Home Environment Project

• Learn the language of design decisions, including basics of design elements and principles.
• Plan and design your own space with new design techniques.
• Uncover and compare costs that will impact your ability to create your space.
• Practice choosing wall treatments, window coverings and floor coverings.
• Discover how paint, wall treatments, flooring and window coverings create different effects in a room.

• Get the “scoop” on furniture styles.
• Plan your space using your needs, wants and timeline to make choices.
• Create design boards to visualize living space changes and plans.
• Learn helpful strategies for developing shopping lists for your design project.
• Coordinate fabrics and patterns. 
• Effectively reduce clutter and organize your “stuff.”
• Take care of your furniture.

• Select accessories to add the finishing touch.
• Showcase your favorite room accessories.  Install bright lighting elements.
• Create personality in a shared space.
• Use natural resources effectively.
• Be “in the know” about energy-efficient products.
• Think about and use environmentally friendly practices such as reduce, reuse, recycle and rethink.

• Take photos of home decoration that demonstrate the use of design elements and principles.
• Compare pros and cons of sponging, rag-rolling, stenciling and stamping walls.
• Refinish a family antique chair, table, stand or dresser.
• Illustrate how various wall coverings and flooring have different effects in living spaces.
• Create a poster that provides examples of elements of different furniture styles.
• Develop a design board showing how an existing floor plan can be transformed into a for functional floor plan.
• Compare the effectiveness of different products in removing stains from hard and soft home furnishings. 
• Illustrate the different effects of light quality based on bulb type, shade size, lamp height and wall color.
• Identify the pros and cons of starting an organizational business to help clients develop spaces for items they use and need.
• Use a model kit to build a solar home showing how the sun’s energy can be used to heat a home.
• Showcase a home improvement item you created in your first, second and third year in the project, describing the new skills you learned, further developed and layered in the project area.

• Share ideas with friends on how to select a color scheme for their bedroom.
• Create a video showing how you made your home more energy efficient

• Assist an elderly person with painting his/her living room.
• Share with friends and family ways to keep living spaces safe.
• Share with family and friends ways to make their homes more energy efficient.
• Host a design class for family and friends.

• Teach adults proper ways to dispose of refinishing and painting materials.
• Work with a nonprofit organization in creating a functional meeting space floor plan.

• Design, create and market soft furnishings and accessories to sell at local craft shows.
• Start a wood salvage shop in which old wood furnishings and wood scraps are available for the public to reuse or repurpose.

• Design Decisions (CD109) (Grades 6-12)
• Design My Place DVD (CD110) (Grades 3-5)

(Available from your local Extension Service office)

• Planning for My Project Adventure (PA093)
• ND 4-H Project Plan (PA095)
• ND 4-H Plan of Action (PA096)
• ND 4-H Participation Summary for 11- to 19-year-olds (PA098)

• ArtsConnectEd http:// artsconnected.org/ toolkit
• SketchUp 
• American Coatings Association