Eco Friendly House And Garden

If you live in what is called a ‘hard water’ area, you may consider changing to ’soft’.

Now it’s not like you can change the bedrock of your house, so it would mean fitting a water softener to your existing water pipes to make the change.

But why would you go to that trouble and expense if you didn’t really have to - I mean the water still runs like normal, is clean to drink and washes dishes etc?

But there is a massive difference between the 2 types of water - and the soft water option can help you to live a more eco-friendly life.

How Can It Really?
Well, hard water contains magnesium and calcium that it picks up from the rocks on it’s path from falling as rain until it reaches your tap.  And these minerals can cause some serious damage to your plumbing and smaller white goods in the kitchen - not to mention your boiler and washing machine!

This build up of minerals in the water is then transferred into your pipes as it sits there waiting to be used - and can reduce the amount of water getting into an appliance, and cause permanent damage to the pipes as well.  Replacing either is a squeeze on natural resources and a costly exercise to boot!

And, with the capacity for water flow reduced, this can sometimes cause the appliance or boiler to have to work harder to keep the same level of function - or use more energy but give a poorer performance!

Soft water doesn’t contain any of these minerals, so leaves your pipes clean and working at their best!

How Can I Tell The Difference?
It isn’t immediately obvious which water you have got based on watching your boiler or feeling your clean clothes - but just using the water from your tap will show which water you have.

These minerals show themselves in water residue in the form of ‘lime scale’, so if you have a white patchy deposit on your shower head, grey residue left on your glass shower curtain, blobs of white ‘chalky’ stuff in your kettle, the list goes on…..

Sound familiar?

Now think of all the chemicals, cloths, scourers and time you have to spend keeping your bathroom and kitchen clean - then think of all that chemical waste!

And, think about washing your hair, hands and body.  Washing in soft water creates a lather more readily using less toiletries - and gives a more thorough clean.  People say that washing in soft water makes their skin feel better and hair look shinier!

How Big Is A Water Softener?
They will easily fit under your kitchen sink in smaller flats, or anywhere in a larger home - even a garage will do.

Basically it works on the main water pipes going in to your home or offices and changes the composition of your water before it enters your home.

Most water softeners are easily fitted and will pay for themselves within around 5 years due to the better efficiency of your heating and hot water systems, as well as in the reduced reliance of cleaning chemicals and toiletries!

And your appliances will last longer and stay efficient throughout that lifespan - and don’t worry about your appliances if you have been using hard water - as the softened water running through will eventually clear all the existing limescale!

So, taking the minerals out of your water could save you a lot of time and money.

Has your spring clean left you with quite a lot of things you don’t want?

Well, someone else might find a good use for them - so why not take yourself out to a car boot sale and see what you can make for things you don’t even want!

There are many car boots held every week across the UK although they may not be as widespread elsewhere, and they are great fun to do.

However, there are a few tricks of the trade that will make your car boot experience a lot better than just plunging feet first into it on that early Sunday morning!

1) Check Out Some Sites As A Buyer.
Make sure that you have visited a few local sites before you pitch your spot.  Some car boots aren’t as organised as others and can have stalls spread out over a large area of land but with stalls quite some distance apart - not good for sales!

Other sites can be a field of mud, others too small, and yet more with terrible access (or exit afterwards).  Some have a set start and finish time, but others just let people come and go throughout the day - which can leave you alone in the field if all your neighbours go home early!

And find out the price of a pitch - if the car boot costs more than £10 for your car - then make sure you have enough stuff to make the difference.  You will have to get up early, drive to the site, sit there all day hopefully selling at least that amount in goods and then probably queue up for ages to get out afterwards - so is it worth it?

2) Contact The Person In Charge First.
Make sure you have spoken to the person who is in charge before you get up early one day - as there are protocols to follow!

One car boot I went to where the entrance of which was on a main road had an unknown secret: you had to join a queue about 1/2 a mile away in a main back street half an hour before it opened to get a spot.  If you queued up outside the site when it was due to open - you were told to drive around the block and join the others - at the very back!

3) Find Out What You Can Sell.
This might sound strange, but some car boots will only allow old things to be sold - so if they see you there with plants, bulk goods and maybe even certain electrical items, you may get told off or outed!

