Zambezi Home & House

July 20, 2010

Choosing a Towel Warmer for your Bathroom

Heated towel rails are the modern equivalent of creating a focal point in a bathroom. They are both practical and stylish, offering a place to store and warm your towels, as well as creating a design feature for your bathroom. Designs derive from sleek polished chrome with sweeping curves, sharp geometric lines or three dimensional models and blend together creativity with exceptional design.

Towel warmers, or radiators, are available in a variety of styles to suit your bathroom styling. Gone are the days where a towel warmer is a standard, boring necessity in your bathroom, and here are a range of modish radiators which will add an element of class to your bathroom. Due to the increased surface area a heated towel rail creates over a conventional radiator, they are also more efficient and environmentally friendly.

Hudson Reed are the leading manufacturer of brassware and have a huge range of high quality items, ensuring that your bathroom products are a real investment for the future and built to last. Plus, there is no reason why if you move house you cannot take your beautiful towel warmers with you, to form a chic addition to your new bathroom. Their broad selection of contemporary heated towel rails unites style and striking modern designs to complement your individual flare and make a unique statement about your bathroom d?r.

The selection of designer towel warmers from Hudson Reed are the epitome of modern elegance. They have innovative styling that creates a statement in its own right, whilst retaining efficiency and functionality. Their designer towel rails come in a variety of sizes and shapes to suit every taste and preference, and will turn your bathroom in to a luxuriously warm environment. Models include tube on tube, circular, grid and flat construction. To fit your designer Hudson Reed towel rail, their minimalist radiator valves offer a discreet solution and are supplied in pairs.

At the other end of the scale, Hudson Reed Traditional Towel Warmers are full of the ambience of yesteryear. Their fabrication will highlight and be sympathetic to other traditional features in your bathroom, creating a habitual haven with undertones of contemporary features. Most towel warmers in their range are available in either chrome or gold, allowing you to match them to other brassware in your bathroom. To fit your traditionally-styled radiator, Hudson Reed have traditional radiator valves, supplied in pairs to tie in with the design elements of the heated rail.

Bathroom radiators’ power is measured in BTU. BTU is the standard means of measuring output powers in a heated towel rail, and stands for British Thermal Units. Radiators are also shown in watts, the conversion of one to another equates to 1 BTU measuring 3.412 watts. For more information on the best BTU for your bathroom, consider the size of the room to heat, a smaller room will require a smaller BTU, or consult your plumber for advice.

When updating the heated towel rail in your bathroom, it is important to replace the valves also, and ensure that they match the design, colour and fitting of your new radiator. Valves, like taps, are available with different designs of handles, which can be chosen to mimic the design of your taps and shower handles. They are also available in either a straight or angled fitting, which will dependant on the style of radiator that you choose. Also, radiator valves are available in wither a traditional on/off mechanism, or a thermostatic one, which allows you to choose the level of heat emitting from them, and can be altered in accordance with your central heating system and seasonal changes.

Heated towel rails can also create a means of securing other radiators in your house from thermostatic inefficiencies and costly surges. If you choose a radiator without a thermostatic valve, if the heating system malfunctions, this can create a means of venting any excess heat created by your boiler, thus preventing other radiators in your house from malfunctioning and generating expensive bills.

A towel warmer or radiator should always be ideally fitted on the coldest wall of your bathroom, often the one with the window on. This will depend on other existing fixtures in your bathroom, but a window or external wall is optimum. By fitting to the coldest wall you will increase the efficiency of the radiator, as heat will emanate equally throughout the room.

When you have chosen your beautiful addition to your bathroom with a new towel warmer, you will desire for it to retain its original appearance. To care for the outer surface of your new radiator, never use any corrosive or hazardous products, such as aerosols on the surface or in close proximity of the radiator. The radiator should only be cleaned with warm soapy water and a soft, non-abrasive cloth. This will ensure the longevity of your bathroom radiator.

