I would choose a light, warm colour for the walls. If you are uncertain what to use, you can pay for a colour consultant will go to your house to put forward their recommendations. According to their website, Dulux charges $150 for this service. I think it's worth that amount if undecided on colour. I love plantation shutters, however, with the extra large windows and doors in your house it would cost a lot to install them. Alternatively you could use layered curtains or insulated curtains. Use heavy fabrics or layered curtains over the windows to keep out drafts. Or, purchase insulated curtains with built-in thermal backing. Window pelmets are also good for keeping out the cold.

Hi Kezzle This is a bit intricate but it should make sense... The flooring industry has tried to move across from lineal metres (lm) to square metres. Normally carpet is 3.66m wide (12ft). It sounds horrendous to buy a 4m wide (15ft) carpet at $390 lm, but if you express it as $97 sqm it's not so bad. Nevertheless, the flooring industry buys it from the suppliers in lineal metres and calculates the quantities in lm also. The trick is to balance the number of joins vs the wastage when deciding the layout. There is also a little trick in the trade where they crimp the quantity but that is for another day... There are two ways of laying the carpet upstairs. The first way is front to back of the house ie 'down' the room in eg bed 1 as shown below. This way will mean you will have a join in bedroom 3 and two in the passage, 1 being in the line of the wir doorway and the other in the line of the bed 3 cupboard. Here is a rough mud map... I can't quite make out the measurements very well, so I have written down the assumed numbers in lineal (length) metres. You can change these if incorrect. In the games room, you will have 1 join which you can't avoid due to the size of the room. This will require around 22.9 lineal metres of carpet.... and at $97.5sqm it should be costing you about $8930. Alternatively if you were paying $9,600 then the real cost of the carpet is $105 sqm.... just like Dr Retro (and there is the trick) If you turn it around the other way, you will have more joins and could do it for around 21.5-22.5lm depending on how many pieces are used in joins... I would go into the shop and ask them to show you how they are installing it.... then crunch the numbers yourself... There are about 3 or 4 ways this can be done so the above is just one... Cheers

Thank you for this article: very interesting and just substantiating what I have always been aware of. How important the garden is to any living space. I see a problem with our green fields being carved into such time sites and the houses being built so unnecessarily large that it leaves no more space than for a pot plant. I think we need to look at getting the balance of site to house size right, leaving enough MIND space on the site. Also maybe an added sliding scale of costing to homes as they are planned larger. How needs 30 sq? Same applies to infill sites: taking all the site for the 'unit' is just silly: defeating the purpose of infills. House plants are good, and a park across the road is ok but having grass between the toes in your own private space is so much better especially for children. The quarter acre block was settled on as the ideal size for a family to produce their own vegetables but we have messed that up big time! Time to rethink our sizes and proportions... Cheers Margot