Other places might be really strict on the amount of space you get, so having a clothes rail would be virtually impossible if you have a long table too!

Other sites have so much space that you can park your car sideways, therefore getting metres of space to display your things, and allowing you to have everything within touching distance of the customers, rahte than them having to rummage around in boxes under the table or having to ask you to pass stuff across to them!

4) Bring The Right Equipment.
Make sure that you can display most of your goods around hand-height so that everyone can see what you are selling and can have a good look - so this means a table of sorts like a decorating fold-up table (as you need to fit it in your car with all your stuff as well) and if you are selling clothes a rail would really make a huge difference.

Boxes on the floor for books is perfect - but preferably pack them together in prices if you have enough, so a box for 10p and box for 50p books etc. Same goes for tiny toys or other little things, so, ‘Anything in the Box = 50p’ type of thing.

You will need a fair amount of small change if you are going to be serious about this, so at least £10 worth of 50p’s and less and £10 of £1’s should be a minimum - depending on the price of your goods. There is nothing worse than giving a price for something and then have to refuse the sale as you have no change left! Most customers bring small change - but it’s best to be prepared!

And along those lines - bring plenty of carrier bags from your re-using stash to give to customers - they are more likely to buy more stuff if you offer them a decent bag!

And a plastic sheet to cover everything if it rains wouldn’t be a bad idea!

5) Set Your Prices For The Good Stuff.
If you are selling some large or really nice items, then make sure you set a minimum price before you set out as otherwise you could come away with less than you deserve.

There are also the ‘early scavengers’ as I like to call them, who go to car boots for a living. They know what stuff is worth money and what things they can sell on their own stall round the back of yours for twice what you were charging!

How they do this is to start rumaging through your things while you are still getting them out of your car. They pester you with seemingly reasonable prices, or offer for bulk goods - which you think is great!

You are making money before you are even finished unloading - but remember, they are only buying it from you as you are a ‘newbie’ and they want to buy yours cheap and sell it on for more! So it’s something to think about - make less money straight away, or hold on to your higher prices and sell them for yourself through the day.

In fact, why don’t you do a spring clean with the car boot in mind - as it could help you be a bit more ruthless - especially if you are not sure if you want to sell a certain item. By setting a high price you definately won’t go below you can come away with a result either way - making a decent amount for it - or keeping it yourself anyway!

6) Enjoy Yourself!
Make sure you plan to make a day of it. Take decent clothes incase it is cold, and convince someone to come with you if you can (or at least pop in to see you half way through) otherwise you won’t be able to go to the loo or to buy yourself a hot drink if it’s cold!

Take a packed lunch if you can as some can start as early as 6am in the summer and finish after 3pm. Do you want to have to go hungry - or end up spending your takings on a car boot burger?

I’ve done them before and I would do them again - but I have made all my mistakes, so hopefully your won’t have to…..

Did you find that you got better at identifying any birds because of it?

I can now tell the difference between a house sparrow and a tree sparrow, and my little niece can now identify a magpie!  I know about the different stripes on the greater and lesser spotted woodpeckers and the different ’spots’ on the breast of the song thrush and mistle thrush.

And I found out how much easier it was with binoculars and a small guide book!

I had great fun doing the bird counts with my family.  I helped my mum in her tiny urban garden (12 species), my niece in her huge suburban garden (7 species) - and helped myself in my woodland garden! (9 species).

We saw great spotted woodpeckers, pied wagtails, wrens, song thrushes and bullfinches - as well as the more common blackbirds, robins, magpies, crows and starlings. 

However, to my suprise, the tiny urban garden had the most different species of all 3 sites, with the huge garden not having any unique species - they shared half of their 7 species with both the other sites!

And it didn’t even have the largest number of 1 type either - mum’s got 26+ starlings in hers!

I was glad to see the wrens and the house sparrows at my mum’s as well as they are not common where I live at the moment.  And the starlings chirping away in their ‘alien’ fashion took me back to my childhood!

However, I’m not too bothered about them being ‘missing’ as I get all sorts of other amazing species like red kites, buzzards, jays and woodpeckers here - and I even saw a woodcock the other day!

