Posts Tagged ‘Garden Fountains’
The Basics of Indoor Wall Water Fountains
Coming home each day can be a stress relieving period when you know you can relax with the sound of water falling in your living room. Indoor wall water fountains help to create the ultimate tranquil room in your home. The light playing on the wall as it falls over the wall and the sculpture creates an ever changing image in a work of art. They are also very beneficial for your health and beauty.
Indoor wall water fountains release negative ions into the air of your home from the moving water. These ions attach themselves to the airborne pollutants and take them out of the air, thus purifying the air that you breathe. The air inside your home is often more polluted than that of the outside with smoke, odor, and dust.
You can eliminate the need for an air purifier when you have one of these waterfalls in the living room or any other room of the home. Research has also shown that these negative ions have a positive effect on your brain activity and can be very helpful in reducing and treating depression.
Indoor wall water fountains (http://www.garden-fountains.com/Detail.bok?no=906) can be attached to the wall or be freestanding walls of cascading water. They are also available in a wide array of materials from nature, such as bronze, copper and slate. You can also choose the number of panels you would like to have in your wall fountain.
The norm is between one to three panels, but you can have as many as you wish. Those fountains that stand on the floor can be moved from one room to the other and do not require installation on a wall. They are also very easy to assemble.
Before you rush out to buy one of the wall water fountains, you should sit back and study the room in which you want to place it. You can choose a horizontal or vertical fountain, but you do need to make sure you have the space available, either on the wall or the floor.
You also need to look at the height of your ceilings to determine which type of fountain is best suited to this room. If you have high ceilings, them your best choice would be vertical wall water fountain (http://www.garden-fountains.com/Detail.bok?no=1236) because a horizontal model would be diminished by the height of the walls.
The depth of the wall water fountain is also another factor that you need to consider before you make your purchase. You do have to allow this depth from the wall and allow for the furniture that you will place beneath it. For example, if you want to have the fountain on the wall over the sofa, you want to make sure that there will be enough room to walk around the sofa and that it will not impeded the flow of traffic within the room.
Wall water fountains do not require any amount of care or maintenance. You can clean the glass with glass cleaners or with a mixture of vinegar and water. You may find mineral deposits collecting on the face of the fountain, but a simple cleaning with CLR and a bristle brush will take care of this for you. If you have pebbles in the fountain, you should not use any abrasive cleaners or water containing bleach because this will cause damage to the material behind the pebbles.
Outdoor Water Fountains – be Creative With Your Outside Space
It can often be a homeowner’s nightmare of how you can brighten up the exterior of the property in a unique and modern way. Most gardens or outdoor spaces will have the usual array of plants and bushes with a patio space and or conservatory but some times it is nice to do something a little different. Water has always played an important part in gardens and can be used to create a soothing and relaxing atmosphere, whilst many gardens will have a pond these can be hard to keep maintained and often become over grown and do not have the visual effect that is desired. The sound of running water always has the outcome of creating a calming and relaxing atmosphere and can take you away from the everyday stresses and help to calm and allow you to unwind.
The best way to create a garden water feature is by adding outdoor water fountains, the addition of one or more will create a visually stunning item for your garden and give you a lot of pleasure for many years to come. There is a whole range of locations that you can add the water fountain to your garden and just some of them include on the patio, decking area, landscaped garden or within the actual garden space. Outdoor water fountains come in all different shapes and sizes from the petite to the large so if you have a specific requirement for your garden there will be one for you. The designs range from the traditional style water fountains that everyone has seen within gardens for many years, these are the ornamental designs carved out of stone often referred to as birdbaths due to the birds using them to clean and drink from. The stone outdoor water fountains come in an array of styles ranging from the traditional one tier bowl effect to the more complex and elaborate multi tier or basin fountains. The stone outdoor water fountains are visually superb and will fit into many different gardens but sometimes a more modern design will be required.
