Three young Staffordshire apprentice students from Burslem campus have achieved top prize in three major painting and decorating awards. The students will now go through to the national awards. The Seddon Group quality and training manager, Helena Shone, said the firm was pleased with the apprentices’ dedication and determination and how well they had done.
Craig Martin aged 22 from Longton is in his third year and is now one of the young apprentice stars winning Johnstone’s young painter of the year award in 2008 and 2009. The determined artist through his creativity has now got himself a place in the Dulux Decorator apprentice of the year’s regional final. Craig said that the only reason he started entering the competitions in the first place was to prove his dedication to his employers.
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More than 1000 people have won compensation after a case was brought against retailers on behalf of customers who developed health problems after buying leather sofas shipped in from China.
The sofas, which had been manufactured in China and treated with a chemical, DMF, to prevent the fabric of the leather settees from going mouldy whilst in storage before shipping to the UK , had been sold by stores such as Homebase, Walmsley furniture, Land of Leather, who have subsequently gone into liquidation, and Argos, as well as some smaller retailers.
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Finding a suitable style to redecorate a small room in your home can be difficult but a new trend for using bolder wallpaper designs and colours is becoming a popular decorating solution.
People often forget about small rooms such as studies, downstairs toilets and box rooms or choose plain simple colours because they don’t think a small space can take a strong design, but it is often the case that using a busier wallpaper or more extravagant floor covering can transform a small space making it look effective or even make it look bigger.
There are a number of wallpaper ranges that are on the market providing a more luxurious option for fully wallpapering a small room. They are often more expensive but can add a contemporary designer wallpaper look to your home. Some include LED lights which provide atmospheric lighting in the small room too, or can feature crystals or glitter adding sparkle and reflecting light around the room, or even hollograms and thicker piles with soft flocked designs.
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First off you will need to decide whether to fit the blind inside or outside the window recess. If you choose to fit the blind inside the recess, ensure that it is cut to the right size so that it doesn’t catch on the wallpaper, paintwork or other wall coverings inside the recess, otherwise you could end up damaging the blind and needing to redecorate more often because of the friction as the blind is lowered and raised.
If you have a fabric roller blind, this should be easy to cut, but it is better to cut the blind once, even if it ends up still being slightly too wide, then remeasure and trim to the final desired width of your window. Once you have cut fabric away, you cannot add it back on after all. Alternatively, you could hang the roller blind on the outside of the window recess, usually attached above the window, which is often a more practical approach because it means you will have more room on the window sill for things like pictures, plants or ornaments. You will just need to ensure that when you fit the blind, there is an equal amount of the blind at each side of the window, unless you cut it to fit.
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If you’ve decided to redecorate your home and want a new blind to add the finishing touch around your window, first and foremost you need to find what type of blind is best for you. If you are looking for a soft fabric look then ideally you are going to need roller blinds, these blinds can be adjusted to fit your window if slightly too wide.
Then there are venetian blinds that can be moved up or down dependent on the amount of light you want to have coming through them; upwards for a soft light and downwards for a reverse effect, or at times when you want privacy or you want to block out direct light from shining into the room, you can tilt the blind to achieve this. Venetian blinds come in a number of materials from wooden blinds to PVC and aluminium.
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The use of border for decoration in homes has been around for centuries. Many years ago it was used by only the wealthy as a feature to show how much money they had but over the years and with new developments in technology it has become wide spread and at one point, wallpaper borders were used in almost every home in the UK. They were originally made to conceal fixings in the 18th century, as wallpaper was not pasted up but nailed to the wall or placed on tracks so the border was hung over the fixings giving a neater finish.
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People have been cutting back on interior design recently in an effort to save money on their redecorating which is having an impact on the amount of business interior design consultants are receiving. An American decorator could have the solution to boosting demand for decorating however.
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Three young Staffordshire apprentice students from Burslem campus have achieved top prize in three major painting and decorating awards. The students will now go through to the national awards. The Seddon Group quality and training manager, Helena Shone, said the firm was pleased with the apprentices’ dedication and determination and how well they had done.
