You are here: Home / Archives for Georgia Mc

Pump up the volume, pump up the volume

December 18, 2012 By

As the song says, it’s time to “pump up the volume, pump up the volume,” but not through the speakers – this is all about your       shower.

Yet plain truth is that many of us in the UK are putting up with old-fashioned, weak showers, blissfully unaware that power shower technology has moved on apace in recent years and that a brand new power shower can be yours for just a few hundred pounds.

Have a look, for example, at a Mira Platinum shower. This has both remote control and programmable shower functions which help make sure that your shower is always exactly as you want it to be; you choose from a range of settings with ease. There’s even a digital clock to help make sure you don’t linger too long – because you can guarantee you will want to do just that – and there’s a ground-breaking “warm-up” mode that you can pre-set the shower to, to make sure you don’t waste any time – or money – each morning.

There’s also an “eco”-setting which ensures you don’t waste water, as well as thermostatic temperature stability which makes sure the shower is safe for everyone to use, including very young and old people.

Add to that the Mira Platinum’s 360 shower-head with four different spray settings and you really have it all in one powerful shower that won’t break the budget. What’s more, you can change all the settings with just a flick of the switch. All you need to do is choose between the chrome and the black models, then either do-it-yourself or let a professional fit the shower for you.

The Mira Platinum also includes the options of high-pressure valves for mains-pressured systems or combination boilers – or a pumped valve unit for low pressure or gravity-fed systems. And it’s very straightforward to install. So there’s really no excuse anymore – not to pump the volume.

Filed Under: DIY & Home Improvement Tagged With: , ,

Digital showers explained

October 30, 2012 By

It seems no home is really complete without the latest digital shower today. But if you haven’t yet joined in this little showering revolution, you may be wondering what it’s all about.

Simply put, a digital shower is one controlled by a panel that communicates with the shower unit’s power unit to adjust both flow and temperature. This can be in a wireless way. The power unit is most commonly installed in your loft or airing cupboard. Your hot water feed will be delivered through either the ceiling or the wall, depending on the exact installation. The control panel can be placed anywhere in a 10 metre radius and there’s no plumbing work visible. Some types of digital shower also offer pause features, remote control and pre-settings.

Digital showers are available in both mixer and electric versions. As the name implies, digital mixer showers work by taking water directly from both the hot and cold feeds and mixing it in the digitally-controlled processing unit to achieve exactly the desired temperature. This water is then pumped to the shower at a flow rate decided by you, the user.

Electric showers, meanwhile, take only a cold water feed. They heat up the water as it passes over an electric heating element in much the same principle as a kettle.

The digital unit is different depending on the type of plumbing system in your home. So before you by, you’ll need to be clear about whether you have a high pressure system, combination boiler or gravity fed system.

Mira digital showers are some of the UK’s best-selling models, whereby the shower control unit and the water mixer have built-in digital intelligence. You can choose either a pumped or a high pressure version and these are ideal choices for homes with a plentiful supply of hot water. Other Mira showers may be more appropriate depending on your hot water system.

Filed Under: DIY & Home Improvement Tagged With: , , ,

Look within for inspiration

September 27, 2012 By

If you’re in the process of redesigning your home, it may seem the most natural thing in the world to look around for inspiration. Whether it’s via the web or interior design magazines, or friends’ homes – we’re all influenced by external factors and ideas, some of which we like, and some of which we know we’d like to avoid.

Before you know it, you’re out there looking to buy a new kitchen or bathroom suite, or to buy cheap oak furniture online or whatever else has popped into your head lately.

The trouble with this kind of approach, however, is that we all have different moods depending on a whole range of factors from financial success or setbacks, to our hormones to the weather or the season we’re in.

How many times have you been on vacation, for example, and thought to yourself “wouldn’t it be wonderful to live here, living this kind of lifestyle?” before going somewhere entirely different and thinking the same again?

Many of the troubles of the modern life are caused by too much noise and too may competing external influences. And the march of modern technology and communication simply makes this worse.

