Here are some easy tips to decorate your home. Taking a few moments to think about your home will help you fully enjoy it.

Think about your home, and answer these questions:

1. What do you want it to be? If you want your home to be a tranquil oasis in a busy world, are your colors soothing or do they shout? If you want a fun place for friends to gather, do you have plenty of seating?

2. What are your main hobbies and activities? What do you need for these activities? For instance, if you have a collection that you work on often, get storage containers for it that can be easily opened or put away. If it’s a lot of trouble to get at your collection, you either won’t spend the time on it, or else might be tempted to leave it out and risk losing or breaking certain pieces.

3. Who will be using the space? How many people will be living there? What ages? It’s important for every person to have a space that’s their own.

Whether it’s a special chair, couch, desk or a section of a room, everyone needs ‘their space’. If you’re planning to do video aerobics, you’ll need room to move around in front of the TV!

4. What about your things? It’s easy to become very messy if things don’t have a place. A small filing cabinet is a must for many people – it’s a great place to store all the papers that you don’t know what to do with!

5. How much do you really need? Too much furniture makes a room seem crowded. The bare essentials are a couch and chair, a table and chairs for eating, a bed and place for your clothes. After that, think hard about what you need or don’t need. Will you really use that computer desk – or would you rather sit on the couch with a laptop?

6. Think about the traffic flow. You want to be able to walk anywhere in the room without bumping into furniture. Try drawing furniture placement on paper as a first step.

7. Pick a focal point - your Greystone Properties home has unique features. What do you want to see when your first walk in the room? If you have nice windows with great lighting, are you emphasizing it? Everyone feels brighter in sunshine.

8. Think about order and organization. Do you bring home work every day, or mail, or sports equipment? Where will you put it? A large bowl or box near the front door is a great place to drop mail until you go through it later.

9. Take advantage of free expert advice. Every store and every product line employs professional designers to put furniture and accessories together. If you’re unsure of your decorating skills, pick a design you like. Study how they did it either by looking through a catalogue or going to a store. It’s all there assembled and displayed for you. If you like the look, simply do what they’ve done!

Do you sometimes find yourself wishing that your favorite TV chair can also be a rocking chair? Is there a new baby in the family that you wish you can sing to sleep in your arms while sitting comfortably yourself? Does your idea of unwinding after a long day’s work include reading a book by the fire in the winter or just contemplating the outside scenery in the summer?

American fondness for rocking chairs

If you answer yes to any one of these questions, then you are not alone. A growing number of Americans either own a rocking chair which has become a member of the family or think of buying one.

Rocking chairs began to appear in the late 1700s when someone ingeniously thought of adding skates or rockers to the bottoms of adult furniture, similar to a child’s rocking cradle or rocking horse.

Since then, owning a rocking chair has become a distinctly American preoccupation, with most Americans, including some of America’s famous presidents, showing great fondness for their rocking chairs - whether they be the elegant American designer Sam Maloof creations with the elongated curved runners or the homely white wicker rocking chair that usually has been with the family for more than 30 years.

But how do you choose a good rocking chair. Below are some tips on how to choose a rocking chair that is right for you.

Tips on how to choose a rocking chair

1. The first thing to ask yourself is where are you going to put your rocking chair? If indoors by the fireplace or the family room, you can choose a cushioned or timber rocking chair made of light maple or yellowish oak. Or if outdoors in your garden or front porch, you can choose a sweetly-scented cedar, a painted brazilian cherry wood or teakwood durable enough to withstand the elements.

2. A very important priority in rocking chairs is comfort. Rocking chairs have been used for therapeutic purposes - John F Kennedy’s rocking chair being a famous example. It is said that President Kennedy found hours and hours of relief for his bad back from this Appalachian oak rocker which has a steam-bent curved backrest and woven seat made of Malaysian rattan.

Answering the following questions may help you to judge whether the rocking chair you are choosing will give you the level of comfort that you need.

- Does the rocking chair provide seating comfort and support?
- Is the chair set low enough for comfortable elbow support?
- Are the armrests wide enough to rest your arms and provide the right balance?
- Do the seat and back offer both firmness and flexibility?
- Do the seats slant downward to fit the whole back while supporting the lower back?

3. Is the rocker pitched correctly? In layman’s terms, does the rocking chair provide a smooth and even rocking motion without tipping, even when you are in the reclining position? Or does it feel like you are about to flip backwards when you are rocking? Does a single push keep the rocking chair rocking for a few minutes or does it stop after only a few seconds?

4. Was the rocking chair constructed using techniques that have been proven to result in stronger and more durable rocking chairs that can withstand everyday use? Some of these techniques include construction without glue, interlocking joinery and the famous Maloof technique of using seven laminated strips of wood to strengthen each of the long, elegant skis that are used in his rocking chair designs.

5. What style of rocking chair will fit your decor? Do you want an upholstered rocking chair or do you want to see the timber’s natural woodgrain enlivened by an oil finish? Do you want charming white wicker chair or casual rattan? How do you want your the back of your rocking chair - traditional ladder back horizontal slats, vertical slats or woven cane? Do you want it stained, oiled, varnished or painted?

6. How much do you want to spend for your rocking chair? Whatever your budget, there seems to be a rocking chair for everyone’s fancy - whether its the $20,000 Sam Maloof with a two-year waitng list for the ultimate in rocking chair experience or the vintage white wicker rocking chair you’ve just bid successfully on ebay for $20, or somewhere in between.

7. And last but not least, do you want your rocking chair shipped to you assembled or are you handy with tools and don’t mind assembling it yourself if you can save some money?

I hope these tips will make it easier to find the rocking chair that’s just right for you - whether you’re the couch potato looking for a more comfortable seat in front of your favorite TV sitcom, the delighted parent of a newly-born baby or the urban worker trying to relax in the evening after dinner with a book or the quietness of the night by the front porch.