Inspirational Front Porch Ideas - Take Your Porch to the Next Level with Diy Upgrades

Transform your porch and add a fresh, new dimension to your home! Many people are staying in their homes until the economy improves and they want to make the most of what they have. Others want to add extra curb appeal to encourage new buyers. Either way, giving your porch a face lift can be a relatively inexpensive project that enhances the look and comfort of your home.

A fresh coat of stain or paint can always do wonders and repairing loose railings, steps, and moldings goes without saying. But there are some other transformations you may not have thought of that give it a whole new look. Here are some easy DIY ideas from the ceiling down to the porch flooring.

Porch Ceiling

Replace your existing ceiling panels with bead board. Painted or stained, bead board adds warmth and charm to any porch. It's easy to install and can be placed over the existing ceiling under most conditions. Outdoor porch ceilings can be artsy and attractive just like the inside of your home.

Porch Columns

With a wide variety of products available today, you can easily transform your porch columns into a different design.  If your columns are rectangular in shape, use round column wraps to give your porch a whole new look. If they are currently wrought-iron, consider adding additional pieces to give it more of a Mediterranean look. Most wrought-iron porch columns (and railings too) need regular maintenance. A wire brush, elbow grease, and paint can go a long way to make them look fresh and new again.

Porch Railings

Change your porch railings to add pizazz! Consider upgrading your railings to aluminum balusters (which come in several different colors) to give your home an updated, contemporary look. If wood is your style, choose a different style baluster (they come in all kinds of designs and patterns). Or, for a totally different look, replace your porch railings with a knee wall (solid structure) and cover that with faux stone! Place craftsman style columns on top of the knee wall and I bet you'll love the look!

Porch Flooring

Your porch flooring (also known as porch decking) makes a big statement about your porch. Concrete? Paint it.  Wood? Stain it or paint it. Definitely replace any damaged wood flooring. Consider painting the floor and ceiling either contrasting or complementary colors for a whole new bold look. Look for porch and floor paint at your favorite home store. Don't forget painting front door and trim with the best quality exterior paint your budget allows.

We are often so busy trying to update our house that we forget about the most obvious part- the porch! There are so many affordable, easy-to-do projects you can do to upgrade the look of your front porch. A little imagination and work can go a long way.

New How Many Fish Can Your Garden Pond Take?

The maximum number of fish you can have in a pond depends on the volume of the water, the quality of the water, the size of the fish, the species of the fish, the climate of the area and the food available.

If the pond has no pump, filter or other equipment, in a warm climate, you shouldn't keep more than two 15 centimetre fish per cubic metre (two 6 inch fish per cubic yard). You can keep fish at much higher densities than this, but the chances of them remaining healthy are not good.

The better the water quality, the more fish you can keep. With the right technology, fish farms keep up to 200 kilograms of fish in a cubic metre of water (about six pounds of fish per cubic foot). However, as a rough guide, in a garden pond half a metre (one and a half feet) deep, constantly in the shade, with well-buffered water being pumped continuously through an ultra-violet clarifier (to prevent algae blooms) and a biological filter, you could keep up to nine goldfish of 15 centimetres (six inches) length per square metre of pond (i.e.135 centimetres of fish per square metre, or about 45 inches of fish per square yard). To be safe, keep less than half this number so that you have plenty of leeway in the event of the pump or UV failing. In a warm climate, if the pond is in the sun much of the day, reduce the number by half again - i.e. about 35 centimetres per square metre (14 inches per square yard).

Obviously, the larger the fish, the more it pollutes the water so the less the number you can have in the pond. Fish growth tends to be restricted by the size of the water body they live in. For example, goldfish can grow to more than 30 centimetres (12 inches) long, but in most average-sized ponds, they usually won't grow to more than 20 centimetres (8 inches).

Some species need more space than others and some species pollute the water more than others. For example, koi are twice as polluting as goldfish, probably because they stir up the pond bottom sediments more. Also, some species of fish are more tolerant of poor water quality than others. For example, koi can live in water that isn't pure enough for trout.

Climate affects fish activity because they are cold-blooded. Their metabolism doubles with every 10 degrees centigrade rise in temperature which means they eat twice as much and pollute the water twice as much. As a general rule, you can keep double the number of fish in water at 13 degrees centigrade as you can in water at 26 degrees centigrade.

Ideally, you should keep only as many fish in a pond as the food chain in the pond can support. The amount of natural food available will vary from pond to pond. Up to 30 centimetres per square metre (12 inches per square yard) of fish survive well in some ponds without being fed. So, keeping the fish numbers down means you don't have to spend the money or time to feed them. More importantly, by not feeding the fish you aren't adding nutrients to the pond which feed algae.