It’s a far better approach to look within yourself first. The way to do this is to use a few meditative techniques of clearing your mind of all extraneous factors then gradually trying to build a picture of your perfect internal home environment. You may be surprised at just how difficult this is at first, but persevere. When irrelevant thoughts about other aspects of life inevitably come into your head, simply accept them, then dismiss them and return to your interior design thoughts free of other factors.

In this way, you should get gradually closer to the ideal home environment for what is truly you – then look for ideas that fit neatly with your ideal; see what’s really do-able in other words. What’s out there for the bedroom or living room furniture, for example, that fits with the mental picture you built?             

Filed Under: Decorating Advice Tagged With: , ,

How much home insurance is enough?

September 24, 2012 By

If you own your own home you’ll no doubt already have discovered that you need to have buildings insurance if you have a mortgage. It’s a legal requirement as it allows the mortgage company to recover its losses in the event of a fire, flood or other event that destroys your property. And even if you no longer have a mortgage to pay, it’s unlikely that you’d be without buildings insurance for the same reason.

Contents cover is another story; this is an optional insurance policy that not everyone chooses to have. The majority of people do though, as when you get a home owner insurance quote, it’s often for a combined buildings and contents policy, with a lower overall cost than getting the two separately.

The amount you pay for contents insurance can vary considerably, depending on what level of cover you choose and the amount of excess you are willing to pay when filing a claim. It’s generally true that the lower the cover and the higher the excess, then the cheaper the policy will be.

There are plenty of other variables though. For example, you can have add-on options to your contents cover that can push the annual premium up significantly, but all of these extra features have tempting potential benefits.

Examples of such features added to home contents insurance quotes are accidental damage cover and personal possessions cover. Accidental damage cover is for those incidences when an accident in the home causes irreparable damage to a piece of equipment like the TV or to furnishings like the carpet. Such damage caused by you or a member of your family will not be covered by standard contents insurance.

Personal possessions cover is for those times that you take your belongings out of the home with you. This gives you cover for portable items like cameras, phones, and bikes which can often be lost or stolen. Standard contents cover will not cover this.

It’s a balance to decide which of these features you want, versus the extra cost involved. If you are particularly accident prone or forgetful, you might want to include both!

Filed Under: Featured Products Tagged With: , ,

Redecorate your bedroom on a budget

September 18, 2012 By

If you’re tired of the furniture you have in your bedroom and you’re looking to ring the changes, but don’t have much cash at your disposal, fear not! It’s so easy to buy cheap furniture online these days that you can give your bedroom a total makeover for very little money indeed.

It’s just a question of knowing where to look and keeping an eye out for the best deals available.

For most people, the most important piece of furniture in the bedroom is the bed. And usually, this is the most expensive item you’ll need to buy. Assess what you have in your bedroom and what you actually want in there. It’s a good idea to spend the money you have available on a new bed, or at the very least, a new mattress. This is the key to getting a good night’s sleep.

However, if you find you spend more on the bed than you planned – and this can happen easily enough – you can find ways to save on other furniture.

For instance, you may have a perfectly functional chest of drawers and wardrobe that you just no longer like the look of. If these are made of wood, then it’s really easy to give them a whole new look with a pot of paint and a brush.

Painting wooden furniture is quick and easy. You just need to prepare the surface by sanding it down, then wash or wipe any dust away. Give it a coat of water-based primer to seal it before you paint – this stops the wood absorbing too much of the paint. When this has dried thoroughly, you can apply your first coat of paint. Use a water-based acrylic paint and apply a thin coat to avoid drips and slumps of paint. Again allow to dry thoroughly before applying a second coat.

You can finish the job with a clear varnish or glaze. If you are looking for a distressed finish, finely sand the paint on parts of the edges, before finishing with the glaze or varnish.

With just a little spending and a few hours’ grafting, you’ll have transformed your bedroom. To finish it off, just get yourself some lovely new bed linen and your whole bedroom will feel like new.