How did your counts go - and have you entered your results on the RSPB website yet?

It’s Monday and you haven’t started cooking dinner yet - so make it the start of your ‘Meat Free Mondays’ campaign!

If you are not already a vegetarian, vegan or a meat-free Monday participant - then maybe you could try it for a few weeks and see if it really makes that much difference to your lives.

There are many celebrities who have given up meat altogether including Brad Pitt and Clint Eastwood, but it can be a difficult life to continue of your diet revolves around processed foods and take-aways.

So, if you can manage to eat at home on the rather sensible day of Monday, you could easily make it a meat-free one.  For example sausage and mash with gravy; pie, chips and peas and even a roast dinner could be made using meat-free ingredients - and I have had them all and they were yummy!

And if you are eating meat on up to 6 other days of the week, I’m sure you won’t really think anything of it - however, you could be making a huge difference to people, wildlife and habitats across the globe!

Benefits In A Nutshell:
There are many good things that can come out of cutting out meat from your diet - even if it’s only for 1 day. As don’t forget that it won’t be just you - so multiply the meat your don’t eat by 1000’s of other people in your neighbourhood, and we are stopping hundreds of cattle from traipsing through the Amazon……

Meat Uses More Land To Grow - By using a field to ‘grow’ cows or sheep, we need to use another piece of land to ‘grow’ the food to feed the cows and sheep.  So meat uses more land to grow than the tasty vegetables we love.

Meat Uses More Energy To Grow - More energy goes into growing a cow than into a cauliflower - so if we ate the cauliflower instead we could save all that waiting around for the cow to be ready for slaughter.

Meat Uses New Land To Grow- More meat in our diet means more land is always needed for farming them - and in South America, we have heard that the rainforests are being cleared to feed more cattle - or more correctly, rainforests are being cleared to make us hamburgers and cheap steaks.

Meat Gives Of Methane - Cows fart!  A lot…….

Meat Cannot Be Composted - Uneaten meat cannot be composted in your garden like leftover vegetables and fruit - and may well attract vermin anyway, so the disposal of meat can become a problem for businesses - and the environment.

Vegetables Are Good For You - By taking the focus off the meat part of your dinner you may well find that you eat more vegetables in your meal instead - all good news for your health.

Your Choices:
Just as with new products and new fashions - if people don’t buy it, people won’t make it. 

So if everyone could just take 1 day a week of meat, you will see a great reduction in the meat in stores, and therefore the amount of land being used to farm them.

I’m not saying that this will be an instant reaction from the farming industry, but it will certainly make a difference over the next few years.  And from current environmental thinking we may well need to start doing this anyway.

So, why not take a stroll up the vegetarian aisle next time you are in a store and try some of the alternatives - you might quite surprise yourself with what is available, and how much you like it.

And to be honest - dinner guests will eat whatever you cook them as long as it’s tasty - and if you don’t tell the kids or the partner when you serve up a fantastic vegetarian meal - they probably won’t even know the difference and so you can easily convert dozens of people you know without any fuss!

Take a trip to RHS Wisley in the UK for an amazing butterfly experience - you won’t forget it!

RHS Wisley is one of the largest gardens in the UK - with an absolutely huge temperate and tropical glasshouse - and they are going to fill it with butterflies!

I have visited many smaller scale butterfly houses when abroad - but this is on the scale of something magnificent - and will have species from all over the globe including the absolutely huge Blue Morpho butterfly from Central and South America which can reach up to 8 inches across!

Native UK species don’t grow quite that big and none are irridescent blue - but we do have some very colourful and delicate species that you can attract right into your garden like the bright yellow Brimstones, the highly decorative orange and black Marsh Frittilaries, tiny blue Hairstreaks and the huge black and white Swallowtails with a wingspan of over 3 inches!  

So, all you need to attract some into your own garden, are the right garden plants - and help is at hand.

Butterfly Conservation, UK:
This UK based charity are the best source of information on butterflies you can get for native species - and their president is none other than the great Sir David Attenborough.

