Don't nip a currant in half !

Faithful up my ey blogworms ! .... What ?? You're all familiar with my opening phrase by now. This illustrates what happens when you get the order wrong ! The phrase goes wrong, it's sounds like a drunk Yoda from Star wars and it takes some sorting out !!

 Exactly the same is true in the world of fitted kitchens !! It's come to my attention this week about a project that's left people in tears because things were done in the wrong order and badly. ( these pictures are not from the project, they're just representative of the stupid things people do ! )

Aside from kitchen suppliers who just make a balls of supplying the goods wrong in the first place ... that's a whole other argument and I'm sure we all know horror stories on that one !


A kitchen where you've tried to cut corners and save money,can and frequently does, go wrong. Organising the right people at the right time with the right skills to ensure a successful project is absolutely key to the whole thing. 

You wouldn't want a car mechanic doing a kidney transplant on a member of your family anymore than you'd want a double glazing salesman fitting your kitchen BUT people do !! in a manner of speaking.

Wake up people !!!!! These pictures just represent some of the idiotic things that happen when you make bad choices. AND the last picture is completely beyond me .... did the bathroom fitter and the kitchen fitter get their wires crossed or what ???

Am I going to help out with the project that went wrong , I hear you ask .... nope !  I understand there were some bad choices and decisions made against good advice, they thought they knew better, so basically they got what they deserved ! It's down to the suppliers to sort this one out.

A kitchen is a big ticket item and you want the very best for the money you're spending ... so stop making stupid decisions and research your project properly, don't get your friends cousins mate's uncle to fit your kitchen for £20 less just because he fitted one for a relative 30 years ago... It's absolute bloody madness !!  

You need to be talking to a company who:

Employs their own fitters, not subcontractors

Takes the whole project into consideration and only uses qualified plasterers, electricians, gas fitters etc who can work to building control standards.

Has someone who can organise and place the right person in the right place at the right time during the installation work.

Get this right and it works pretty well, most of the time. Houses, new and old, can throw up challenges at the most unexpected time and you need a company who just shrugs it off, gets on with it and sorts it out. You don't need someone who says" S'not my job !" You need 'Can do' people not 'Can't do ' people.

If you've had a project go wrong from circumstances beyond anyones control then my heart goes out to you BUT if you've had it go wrong through trying to nip a currant in half to save money ... them I'm sorry but I have absolutely no sympathy for you, you are a victim of you're own stupidity !! End of. 

Your money is hard earned .... spend it wisely ! 

Rant over. take heed. Jules

Roman Engineering

Ey up my faithful blogworms, Simplicate .... strange word but when broken down it makes sense. Most things in life can be complicated, if you let them, but any project can be made simpler when you set your stall out right.

Take something complicated and simplify it .... Basically what I've said for a long time. Look to the Romans for inspiration, they created some stunning stuff with limited tools, knowledge and experience but a creative mind and an attitude that kept things simple but very effective ! .... Roman engineering .... simple and functionally spot on as the main aim, but always with an eye for design, the aesthetic followed and let's face it .... what they created lasted for centuries.

Here's some more concepts based on our 5 element 'Simplification' process showing how working with the 5 material palette can be so successful.
Wood grains can be used horizontal as well as vertical to contrast with pale / white plain colours.
It only start to look wrong if you over complicate things by using different colour woodgrain in different directions

Simplicate !


 However, same colour woodgrains work too if not overdone and balanced by single colour worktops and splashbacks. My only comment here is that I personally would have gone for a plainer floor and in this room set, I think the oven is too low !

Simplicate !

This one, I feel, is a classic where plain solid colour doors are brought to life by the framing effect of the wood grain, very simplicated, elegant standard which is still very much the main stay of the market at the moment.

A new kid on the block is the idea of reproducing a 'concrete' look into your worktops. Still keeping the natural materials feel about it, put with a white kitchen it just adds some character to the mix. 

Using a contrasting floor here, as dark as you like, provides a great platform to really show off a light coloured kitchen.


Using the ability within our 5 material simplification, to install matching, complementing or contrasting splashback / worktop combinations always makes for a cleaner, more contemporary feel to a kitchen project and is eminently more practical in terms of cleaning than using tiles.

Don't get me wrong, I still feel that tiles can play an important part in a kitchen project but it very much depends on the style you are trying to create.

Simplicating a process, I suppose, is nothing new as Roman engineering got there first, but for the modern age where life is complicated enough, anything that makes life simpler but still effective has surely got to be a good thing ???

Apart from this .... I've invented a new word .... how fab is that ??

Jules

Simplicate !

Ey up my faithful blogworms, following on from last weeks blog we are going to develop the idea further with the 5 element room set concept. Probably the simplest way yet to plan any kitchen project.

 When planning any kitchen project it's useful, once the design side is taken care of, to have a colour base in your mind as a starting point.

This start colour is typically the doors or the worktop and build from there. 

'Mood boards' have proved to be useful for a lot of people, often comprising pictures clipped out of magazines etc. 

This is where we're coming from with this 5 element concept. We have a materials palette now that provides us with all the elements listed in my previous blog: see 'Holistic calm'.

Building a picture of colour elements from materials sat in front of you helps enormously to visualise the finished project. 
In a lot of cases this involves dashing in and out of various shops / showrooms trying to carry a colour in your head to match it up to something else. 

This sound familiar ???

Yes .... thought so !

It can't get easier than having all the colours presented in different ways in the same place to fine tune your thoughts. The stress alone this saves, let alone the shoe leather in trailing round losing patience and getting increasingly annoyed.

Second huge benefit is that you don't have to source and contract seperate tradespeople and co-ordinate them, you can simply say to us ... Love that, perfect, can you crack on and fit it ... to which, of course, the answer is Yes ! All taken care of in 1 go, how much easier is that ??

Well, you may ask, "You're Milestone Eco Design" ... where's the Eco bit gone ?. 
Surely you know us better by now to know it's there somewhere ?

Yep, course it is, all the materials we have here to use are all high recycled content / Fsc mix materials. So now you can take the whole project to the Eco level if you choose.

Good eh ?

We are still looking to work closely with green builders, Eco minded retail stores, green architects etc. where this concept works brilliantly in providing reproduceable room sets as we already provide for H & M Retail Stores and Lush Stores.

We put a package together where all the elements are supplied time after time in a complete set, 1 load, 1 drop, everything's there you need, job done !

Putting together a project as big as opening a new store or refurbishing an existing one is huge, so the reproduceable room set saves them time & stress and we GUARANTEE that everything they need will be there, on time, no excuses !

We've taken something complicated and simplified it .... and the word for this is .... 

SIMPLICATE !

For the very best in simplicated kitchens ... you know where we are, contact us now !

Jules.