Below is an interesting infographic from Plumbs, regarding the environmental impact of throwing out old sofas.
If you’re looking for a delicate, vintage look, on a budget, then reupholstery is a good choice. It’s cost effect and versatile and can often be used to ‘save’ a damaged piece of furniture.
Underfloor heating, always makes me think of Arsenal football club for some reason – I think, they were one of the first clubs to have under-soil heating; avoiding postponed matches during the winter.
Under-soil heating, may be a bit expensive and not massively practical in terms of the domestic market, however, under-floor heating is becoming quite trendy.
But is it worth it?
Some of the advantages of under-floor heating include:
Pros
1. The floor is actually warm, not the radiator on one side of the room.
2. The heat is more evenly dispersed throughout a given room, rather than heating an isolated area
3. It adds more space to a room, assuming radiators are ‘the other’ heating option being considered.
4. Underfloor heating can work at a lower temperature than radiators
5. It might; might enhance the home’s selling price
6. You don’t get dust mites gathering around and on the radiator, because you probably won’t have a radiator
Cons
1. Difficult to ‘retro-fit’
2. It can take longer to warm up (but you can just use a timer to get it going by the time it’s cold)
3. A cheaper system might not provide enough warmth, so you might end up fitting radiators anyway!
Underfloor Heating Options
Two main types of underfloor heating systems exist – electric and water ones. Water based systems are more expensive to fit, but are cheaper to run than electric ones.
I think I’ll stick to my wood-burner for now…but here’s an interesting infographic if you are a bit of a heating-engineer-geek or general nerd that enjoys sciencey images:
From Visually.
The quality of this video is terrible but the content is there:
Meditation is great for enhancing focus, reducing stress and controlling negative thoughts.
You can learn to meditate, by being guided through 10 minute sessions, for 10 days with the free app from HeadSpace, which you can find here.
Breathing meditation can be done without the app. Just sit up straight, and set a timer for 10-30 minutes.
Breathe in for 10 breaths, focusing on the feeling of the breath coming into and out of the nose, lungs and mouth.
Then breathe in for 10 breaths focusing on the sound of the breath. Then for 10 breaths visualise the air coming into and out of the body.
Repeat this until your time is up on your timer.
If your mind drifts (which it will!) just bring the focus back to the breath.
You can also try using a mantra, a short phrase you can repeat over and over with each breath.
‘Mindfulness’ can be applied to everyday tasks such as washing the dishes. Focus on the dishes, not what you want to do in 5 minutes time. Focus on the feelings of touch, the noises etc as you do the dishes, it should make it more enjoyable! Should!
Why do we spend so much time thinking about the negatives?
Dwelling on the tiny injustices and trivial occurrences which damage our egos…
Here is a great video about the importance to think about the positives, and how to do it –
One of the best tips, that we can probably all relate to us when you’ve come home from work. Tell your loved one(s) specifically about what was good about your day. Don’t go into the negative things.
This will prove very difficult at first!
This is one way that you can train yourself to focus on the upside of your day. Other techniques include writing down what you’re grateful for each day.
Positive affirmations are also simple, yet effective. For example, next time you go into the gym, think or state out loud – “this is going to be an amazing workout”
I think being positive is a very important aspect of parenting. Children copy their parents, so try remember this next time you start moaning about things that don’t really matter.
It’s not something that I’ve considered before, but no that I have offspring (well one on the way in 1.5 months) it’s something I should put in place.
This webpage does a convincing job of persuading me to get the proverbial ball rolling, and contact a solicitor to get this sorted. Especially as I have a mortgage, and well, 2 dogs as well!
You can use the webpage by clicking on the 3 bits of pink text, and separately, choosing a reason that you haven’t bothered writing a well from the pink drop down menu that appears.
I chose “it’s too expensive”, “I’m too young” (haha) and “it’s too time consuming”. Apparently, it’s not too expensive (normally costs about £150 from my research), I could die anytime and it only takes 1 or 2 appointments to get the will sorted out.
So get going, and contact a solicitor or will writer. After all, you don’t want your kids worrying about finances, when they’ve just lost a love one. Poor Ted wouldn’t know where to start…
These are pictures from Lake Vyrnwy, taken a few years ago now.
I saw a travel blog this morning with a road trip of Wales, and remembered about our 5am trip to the Lake (to avoid the crowds) and we were the only 2 there all day.
Small Business Dad 