planning — Home and Garden Diva

4 Crucial Things To Organize Before You Throw The Garden Party Of The Year

One of the most exciting things you can ever do is throw a garden party for all your friends. It gives you the chance to invite people you don’t get to spend quality time with. Everyone can come together and have a huge celebration. The garden is the obvious place to have it because you don’t want your home destroyed, but at the same time you are never more than 10 meters away from the comfort of your castle. Have a party somewhere else and it doesn’t feel the same. It might be great, but it just won’t feel the same.

The only thing you need to remember is that it has to be well-planned. You can’t just expect everyone to come around and stand about in your garden. If you want it to be amazing there’s some things you need to do and they might need to be done well in advance. You don’t want to run around at the last minute when you should be getting ready to burst open a cold bottle of beer. Grab your pen and paper so you can write these down and get on them straight away. Just don’t be surprised if you’re asked to host a lot more parties in the future.

Book a tent

This one is the most important out of the lot. You definitely can’t expect all your guests to stand outside when it’s raining. Who knows when there will be a downpour at this time of year? If you have a tent erected somewhere in the garden it means you have somewhere to sit if the worst happens. It’s also a good idea to keep the food undercover. If your garden is big it saves you running backwards and forwards to the kitchen all the time. Once you book one they will come and put it up for you before your party starts.

Hire a big barbeque

This is going to depend on how many people will be at the party. If there’s only a few people you might get away with using a small barbecue you have lying around, but if there’s lots of people you don’t want them to go hungry. That’s why you should have a big barbecue and there will always be plenty of food sizzling away. If you wanted to be really fancy you could even hire someone to come out and cook everything for you. Find out the costs and see if it fits into your budget.

Have lots of lighting

People need to see what they’re doing. It’s nice to look someone in the eye when you’re talking to them instead of staring into the pitch black. You have many options to choose from. If there’s lots of trees lying around in your garden you can hang lights from them. There’s also the solar powered LED ones that you can stick into the ground. Just make sure they’ve been set-up for a few days so you know they are working, plus it gives them a chance to absorb some sunlight. Apparently solar powered lights need this. Who knew?

Make sure everything is safe

The final thing you have to do is to make sure everything is safe. There’s also inviting people and buying alcohol, but I’m sure you can manage that. How can you make sure everything is safe? Well start by clearing the garden so people don’t trip up on anything. If you have a swimming pool you should have a rope around it. The last thing you need is someone falling into the water and no-one seeing what happened. Make sure all electrical cables are tucked away and covered. Make sure you do these four things then you can worry about the entertainment.

Attached Images:

License: Creative Commons image source
License: Creative Commons image source
License: Creative Commons image source

David Hall is a home improvement expert and knows how to organize parties properly. If you too are planning to throw a party then do visit www.portablesheltersonline.com for more information.

Eight Tips For Home Office Design

by Trish

If you love to telecommute, you’ll love having a home office but only if it’s designed correctly. Home office design isn’t particularly complicated but it does require quite a bit of careful thought and planning. If you’ve recently decided to convert a room into an office, here are eight tips for getting the most out of your decision.

Spaciousness is Key

Space is everything when it comes to home office design. Considering the purpose of the room is to provide yourself with somewhere to lock yourself away for a few hours, a cramped space is not something that you want. If your choice of room is up for debate, go with the larger option. If it’s not, maximise the space that you have available to you by keeping your furnishings to a minimum.

Invest in a Quality Chair

If you’re going to blow your budget on something, make it the chair. When it comes to office chairs, you really do get what you pay for. And when you consider the amount of time that you are likely to be sitting in it, it’s worth paying a lot. Consider the ergonometric variety and never buy before you try.

Storage Space Matters

Regardless of how neat you consider yourself to be, if you don’t have space to put anything, you can expect to be working in a pretty messy environment. Storage space is therefore not something that you can afford to skimp on. Sleek filing cabinets will not only make you feel like a professional, they’re also the perfect solution to your document storage needs.

What do You Need?

Take a look online and you’ll find all manner of fancy desks and storage units. Before purchasing anything however, it’s important to ask yourself exactly what you need. Do you use a laptop or a desktop? Does your work require ample desk space? What items do you need to have easy access to? If you don’t take the time to answer these questions, you are highly unlikely to end up with a home office that meets your needs.

Don’t Work Against the Wall

The last thing you want is a desk that faces a blank wall. If your home office has a window, that’s where your desk should go. If not, it should face outwards, preferably towards the door.

Tame Your Wires

Despite the popularity of wireless internet, wireless power has yet to be invented. This means that your home office is never going to be completely free of tangles. You can however keep such tangles to a minimum with cord winders, tubing and conveniently placed holes in your desk.

Choose Colours You Love

One of the benefits of telecommuting is that you don’t need to work in a stuffy office environment. Don’t make the mistake of creating one at home. Beige has no place in a modern home office. Choose colours that you love. It’s also worth noting that different colours tend to have different effects on different people. Try to establish what colours are most likely to keep you calm, and of course, productive.

Keep Things Bright

Finally, if you want to minimise eye strain and generally stay productive, ample lighting is very much required. To make the most of natural light, you should try to keep your windows as bare as possible. And when it comes to artificial lighting, don’t rely exclusively on the ceiling variety. Additional lighting in close proximity to your desk is very much recommended.

Ed Markwell is an interior designer with a passion of protecting the environment from global warming. He recommends replacing older models of gas boilers with new ones to slash energy use by 50%.

I think we need to do more renovations

by The Diva

We’ve been doing a lot of renovations on our home over the last several months and unfortunately I think I’ve just discovered another renovation that we need to do. Actually, I’ve known about this renovation for quite a while. I mean, I’ve wanted to redo the bathroom but I didn’t know we actually needed to redo the bathroom. You know what I mean?

The problem is our basement bathroom. It’s a tiny little bathroom with a tiny little shower and last week when we had a house guest. My husband suggested that our house guest use the upstairs shower because he was afraid that the floor of our basement shower would crack. Nothing like telling a house guest that you think they’re a little bit too heavy! I am sure he could’ve found a better way to say that.

So if my husband thinks the basement shower is pretty much falling apart and can’t withstand the weight of slightly heavier people I think I had better start looking into some ideas for bathrooms and try to find some new shower stalls that would fit the space.

This wasn’t a renovation that I was planning to do right now but I definitely like having to fully working bathrooms. So I think I’d better do this within the next few months. What’s a few more renovations anyway, this house is full of renovations lately.

4 Crucial Things To Organize Before You Throw The Garden Party Of The Year

Attached Images:

Eight Tips For Home Office Design

I think we need to do more renovations

Meta

Pages

Attached Images:

Meta

Tags

Pages