Ey up, my faithful blogworms, Sorry it's been a bit quiet lately but we've been working away from base and the holiday season is upon us, you know what it's like !
But here we are back again and firing on all 4 cylinders ( or electric motor, if you're of the Hybrid persuasion )
We had much excitement and jollity on the day of the massive event for Yorkshire that was the Tour de France or " Le Tour Yorkshire ", if you prefer. Finally we got the chance to show off our wonderful county the the rest of the world and it seems that we made a good impression .... about time too !! We don't call it " Gods own county" for nothing, you know.
Anyway, we made, probably, the only kitchen in the whole of Yorkshire in the colours of the "Tour" in honour of the event and it's now for sale ! We need to clear it now for new displays to go in, so if you're interested in this unique souvenir of the great event please contact on the email and we'll see if we can find it a new home.
However, what this does is give me a chance to introduce the brand new range of decors for our Eco kitchens where we got these colours from.
The range includes bold colours such as:
Blue, Green, Yellow, Red, White, Purple, Black, Brown and a range of naturals and neutrals in many different & subtle shades, opening up a fantastic palette to play with for creation of striking and interesting Eco kitchens.
Not to be ignored is now the possibility of using an Eco range of materials in these single colours for corporate furniture, desks, shelf units etc, etc.
Stimulating colours for kids bedrooms as, don't forget, we do make Eco bedroom furniture aswell !
In theory ........ if you're a passionate football fan, you could probably actually have your brand new Eco kitchen, bedroom or office made in your team colours ..... how mad would that be ??
We are also noticing trends developing in the retro market for vintage clothing, furniture, paint colours etc. generally and we feel that many of these colours will fit right in.
For those of you in the UK old enough to remember the infamous avocado green bathroom suites ....... we promise that that colour is DEFINITELY NOT included in the range !!
Retro is great but certain colours should be left buried back in their time and that's one of them !
We can get samples ( that's enough of that ) of all colours, so if this concept floats your boat, and why wouldn't it ! , let us know and we can sort you someting out, contact as usual via the email.
Feeling colourful, Jules
Ey up my faithful blogworms,
We talk lots about kitchens so, I thought this week I'd share with you a brilliant concept for complementary dining tables that I've made to go with them.
Still, in kitchens, granite is probably the most durable, effective & heatproof of all worktops but why limit it the just the kitchen.
We carry out many projects where we open up dining rooms into kitchens to create a fantastic through space where it becomes the social hub of the home. As a result, you do need to concentrate on making 2 become 1 when considering the decor.
Many people then spend loads of time trying to find a dining table that works with the kitchen furniture.
My idea was to make a table that has a central granite panel to allow you to put hot pans and dishes straight onto it, serving your family or guests straight from the pan while hot !! Much more sociable in the sharing of food, much more practical in terms of cutting down on washing up etc. of loads of unecessary serving dishes and it protects your table from annoying scratches without covering the table first.
I've never understood the principle of buying a fabulous new dining table only to cover it up with a cloth so you can't see it because you're scared to death of marking it. Totally pointless !!
The top picture here shows a table that we specifically made from scratch to go with an Oak and Baltic Brown granite kitchen, so we can save you loads of time and stress by actually making your table to match !!
The second picture shows an Oak dining table that had already been bought for a kitchen so we modified it to take the central Bon Accord granite panel to match the kitchen.
Making, in our minds, the ultimate dining table that ticks all the boxes you want to tick. So whether you already have your table or want one making to match, don't leave out your humble dining table out when thinking about your new kitchen project, we have a couple of ways of getting you the table you really want.
We can also take any timber table you may already have a insert a granite panel into it, if you just love the idea and want one creating to go with the kitchen you've already got.
After all, you wouldn't spend a small fortune on new hair-do and then spend all day wearing a balaclava ........ WOULD YOU ?
A bit more creative thinking ...... Jules.
Ey up my faithful blogworms, we are less than a month away from the biggest thing to hit our wonderful county of Yorkshire ......... I, of course, refer to :
Le Grand Depart ..... Le Tour Yorkshire, the beginning of this years Tour de France
Starting in Leeds City Centre and roaming around our beautiful county over the weekend of 5 - 6 th July
For all you fanatic bikelists, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to see this massive event in our local area.
If you've looked at our website: www.milestone.uk.net lately then you'll know that we are based smack on the Le Tour route, the main A65 through town, and the cavalcade and competitors are due to pass our very door front from about 10.30 am onwards on Saturday 5th July.
We will, of course, be open on the Saturday and would like to invite you, our faithful blogworms, to join us on the day for a fantastic vantage point of this spectacular event.
