There are many designs that you can put your home through – but one question always comes up within home improvement and home redesigns > Paint vs Wallpaper: Which suits your home best?

Of course there are many rooms in one house, with bathrooms obviously opting for paint over wallpaper for water damage reasons, but exactly what are the advantages and disadvantages of both materials and what can you do with them both?

Wallpaper Advantages

Wallpaper offers a huge variety of patterns to choose from as well as a huge selection of textures and colors which can be picked up at any home improvement shop or megastore. Plus, textured wallpaper can add more oomph to your walls which paints cannot offer (unless you get a professional painter which can be costly). Some new wallpapers even have beading, sequins, lace and ribbons that add more drama and style to a bare wall.

One of the main advantages to wallpaper is that it can easily hide holes in a wall or deep scratches which could have been caused from a variety of reasons. Also, if you are selling your home and have cracks in your plaster walls from general heating and cooling, a wallpaper session  can add new value to your sell.

Wallpaper is also your only option for fire damaged walls, unless the fire damage is light or you have arms of steel to get the soot off.

Wallpaper Disadvantages

The main disadvantage to all wallpapers is that they are horrible to clean and maintain as they (unless special wallpaper) soak up grease and stains quite easily. So if you have kids armed with crayons and chocolate covered hands your once beatiful wallpaper will quite simply become a mess.

Wallpaper can also be expensive, and the actual ‘putting it on’ time consuming if never done before. Wallpapaer generally also has a lower shelf life as they can fade under sun light.

Paint Advantages

Paint is a low maintenance, cheap and easy-to-apply interior treatment – Having painted walls means that you need not be so worried about maintaining and cleaning your walls. Most kinds of dirt and stains can easily be cleaned of a painted wall or when the stain does not come off completely, you can easily paint that area in the wall the same color to cover up the stain. While cover up stains and fixing unsightly marks on wallpaper can be quite difficult and expensive since you might have to remove one entire panel of wallpaper and replace it just because of a small stain.

Paint has a huge shelf life once applied, and if well maintained will last for years (ceiling paint excluded if you smoke as it will discolour due to nicotine stains).

Paint Disadvantages

Paint doesn’t really offer much texture or design and unlike wallpaper which can instantly create illusions, designs and texture where there are none, using paint to achieve the same effect can be a difficult task. If you want walls with flower designs without using wallpaper, you have to paint the flowers yourself which would take a lot of time and effort and usually only look crap anyway. You can also use stencils to paint designs although these designs would not be as detailed and flawless as those in printed wallpapers.

So which suits your home best? You now know the advantages and disadvantages to paint and wallpaper so take your pick . To be honest a mix of the two is always nice, and if you have a bedroom perhaps paint all round apart from the wall your beds headrest is on would be a good option.

All comments welcome.

Energy saving lightbulbs are slowly becoming the norm within houses with newer versions and revised editions becoming better and brighter. Although energy saving lightbulbs aren’t applicable in every room of your house – with really dark areas needing proper lighting, energy saving lightbulbs are one of the best ways to kick start a new greener life < and also save money in the process.

The phasing out of inefficient tungsten filament bulbs started well back in 2006, with bulbs over 100 watts being discontinued to make way for more efficient ones. The Next light bulbs to be phased out will be the standard shaped bulbs (usually called A-shaped) that are used in most homes, which require a fair bit of packaging and a lot of emissions in the production process.

Energy saving light bulbs fit in ordinary light fittings – and if you have a dimmer switch you can buy special dimming energy saving light bulbs. There are a few types of energy saving lightbulb to choose from, these are listed below;

Compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs): these are the most common energy saving light bulbs and come in stick shape, candle shape, small or medium screw and bayonet fittings – they are also the cheapest and regularly, dependant upon manufacturer, last the longest too.

Energy saving halogen light bulbs: Halogen energy saving lightbulbs are a good option if you have halogen lights in your home. They consume around 30% less electricity than standard halogen bulbs, and are also brighter than CFLS.

LED lights: LED lighting has been used within industry and the military for years – they have progressed rapidly in recent years and can now be used to replace existing halogen spotlights. LED Lighting can also be used in design, and if you are in for a spot of home improvement then LED lighting is a fantastic way to make your home more modern.

Metal Sheds

Save energy to save yourself money

Saving energy has never been more apparnt than now – not just with the intention of saving a few pounds on your bills, saving energy is also helping the planet recover from all the notoriously bad gasses that have been pumped in to the atmosphere since the industrial revolution.

