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An office fit out is a great project to undertake, with options and opportunities aplenty. As the second largest city in the UK, Birmingham has a lot to offer businesses of all sizes, from SMEs up to global corporations. Fitting out an office is often one of the first steps towards major success that a business can take. It may feel like a major financial undertaking but it’s one that will benefit a business in so many ways.

An office fit out allows you to specify exactly what you want and need to make your business a success. It’s an opportunity not to be missed for most businesses, but especially those that rely on their premises as the main place of work for their core team. A good base for your office is essential, as are the facilities that you are able to provide.

How can fitting out an office benefit your business?

There are many offices available to buy or rent in Birmingham. Fitting out a new office or refurbishing an older office gives you the chance to specify your needs and work with a professional fit out company to arrive at an office space that suits you down to the ground.

These are some of the ways an office fit out can tangibly improve a business:

·     Improved health and safety. An office layout needs to be functional and safe. When you rent an office unit, you might need to do a lot of work to it to make it safe and suitable – it’s often better to start from scratch. A fit out project lets you get the health and safety factors

·     Better lighting. This is important for providing good working conditions and can feed into health and safety in many ways too. Suspended ceilings allow you to fit better lighting that is more functional and that better suits your purpose, so you can ensure good visibility – something that is essential when staff are working on computers all day.

·     Better staff morale. An attractive, well laid out workspace will give staff a more positive impression of their workplace. They will be more likely to enjoy coming to work and spending time in that kind of environment. You can also lay out an office in ways that will promote better working practices, such as creating breakout zones or making larger communal kitchen areas where people can eat and socialise. The layout and design of a business is in many ways related to staff performance. 

·     Space for more people to work. One major problem that faces businesses is having the space to grow. They may have the capability, but not the resources, which stands in their way. Fitting out and designing an office that allows space for growth, with more work stations as additional people join the team, is a great forward thinking move. It is a step that a business focused on growth would be likely to take, thinking of the future with their office design and layout.

Solid Oak flooring is one of the most common forms of flooring around the world. Some choose to carpet over the top of it, but it remains the case that oak flooring is in common use, and for a number of good reasons. It is a strong, durable, and long lasting material that can undergo significant stresses and resist damage throughout the process. Some choose to leave it uncovered, and solid oak flooring can fulfil a range of different design styles in this capacity. To get oak floorboards, homeowners typically expect to pay a significant amount of money for the service, but there are some important methods for reducing these overheads that we hope to make you aware of.

Oak floorboards are typically rated as being one of the best options in terms of flooring. This is because, like many other natural wood products, they are able to outperform many other flooring options, such as concrete. Concrete can be a great flooring option, however, its weight can be a significant problem when implemented in higher floors. If you intend to use concrete on multiple floors of a new home, you should expect the actual development of your home to increase significantly, if only to increase the ability of the structure to withstand the added weight that concrete brings. Also, while concrete is a harder material than wood, it is also far more brittle, which can present problems in various scenarios.

Oak is a hardwood, which basically means that the wood is slower growing and has smaller grains. As a result of this, degradation of oak floorboards takes place over much longer periods, and solid oak flooring made hundreds of years ago can still be found in use around the world. Hardwoods such as oak is also a much stronger material than softer woods, and can be used in various structures to add stability, and can bear much greater stresses without harm. All this leads to the conclusion that over the long-term, oak flooring will require less maintenance, and will need to be replaced less regularly, leading to a lower overall pricetag.

One of the best ways to reduce the overall pricetag of your solid oak flooring is to purchase reclaimed wood. When a home or other property is demolished, there is often an abundance of suitable wood for reclamation. After a treatment carried out by experts, you will see that reclaimed solid oak flooring is virtually indistinguishable from recently produced wood, but the overall cost of the wood is significantly reduced. The one area where it is potentially different is that the age of wood can be apparent in some cases, with the wood looking older. Many consider this aged look to aesthetically pleasing, but if not, this wood is still a great and cheap option for using where carpets will be installed anyway, or when you plan to add a finish to the wood, such as a varnish of some description.

Another area you can reduce the cost of your wood is by making sure that you go to carpenters to pre-shape the wood to meet the precise size requirements of your property and your design choice. Many choose to use solid oak flooring in specific artistic formations and patterns in order to enhance the overall appeal, and one of the ways that people run afoul with this is by purchasing standard sized wood, whereas significant costs can be avoid by getting correctly sized wood straight from a supplier.

An option which is only rarely explored by homeowners is to hire an artist to decorate their walls. By this we don’t mean paying them to produce paintings which you can then place on your walls, but instead to hire them to treat your wall as their canvas.

Some of the most highly valued pieces of art have been done onto the architecture of a building, such as with the ceiling of the Sistine chapel. While this is expensive to have done in your home, particularly if you’re interested in particular well known artists, it can be affordable if you manage your expectations.