We have created a very special range of Le Tour Milestone kitchen units which will be showing off in our showroom window very shortly, ....... watch this space !!
We will be offering light snacks, teas, coffees throughout the day with a warm dry viewing point if the weathers not so good, a place to sit down for a bit and toilet facilities at your disposal.
All we ask in return for this invitation and to book your space, is that you give us a donation to our favourite charity " Guide dogs for the Disabled" via a box in the showroom. It's up to you how much !.
Places will be limited so do let us know via our email: julian@milestone.uk.net if you would like a place just so we can keep a check of numbers.
Hoping to see you on the big day !! ..... Jules
Ey up, my faithful blogworms,
It's TOP TIPS time again.
3 sets of top tips this week following conversations I've been having with our customers over the last few weeks. You can choose to use or completely ignore these tips but I would say that 90% of people we talk to have used and loved the results achieved.
# First Top Tip
When planning any room that involves fitted furniture ie: kitchens, bedrooms and sometimes bathrooms, sticking to 3 colours ( one of which can be your metals if you want ) for the entire concept gives a feel of coherency and completeness without getting visually messy. The furniture should be the feature of the room and chosen well, use the colours to complement it not shout at it !
You can, however, for one of your colours, use differing shades of the that colour and if chosen carefully, it can work well.
If you start using more than 3 colours, when you walk into the room you really don't know what to look at first, your eyes are all over the place and the room totally loses it's focus. This destroys any wow factor you may have created and just makes the room a place you want to get out of quickly and not a place you'd enjoy being.
FORGET feature walls ! these are a stupid idea in a kitchen ! The kitchen should be the feature and anything that detracts from that is a pointless waste of time and effort.
# Top Tip 2
When using built in furniture that has countertops, worksurfaces etc use a principle of blending verticals and blending horizontals to create harmony.
Choose your furniture first in terms of cabinets and tops putting some contrast in between the two, these are your priority. Using your chosen worktop colour then blend the floor covering with it. I use the word blend deliberately as they don't have to match but need a tangible link to pull them together.
Once you've sorted that, then using the blending theory, apply it to the vertical surfaces. These two principles together give a good platform to base everything else on. Certainly kitchens where these apply look much, much better in their overall look and just look right.
If you've ever looked at someones kitchen where they've got this wrong, the kitchen probably looks nice but something in your mind is telling you that somethings wrong even if you can't put your finger on it. This is why !
For example: where the floor is a similar colour or tone to the doors, it looks like the units have sort of frayed into the floor and it becomes indistinct and vague, this can look weird and is the bit that's not right, particularly if there are dark worktops accentuating the problem.
So, blend verticals with each other and blend horizontals with each other and irrespective of your colour choices, usually it looks spot on.
# Top Tip 3
This one is where wall colour can make a room really feel like a nice place to be, I suppose that's stating the obvious but consider a twist !
To really give the room a cosy feel, ignore most peoples conditioning where you always paint the ceiling white ! White ceilings are for people with no courage and imagination !! ( unless, of course, you're painting the whole room white anyway ! )
This works best where you are decorating with pale to mid colours and paint the walls and the ceiling with the same colour !
Trust me ...... with the right colours this looks absolutely stunning and really makes the room feel cosy, warm and a nice place to be !
90% or more of people we've suggested this to have done and love it and admitted that it's something they would never have thought of trying.
You've got nothing to lose cos if you don't like it, repaint it white but at least be brave enough to try it first.
There ya go 3 top tips that always work, experiment, open your mind, follow these simple principles and you will be surprised at the difference it makes to your life.
And I pass all these tips on for free ..... I must be mad !
Jules, see ya next time.
Ey up my faithful blogworms,
Big week coming up for us this week, the H & M Head office kitchen is ready to deliver. H & M are one of the most eco conscious companies we've come across and really do get our full support. If you're not currently an H & M customer, you really should look at what they can offer !!
This is quite a big kitchen and they're materials / appliances choices have been made sensibly and sympathetically to eco issues.
Our strength in projects of this type lies in our ability to put together the full project as a "one stop shop" and by careful communication with the customers specifiers, we can ensure that no parts are missed, everything arrives as planned and we make absolutely certain by careful checking that every single piece required from us arrives in one go, complete and has all the detailed plans with it that you need to assemble the project successfully.
More often than not, the customers own contractors are doing the installation work so, when the job is delivered I carry a full set of plans with me, wherever I am and give the project manager my own mobile number so I can answer any questions that may arise immediately.
