Ey up my faithful blogworms, following on from last weeks blog I thought I'd post some more recycled roadstone plaques of beloved campervans and give you a chance to get something for nothing !!
To give you a bit more of an insight into these fab plaques, as I said last week they're made from a recycled mix of tarmac roadstone, welsh slate waste and a sand which is a peculiar geological seam that has no other useful purpose in the construction industry. The whole thing is then glazed with a mix used for lining underground ceramic pipes in mainland Europe making them very hardwearing when used as either a tile or a splashback.
Last week you saw a hob splashback featuring a 60's Splitscreen, this week I thought I'd share some of the other campers we have made plaques of.
The top one is our own bus 'Pandora' dressed up for a wedding, which makes a fantastic and unusual commemorative gift for the lucky couple and certainly a souvenir you won't get anywhere else.
The second one is of a Samba down a leafy lane in deepest Cornwall which we think is, not only a perfect shot but would make a splashback to take pride of place in any kitchen
The third one a lot of you will probably recognise as quite a famous bus formerly owned by one of the hardest working and knowledgeable couples dedicated to the VW world in the UK ........................ but who ?
The last one shown here is a great bus that was a worthy winner of Best in Show at last years CamperJam.
Their plaque was made and awarded by us for all the effort they put into making the bus the show winner it became.
That brings me to 2 very important offers.
We are looking to sponsor 2 plaques, Free Of Charge, for Best in Show awards at 2 of the VW shows this year. (that's one each ). Get in touch if you're organising shows this season and let me know why you think your show should be one we choose. Funniest or most apt reasons get the plaque !! We're looking for one in the north and one in the south
AND tell me via our facebook page whose blue & white campervan is featured in pic 3 to win a recycled yoghurt or coffee cup bread board for your bus this year.
Bread board winner will be posted on Facebook on Friday, 6th Feb
OR generally for info on sizes and prices if you want to immortalise your own ride on a plaque made from the very roadstone you drive it on, again, contact me through our facebook page.
Start your post or message "Show Bus"
As Meghan Trainor said "it's all about the Bays" ( & Splitties & T3's & T4's & T5's ) we love them all !!
Jules.
Ey up my faithful blogworms, sometimes my talents are called for in different areas !
A cheese wedding cake ... what the hell is that ??
Apparently it's becoming trendy to have a wedding cake comprised entirely of cheese !
So, being asked if I could make one, I rose to the challenge. The result is what you see here. This may seem a bit random for someone who spends his time building kitchens but it turned out so well, I thought I'd share it with you all this week.
Piling rounds of cheese up to form a cake can be risky if one of them's a bit softer and you don't want to end up with the 'Leaning Tower of Cheeser' so, I felt, a structure was needed.
This was made from recycling some old maple floorboards. The ground floor is heart shaped with an oval one for the first floor and a circular one to top it off.
Using Cheeses from the wonderful Wensleydale Creamery at Hawes in the Yorkshire Dales, we were able to get 11 different cheeses on board, using rounds, half rounds and wax covered truckles. Over 10 kgs of cheese plus the structure, it was quite heavy to say the least !
The two small bride and groom mice on top are made from felt and looked brilliant .... what else would you put on top of cheese ???
As I said, seemingly a bit random for things I normally talk about but I hope you find this, at least, entertaining and hopefully an inspiration for your own wedding cake. We were at the wedding and I have to say, the compliments were flying in !
If you're getting wed this year, I'll congratulate you now and maybe make it 'a little cheesey !'
As always, yours, Jules.
Ey up my faithful blogworms, it seems a long time since before Xmas, Happy New Year to you all and I look forward to maybe meeting some of you this year ?
The new year has taken a definite recycled turn so far. I have built up a stock of our fabulous recycled coffee cup and yoghurt pot boards in the period upto Xmas and have been making chopping boards, amongst other things, seen below.
We have 30 odd sheets of material in stock and we are clearing this stock and HALF it's normal price, a massive 50% saving is a significant discount.
Most of the boards are either 12mm or 20mm thick and thinking about it, these two sizes are ideal for worktops in two completely different applications
The 20mm for worktops in your home and the 12mm is perfect for campervans, mobile homes, boats and caravans etc.
We've opened the material into the campervan etc. market and the response has blown us away. Not a market we've dabbled in much upto now but clearly a new material never tried in this area before has captured folks imagination.
Any new product in any market always seems welcome as it seems we are always hungry for something different.
I think it just goes to show that sometimes it's not about brand new products but using existing stuff in a new and interesting way.
This probably really sums up a lot of the philosophy behind recycling, re-using and re-inventing products which has very much taken hold in these last 2 or 3 years or so.
