Category Archives: home and interiors

Creating A Stylish Garden Space

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Your garden is probably the last thing on your mind right now. After all, we are now at the end of Summer, and with a few days respite in between, it’s been a rather wet Summer at that. The rain probably means your garden is still looking pretty good in terms of the lawn and plants, but as gardening enthusiasts will tell you, looking after your garden is an all year round full on job. The urge to have a stylish garden, a beautiful outdoor space is always there, it is an extension of your home and can be enjoyed whatever the season.

It doesn’t matter what time of year it is as your garden needs to look its best three-hundred and sixty-five days of the year. To make that happen, take a look at the tips below.

Seek Professional Help

If you love your garden, but don’t actually enjoy gardening, or find the job too big, you can find a professional gardener to help with the job. You can find a whole range of gardening professionals that offer a wide type of garden service, from landscaping on a grand scale, to simply coming and cutting the lawn and weeding every few weeks. This is great if you work during the day and feel that your garden is neglected during the Winter months.

Add Colour

A garden without colour is a garden that is missing a spark. The colour is essential because it brings everything to life and makes it look as vivid and as rich as possible. When it comes to style, you want people to look at your garden and think ‘wow.’ Well, with the right colour scheme, they will do exactly that as the shades will blow them away. Concentrate on the plants to begin with as they are the supplementary colours, and make sure they mix with the lawn. The green of the lawn should dominate, so everything needs to play second fiddle and merge seamlessly. One of my favourite blooms is the tulip, which can come in a range of stunning colours and are pretty easy to grow (just find a sunny spot that is protected from the wind and has good drainage.) Your tulip bulbs should be planted in late Autumn (November time) in soil that has good drainage and will then flower as the ultimate Spring Flower that can help create a riot of colour in your garden.

 

Buy Garden Furniture

Again, garden furniture is practical, but it also takes up a lot of space. It is important to note that filling space is hard as you need to get the right balance. Fill too little and there is something missing, yet fill too much and it looks untidy and messy. The key is to buy a small amount of large furniture. That way, you don’t look as if you are using too much, but you are also filling the space. There are plenty of options, but rattan garden furniture is among the best.

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Invest In Lighting

Gardens are not just for the daytime – they are also for the night-time. To enjoy your garden when the sun goes down, you need to be able to see what you are doing! Obviously, you need light for a practical purpose, but it also has another purpose. Garden lights are brilliant at creating atmosphere, and atmosphere goes a long way to setting the perfect style and tone. The key is not to put them down anywhere on a whim. You should think about it strategically and place them where the dark is most prominent, and where the most colour is in the garden. That way, you can illuminate the best areas of the garden and create contrast.

lihtsFollow these tips and you will have the most stylish garden in the neighbourhood.

How To Descale A Shower Head Correctly With White Vinegar

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It may seem unrealistic, but day-to-day showering may have a significant impact on your shower head. Over time, limescale builds up on your shower head as you continue using it up to a point where it is blocked completely.

The frequency of this blockage also varies depending on where you live. But it will most certainly provide you with less than satisfactory shower experiences in the future. Knowing how to descale a shower head is a relatively simple and cost-friendly process. Plus, you can apply the method we will discuss in this post to both the fixed and removable showerheads.

What Causes Scale in Your Shower Head?

Naturally, there are a few causes of showerhead blockages. These include:

  • Frequency: scale in the showerhead results when water flows through the showerhead. Therefore, as soon as you turn off your shower, some water containing scale settles on the showerhead. This causes mineral deposits to settle on the showerhead, as well. As a result, some showerheads block sooner than others because of the frequency of their use.
  • Hardness of the water: hard water contains plenty of calcium, which causes scale on showerheads quickly. But you can combat this by always drying off your showerhead after use.

Cleaning Your Showerhead

Cleaning your showerhead is a simple DIY process. In most cases, you almost certainly don’t need a professional for the job. To clean your showerhead and remove all the scale from its nozzles and tiny holes, you need a few tools.

Here’s what you need:

  • A plastic bag that the showerhead can fit into
  • Distilled white vinegar
  • Rubber band or piece of string
  • Old toothbrush
  • Soft cloth
  1. Secure the Plastic Bag with Vinegar

The first step requires you to fill the plastic bag with the distilled white vinegar. Slip the rubber band or piece of string over the top of the showerhead, then submerge the showerhead completely into the white vinegar.