On this particular project there are also 2 coffee stations required with a request for quick throughput commercial glass and dishwashers, which aren't the prettiest things to have on display in a stylish office environment but are needed for fast turn round of plates, cups & glasses between meetings.
By careful and thorough design, we have been able to design housings / cabinets around them to incorporate them seamlessly into the overall layout and by providing the detailed sketches ( seen left ) that we designed them to, then any contractor should be able to build them exactly as they were designed.
Projects like this for company head offices need to tick so many more boxes than normal domestic kitchens, they are often quite involved in their design and clever design brought about by thinking outside the box is what we're bloody good at. These are the things that we can really get our teeth into and provide solutions not normally available using standard kitchen units.
I did a blog a bit since that put definition to our way of doing " bespoke" and the way we look at it, this project is a really good example of that level of thinking.
It doesn't matter whether you're looking for a large corporate project or a well fitting kitchen for your home. Everyone gets the same level of committment from the work we do and the best quality at the best price. If you read my blog last week, you'll know that poor quality, badly thought out really winds me up. There's only one way to do a job ..... and that's correctly !!
We've always said ..... " the answer's Yes ! ..... now what's the question. If you want it and can imagine it, we can make it, ... no exceptions !
Phew .... Blowing your own trumpet is thirsty work, I'm off to make a cup of tea. We'll talk soon, I'm sure. You know where we are ..... Don't be shy.
Jules.
Ey up, my faithful blogworms, really busy at the moment and struggling to keep pace with all my computer stuff but this weeks blog is a cautionary tale for all you purchasers of new homes and apartments in converted old buildings.
Stating the screamingly obvious, you wouldn't employ an accountant to fix your roof any more than you would employ a tree feller to decorate your house !!
This becomes important when looking at new builds where builders have fitted your kitchen, builders build they don't fit kitchens ..... or they do .... but not well.
I must stress that not all builders are like this, but the frequency with which we see this is on the increase as corners are cut in the current economic climate and the only people who lose out are you, the house buying public.
It's been our experience this last two weeks where , what should have been a simple refurb of a fairly new kitchen in a old converted building, has turned into a fault finding excercise putting things right that shouldn't have been done wrong in the first place.
This makes our job more difficult, take longer and as a result, cost more than it should.
Examples:
1) A badly butchered sink base where the corner structure had been cut away and not reshaped to put the strength back leading to a wobbly cabinet, which wasn't fastened the wall anywhere making the problem worse.
2) Where the sink base had been cut round some soil pipe boxing in the corner all the fibre glass insulation they'd used to lag the soil pipe was falling into the sink base .... nice ! ... that makes your rubber gloves itchy when you put them on to wash up !
3) Washing machine and dishwasher waste pipes laid on the floor and taken up into the sink waste without the correct uphill loop of pipe that makes the pump work properly .....shortening the life of your appliances.
3) The old favourite ..... this is a kitchen .... you need as many electrical sockets as possible, for all your small appliances, it gets very irritating when you've got to unplug the toaster to put the kettle on !, as usual this installation was sadly lacking.
4) The wall boiler has a wall cabinet around it where so much of the structure was cut away that you might aswell have just stuck a kitchen unit door directly onto the boiler with magnets. .... design it better to have a wider cabinet, you muppet !
5) An outside tap was fitted to use a hose pipe outside, nice touch you'd think but not good when it doesn't have an isolator fitted to it so you can turn it off in winter ..... that'll be an insurance claim for frozen / burst pipes then ??
6) Fitting new doors to the fridge / freezer housing was a giggle, on most fridge / freezer units there is a natural gap down the hinge side to allow the doors to work properly but when the gap we found was 24mm at the top, tapering down to 18mm at the bottom, then it appears the original fitter couldn't read a tape measure either ! This has pushed the housing out of square, no wonder the doors looked wrong when we got there causing an extra 2 or 3 hours to straighten it all back out again.
7) And the one that always upsets me when I see it ..... not only were the cabinets not fastened to the wall but the worktops weren't fastened to the cabinets either ..... this is stupid ! pure laziness, bad practice and if any fitter we employed fitted kitchens this way, I'd sack him on the spot !!!!! The rigidity of any kitchen ( and it's longevity ) is totally dependant on everything being fastened to the walls and units fastened together .... if not it's doors drop, cabinets twist, go out of square and generally fall to bits long before they should.
Please take more care when looking at your new dream home in case parts of it turn into a nightmare !
Open doors, look in, test things, poke and prod things until you're happy, this is your hard earned cash you're spending !
We are always willing to go out and do an 'MOT' on a kitchen if you feel something's not as it should be.
So, help is at hand if you have any doubts at all . Choose wisely, 'Caveat Emptor' (Buyer beware) .... all that glitters is not necessarily gold !
