The bathroom is the most-used room in the house. With high traffic and high moisture, the floor begins to show its age after ten or 15 years.
One good thing about replacing it is that the room is small. That means you can choose high-quality materials and not have a huge amount of money or a great deal of time invested.
Here's some advice from Lowe's, the home improvement store:
Tile comes in ceramic, porcelain, stone, and mosaic. Any these choices will give you a great range of possibilities for color, style, and pattern.
Ceramic comes in many colors and shapes that make it easy to create patterns and features, such as a border or center medallion.
Porcelain is a denser tile and offers superior resistance to mold and stains. Stone-look porcelain looks very much like real stone.
Natural Stone is available in marble, granite, limestone and slate. It's more expensive but has an outstanding appearance and comes in many colors.
When considering tile, leaf through design books and home magazines. Your personal preferences will narrow your choices.
You might decide to take the project a step farther with a new tub surround or elegant tile wainscote.
If you have the time and skill, you could install the new floor yourself. First remove the old floor down to the subflooring. Then screw down sheets of cement-fiber tilebacker to create a solid underlayment.
Lay out tiles along the room's center lines, and cut the tiles to fit up to the walls. Then spread adhesive with a notched trowel and press the tile into place. The next day, mix grout and spread it into the gaps.
Too much work and worry? Professional installation costs more but could produce a more perfect job.

How many times have you thought about remodeling your kitchen but talked yourself out of it because it just seemed like a lot of work? This may come as a surprise, but remodeling your kitchen brings great rewards.  Rewards to the tune of 80-100% return on your investment!

It can seem overwhelming to remodel your kitchen.  There seem to be so many things to consider that it can paralyze you from doing anything at all.  But for your basic kitchen remodel there are really only five major items to consider.

Your Appliances Set the Stage

The first item to consider is your appliances.  The look of your appliances really sets the stage for how the rest of the kitchen should look.

Are you after an ultra-modern stainless steel feel for your kitchen?  Or are you more of a homey white appliance kind of family?  Perhaps you like the flare of jet black appliances.

Give this a little thought and then get online or visit your favorite appliance store to see what's currently available.

Selecting The Cabinets

Once you've gotten your appliances and know the general feel you're going for, it's time to select the cabinets.  If you're looking for ultra-modern, consider stainless steel cabinets.  Glass doors can really give a modern edge to your kitchen as well.

If you're after a more homey kitchen, then solid wood cabinets with a rich wood finish will do the trick.  For the edgier black appliances, look to flat faced doors with sharp edges and less country flare.

Now For The Counter Tops

Selecting the right material for your countertops is of vital importance to your newly remodeled kitchen.  The color, texture and look of the counters make a real statement in the kitchen.

But even more important than that, the counters are the real work space of the kitchen and must be able to withstand what your family is going to put them through.

Granite is a popular countertop material because it's very durable and has a great finish for almost any kitchen design.

Faucets and Sinks

While the faucets and sinks make up a relatively small portion of the kitchen space, they can really make a difference to the look and feel of your new kitchen.

For a classy kitchen, rounded hardware with edges full of flare and a brass finish often do the trick.  Again, ultra-modern design calls for stainless steel sinks and bold streamlined faucets.  The homey look can be achieved with porcelain sinks and tall, rounded faucets.

Spending a little extra money on those faucets can really add class to the whole remodel.  Going cheap on the faucets and hardware can dull down even the most expensive cabinets and countertops.

Finally, The Floors

Finally, be careful not to overlook the flooring you're going to put into your newly remodeled kitchen.  As with faucets, going cheap in this department will really lessen the look and feel of the entire kitchen.

While grouted tile is not a necessity, if you go with linoleum be sure to find a quality pattern that isn't too busy.  You don't want people staring at the floor the entire time they're in the kitchen.  Hardwood floors (or great looking imitations) really add class as well.

Now, that wasn't so hard was it?  There are really only five things to consider for most kitchen remodels: appliances, cabinets, countertops, sinks and faucets and flooring.

Start with the appliances to set the stage and follow through in the rest of your selections.  Print out your selections from the web or clip them out of magazines and lay them out on a table to see how they look together.  Getting a bird's eye view in this way will really help you get the pieces that fit best together.

Minimum hassle, maximum results