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It’s not spring yet, but after Christmas I do feel the urge to do some cleaning and not just the usual daily or weekly stuff, I’m talking about getting the house deep down clean.  I think it’s partly because the home gets a lot of use over Christmas with plenty of visitors, but also because with the tree up, it’s not so easy to get into all the corners so they are in need of some attention.  Maybe it’s something about New Year’s resolutions and the wish to do things better, like keeping your home clean and tidy.  So I was glad to team up with ACE to offer my readers the chance to get a head start on their post Christmas cleaning this year or an early start to some spring cleaning. I can offer an ACE product bundle worth £20 each for two lucky readers.

The bundles will consist of a number of a ACE products for everyday laundry and household cleaning needs. The 100% recyclable product bundle will include:

• ACE for Colours
• ACE Colours Powder
• ACE for Whites
• ACE Power Mousse and
• ACE Stain Remover.

Products start from just £2 each! For more information visit www.acecleanuk.co.uk or to buy head to your local Tesco’s, Morrison’s, The Range, Wilko, Waitrose and Sainsbury’s.

Competition Terms and Conditions

1. No bulk, third-party or automated entries allowed.

2. Entrants must be aged 18 years or older and resident in the UK.

3. The winner or winners will be chosen by a random draw using the competition widget.

4. Promoter is responsible for fulfilling the prize and full contact details of the winner will be passed onto the promoter to enable prize fulfillment.

5. The winner’s name may be published on this site.

6. Competition closes at the end of Tuesday 2nd February 2020.
Win An ACE Product Bundle Worth £20

The eyes might be the windows to your soul as the saying goes, but the windows of your house are an important part of the decor too.  Doubly so as they serve a very practical purpose: protecting you from the weather and allowing light into your home, but also because they can be a feature in their own right.  Of course glass doesn’t need to be limited to windows (and doors) though, as there are loads of other creative ways you can use it to bring elegance and style into your home.

Toughened glass in particular has lots of uses beyond the simple and obvious: windows and doors.  I really like new and inventive uses for glass, like using glass for balustrades for stairs both internally and externally, and perhaps even better using glass as a balustrade for a balcony.  Glass is such a versatile material and it can accommodate design features and fixing points by way of holes, shapes and rounded corners.  You can help it match and complement your colour scheme by considering whether clear or tinted glass is best for your location and purpose.  Clearly to get a bespoke, quality finish, you need to pick out the right supplier and there are toughened glass suppliers in the UK that can help with your design project, including leading glass manufacturers Tuffx Glass.

In recent years toughened glass balustrades have become an increasingly important part of contemporary home and garden design. Their sleek good looks together with their stand out practical features, mean that glass balustrades can help complement a building’s architecture.   Not only that they let those that live there enjoy natural light and expansive views. To make toughened glass, the glass goes through a process called tempering where the glass is heated to an exceptionally high temperature and then cooled very quickly in a process called quenching. Quenching creates a strong layer on both sides of the glass, so that you get a glass that’s approximately four times stronger to impact than regular glass. If toughened glass does actually break, it doesn’t fragment into large shards, but instead shatters into smaller pieces which are less dangerous.

Using a glass balcony balustrade as part of your overall design will break down visual barriers between your indoor and outside living areas.  This is the perfect choice when you want to provide safety say without hampering a viewpoint.  So you can have a balcony on a patio area say and still be able to see the view beyond from inside your home.  Or you could do the same in a large open space in a barn conversion where you wanted to maintain as much light, openness and space as possible in a full height space with a mezzanine level.  In terms of styling it gives a contemporary finish, but because of its minimalistic good looks a glass balcony should still work well with a lot of period buildings.  It’s great that you can have a item work on so many different levels: a stylish design feature, practical safety feature and an integral part of your home.

I’ve been working from home for a number of years now and that fact, together with being self-employed, often means that you find that the boundaries between work and home blur.  It’s all too easy to continue working into the evening or get on the computer at the weekend.  The temptation is to just check those emails or have a look at something else.  At my last home, it was quite difficult to separate home and work as my office was in my bedroom.  It makes it harder to switch off.  It’s a bit easier in my current home because I have more space and I have a dedicated home office, but even then it’s very easy just to pop on the computer to ‘just’ do something.  That isn’t good for our health, our well being and our families though and it’s better to have a clearer boundary between work and home.

Now I do prefer to keep a dedicated space separate for my work.  It makes everything easier because you have everything you want to hand.  It doesn’t get in the way of your home life.  Another thing that works well is not having to put everything away at the end of the day.  It’s much better for the whole family and reduces stress and strain.  Much better than trying to work in a corner of the living room.  A clearer demarcation works much better for us all.

Obviously, one solution is to rent office space, but then you get into ongoing costs, money down the drain on rent and potentially a commute (with all the hassle and costs that go with that).  That’s why I’m considering a more radical solution like a garden office or a home office. I’ve been taking a look at insulated garden offices from GBC Group and seeing what it would be possible to achieve.   I think that would let me get the balance right between home and work.  I’d actually have to leave the house to work, so there is a physical separation. Even that small barrier would make all the speak of anyway), but I’d still be able to answer the door to parcel deliveries and keep an eye on things at home.  It still would be no problem if I needed to be around to allow tradespeople access to get jobs done.  It seems to me that it would be the best of both worlds.  The other thing is that it would force me to get dressed and ready for the day.  There’s a tendency for me to work in my pyjamas, which is nice and cosy, but I think I get more work done if I am dressed as it makes me feel more professional.