Your kitchen crusader, Jules.
Ey up my faithful blogworms, sorry I've missed for a couple of weeks but we've been away working and last week away with our campervan for a bit of R &R.
This week is all about Bathrooms and some surprising tit bits of info that you may not know for all our Eco minded followers
Below are some pics of a bathroom we've just finished creating. Natural materials very much the theme to be used and to make it as eco friendly as we could was our mission.
The brief was to use all natural marble for the walls and floors, create a false wall to enable us to put a bath one side and the shower at the other, use a high level flush w.c. with a 6 litre flush to save water and to install a free standing vanity unit for two people.
OK, the sharp eyed amongst you will probably have spotted something missing in the top left of the first picture .... we were waiting for the mirror to arrive when I took these photos. !!
But even we've been surprised at the amount of eco boxes we could tick while putting this project together cos let's face it .... when looking at this style of bathroom .... eco is usually the last thing on your mind !.
Those of you who are familiar with the range will have spotted Fired Earths involvement here with the bath, the vanity unit, the framed mirror and the shower door all being of their supply. Fired Earth have surprised me with their current Eco thinking with regard to their materials sourcing and are much more eco friendly than I realised. I really feel that in these environmentally conscious times they ought to shout more about this. As you would expect from the brand we found the quality to be superb of the items they produce. The shower door, for example, is probably one of the best I've ever fitted ! fiddly to set up but perfect when done.
The marble for the floors and walls was from a great importer in Tockwith, ( in the York area ) Terzetto, and they supplied us superb Marmorex adhesives and grouts that are all eco friendly in the formulation, contain none of the toxic nasties usually found in these items, very low VOC content and have a high recycled content in their mixes.
Not only that but the results using them were very good indeed ... a big up to Marmorex called for I think !
The stud wall between the bath and shower was built using FSC sourced timber products with recesses both shower and bath sides to stand your usual array of bathroom products on / in to keep them to hand when needed. Funny, isn't it, there's never anywhere to put your soap !!
The purpose of the doors in the end of the wall are to give access to isolation valves for the shower unit and bath taps ( something which I find are woefully lacking in most bathrooms ) and to allow us to place the wiring for the LED lights that illuminate the recesses in the walls. The lights that you see in the flyshelf over the vanity unit are the new low energy Led COBB lights I mentioned in an earlier blog and as you can see provide a fantastic light right in front of you when using the mirror .... the perfect lighting set up !
Another bonus is the extra storage space they give for things you don't necessarily want on show in your bathroom. ( see pics below )
Something were particularly pleased with is that every single piece of kit that water comes out of has it's own isolator, so all the items can be switched off individually should problems occur, without affecting the rest of the bathroom.
I even made the little boat sat in the recess (bathside) out of bits of the crate the tiles came in, I've recycled the pallet that the bath arrived on into staging in my wifes greenhouse at home and made the doors & the frame for them in the false wall out of recycling the skirting boards that we took off when stripping the room down initially.
It just goes to show that even the most glamorous bathrooms can be pretty Eco friendly if you have the will to do it and a little bit of creative thinking.
Do check out people like Fired Earth, Terzetto and Marmorex and view them in a new " green " light, they're trying more to work the rest of us now and take climate change a lot more seriously !!
As ever, Jules
Full set of pics here
http://www.pinterest.com/milestone01/earth-marble-and-stone-milestone-bathroom/
Ey up my faithful blogworms, more this week about how you can recycle discarded or broken everyday items into something unique, fabulous & functional.
It was William Morris who said " Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful ! " I couldn't have put it better myself, function should definitely come before form but there's no reason why it can't look fantastic too if designed right.
The two items I'm showing you today, made by my own hand, in my shed ( where all the best things are made ! ) tick all the form and function boxes you would ever wish to, but are made completely by recycling other stuff. That's what I think Morris would have added today !.
I know this has nothing to do with eco kitchens but it sort of does really, it's to do with our kitchen in our campervan which, itself, I made from recycling oak floorboards.
We've decided to start a sort of 'tradition' of our own when going out in the campervan with our good friends in theirs.
Arrive at site, set up the awning, get unpacked, have a drink. That's the sequence. That's where these fab little boxes come in. I've made us one each, ours has a picture of Pandora, our bus on it, and theirs has a picture of Poppy, their bus, on it.
Ours is made entirely from recycling a wooden framed swing / hammock that my mum had & enjoyed right up untill she passed away a few years ago. So it great for us to think the a little piece of my mums memory goes with us on every trip we make. It holds 2 Gin & Tonics, perfect for us and we've got other spirit miniatures for our kids to take with them when they, in turn, take their kids away for a campervan trip.