I think that the best example of recycling and re-inventing in the car world, is the campervan itself. Seeing some of them dug out of hillsides and dragged from the bottom of a lake and brought back to life is recycling at it's very best. What better interiors to put inside them than another recycled material.
Do you know .... Recycling is a wonderful world to work in. The big question is: Why aren't more people doing it ????
Lets make 2015, the year of recycling !
Ey up my faithful blogworms, more new things are happening at Milestone Towers this week.
Taking a sideways look at the kitchen market has always been our thing, so the germ of a new idea for a kitchen door was born.
How many times have you made your decision on your door style when looking at your new kitchen project and then taking absolutely ages to choose a handle that, even then, you're maybe not totally happy with ?
How many time have you looked at 'handleless' doors but didn't really want the flat slab appearance they usually have ?
That's where a bit of sideways thinking comes in !!
We've taken the most popular door style ie: a shaker door and combined it with the integrated handle idea and created ......
A Handleless Shaker Door ! ...simples !
As far as we're aware it's never been done before so that's exactly the reason to have a go and make one.
From the idea to the creation, we all thought " It might look weird but let's have a go"
And, do you know, we think it looks brilliant and from folk we've shown it too so far, they think it looks brilliant too !
What do you think ?
It will fit perfectly into our Eco stable with several options for it's manufacture:
1) Made from Medite Ecologique, finished with Organic paints in any colour from the range.
2) Made from Sustainable Tulipwood and either finished with Organic paints or clear lacquered to keep the timber appearance.
3) We could also make it from our Eco Elite timber selections, natural finished in Oak, Walnut and Ash.
Not forgetting our ability to make any door, any size, there isn't a kitchen on the planet that couldn't benefit from such a revolutionary approach to door manufacture.
Another milestone from Milestone !!
Following the theme for this month and fast approaching the festive season, I bet we could even make it from recycled Christmas trees !!
But what the hell would we do with several tons of pines needles afterwards ??
You heard it here first. Jules.
Ey up my faithful blogworms, This week it's something really, really special. Milestone, after slogging away for 8 years now on our environmental path ... have finally been recognised by winning a prestigious green award.
The 2014 PEA Awards ( People Environment & Achievement ) have honoured us with a win in the Retail Category for our comprehensive stable of eco & sustainable kitchens, worktops & tiles making up our Milestone Eco Range of kitchens
We are so thrilled to have even been nominated, let alone win, in a Retail category who last years winner was the Co-op Organisation.
This is massive boost to our confidence and driving forward what we do within our industry.
The green market is a very difficult market to work in where we still feel that nowhere near enough people pay enough attention to environmental issues. We firmly believe in what we do as being the way forward for industry, nations and the planet as a whole.
To receive awards for our work and the work of all the other winners, really makes us feel as if we are doing the right thing and we're not alone in that way of thinking. We just need to keep driving the message forward by doing what we do and keep developing new green ideas.
It's also, I feel, thanks in part to you, my faithful blogworms, reading the blogs that I post and taking an interest in the work we do that spurs us on to keep moving forwards knowing people do really care about green issues.
So, A BIG THANK YOU, to you all this week, keep reading and we'll keep doing, although I would appreciate all you lot out there sending me messages and voicing your opinions from time to time, to let me know where you would like to see us going next !!
A rather smug, Jules
Ey up my faithful blogworms, this week is an appeal for your help.
We created the only kitchen in Yorkshire in the appropriate colours to celebrate 'Le Tour Yorkshire' when the carnival that is the Tour de France came through our beautiful county.
This unique piece of kit, unfortunately, now has to be cleared for a new display coming in for 2015. Therefore it has to go !!
If you know someone who would like to own this unique set of kitchen units, say: a cycling club, a bike shop, someone who is a cycling enthusiast or even someone who could use it in their home or even garage / shed for some extra storage, we need to clear the space for a new display by Monday 1st December.
So it only has a few days left in our showroom, we need offers for it to go to a good home or, I'm afraid, it's going to end up in a skip which would be a hell of a shame.
Please have a look at this yourself and tell any of your friends who you think might be interested and let's see if we can give this kitchen a new lease of life.
I'm counting on ya ! Jules
Ey up my faithful blogworms, this week is all about bespoke stuff and kitchen refurbishment.
Choose well, ask more questions and reap the benefits in the future.
I've said for many years now that when choosing new kitchens ask more about the cabinets than anything else as these are the hardest working part of the kitchen, next to the worktops.
If you buy well based on a good structure, ie: good well made cabinets, and get your layout spot-on then you will get much more life out of the kitchen you choose.
The kitchen shown here is one we originally supplied and fitted 12 years ago ( that's 84 in dog years ! ) in a totally different colour scheme ... Yes, I know, I should have taken before and after pictures rather than just showing 'after' pictures, I forgot .. OK ?