Modern designs are now made from a whole host of different materials from copper to the very chic stainless steel. The stainless steel is a perfect compliment to the water feature and combines wonderfully with the flowing water as it shimmers and bubbles over the top and down the main feature. Just some of the styles you can find include water chimes, reflecting tower mirrors, stainless steel spheres and reflecting tower cylinders to name just a few. The water is pumped through the base of the water feature and drawn from a reservoir so no plumbing is required and once the unit has been setup it will just require the occasional top up of water to keep it in good working order. Creativity is the number one word to associate with the outdoor water fountains and some of the designs are absolutely stunning, so depending on how grand you want to be and how much of an impact you would like to make really is up to you.
Outdoor Water Fountains, Garden Fountains and Water Features
The Murmur of Water
Outdoor water fountains can transform you and your environment
The mesmerizing sound. The transparent movement. The cool, fresh sensation. Outdoor water fountains are a treat for the senses-auditory, visual and tactile. For millennia, we had placed moving water around our homes because water works some kind of magic on us, soothing us to our very essence.
Outdoor water fountains make a graceful statement about a home by creating a pleasing and welcoming ambiance. They can be used to enhance the architectural style of a house. Outdoor water fountains are especially beneficial in these technological times, serving as camouflage for traffic noise, humming air-conditioning units and thrashing lawn mowers. They can be designed to be played in, thus providing cool relief on a hot day-perfect for Houston.
Types of Outdoor Water Fountains
Outdoor water fountains come in a multitude of shapes, sizes and styles. They can invoke Roman classicism, a Hill Country natural pool, modern garden or a Charleston garden. Fountains can be placed in a quiet corner of the yard or serve as the centerpiece along a curving front drive. Additional features can be added, such as a cascading waterfall or a contemporary wall fountain.
Whatever style you prefer, the main thing to remember is that your overall landscape will be improved if you use an outdoor water fountain that coordinates with your home and garden.
Water Features Made to Order
While custom-built outdoor water fountains are more expensive than prefabricated ones, they do have specific and long-lasting benefits:
? Custom-built outdoor water fountains can be constructed to a much larger scale than prefabricated ones. This feature can be important when working with the scale of homes and buildings.
? One of the most common problems of ready-mades is “over-spray” or water coming out of the fountain. This malfunction leads to many problems, such as the fountain running out of water, the area near the fountain becoming slippery or moldy, and discoloration of the surrounding material due to chlorination. A custom-built outdoor water fountain addresses these problems upfront.
? A great aspect of custom-built fountains is that they can be constructed with special features: overflow release valves to drain excess water, skimmers, auto-fill lines to maintain the water level, lights, filters, auto-chlorinators and backwash lines for easy cleaning. Almost none of these enhancements are available on prefabricated fountains.
Hard Choices when it comes to Water Fountains
Choosing the right outdoor water fountain begins by looking for materials that work in our climate. These materials need to handle Houston’s intense sunlight, rain and other natural elements. Many outdoor water fountains are constructed with masonry products such as brick, sandstone, limestone, concrete blocks and ledgestone. Other popular choices include rock, natural stone, tile, marble and polished stone. The basins that act as a reservoir are typically made with gunite and rebar, and then plastered-much like a swimming pool. These interior surfaces are sometimes tiled or clad with stone, pebbles or mosaics.
Fountain Design Talk
“Building a custom outdoor water fountain appears to be like building a swimming pool, but is actually far more difficult. Typically, each fountain is different and therefore each is an original. It is more like building a working piece of art,” explains Jeff Halper with Exterior Worlds. “It takes a lot of practical, real-world experience and knowledge to avoid common pitfalls when designing or constructing one.”
There is no one way to design or build a fountain, and many different approaches can achieve the same result. During the design process, the scope of the work is defined and a budget will be developed. Cost factors include material choices, decisions about illumination and long-term maintenance. The best professionals work with their clients to provide as much information as possible to make the outdoor water fountain a success.
Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time. -Sir John Lubbock