The second box took a whole load more making than ours as the design challenges were more difficult. It's for our really good friends, Tracy & John from Liberty Campers , a camper hire company based here in Ilkley, it holds two beers and is made in the colours of their bus 'Poppy' who's red with a white roof.
Modelled on a Westfalia pop top roof, it's the only "Westfakia Pop Top Beerbox" in existence, made from recycled plywood, recycled mdf and recycled curtain linings for the pop top fabric.
Using a small hydraulic piston, the pop top opens automatically when you undo the catch and you just lift out you bottles of beer. The fabric lower edges are on Velcro so they can be released to clean out the box if necessary and to let you replace the piston if it ever stops working.
Completed by the addition of a picture of 'Poppy' on the lid & the number plate on the front, should Tracy & John ever sell Poppy ( god forbid ) the box could be repainted with a new pic on the lid and it's ready to go with a new bus. !! Simples.
Well, there ya go, isn't recycling wonderful, a few bits of discarded material, a bit of lateral thinking and a whole new campervanning accessory is born.
A positive heirloom that can be passed down the generations of future guardians of our wonderful vehicles !!
See ya next time, Jules
Ey up my faithful blogworms, You can't have helped notice that "Le Tour Yorkshire", the Yorkshire leg of the Tour De France has been in the news recently as the 100 days countdown has started
As you will see from the map, the Tour hits Ilkley on the Saturday 5th July and goes straight past our showroom front window on the main A65 trunk road.
Le Tour is the biggest major event to hit Ilkley in " I don't know how long". Certainly nothing this big in my living memory and I'll lived around here all my life.
Ilkley is one of the Tour 'hubs' so everything you could want to see will be going on in and around town, that's going to make it murder to move around by car for the whole weekend but then one of the purposes is to promote people moving around by bike or on foot as it's better for you anyway!!
As we're slap bang on the main road, we will be open all day on the Saturday and are welcoming our valued existing customers to join us in the showroom for the perfect vantage point. We will have unlimited free tea and coffee on all day, toilet facilities, and a place to shelter & sit down if the weather's inclement and you want to rest your weary legs.
We are also proposing to have small commemorative "Recycled Roadstone Plaques" to celebrate the event available for sale both before and on the day for a reasonable cost. Numbers of these will be limited so fans of the plaques, this is a one off opportunity, so don't miss out !!
(More details of size, format and cost of these in the near future)
If you want to book a 'Roadstone Plaque' before the event, do let me know and we can make sure you get one. In fact, if you want to take advantage of our viewing point, it would be good if you let me know anyway as we only have so much space and if we can limit the numbers then we'll all have enough space to enjoy the day without getting squashed. Unlike our local sheep !!
You can contact me through our website or on: julian@milestone.uk.net to book your place at, probably, the only venue on the day where it costs you nowt to be here and not be crushed in the crowds !!
Supporting Le Tour and helping our valued customers enjoy it .... What a Public Service from those extremely nice people at Milestone Design !!
Your interests at heart ..... Jules
Ey up my faithful blogworms, my apologies for leaving you with nothing to read last week but eco duty called down in sunny Essex so I didn't get chance to spout forth words of wisdom last week. Hopefully this weeks will make up for it
I bring you further news from a cast of thousands, can you see what I did there ??
Following on from last weeks dipping into all things iron, I felt I should elaborate a bit more on our fabulous deal with these brilliant products.
Every one who takes advantage of our "Try before you Buy " scheme will be asked to fill in their own personal test report .... don't worry ... it's not "War & Peace", just a few simple questions with even simpler answers about how you feel the pans perform with your style of cooking. Your version of a "Which" report , if you like. By the way .... the Tagine ( pictured left ) is brilliant and very effecient.... we know, cos we've tried it !
Just simply for filling this in and returning it, we will offer you a 10% discount of your first purchase ( 3 item limit ) as a thank for your honest opinions and feedback. This will be a big help in further developments of new and existing products
If you get your first pans as a freebie with your new kitchen purchase from us then we'll still give you a chance to fill in the report with the same 10% discount off further ironware purchases.
There's so much more in the range than just pans, you know, it's worth checking out the full range either by coming in to see us or looking on Nethertons website: http://www.netherton-foundry.co.uk
Just a short one this week, hope you all don't mind, testing has started already so we thought it important to let you about it and how we can work together to help new developments
" Th ... Th ... Th .. That's all folks !! ( It's a cartoon thing ! if you're old enought to remember ? )
Jules