To save money and energy on your bills, try turning your thermostat down a couple of degrees and install compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) when your older incandescent bulbs burn out. Other ways of saving energy include using a cold wash cycle when washing clothes as up to 85 percent of energy consumption occurs heating up the water.

Save water to save yourself money

Water consumption is a major problem all over the world, with many people taking advantage of it while many people  don’t even have the opportunity to do so.

Saving water can be achieved in a few ways, with one of the most effective ways being to take shorter showers and run shallower baths. Low flow shower heads are a good way of keeping shower costs down, and do not cost too much either – in fact, if you buy one for £20 then chances are over a period of 3 months you’ll have make your money back.

Drink Tap Water

Drink tap water, not bottled and save money as well as helping the planet. If you don’t like the taste use a filter. UK tap water is more tested and regulated than most bottled waters. The industry uses around 2.7 million tonnes of plastic in packaging not to mention the transport cost in fossil fuel. Even the plastic that is recycled has a transport overhead. So next time you want water – turn on the tap.

If you live in a hard water area then the best way to make tap water drinkable is to boil it and then filter it, as boiling eats up all metallic properties within the water.

Metal Sheds

There are many floor surfaces you can choose for your kitchen. It not only needs to look good, but it will also have to cope with knocks, occasional spills, scratches (from pets especially)  and stains.  Suppliers of flooring will most probably advise you on whether to go for a concrete, timber, vinyl or linoleum base to complement your area or space – but the decision in the end is up to you and what feels good under your feet.

Concrete flooring has become an increasingly popular trend in modern kitchen design as of late, and comes in all sorts of specialised patterns – of which you can even design yourself.

Concrete is incredibly strong and non flexible – meaning it will not shrink. When layered completely flat and with a good underlay, concrete flooring will last you up to 5 years. Usually a special coating is also available to make the concrete splash proof, meaning that red wine will not be an issue.

What this means, in terms of budgets and figures, is that concrete is a set price and can be layered in two ways – either as concrete tiles or a single sheet of which is layed within the kitchen on site (better get a takeaway ).

Over tiled flooring, concrete flooring can be non expensive and also underfloor heating safe as it can be mixed with heat variable chemicals < so no cold feet in the Winter as concrete is notorious for holding a cold.

In terms of Home Improvement concrete can be used in any rooms of the house to be honest, and can be mixed with wood in areas or even carpet – it is cheap, flexible and will last you agers and whats more, if you get bored, then overlaying with wood is not a problem.

Anyway just a quick post from work, if you have any questions please feel free to comment!

Whether you are replacing or re-fitting a loose brick or building a wall in your garden or house, laying a brick is a simple process and one which this article hopes to tone your skills. Remember that paying particular attention to basic principles will help you succeed with your project.

Gather your materials

It is important with any task that you gather all your required materials before hand; this is called proper preperation. To lay brick generally you need bricklayer trowels and bricklayer pointers, a bricklayer hammer, chisels, a bubble measurer and a mixing board. You will also need bricks .

Make your foundation

You should pour a concrete foundation if the place you are laying a brick or building the wall does not have an existing slab, brickledge or footing to work on. Your foundation must be level and below the grade of the finished ground so that the brick you have just layed is all you see when your wall is finished, it is hugely important that you also use a bubble leveler to make sure that your foundation is 100% flat.

Mix your masonry cement or mortar properly

This can be done in a wheelbarrow for small projects, or a mortar box if you don’t have access to a mortar mixer or cement mixer. Basically, to mix the mortar, you will use a ratio of three parts masonry sand (builders sand, if it is very clean), to one part masonry cement. Add water to the dry materials and mix to a consistancy like pudding. Too dry, and it will be difficult to “set” the brick in the mortar bed, too wet and the brick will sag.

Space and lay your mortar

Start at a corner, and using the trowel, scoop up mortar and place a 4 to 6 inch wide band on the footing or slab about 1 inch thick. Set a brick down in this “bed” of mortar, and tap it down with the handle of your trowel, until it is level, parallel to the line of your wall, and the edge is plumb. Repeat with 6 or 8 brick, using the edge of the trowel to cut away the excess mortar that is shoved out from under the brick as you go.

Place your brick

Place your brick on the mortar you have just spaced and layed, and push down on it so that any excess cement / mortar pretrudus from the side. Now take one of your tools and remove the excess cement at the sides, and place your bubble level on top of the brick to make sure the cement has leveled itself.

Patchett Joinery