There are elements of it that were bespoke sizes to make it fit perfectly but after 12 years the style was looking a bit dated.
A refurb becomes the perfect answer because all the structure is still good and will last probably another 12 years .... and this is a rented apartment !! that usually takes more stick than a kitchen in a private house.
During this refurb we replaced: the worktops, the tiles, the doors, the handles and upgraded the lighting to the new COBB low energy lights I've mentioned before.
The doors are from a new range we've taken in that, in line with our policy on choices, allows us to spec bespoke sizes without paying silly premiums for the privilege and gives us a range of doors that even using bespoke sizes start from around £20 a door ... Yep, a miserly £20 !
Who says bespoke has to be expensive ?, we certainly don't ! as our regular followers will already know.
A good well chosen layout and structure is essential not only for your own benefit while owning the house but makes a positive selling point when selling your house and moving on.
This refurb was carried out at a fraction of the cost of the original kitchen, even based on prices from 12 years ago.
Now I hope you can see the advantage in everything I've said and that it makes economic sense as also you don't have to spend on the usual stuff associated with a new kitchen like: wiring, flooring, decorating and plastering which alone saves you a significant amount on the cost.
Become a believer, make more informed choices, buy cleverer and cut down on waste by recycling the structure of your existing kitchen to ultimately save you a boatload of money.
It's not rocket science, or is it ?
Jules.
Ey up my faithful blogworms .... this week it's all unashamedly about campervans ! ... could be any campervans but specifically we're talking about the only true ones .. VW Type 2's.
The winter season is all about getting your bus ready for the coming year, essential repairs, style changes, finishing off restos', new interiors etc. etc. It's the interiors I want to look at this week.
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Would your ideal material for your surfaces be:
a) totally waterproof,
b) bacteria free,
c) easy to wipe,
d) easy to cut,
e) lighter in weight,
f) able to be polished to look like granite
g) 100% recycled & eco-friendly
h) AND look drop dead gorgeous !
If the answer is YES to all of the above, then Recycled Coffee Cup material is just what you're looking for !! and don't forget, all you guys out there with catering buses, it's perfect for Hygeine Regulations for food use as it was used for 'food' to start with.
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As you will have noticed from an earlier blog, I have a stock of these very boards which I can afford generous discounts on at the moment.
The board size is 2.1m x 1.1m x 12mm thick, which is exactly what the surfaces in the photo's are made from.
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With this marvellous material, you'll never need to buy worktops, table tops or shelves for your bus ever again (unless you want to) as the material is endlessly re-polishable, never affected by damp and will last, probably as long as your bus will .. if looked after !
With every purchase of Coffee Cup, you will receive a full set of cutting & polishing instructions but I know some talented guys out there in the Dub world who have already achieved some fabulous results with the polishing of the material where you really can't tell it from granite ( and let's face it, you wouldn't use real granite in your bus, think of the suspension ! )
I can send out free samples 100mm square for you to check out the material and 'paid for' samples at 200mm square at £5 or 300mm square at £10 if you want to have a go at cutting & polishing it before you decide to buy ... and once you've seen the results .. trust me you will !
Just contact me through email: julian@milestone.uk.net using the reference: Coffee Cup Campers or use any of the contact details on our website.
100% Recycled Coffee Cup .... What EVERY well dressed V-Dub bus is going to be wearing this coming season, so don't be left out ... contact me as soon as possible as I only have a finite amount of stock at these prices.
Once you've sorted your project, come over and let me know at shows this coming year. Look out for our bus Pandora, it's her interior I featured !! .... all the best, as always, Jules
Ey up my faithful blogworms, Recycled Roadstone plaques this week.
We know from previous blogs that these have captured your imagination with our classic vehicle plaques and wedding picture plaques alongside their original purpose of splashbacks for your kitchen and bathroom.
BUT ... We're looking to move in new directions with them !!
There are many award ceremonies out there and focussing on the ones that cover Eco products and businesses, we are now in a position to design award winners plaques / trophies, however you want to describe them.
We can use your logos, emblems etc providing they can be supplied electronically in a hi- resolution to make an extremely unique, totally recycled product award.
I'm absolutely certain this would give your awards the edge by the winners receiving the very first prize made from Tarmac .. a material we all take for granted and drive on every day of our lives !!
We would be happy to look at any design whether totally made from recycled roadstone or incorporating other recycled materials within the design, such as recycled coffee cup or yoghurt pot material.
Not just restricted to the UK market, there is no reason whatsoever that we can't cover pretty much any country worldwide!
So, if this idea sets your creative juices flowing, contact us by email, phone, fax, snail mail, carrier pigeon or whatever method you like .. most of the previous list of contact details are on our website: www.milestone.uk.net ( except carrier pigeon, you'll have to use your own but don't worry we'll look after it. )
And the winner is ?
Jules
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