Members of the Society are going to be at Wisley in the glasshouses to help you identify the different species in the display - but also those that you find in your gardens year after year - or want to find in your garden from now on!

There will be information boards all around the site helping you to identify the essential plants that butterflies need as adults, but also as caterpillars.

Why Butterflies?
Many people forget that caterpillars are a huge food source for many of our garden wild birds - such as blue tits and robins - and that the more adult butterflies you attract to your garden through the year - the more birds their offspring can feed keeping you garden filled with life at all times.

Also, butterflies are an important pollinater for plants too and they are the second largest pollinaters after bees.  Plants such as sunflowers, asters and daisies all depend on butterflies to create seeds - and they are in the second largest group of plants on Earth, so it’s an important link.  And a key one if you want your plants to set strong seeds and spread across your gardens.

Visiting this one off spectacle could be the spark that generates a keen interest in butterflies and back gardens in yourself or your children - and could really make a difference to struggling species in your area.

After all it is the International Year of Biodiversity - so why not get things started with a great day out!

Details:
RHS Wisley is in Surrey, England and is open all year round as one of the UK’s largest public gardens, with woodlands, water features, flower-filled avenues, sculptures, a library, and a huge garden centre. 

The butterfly display is on now until the 28th of February 2010 and is free as part of the normal entrance fee.  Children under 6 are free, and pre-booked groups get a discount - so make sure you take the whole family with you - and some friends thrown in.  Get everyone involved.

Planning to lose weight and give up smoking - 2 perfect eco friendly resolutions!

Every New Year there are thousands of people vowing to give up smoking and lose weight for the new year - so why not do it for real this time rather than just putting in a little bit of effort in front of the friends!

We know the reason we manage to eat a bit healthier in January is because we have eaten so much junk over the winter that we would rather not face another strawberry trifle or fried leftovers! 

And the symbolic start of the new year makes us decide that it’s a good time to be a bit healthier - but when you go back to work and the month end bills start to come through after the longest month of the year - it virtually always has 5 Fridays - you are stressed enough to just keep on smoking!

So why not make these 2 count seriously towards your new eco friendly lifestyle for 2010.

Losing Weight:
This has 2 sides to it’s eco benefit; eating less and exercising more, so lets look at these in detail.

Eating Less - we all know that we buy, cook and eat much more food than we need - and much of the food isn’t nutritious enough to make a difference.  So by restricting your meal size and number of meals, you can reduce the pressure on farmers and local stores to grow so much in the first place.

The food has to be grown and transported to the stores too which uses valuable energy and petrol or gas as well.  In a larger scale example the advantages become clear: if the average person buys 20 sprouts from the store, and a lorry from the farm can only fit in 1000 sprouts in it’s hopper - that means one journey feeds 50 families. 

But what if each of your 3 dinner guests only really eats 5 sprouts each and you throw the leftover 5 away?  That means that that lorry carried 250 sprouts for nothing.  And if people only brought what they actually ate - that original lorry could have fed nearly 67 families (17 more than before).

And who says we should be eating until we are stuffed anyway?  Buy less, eat less, waste less.

Exercising More- Clearly, if you are exercising more then you may well be walking or cycling a lot more than before - both of which have massive eco benefits.

By spending more time out of your car, you are saving on fuel and emissions - but you are also making your local area richer.  If you visit local parks and other amenities you are making them worth keeping and maintaining - and you could become involved in local projects.

And by taking a bit longer to get somewhere or exploring somewhere in closer detail you could become a bit more knowledgeable of local species and habitats - and even see places, buildings or wildlife that you haven’t seen before (as you fly at 50 mph down the link road!).

Also, more exercise will make you a healthier person, delaying the signs of aging and reducing your need for routine medications and treatments - all saving you and the community money and energy.  Which leads us on to the other resolution….

Stop Smoking:
Not only is smoking bad for your health on it’s own, it is also bad for your health in terms of the reduction in exercise your may well be having due to being so out of breath.  It has been scientifically proved that smoking causes lung damage - and your lungs are what helps you to be active and exercise more.