July 1, 2010

Home Garage Organization Tips

Home garage organization is one of those things we just love to put off or ignore all together. In some cases, this tendency has a price either in wasted time, wasted money, or even personal injury. Some garage organization tips follow, tips you can use if you set your mind to doing so. That is the hard part though, right? In effort to at least get you started, and to give you a chance at finishing at least a step or two, we will keep this simple.

Most garages have some sort of front or side bench or combination of both. Most of those benches become a permanent home to parts, scattered tools, buckets of bolts, and a list far to long for public disclosure. Congratulations, you’ve found your valid starting point, and a goal – reclaim your bench space.

One key tip for finishing a garage organization project I use myself is to pick out the car or toy I hate to leave outside, and back it out into the driveway. Then, in the case of a bench cleaning, move EVERYTHING off and out from under the bench into the now empty place. Do you think we have sufficient motivation now? The prized toy cannot come back in till the job is done, so you better get started.

You should now have a (huge?) pile, and a new view of your workspace and storage areas (just remember, they are separate things and we will now use them that way). Once you are over the shock and surprise of that new outlet or bench grinder you rediscovered, grab a broom and pan, and anything else you need to get the bench-top and underneath clean. Do it now or it will not get done.

Now we can look at tip number two. Call it the two step. Step one is to cull out things like old batteries for recycling, scrap steel and aluminum, and that spare radiator with a hole in it. Put those things outside the garage, out of reach of the magnetic field of your bench and odd corners of your garage. They will fight you to return, but be strong. Step two is distract yourself from those newly liberated items by placing your large items to a place under the bench where they make sense. The snow-blower, mower, or tiller, and things like the shop vac are first. A bonus tip here is to put those items one deep with nothing behind them or in front of them. you should be able to move these items in and out from under the bench without moving anything else, and have a completely empty stall to return them. This gives you fewer surprises and quests, and saves time and effort when these items are needed. Repeat the two step outlined above till there are no more trash, junk, recyclables, or large to mid-size itemsleft. The pile is getting pretty small now, and you can still see a work-bench. Amazing, isn’t it?

Time for a new tip. If you are prone to being a pack-rat and collecting bolts, nuts, and brackets, now is the time to organize these as well. The hidden tips here are usefulness, and weight, and quantity. Do you really need 1 inch bolts and nuts to fix the car or mower? Put them with your scrap. Do you like emptying that five gallon bucket to find a washer? Besides weighing way too much, this time honored system is a real time waster, so sort your fasteners into coffee cans, bins, or one gallon buckets instead. All the time you are working this way, keep in mind junk versus treasure, and how long and how many steps to put your hands on say a 3/8 by 2 inch bolt and nut. When you are all done, now decide based on combined weight and space, what would be a good place to put them? If you have many bins or buckets and they are a bit heavy, you can place them in one area under your bench with nothing on top of them so you can easily see and retrieve what you need.

At this point, the end should at least be in sight. Tools, power cords, power tools, all cost money. Store them accordingly and finally make use of your pegboard and toolboxes and hooks like they should be used. If you find at this stage there are still lots of things on the floor, resist putting them on the bench, and consider more weeding out and re-organizing. Remember, if you clear this stage, your garage will be organized and efficient, and you will have your work-bench back. Really dig deep into the relocate, trash, or treasure mode though and you can get done.

Pat yourself on the back, sweep up, and pull the toy back in it’s place. But, what about the recycling stuff outside? That is up to you, the day of the week, and what recycling is available. The point is that entire pile outside can go, and should no longer find a permanent home in your garage. In fact, by using the steps above, you’ll find yourself reluctant to even let them back in your newly organized garage, so it’s up to you. Make a few bucks if you can, or else it’s trash.

The hardest parts of home garage organization are starting, culling, and finishing. This brief system above actually helps me in my battle of procrastination, and hording. Try them yourself.

Powered by WordPress