned from a luxury, to a necessity and back to luxury in the custom homes we see everywhere.

Starting in ancient cultures, bathing rituals were mainly for the wealthy and influential, and for those seeking purification. Public bath-houses came along and these were very social places. In the 1800’s personal bathtubs of cast iron started showing up in homes, and portable ones made from wood or tin at last became accessible for the masses – the great unwashed! The attitude was that people could now have a bath once a week – whether they needed one or not!

Today we consider the bathroom as our personal sanctuary, and of course we want it to reflect that. It is so much more than a place to get clean – it has become the place where you can really make a decorating statement. There are simple Japanese style bathrooms, elegant traditional bathrooms, rustic bathrooms, and almost any style you can imagine.

If you are designing your own bathroom, plan first for the layout as you will need to consider what you want to include in there. Smaller bathrooms are always more of a challenge, but with planning and some careful thought, you can usually include everything you want.

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“Light is the first element of design; without it there is no color, form, or texture.”
Thomas E. Farin—educator, lighting consultant, entrepreneur

Bathroom Lighting

When it comes to lighting, an often ignored area of our homes is the bathroom. We’ll choose great tiles and faucets, but lighting usually plays a supporting role. Whether we opt for that minimalist Spa look, luxurious opulence, or just a serene place of refuge, lighting can make or break the effect.

Let’s face it, the strip light above the mirror is the cheap and easy fix. A well thought-out lighting plan takes time and money, but makes the world of difference in any room. Basically you should have the three main types of lighting present—Task Lighting, Ambient Lighting, and Accent Lighting.

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Colour preferences vary as much as personalities, some folks are loving the bright and the bold, while others feel most secure surrounded by neutrals. The good news is that when it comes to colour, there really is no “correct” palette.

by Shelagh Duncan

That being said, we’ve all been inside homes where an explosion of colour created a chopped-up feel between rooms so you don’t know where to look first. Living in the tropics and seeing all the bright and beautiful colours around us can make us feel we need to bring it all indoors. However our indoor living spaces generally need a calmer feel—too much disjointed colour can create a restless atmosphere.

Here are some well chosen tips to help keep that Calm, but enjoy the Colour! So choose the ones that work best for you.

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It’s ‘Great’ because this is the place where everyone ends up! So, move over kitchen, the Great Room has become a favorite gathering place in the house.

by Shelagh Duncan

Whatever you call it, it’s a multi-functional room that provides space to lounge on a comfy sofa in front of the TV, find solace with a good book, watch the kids play, and enjoy good conversation.

The Great Room was a big fad beginning in the 1980s with all the new home builders back home, and was usually in addition to the basement rec-room or rumpus room. It grew as an extension to the kitchen, where Mom could keep an eye on the kids (and the soaps perhaps), while preparing family meals.

For us here, with our more casual lifestyle, it has almost completely replaced the more formal living room. Now it can encompass all of the above, plus casual dining and work and study areas.

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