However, buying you cigarettes is a never-ending job.  Unless you are a very light smoker or stretch out your roll-ups beyond the meanest student - you will be having to visit a store several times a week.  Smokers never seem to buy them in bulk, they go back and forth all the time, just buying another 20. and I bet the don’t always walk there?

The packaging, the transport, the ingredients - all bad for the environment and your body.  So make an appointment with a hypnotist and get over it!

There are many other ways to help improve your eco friendly lifestyle - so maybe instead of New Year resolutions - have New Month resolutions where you can improve your lifestyle throughout the year!

How can a plant seeds when I can’t even see my garden!

Like many people, I am hoping to start planting some seeds in my garden shortly - but the ground is frozen, and under about 3 inches of snow!

I also have some plants that I want to tend to as well, but they are still covered in the white stuff!

It has been several weeks now since I have been able to even think about getting back out into the garden to check on things already out there and getting ready for the new seasons crops and plants.

Just before the ‘big freeze’ there was a period of wet weather, and primroses, daisies and buttercups were all flowering in my garden at the end of November - I dread to think what they will look like when this snow all melts - and whether they will have the energy to flower again by March!

Problems In The Garden:
Well, I should be out there pruning back some of last years branches and shoots as well as clearing old leaves but that is going to have to wait - as is turning the compost!  I tried to do this before the new year, but it was too heavy with all the snow, and then clearing it a bit actually melted the snow turning it into a huge pile of slush - washing away some of the nutrients I had packed inside!

The thought of digging out the beds for the early potatoes is not sounding too appealing either - and I have been putting off adding the manure as I can’t face driving all the way to the stable yard in this terrible weather.  My driveway is still snowed in - so I am sure the access to a private yard won’t be faring much better!

The weight of the snow on my greenhouse has moved some of the panes downwards into the gutters leaving gaps in the roof - and I noticed a new crack in one.  I can’t attempt to slide them back into place when the temperatures are so low as I may well end up cracking another!  And my footing isn’t going to be the best!

My ceramic water butt has all but frozen over, so I am relying on my plastic one on the other side of the garden to keep things going.  I have had to completely rearrange my porch and spare room window sill to take on all of my early seeds and delicate plants.

Cold Weather Gardening Tips:
There are however, a few things you can do to take the edge off the worst of the weather for your seedlings and garden plants, and they include making things warmer (or not as cold as usual), changing varieties and changing locations.

Use a mulch to keep the ground from freezing.  If you have built up a nice layer of mulch (possibly using the leaves that you are only just starting to clear up), the actual earth your plants are going to be sown in will be just that little bit warmer than the ‘new’ surface, which should help them start out.

Use heat lamps or heat pads if the temperature is too low for your plants to get started.  I have just begun to use a low level low-energy heat pad in my porch where I can have many plants resting part on it and therefore giving them that extra warmth they are not yet getting from the sun!

Sow less seeds at a time to increase your chances of germination.  By only sowing a few seeds every few days, you are staggering your growth needs and therefore giving each seed more of a chance to do well. 

If you sow 50 seeds at the same time they will all need care and attention - and heating - at the same time almost guaranteeing a heavy loss if conditions don’t improve.  Whereas sowing only 5 every 3rd day or so will mean that each batch will get 100% of your attention as it grows.  The first 5 will be nice a warm and germinating before you move them aside to start the next batch.  This also means that your flowers or vegetables won’t all flower and fruit at the same time - perfect for a longer season!

Change varieties to make the most of the cold.  There are many varieties of flowers and vegetables that will do better in these cold and wet conditions (when the snow melts there is going to be a lot of water in the ground).  Make sure that you use these instead of particularly fussy varieties that are going to take up a lot of your time and energy growing - if they don’t fail you.

The Next Few Months:
The weather isn’t looking like it’s going to get much warmer over the next few weeks - so be prepared for a hard time through to February.

And, if your garden plants aren’t doing so well, then why not consider planting some wildflower seed this year.  By selecting native and local wild flowers for your garden - you will be giving them the best start in life.  They are hardy little things and will no doubt look great in the spring - just as they will carpet your local woods and parks in the wild.

Nature has a way of getting things moving - and plants that have evolved for years to live in your area will be no exception.  They need little help to grow, will suit your garden perfectly and will attract plenty of birds and insects for the summer!

