Welcome to the Blogs

Well I’m delighted to have been invited to participate in the Problem Solved Blogs and I hope that you find the contents of the pieces I write over the coming months both useful and informative.

To introduce myself, I am Tim Foley, owner of the website www.kitchensfitted.co.uk and aside from our very popular forum that assists those buying and fitting kitchens and our website articles detailing how to fit a kitchen, we provide and install bespoke quality surfaces nationwide.

With the property market growing ever more unsettled, the more information you can have before taking the leap as a buyer or seller, can never be a bad thing. Fresh out of the box and here to help is Betternest.co.uk, a website which demonstrates a property's potential to be expanded and altered for maximum profit and spatial benefits.

Answering the three main questions on buyers and sellers lips, for a flat rate fee the Betternest Property Potential Report details what space can be added to a property, how much it will cost and the estimated profit made from the alterations.

Buying or selling a property?

If you’re looking to maximise the green credentials of your property, make a call to County Estate Management (CEM). It has just launched its Green Vision system – an audit carried out on properties which assesses the environmental impact of the building, and which finds ways in which carbon emissions from the property can be reduced. Waste recycling, heating, cooling, ventilation, energy management, rain water retention and the purchase of electricity through green tariffs can all help to make your property greener.

Headache selling your property? Don’t know what mortgage to go for?

Just decorated the bedroom and hating the paint fumes?  Stand a bowl of vinegar in the corner - it will absorb the smell within half an hour.

Turfandstuff.com provides turf, slate, chippings, top soil and more – and you can order your Nordmann Fir trees here at Christmas

 

If you’re trying to cut back on energy and bills over winter, doctorenergy.co.uk has a wealth of useful gadgets including draught-stopping chimney balloons (from £15.99), insulating paint (from £9.95) and standby savers (from £18.95)

A fun and surprisingly handy website, Yahoo! Answers provides an interactive platform to indulge in one of man’s best virtues; curiosity.

With helpful categories such as the home and garden, health and computers to the more adventurous and opinionated such as politics, social sciences and parenting, Yahoo!

Having moved house myself quite recently, I’m well aware of just how many things there are to think about. Packing up is a serious mission, but it’s not just the boxes that stack up – there’s all the admin to think about too, and it’s easy to forget something crucial. Launched last Friday, Moveme.com offers a free and tailored service to help make your move easier.

The buying and selling process can be a minefield of vested interests with little or no impartial advice available to the new kids in the playground. But before you surrender yourself to the bullies, take a few pointers from Theadvisory.co.uk. Compiled over the past 18 months, the Advisory offers impartial and well researched advice on a wide spectrum of property-related themes, ranging from tips on home staging to where to find the best mortgage. Better still, it’s completely free of charge.

In this weeks blog post I thought it worthwhile giving you a quick refresher on how to get the best from your estate agent.

The latest survey from Rightmove shows that it’s now taking the average agent 84 days to find a buyer. That’s up from 64 days in April.

This week: getting prepared for winter

• If you can’t afford new curtains this winter, add a look of luxury to tired fabrics with tasseled, chord, beaded or rope tiebacks – Collybrook.co.uk has an excellent selection.
• Arrange to have the chimney or flu cleaned. Blocked residue or birds' nests can disrupt ventilation and endanger your health.

Over the last few months, I've been trying to juggle a professional life, young family and my search for a new home. It ain’t easy – particularly as the majority of estate agents don’t work past 6pm, and are only otherwise open on Saturdays. But Black & White can help. A property relocation agent, it will search the entire market for you, arranging and accompanying you to viewings, arranging evaluations and instructing solicitors, and alleviating a huge amount of stress.

Hot on the home design calendar this coming month is the annual Grand Designs Live London 2007 (8-10 June 2007). Crammed full with over 650 exhibitors, it gives you access to six shows for the price of one, with GRANDInteriors, Build, Gardens, Kitchens, Bathrooms and The Design Shopping Arcade bringing you the best and most innovative designs around. And Grand Designs Live is offering to give away a pair of tickets to the first 25 Really Useful readers who send their contact details to iwanttobe@granddesignslive.com before 5 June 2007.

Hi, my name is Debbie Davies and with my husband Bob, we are the proprietors of the specialist furniture maker, Todhunter Davies.

Founded in 1993, Todhunter Davies has steadily expanded to meet the growing demands for the best in furniture manufacture and design. We have accomplished this by only using the very best timber, veneers, granite and glass to produce our products and by employing highly skilled and experienced joiners, cabinet makers and polishers.

One for the people who spend most of their time away from a computer, Shoot is a handy website designed to help gardeners of all experiences and commitments, manage and improve their out door spaces.

Providing a helping hand at every stage of your garden’s lifecycle, Shoot allows you to create a personal garden diary from which you receive monthly emailed care reminders with hints and advice specific to your plants

Keep your eyes peeled this month for Which? Magazine and its essential guide, Develop Your Property. Aimed at the thousands of people in the UK looking to make a serious long term investment in their property, this covers extensions, conversions and renovations. The best methods to secure finance, what the typical costs might be and how to project manage the critical details. The Which?

Planning a home improvement?

The very idea of moving home is sufficient to raise a large number of pulses so it comes as no surprise it is considered one of the most stressful experience of modern day life. Here to provide a much needed helping hand is Moveme.com, a website specifically designed to help take the stress and hassle out of moving home.