Watch informative and inspiring videos on various home improvement and design topics.
As soon as you enter a dining kitchen, you are immediately captivated by the unique blend of calm and elegance. The interplay of oil blue and natural light creates an intimate yet modern space, where every detail has been carefully crafted to bring together classic and modern styles in timeless harmony.
Continue reading Oil blue dining kitchen – classic elegance and modern harmony in one
Imagine you’ve finally bought the bourgeois home of your dreams, but after moving in you realise that there’s no money left to renovate. The walls are worn, the furniture is faded and the whole place feels a bit like it’s stuck in the last century. What if I told you that this wasn’t necessarily a problem, but an opportunity?
There’s no need to hide that old, shabby chic feel – in fact, with a little creativity and a few well-chosen accessories, you can turn it into a stylish, chic home. It’s a style called Shabby Chic, which brings you the charm of shabby chic and helps you temporarily build up enough cash to finance a major renovation when you’re ready for a change of style. If you’re wondering how to get the most out of your old home without digging deep into your pockets, join us and explore the world of Shabby Chic!
Fantasising about your dream home while looking at colour swatches and browsing furniture catalogues? Stop for a moment! Before you dive into the exciting world of home renovation, there are a few key things you can’t ignore. These hidden factors can not only save your wallet from unpleasant surprises later on, but also ensure the safety and comfort of your home. Discover with us what you need to look out for to ensure that your home is not only beautiful, but also livable after renovation!
There is a style that has both the patina of time and all the advantages of modern comfort. The Shabby Chic style is the perfect solution! Find out how to transform your worn-out old furniture into unique and stylish pieces, while creating a sustainable and cost-effective way to transform the atmosphere of your home.
Are you ready to discover the secrets of the Shabby Chic world and create an authentic eclectic space with a vintage feel all your own? Read on for a peek into the art of reviving furniture!
Continue reading Shabby Chic magic: Reviving and maintaining old furniture in your home
Increasing Comfort While Reducing Heating Costs. You can enhance your comfort while reducing heating costs. It is well-known that the lower the temperature of the water used by your boiler to heat the home, the more economical it is. This is especially true for condensing boilers. However, the lower the temperature of the heating water, the harder it is for the heat to be emitted, as the temperature difference between the room and the incoming water decreases. This issue can be resolved by increasing the surface area of the heater. Beyond a certain size, this would be impractical with radiators. Moreover, multi-panel radiators increasingly rely on convection (heating the air) rather than radiation to emit heat. This is not ideal, as radiative heat at lower temperatures provides a more pleasant and better thermal sensation. The following describes how to install wall heating in an occupied apartment with minimal mess and disruption, which can be done as a DIY project. 8mm diameter heating pipes are installed between strips of drywall, then one wall is covered with an additional layer of drywall and the other with porcelain tiles.
Here, the heating pipe is already in the living room wall:
Two basic principles:
- Produce the energy with highly efficient equipment!
- Don’t let the generated energy go to waste!
The transformation of the living room:
As much as it’s a priority to steer the population away from gas consumption, let’s admit that in an apartment block without district heating (central heating), heating and hot water can primarily be provided by gas, and secondarily by electricity. If many people switched from gas to electric heating, it would also cause problems, as many apartment block infrastructure and stairwell electrical systems are not designed for mass electric heating. Therefore, the possibility of massively increasing the amperage of apartments would also face limitations. Naturally, heating with air conditioning could be an alternative to direct electric heating, as it represents roughly a quarter of the electrical load, but many people do not like the warm air blowing, and the numerous outdoor units attached to the façades are already a terrible sight. For this reason, I believe gas will remain predominant to a greater extent.
But what can we do to keep our gas bill low?
Continue reading Energy cost reduction in an apartment block – DIY – window replacement, internal insulation, underfloor heating
Besides general home renovations – such as replacing cold and warm flooring, kitchen cabinets, and sanitary ware – a crucial point was to create a low utility cost home.
Because of this, modern plastic insulated glass windows with shutters were installed, and the previous convector heating, open combustion bathroom heating, and the open flow-through domestic hot water unit were replaced with a single condensing boiler.
Since there is zero chance for common facade insulation in the apartment building in the near future, 10cm thick glass wool internal insulation was installed on the enclosing walls, with a vapor barrier heat reflective foil and drywall covering.