With the recent bad weather across most of the northern hemisphere - should we stay home?

I haven’t left my place apart from to go for a great walk through the woods and a walk to the local store - so what did you do - and could it have caused problems for others?

There is an argument for both sides really, but which is more eco friendly?

The Case For Staying Home:
For a start, you will be one less car on the road in the way of other important people or vehicles that need to use the roads.  Many people like doctors, vets, firemen, police, grit lorry drivers, petrol tankers, grocery vans and ambulances that need to use the roads all day and at any time. 

So what would you do if you had got stuck on ice on a slip road and were now holding up one or more of the above people?  Stopping valuable staff from doing their job when you were only off out to do a bit of shopping or to visit a friend?

You would also be one more person that local services would have to worry about.  For example on 1 road in the UK earlier this week, there was a reported 25 mile tailback in the snow.  All those people were stranded in the freezing cold and the emergency services, local hotels and recovery drivers were now having to work overtime and through the night to help them all - and I bet all 25 miles wasn’t filled with doctors and food supplies?

And talking of medical care - if you went out and injured yourself on ice or through a car accident - you are adding to the pressures that emergency services are already facing.  If you can’t get to town in the bad conditions - what makes you think that nurses can either?  So more injuries and less nurses is really only going to mean longer waits and over-worked staff. 

The same goes for any other business as well.  Just because you managed to get yourself to a store, it doesn’t mean they will be able to offer you their best service, as they may also be short-staffed or have deliveries that cannot make it to the store due to accidents etc.

The Case For Going Out:
If you are one of the services that keep everyone else going then yes, you should try to get to work.  Hopefully all the non-essential journeys have ceased and so the roads should be clearer and safer for people like yourself to get through.

Also, many small businesses couldn’t function without their staff, and so struggling in to work could be the only option for some people. 

Imagine if everyone stopped going to work on the same day - countries would come to a standstill as no energy would be available, no need food would arrive in stores - and if it did, there would be noone there to sell it.  No gas, no gritters, no ambulances……….

People need to go to work in these terrible conditions - but think about who you are before deciding, as it’s not about how important you think your journey is, it’s about how important you know your job is.

Many eco friendly people will live near to where they work anyway - so a walk to work in the cold is going to be a million times better than a drive anywhere - and less of a drain on society during these hard times!

The Answer:
Stretched resources or reduced services? Neither is better than the other if you have to get to work - but there is a clear winner if you are not needed anywhere.

People not working, on a day off or who can work from home are the ones that can make a real difference in this whole thing.  By limiting their impact on the outside world during this stressful and very cold time, they can make all the difference to those who don’t have a choice.

So wrap up warm and go visit your elderly neighbours today - or snuggle up in front of the TV and watch a good movie instead.

Seriously, just taking your kids to a toy store could make presents more expensive next year!

I don’t mean the normal cost of demand or an increase in the cost of material - I mean that prices have to go up to account for the behaviour or your kids - or more importantly - You.

How A Toy Store Works:
Like all businesses it runs on a balance or 3 main things: the cost of buying in the toys in the first place, the cost of staff and the cost of the rent and bills on the shop.  These 3 must be less than the total money that goes into the till - leaving a profit (hopefully).

If any of these 3 things costs too much - the store isn’t worth opening every day so something has to give - and it’s normally the price you pay.

So, based on the short time I worked in a toy store, here are the 2 ways you can help to keep these costs down - and therefore, the cost of your toys!

The Products Themselves:
When you buy a toy, the store make a profit on the difference between what they paid for it in the first place and what you paid for it to take it home.  So, if they buy a wooden toy for £1 and you buy it for £3, they make £2, right?

Well, not always.  You see, they may well buy 100 wooden toys (costing them £100) to sell for a total of £300 - but if 10 of those are accidently broken by children playing with them roughly - the store has lost £20 profit plus the £10 to buy them, so each remaining toy will only be worth £2.70 each.

Imagine this multiplied up by all their products on display (my store had over 1000 different products) and on the more expensive items.  That’s a lot of money being lost by the store because your child accidentally tore the packaging of something, or burst something else when you weren’t looking.