Filed Under: Decorating Advice Tagged With: ,

The Ideal Snug

September 3, 2012 By

If you’re lucky enough to have two or three main living rooms – then it’s always a great idea to try and create the perfect family den – or “snug”. This is particularly so for those long winter evenings when the winds are howling outside, the weather is cold, it’s dark and raining – and you’re really glad just to be inside at the end of a busy day.

Often, the smallest of the rooms you have available are the cosiest of them all. After all, what most families tend to do is gather run for the evening after dinner to watch TV, or a movie – or maybe to play a computer game on TV or a board game etc. In other words, these family snug rooms don’t have a great deal of functionality about them other than as somewhere to ‘crash’ and simply stay cosy on the long winter evenings.

So why not make them cosily perfect? This usually involves closing them in a little, making them feel warm and cosy – and putting the bare minimum of furniture in there if the room is small.

This has the advantage of leaving the main living room/s and dining room relatively free for entertaining friends and family – whilst using the family den just for the immediate family and your chosen entertainment, particularly during the winter months.

You won’t need much in there at all if the room is small. It’s usually a matter of perusing your ideal TV cabinets, a sofa or sofas – and chairs, perhaps rugs, coffee tables and a few adornments to the walls and that’s often all the room needs. It’s all about creating the right ambience for the immediate close family to come together and relax.

In some ways, this is the heart of a house for your family – and always worth making the effort to get it just right as your children will remember the wonderful feeling of togetherness you create for the rest of their lives.

Filed Under: DIY & Home Improvement Tagged With: , ,

Furniture video inspiration

September 2, 2012 By

When we’re looking for interior design inspiration, most of us go the web or to design magazine for a few ideas and a little inspiration. It’s interesting to look at examples of perfection in a certain area of interior design, after all, but it’s also important to temper one’s dreams with a little practical reality. It’s also important to realise that our homes can never be all things to all people. In other words, it’s vital to have a good idea of what you truly want your home to look and feel like before you look at the magazines or the internet. In this way, you will be truer to your own original ideas and a little less swayed than the images you see before you; more persuasion than inspiration.

One way that’s becoming increasingly popular as a method of viewing rooms is via online video. The problem with two dimensional images is that they can give a view of perfection which literally lacks depth. It’s sometimes difficult to accurately judge sizes and layouts in a room. But even more importantly, it’s impossible to see different products you may be thinking about buying in three dimensional situ – and from a variety of different angles and aspects.

One company that is doing something about this is Harveys. You can now view a lot of Harveys Furniture on YouTube which really helps in making your design and furniture choices.

You can then see the product range with full details and specifications on the company’s own website before deciding whether to buy or not. And if you do decide to buy, there are three ways to do just that; by ordering online, over the phone, or visiting a store to see the furnishings in reality.

Often, a visit is best to be able to check out the latest living room furniture sale, for example, or other bargains – though these are also listed online.        

Filed Under: DIY & Home Improvement, Home and Gardening Companies Tagged With: , ,

Make Your Dreams Come True With A Feng Shui Bedroom

August 24, 2012 By

Feng Shui, as you probably already know, it is actually a design concept which promotes harmonious living. Think interior design meets holistic living. You can use the principles of feng shui (pronounced “fung shway”) to create a bedroom which is good for mind, body and soul.

A bedroom created with feng shui in mind, is an inviting and alluring place, a place for excitement and calm. Whatever your age, budget or stage in life, whether you have solid wood bedroom furniture or not, a good feng shui bedroom is fun and a pleasure to be in.

When you next spot wardrobes for sale and are redecorating your bedroom, take the opportunity to create a good feng shui bedroom, and bear these basic tips in mind:

Have several levels of lighting in your bedroom, including candles, or use a dimmer switch to adjust the energy accordingly. Avoid task-lighting such as angle-poise lamps.

Use soothing colors on the walls, floor, bed linen and furniture – particularly the colours of human skin (from rich chocolate brown to pale white).

Choose the images for your bedroom wisely, as images carry powerful feng shui energy. Choose images that you want to see happening in your life, such as passion and affection. If you are single and don’t want to be, don’t hang a picture of a solitary person, for example. Find one of a loving couple.

Keep cupboards and drawers organized. Avoid hiding clutter anywhere, especially under the bed.