Secure the plastic bag on the showerhead using the rubber band or piece of string.

NOTE: it is important that you get the right vinegar to descale your showerhead. For example, malt vinegar is not too effective, while brown vinegar might stain the showerhead. Therefore, ensure you’re using white distilled vinegar for the best results.

  1. Wait and Rinse

After you have secured the plastic bag with vinegar onto the showerhead, wait for between 30 minutes to one hour before removing the bag. Turn on the shower to flush out any remaining scale sediments on the showerhead.

If necessary, you can repeat this process until you have removed all the limescale the vinegar can remove.

  1. Scrub Residue Using an Old Toothbrush

Some limestone residue may still latch onto the showerhead after removing the vinegar and rinsing it. You can scrub off these scale deposits with an old toothbrush. Pay special attention to the nozzles and tiny holes because these are where most limescale build up.

Use the old toothbrush to scrub over any limestone residue. Do this until you are satisfied with the result as you rinse with cold water to help the remaining residue flake off.

  1. Dry the Showerhead

You can use a soft cloth to dry and polish the showerhead. Wipe it clean until dry and there aren’t any water spots. Turn on the shower to remove any remaining limescale residue your toothbrush might not have gotten.

Preventing Limescale Built-Up in Your Showerhead

Once you’ve removed all the limescale residue on your showerhead, your next step is to ensure it remains limescale-free. Well, there are a few simple steps to make that possible. Always time a few seconds to ensure your showerhead is dry after every shower. You can use a small towel to wipe off any water on the surface of the showerhead.

We also recommend repeating the steps above after every few months, depending on the frequency with which you use your shower the type of water you use. These simple maintenance routines will help keep your showerhead limescale-free.

Updating Your Living Room With Floately

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We are now in mid July and Christmas might seem like an age away, but  Autumn will be upon us soon enough, and particularly as September rolls by (where, exactly has this year gone?) we start to think more about getting our homes ready for Christmas. Now, by that, I don’t mean we start sticking the decorations up any time soon, but we do think about the final home improvements of the year, and those little touches that will have the house looking its best.

The most popular room to redecorate and modernise is the living room, which is why you see all those furniture shops who have those never ending sales promising sofas that can be delivered for Christmas. But a living room update doesn’t have to involve lots of new furniture, it can be as simple as adding some new lighting, accessories, plants and candles to give your room a new feel.

Floately is a brand that specialises in contemporary home decor, modern interior design pieces that give any room a luxe, contemporary look. Their floating products including floating Bluetooth speakers, floating lightbulbs and flying lamps are all popular, especially with those who use the #instastyle hashtag. Floately homestyle products will help you update and add style to any room, and you can read on to find some of my key picks from the brand.

Change your lighting

The lights you use in your living room affect the whole ambience of the setting. The Volta levitating light bulb is an absolute talking point to any room that has a modern, or even industrial style setting. It would work on a side table, or even as a pair on a modern mantlepiece.

This is an absolutely stunning piece of design. It casts a warm light that will create a cosy atmosphere in any room, but the fact that it also spins will keep you mesmerised, and will have all visitors to your home enthralled and asking ‘where did you get it?’

Named for Alessandra Volta, this lamp works through a combination of magnets and wireless technology, but it is also strong and built to last with shatterproof glass and contact wires 10 times stronger than an average build. This levitating light bulb is the piece of interior design you didn’t know you needed, but you definitely do, it is just a fantastic item.

Plants

I love plants in the home, but have to admit I’m not that good at keeping them healthy and growing. Floating plants were not something that I had been familiar with, but I must admit I absolutely love the idea of them.

Floately have the Airsai floating plant pot which allows you to add a mystical floating plant to your room. The beauty of the floating plant pot is that it also spins 360 degrees continuously, allowing all your plant access to sunlight, which will help it grow straighter and taller, and will certainly make it a much healthier plant than if it was just stuck in a window in one direction.

There are 4 styles of plant pot, so you can choose one that suits both your plant and decor. But as well as looking super attractive, and proving a talking point, the Airsai offers so much more, as Floately explains:-

Our AIRSAI levitating plant looks very calming and helps create a light atmosphere inside your home or any space. It is designed to help ease anxiety, stabilize emotions, and make people feel more comfortable.

Are you planning to revamp a room this Autumn? If so, and you’re looking for something new and unusual, I would definitely recommend a bit of time looking at all that Floately has to offer. Visit www.floately.com