The benefits of having this done in your home is that you’ll have a unique piece of art which blends in seamlessly with the architecture of your home. It also means that you’ll be able to give some input into what you want, which isn’t really an option in most cases of putting art in a home.

Hot-tub are one of those great things that can really add to your quality of life. A lot of people underestimate them, but whether you’re entertaining guests or are just looking for a great place and way to relax, hot tubs stand above the rest of most other options.

One of the most important decisions to make about your hot-tub is where you’re going to put it. This can have a lot of impact on how you enjoy it and the experiences you make in it. If you place it outside, chances are you’re going to be able to enjoy it with friends and family more easily. If you place it in your bathroom then the whole atmosphere will change, and it really only becomes suitable for more private affairs.

Besides where you put it, you also need to consider its size. This can also have a massive impact on how you use and experience your hot-tub, so you should carefully consider your options.

It has long been said that the kitchen is the heart of the home and whilst times and lifestyles change, we still believe this to be true. The kitchen is not just a place where you prepare meals but it is a room where families and friends come together and share good food and good times. But this can be seriously impacted if the kitchen décor isn’t up to standard.

Unfortunately kitchens tend to go through a lot but they don’t get as much attention when it comes to decorating or get those little homely touches that bedrooms and livingrooms are given. This is usually down to the fact that people believe to make a kitchen more inviting you would usually have to gut the entire room and replace it with all new surfaces and appliances.

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So many new homes are painted in ‘builder’s magnolia’ and for some reason it’s become a favourite among developers. It has many neutral qualities, and it can work nicely in any room, but ‘nice’ isn’t always good enough.

Magnolia can be boring and it certainly lacks personality, so think about the colours that reflect you and your family before you decide on your wall colours. Even if you’re not quite ready for a bold colour, there are nice pastel shades that offer a lot more than magnolia, such as orange, lime green, pale yellow and peach. These light yet fruity colours can give your home more life, and even a deep grey tone will add more character than magnolia.

If you do fancy something a bit bolder a deep red, a vibrant turquoise or a lightning blue can do the job, while a combination of zesty greens can create an eye-catching colour theme throughout your home.

A lamp or a series of lamps will obviously add practicality to rooms (with bright light), but they’re also extremely important in terms of styling.

A Luxo lamp is perfect for executive offices and living rooms and it can add a classical style to a room, yet it’s highly practical too and you can move the light to face whatever direction you wish.

Lava lamps are rather 70s in style, and they tend to come and go but they can work brilliantly in colourful rooms and cosy snugs, but they won’t provide quite as much light as a standard lamp.

An oak table lamp with a classical lamp shade may not be the most modern, but it’s still a quality option, and the classical style can work well in any type of home. Sleek touch lamps are completely different, and you’ll often find these stainless style models in contemporary, glossy homes.

When you’re deciding on the right paint for your walls, you need to choose wisely, because it’s going to be a long-term decision. Not many people change the colours of their walls on a monthly or even yearly basis, so you have to get the job done right.

The problem is, there are so many different colours out there, and making up your mind can be difficult. The best place to start is by choosing a tone that can work well in your room. Do you want to go light or dark? Does it need to be vibrant? These are the questions you should be asking yourself, and you should then come to a decision on a definite colour.

Most people get samples first, so you can paint a section of your wall and see what it looks likes. This is always best as it means you get to see the colour as it will appear, not as it appears in catalogues or on websites.

Oak is one of those materials; it’s classy, it’s valuable and it’s really pleasing on the eye. That said, oak isn’t cheap and that’s because it’s solid, hard-wearing and it’s going to last for decades or even centuries.

If you want to add quality to your home then oak furniture can help and this could be in the form of coffee tables, wardrobes, doors, sideboards, television cabinets, and dining tables among other items. Oak can work well in modern and traditional homes, and it will perfectly compliment timber beams and wooden flooring. The more oak in your home, the more stylish it will look, and that’s why many people are adding quality oak furniture to their homes.

You can also buy reclaimed oak furniture at a cheaper price, and this is essentially salvaged wood from foreign lands that’s been picked up at a good price and transformed into something beautiful. This type of oak usually has a rustic edge too.

There are quite a number of factors to consider when purchasing latte cups. This is especially the case for individuals who would like to use them in their coffee making business. The cups that are used in commercial establishments are very different from those that are used at home or at dinner parties. The following are some of the factors that will guide the business owner during the buying process:

Single-use or reusable cups

This is one of the biggest factors to consider when looking for cups for a coffee house. There are some customers who like their lattes on-the-go, and they would prefer to purchase their lattes so that they can drink them in their office. There are others who would prefer to take their coffee in-house as they read a book or surf the web. The business owner should buy reusable cups for the in-house client and single-use cups for the client who takes their coffee on-the-go. This way, they will cater to everyone who visits their establishment to order lattes. (more…)