Keep electrical equipment (television, computer etc) and exercise equipment out of your bedroom.

Open the windows often or use a good quality air-purifier to keep the air fresh and full of oxygen.

Keep all the doors closed at night, be it the wardrobe doors, the en-suite bathroom door or the bedroom door.

In a perfect feng shui bedroom, the design keywords are Dreaming and Pleasure, and every item reflects the occupier’s intent for healing, relaxation and love.

Filed Under: DIY & Home Improvement Tagged With: , ,

Boring Old Paint

July 16, 2012 By

If you are fed up of plain painted walls and long for something a bit more exciting then how about trying one of the latest ways to add interest to interior designs: wall features. Maybe not the thing to go mad and try in every room, but start cautiously and you never know where the trend will take you!

Wall features can be anything from a texture to a colour to decorations or a full on art installation. Read on for some ideas to get you started – and follow the likes of @furnishinghomes on twitter to get the best in contemporary furniture to match your bold design statement or just buy cheap wood wardrobes online.

Vinyl decals are absolutely top of my list for adding a new dimension to a plain wall. No need to redecorate even, just choose a theme which works for you and away you go – an instantly revamped interior. It might be a silhouette of a tree, a flock of birds or a repeated pattern or something more specific to the homeowner like a New York skyline. The options are endless.

Another way to change your environment is by using a wall-sized print. Pick a famous piece of art, a black and white photograph or even an image you have created yourself. Go online for bespoke suppliers that will produce your image to the exact size of your wall and apply it much like a series of posters – the only limit is your imagination!

Textured finishes to wall coverings are also a fabulous way to change the look and feel of any room. You need to be practical however – that expensive fabric wallpaper won’t last 5 minutes if it gets splashed in the bathroom and flock finishes will be hard to clean in the kitchen. For bedrooms however you can create the ultimate boudoir with leather-look or even faux fur wall coverings! Match with sleek bedroom furniture from www.furnishinghomes.co.uk and you will have a bedroom to envy. Have a look at Furnishing Homes Blog and get some inspiration.

And don’t forget the feature wall. It’s been with us for a while but is still a valid design statement. Bring out the best in your alcoves, chimney breasts and other quirky architectural features or simply draw attention to the great view through your windows. Be bold and follow through with your chosen colours in other parts of the room by picking out accents in cushions, lamps or ornaments.

Remember – walls are not just a backdrop they can be a feature in themselves.

 

Filed Under: DIY & Home Improvement Tagged With: , , ,

Get Set For A Housewarming Party

July 2, 2012 By

When you first move into a new home, you need a little time to get things organised and just how you’d like them. However, you shouldn’t let the grass grow under your feet in terms of finding time to get the new neighbours round and having a little housewarming gathering.

If you delay too long, people might think that you’re unfriendly, and start to build up a false impression about you. Sometimes, people hold off holding a housewarming until they have everything perfectly organised and decorated, but this can take months – especially if you’re busy with work and normal life at the same time as moving in.

Instead, why not hold the housewarming while you’re still unpacking? You can make a couple of the downstairs rooms presentable for an evening and close the door on any unfinished rooms so that your guests don’t need to see all the packing boxes and bubble wrap lurking in the rest of the house.

Of course, how much space you need depends on how many people you’re going to invite. But for an informal gathering of your new neighbours, it’s probably a sensible idea to limit the catering to drinks and a few snacks. Dinner parties can wait until you’ve really got settled in and you’ve got one of those lovely new dining room sets that you’ve been looking at online!

Most polite newcomers will just want to pop in for half an hour and say hello, and they’ll know not to stay too long as it’ll be obvious that you’ve still got plenty to do. It’s just nice to be able to put some names to faces relatively quickly when you move into a new street or estate.

And inviting people over early will hopefully mean that you’ll be invited over to see their places relatively quickly too. You can great decorating inspiration from stores like Harveys Furniture on YouTube, but sometimes seeing what the neighbours have done can be even better!

Filed Under: Home Appliances Tagged With: , ,
« Older Posts