Tag Archives: improvement

Win Tickets To The London Homebuilding & Renovating And Home Improvement Show

Posted on by

The London Homebuilding & Renovating and Home Improvement Show makes its national debut at Olympia with new feature highlights and experts and Frost Magazine has tickets to giveaway. 

London, 26-28 September 2014

 

Credit: Steve Burden

Credit: Steve Burden

http://london.homebuildingshow.co.uk

 

As the property market regains its confidence, the UK’s fastest growing home show is coming to London for the first time as a combined event designed for both self-builders and remodelers. The new London Homebuilding & Renovating and Home Improvement Show will take place from the 26-28 September at Olympia, London. The exhibition will offer visitors the chance to benefit from an extensive range of products and recommendations from more exhibitors than ever before and tips and bespoke advice from an extended expert panel on how to successfully complete a project from start to finish.

 

Credit: Steve Burden

Credit: Steve Burden

Piers Taylor, award-winning RIBA architect and co-presenter of BBC2 series ‘The House that £100k Built’ will be making his first appearance on the London expert panel to inspire visitors with quality interior design and architecture recommendations to help homeowners make the most of their projects. Charlie Luxton, sustainable architectural designer and presenter of More4’s ‘Building the Dream’, will be making his awaited comeback to the London event and will also appear alongside other homebuilding and home improvement professionals including Michael Holmes, editor-in-chief of the Homebuilding and Renovating Magazine.

 

Another new feature for this year’s event is the updated Interior Design and Decorating Clinic, brought to you by Dulux Design Service. Visitors will be provided with insightful ideas on how to decorate their homes through the use of appealing colour schemes, wall coverings and furnishings. Dulux consultants will be offering free one-on-one appointments to bring attendees one step closer to their aspirational house.

 

The Ask the Architects area will provide a space for dialogue between certified RIBA Architects and visitors curious about the design and construction process of their project. After a consultation with a member of the team, homeowners will leave with the assurance that their plans will be ready to be implemented by well-guided contractors.

 

For attendees undertaking major works, changes and additions to their property, a meeting with planning permission expert, Sally Tagg, is vital to ensure that they understand the complex application process. Sally will be waiting at the Planning Clinic for individual consultations with visitors to offer them professional advice.

 

Come prepared with your plans and ideas and benefit from the wide range of experts that can offer individual sessions at the Ask the Experts zone. This year, the panel of property specialists includes: Michael Holmes (editor-in-chief of Homebuilding & Renovating Magazine); Jason Orme (editor of Homebuilding & Renovating magazine); Piers Taylor (award-winning RIBA architect and co-presenter of hit BBC2 series ‘The House that £100k Built’); Charlie Luxton (sustainable architectural designer and presenter of More4’s ‘Building the Dream’); Julia Kendell (Interiors and Decorating expert from DIY SOS and ITV1’s Daybreak); Matt James (designer and expert on ITV’s ‘Love Your Garden’); David Snell (Homebuilding & Renovating magazine’s self-build and plot finding expert); Tim Pullen (eco expert at Homebuilding & Renovating magazine), Bob Branscome (chartered surveyor and builder); Chris Reeves (Homebuilding & Renovating magazine’s Legal Expert and chartered builder and lawyer) and Roger Hunt (award-winning writer and eco expert).

 

Standard tickets are £12 in advance or £17 on the door (children under 16 go free). For further information visit http://london.homebuildingshow.co.uk or call the ticket hotline on 0871 231 0824.

 

To be in with a chance of winning these fabulous tickets follow @Frostmag on Twitter or Instagram, or like us on Facebook. Alternatively, sign up to our newsletter. Or subscribe to Frost Magazine TV on YouTube here: http://t.co/9etf8j0kkz.Then comment below saying what you did. Competition closes mid-September.

 

 

 

 

5 Inexpensive Ways To Brighten Up Your Home

Posted on by

Home is where the heart is, a safe haven from the world and a place to call your own. So here are some tips to add your personal touch.

brighten up the home, 5 ways to brighten up the home, home decor, home decoration, DIY

Shades of Blue, Paul Smith LA, Painting, John Tierney,,United Kingdom

Decoration

Renting? Can’t paint or redecorate? Well I have the answer: decorations! You don’t even have to spend too much money. A bright lamp, a bookshelf, some heirlooms or even just a rug can personalise a house and make it look like a home.

If you own your home you can buy as much as you want, space permitting. But this is supposed to be an article on inexpensive ways to do up your home so why am I saying buy lots? Well, read below. You can get a beautiful piece of furniture for the price of a trip to the cinema.

Charity shops

Charity shops are treasure troves. While you might not want to wear second-hand clothes, second-hand furniture is a different matter. There is a Trinity Hospice quite near my flat and the furniture in there is of good quality and very reasonably priced. You can get a recently upholstered pre-war chair for £25. Modern chairs cost quadruple that and are not as good quality.

Art

While some art is incredibly expensive you can still get an art print for sale at Saatchi for a reasonable price.

Another favourite is Spineless Classics. Spineless Classics are art that you can read: entire books on one page along with an illustration of the book. Clever and stunning. I love them.

Spineless classics, the great gatsby, art, books, style

Paint

A lick of paint makes all the different. Different colours affect our moods. Some blue colours can make you feel, well, blue, but it is hard to be depressed around sunshine yellow. If you don’t want to paint an entire room then just do one wall or even just a fireplace.

Bedding

New bedding always makes life better and immediately brightens up the bedroom. Get some sheets in a bright colour or throw some colourful cushions on. You will be surprised how much some bright colours here and there add to a room. If you are renting and everything is white, add some colour with beautiful, bright bedding.

There you go. Some tips for your home. What home ideas do you have?

Improve the Workflow of any Business by Improving Organisation by Matt Rawlings

Posted on by

When you’re looking to take a business of any genre to the next level, the main stumbling block is quite often the level of organisation. It can be absolute chaos in some industries with paperwork here, there and everywhere, products being shipped all over the world, employees at various different company locations, the list could go on and on.

As a result, keeping your staff not only in order but in a positive mood to ensure that productivity is at its highest can be difficult; but nowhere near as difficult as keeping productivity and efficiency to the standards desired by those paying for your goods and services. This is where technology can come in handy.

Let’s look at an example that might not immediately spring to mind when you think of computerized organisation – the construction industry. You could have a head office on one side of the UK, in Newcastle for instance, and you could have a project in progress in Taunton, the complete opposite end of the country.

Communication between the two locations is simple – you can just ring from the site to the office – but paperwork needs to be signed off at the end of each stage of the process, and when it has to be mailed from one location to the other this can take days, even longer, slowing the whole construction process down, decreasing productivity.

If the company were to install some form of documentation controlling software, they could store all of the papers in one central location on a computer and provide access for all relevant parties, whether it’s those in the head office, those at the site, or the company they’re building for – allowing them to monitor progress and make sure that the deadline will be met.

As with any business, the more organised a company can be, the more efficient the essential processes can become, helping you to take your business to the next level in terms of productivity, customer service and also reducing the stress levels of those involved!

Matt Rawlings