So, the answer is only let your children play with the display models (those that the store has singled out for everyone to play with) - therefore limiting the number of manhandled products to one of each.

Don’t let your children eat food while visiting a toy store as a chocolaty finger on a furry puppet is not what the store were hoping for - as you aren’t going to buy it and neither will anyone else!

And also - don’t leave your kids in a toy store while you stay outside talking to friends or are on your cell - as they can do a lot of damage in just a few short minutes alone!!!!

Too Many Staff:
As a result of the number of people who do leave their kids alone in toy stores - the store manager needs to employ a larger number of staff to keep an eye on them all to limit the damage they cause!

Most toys in our store were for 3+ but of course children under 3 can’t read that so they pick them up and snap bits off - off more commonly lick or bite them.  And quite a lot of ours were filled with liquid!

If the store is having to employ more staff than say a shoe store would need, then their overheads become higher, and higher overheads means less profit.

And stores want more profit, but they can’t have less staff - so they raise their prices!

Less Rent:
The only real way to lower your rent is going to be bad for business.  It is either going to be moving to a smaller store (so they will have less products), moving to a less busy street or smaller mall (so less customers will visit) or going totally online (so you have to advertise your site).

None of these are good for you as a customer either.  If they have a smaller store - you have less choice for your children’s toys and gifts; if they move to a less popular street or mall - you have further to walk to find them, if at all; and if they move online - your kids won’t be able to play with the toys at all until you buy them!

Less Waste:
Don’t forget that all the toys that can’t be sold - whether they are broken or not - will be thrown away.  What a total waste! 

Even if it is just the packaging that’s torn - the product can’t be sold on the shelf.  Some stores would use it as display model, but not all of them.

And, the more that get broken before making it to a home - the more that need to be made in the first place!

So, next time you visit a toy store - hold on to your kids and save money - and you will also be saving those resources!

It’s not always easy to pick a company to renovate your home that you can trust.

When you are thinking of changes to your home, you need to make sure that the company you choose will work closely with you on your designs, will respond to any changes you have along the way and of course they must offer the standard of work that you are hoping for.

If you are making eco friendly or even innovative changes to your home, then you really need to select a company that have many experience but also a company that other people have used and approved.

If you have certain requirements for your extension or re-fit, then you need to be able to trust your building company to carry out these wishes - for example sourcing materials that you specifically request - or offering better alternatives for the job that you hadn’t thought of!

One Such Firm:
There is a building firm in Australia that offer just this service for their customers.  These Sydney home builders show you exactly what they offer on their website - and have some great images of their past work for you to get ideas from.

They work very closely to match the requirements of their customers and make sure the finished product is better than their expectations!

The most important page is the aptly named ‘Word of Mouth’ section, easily reached from the home page.  Here there are testimonials from previous customers which really speak for themselves.

They aren’t a selection of 1-liners taken out of context and wrapped up in all fancy boxes - they are long and descriptive testimonials about how much they want to thank this company: Heddons, for the level of service and the finished product.  You can’t get better than that……

…….apart from the fact that these customers have also agreed to speak to anyone considering using this company for their first floor addition, in the Lower North Shore or their bathroom renovation, Mosman!

They also have a page dedicated to their project architects - it’s not just left ot the builders, it’s all overseen by certified professionals - so you don’t have to worry about finding one yourself.  There is a list on the website for you to choose from that they have preciously worked with. 

This ensures that work gets started fast and efficiently, as these 2 parts of the renovation team know how each other work through their past experience - so it cuts out all the paperwork and shortens the whole process for you - leaving you to think about what you want in your home, rather than who you want to do it!

The End Result:
When you decide to take on a large project for your home, you want to get the results you expected - and the only way to achieve this is to be able to communicate with your builder and for them to respect your choices.

From suppliers, to staffing, to materials and machinery - even through to the disposal of building waste - you can make sure these are all to your standards and that your new home doesn’t have a negative impact on others.

You can always get a cheaper price if you cold call local builders, or search online for: Home Builder Sydney (or wherever you live) - but you take the risk.

Trust your friends.  You can’t get a better service than from a recommended source!

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