After I had finished my Archi Masters I was working for an architecture firm who also did a small amount of work for a volume builder. They were actually a pretty good quality builder and at least got the orientation of their 'pre-designed' plans correct. We had the ability to make minor changes to every job and it pained me to see so many simple to implement passive options not being incorporated. Had most of their clients known that they would be saving MONEY over the longterm by making a few minor changes to suit their site, they all would have done it. The problem is unless someone can sell this idea to them as a financial/lifestyle choice, many just think it is about saving the world. It is a no-brainer if you have in interest in it, but for those who don't know, there is no-one there selling it to them, especially on the lower end of the market.

Hi Melanie, The timber look floor tiles being produced at the moment are absolutely amazing. Our range of technical porcelain timber tiles are called PAR-KER and are produced by Porcelanosa in Spain. These floor tiles are incredibly durable, and once installed, require no maintenance whatsoever. They are scratch and stain resistant, require no sealing, have a high acid and chemical resistance - and look beautiful! I will attach some images of our PAR-KER tile ranges of darker shades, please let us know if you require more information.

The next time I decorate by a colour of the year will be the first time. Don't hold your breath. I have nothing against this particular colour but it doesn't work with all the things I've collected over the years, and I am not about to discard carpets bought after hard bargaining with dubious merchants in Istanbul or Islamabad because they don't "go" with a paint colour that someone voted "colour of the year." In its place, I think the colour would be quite nice (better than this years choices, certainly). It's just that my place isn't the right place for it.

Well, for us our first 'house' was an old 50's commission house, very sturdy solid brick but small, old, ugly and bad layout (oh that layout was completely wrong)... it was bought solely based on location (young families in the area, good schools, easy access to public transport, shops, capital growth, etc)... we considered renovating and/or extending more than once, considered moving a couple of times, had two past failed attempts at building, and all of the above for various reasons redundancy, GFC, you name it... so we waited, tried, failed, waited, tried again, sweated long summers w/o A/C, one long winter with a broken heater, not to mention the broken dishwasher (arh those dishes) and drove each other mad in that house... nevertheless it had provided us with a roof over our heads and in which we had more happy memories for 14 long, very long years... but now, now that we finally can, we have kept the memories and have gladly said goodbye to this old house earlier in the year, to make way for our new second house which will definitely be our 'forever home' and we cannot wait... my mama always said 'good things come to those who wait' I guess she was right :)