Nice Home Live

If you are buying, building or renovating a home there are many decisions to make regarding the design and decorating of your home.  Choosing the right flooring is an important decision and can influence many other design factors of your home. You might choose tiles, carpet, timber floor boards or even have a polished concrete floor. Do remember that floor coverings, like carpet are not covered by your home insurance so you will need to include this in your contents insurance.  As your carpet can be removed it comes under the heading of ‘contents’, just like your furniture or your Westinghouse fridge.

Photo: Pecma

Lifestyle
You need to consider your lifestyle when choosing your flooring and how much traffic you have through your home.  When you have children you should be choosing a more hard wearing carpet or having a surface that is easy to clean, like floor boards.  If you entertain often then you might also want to think about a more hard wearing flooring, like tiles or floor boards.  If you have children and are putting in carpet then choose a style that is more hard wearing and practical.  Don’t pick a light colour that will show stains and dirt too easily or one with a plush pile.  Hallways and living areas have a lot of traffic so you might want to have tiles or floor boards.  Kitchens and bathrooms are obviously areas where you have a hard surface, and wet areas, such as the laundry and bathroom, are best to have tiles. Read the rest of this entry »

There is something really satisfying about renovating your own home. Watching the building change from the state it was in when you bought it to something approaching your dream home is a fantastic experience and one which is often a once in a lifetime journey. Daunting though it may seem when you first begin, there are some jobs which can very quickly make a big difference.

Photo: j l t

If you have the luxury of working on the property whilst it is empty then doing remedial works such as re-wiring or plumbing are achieved more easily, and empty rooms are much easier to decorate too. One of the projects which you might tackle fairly early on in the process is the wood work such as skirting, architraves, doors and floors. Replacing interior doors with hardwood doors throughout will instantly lift the house to be something special, and matching that with new woodwork elsewhere gives every room a fresh new look. Repairing plaster and starting your interior design scheme from a blank canvas will have much the same effect. Read the rest of this entry »

The easiest way to breathe new life into your home is with the investment of new flooring. The decision what to do with it can be a difficult one. There are so many options out there and every salesman will tell you something different. More modern flooring offers a range that was not available only a few years ago. It is not the types of flooring that has changed, it is the technology they are made with. Here is a look at the changing trends of flooring on the market today.

Photo: timber_floors

• Timber Flooring. There is nothing like a read hard-wood floor. Once very expensive, but now replaced with modern engineered wood flooring. It does not take the work to install it once used to. This type of flooring does not even require sanding or much treatment. The only thing is it might look a little too perfect. Relatively easy to install and very good value for money. Great for all climate types. Read the rest of this entry »

Now that the stinking hot Summer is over (for those of us in the Southern Hemisphere), you have a chance to fix up your garden before the Winter weather comes. Temperature changes may have wreaked havoc on your outdoor pavers, garden and other outdoor designs, and so here are some general tips for repair and maintenance. Remember, we are heading to colder and wetter times ahead, and you probably want to get stuck into your gardening, but before you do, here are two areas it is worth paying attention to.

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• Fencing. Strong summer temperatures and winds can damage your fence just as much as the weather in Winter. The Autumn and Spring months are perfect for making the repairs and changes you need. This should be your first area of concern. Read the rest of this entry »