How do you clean the parquet floor? The parquet floor is really wonderful. It has a natural tone that can really combine very well with elegant decorations, it also provides a pleasant cozy feeling in the rooms where they are installed. What is parquet and what types of parquet floors are there? Parquet is a wooden floor that generally has a layer with a minimum thickness of 2.5 mm. It can be solid, composed of a single piece of wood, or sometimes in multi-layers, which have a layer of solid wood, a core, a veneer base and different types of varnishing. Synthetic parquet floors are much easier to clean, and they are also cheaper. They are made with fibers that imitate wood, while laminate parquet floors are made of different layers of wood, the last one being a synthetic resin compound made under high pressure that has a pattern that imitates wood, and even brick, personalized photographs, and more. Laminate floors are made of wood and do not need to raise the previous floor, hence its name of platform. They are assembled quickly and in a short time you can change a ceramic floor for a wooden one without having to damage the first one. With what to clean the parquet? With the passage of time, the parquet tends to darken, so it is important to polish it every 10 years. It is a floor that is considered alive, so its maintenance is a little different from other types of floors. While polishing will leave it looking like new, maintenance should be done by cleaning it to keep it even better. Parquet should not be washed with soap and plenty of water, as humidity is really the enemy of wooden floors. Sweep or vacuum the place very well. Make a mixture of vinegar diluted in water. Use a cloth, preferably a towel to wet it in it. Wring out the cloth very well and pass it hard on the floor. You will notice the large amount of dirt that will come out with a single pass. How to clean synthetic parquet? To clean the synthetic parquet you can do it with little abrasive cleaners. Do not use anything ammonia-based or bleach, as these will cause cracks in the floor over time. Some products can even lift the parquet layers. The most effective is still water with vinegar , following the same procedure as for cleaning natural parquet, initially, then jojoba oil can be applied, this will make scratches disappear, which usually occur from normal traffic on it. If there is a stain due to liquid spillage, a little industrial alcohol can be used, with a towel moistened with it. In case there are difficult stains such as ink or paint, mineral spirits will be one of the best resources that can be used to clean the parquet floor without damaging it. How to clean the natural parquet? Natural parquet is made of wood, it should not be cleaned with high humidity, as this can cause the fibers to break down. To clean it you must first remove the dust with a soft bristle broom. Then, a low PH cleaner can be used, using a towel, in such a way that it can be moistened in the liquid, wrung out, and then wiped over the entire surface. If the natural parquet has stains, for example, oil, grease, or ink, absorbent paper can be used. You can also use talc. In this case, you must leave the talcum powder on the stain, for at least 24 hours, then you will vacuum and that's it! you will notice how the stain disappears easily. How to clean the parquet floor so that it shines? Nothing like having a bright and beautiful parquet. To have it you can use a little olive oil, which can be used by wiping a clean cloth quickly. Green tea oil also works. At least once a month it is necessary to wax the parquet floor so that it is very shiny. The most recommended products to do so are paste wax, or liquid wax. To apply it, use a cotton cloth, distributing it in the best possible way, without leaving accumulated patches. Let the wax dry and polish it with a polisher or a woolen cloth. There are also wool mops specially designed for this. How to clean the parquet daily? Parquet flooring is really easy to maintain. To do it you will only need to sweep it with a soft bristle broom, you will not need more. So that there are no scratches on the floor, it is preferable not to wear high-heeled shoes on it. It is also important to place stickers on the legs of tables and chairs so that when they move they will not cause scratches on the parquet. How to clean blackened parquet? The parquet floor usually blackens due to its use. To eradicate it you can pass a soft cloth, moistened in white vinegar. Let it act for five minutes and then you can dry it with a clean and soft cloth. How to clean damaged parquet? While you change the tablets that have been damaged, you should know that there is only one thing that can ruin the parquet and that is humidity. Either due to errors in its cleaning or due to problems in the base floor. Once the problem has been identified and solved, you must pass sandpaper so that the tables are smooth, then they can be varnished. This step will always be best done by a professional cleaner. We have both the staff and the appropriate instruments so that you can recover your parquet, without causing further damage. How to clean the parquet so that it shines? If the parquet is very dirty, it can be carved, in this way it is polished immediately, leaving it as new. Then with a vacuum cleaner, the dust must be cleaned very well. Varnish is applied to the surface and it will be perfect. If it is normally dirty, it can be cleaned with a mop soaked and wrung out with a mixture of vinegar and water. Use vinegar in a smaller proportion, because in excess it can stain the floor. Wipe with a dry cloth to speed up the process. Two to three hours later, you can wipe a cotton rag with wax, wiping it quickly but evenly over the wood, avoiding any clumps. Let it dry very well and then use a polisher so that the wax is sealed and with extra shine. Deep cleaning your parquet floor can be a bit cumbersome, but we have the professional staff and the right tools to have your floor look like new in no time. Now you know how to clean the parquet in your house, but if you don't want to take care of it, you can always contact us so that we can take care of it, since we have experience cleaning houses and our qualifiedfloor cleaning professionals can take care of this job. for you with a full guarantee. It is always a good idea to seek an external or outsourced professional cleaning service in all states and cities in Australia to take care of all your professional cleaning needs.