Quick Simple & Easy Style Solutions - Bedding

Barbie House Wiff a friend from across the pond picked up that we were running a set of features about home decoration - already looking at interior designs for windows - looking at both curtains and blinds and pointed out that a quick simple and easy way to give a bedroom a new look is to invest in a new bedding set as detailed in her post of the same.

Music to our ears - quick, simple and easy - but will it meet all of our four favourite criteria - is it cheap?

Quick trip over to our new found Euro Shopping Directory Elib to find a selection of online suppliers and to check what's available and recommended this listing a one stop shop for curtains, blinds and bedding.

Once you enter the world of home fabrics the choices presented are overwhelming and if your not careful you could easily find yourself ordering enough free fabric samples to assemble a patchwork quilt.

So Whats on Offer?

The fabric warehouse displays a wide range of bedding sets and duvet covers that are available for most of the standard bed sizes - single, double, kingsize and super dooper kingsize and no sooner than you can say "quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" you'll be arguing which of the styles you're going to order.

For those who shy away from using duvets in favour of more traditional bedding due to the notorious difficulty in putting them on we found this video - how to put on a duvet cover that may be helpful. For site link details opening times and directions see the Brownbook listing.

Coffee Confusion - Gold Blend Lid Scandal

One for my coffee slurping colleague over at wordsaboutthings here - although I doubt he stoops to use Nescafe instant coffee in anything other than an emergency. This chap is so into coffee he recently wrote an entire post about the new Starbucks logo
and doesn't hold back when big supermarket names fail to deliver on their label's aspirational promise - Tesco's far from finest espresso.

These marketing men just can't help themselves - its better, new, improved, best ever, absolutely bloody brilliant.

Take Nescafe Gold Blend. Gold Blend Coffee has risen to be one of the most popular instant coffees found in UK households today. Ever since the nauseating "will she wont she" nescafe tv advert campaigns Nescafe Gold Blend has almost succeeded in maintaining its brand integrity. The words have lead a merry dance around trying out different positions on the label traditionally being displayed in a straight forward horizontal manner with occasional lapses of designers urges to rack them vertically but the lid has always been errm the lid. Until now that is.


See the jars above - the one on the right is the "proper" lid in the accepted non-gold mocha brown colour and has the words Nescafe written from left to right across the width of the lid.

Now check the left hand version....not only is the colour now a garish shade of gold (how crass) but the silly buggers have the writing wrong (in my opinion)

Maybe it is time to join the aspirational set and source a shiny new counter top coffee machine
and brew my own the way I like it.

Online Shopping - Can I be of assistance madam?

Wouldn't it be great if todays interaction with the web when shopping online was more like the shopping in bygone days - a time when individuals served you from behind specific counters and assistants actually offered genuine assistance. Of course some top range shops do have dedicated knowledgeable staff that man counters - Harrods immediately springs to mind but on the whole shopping online is a lonely pastime.

Seeing the problems online shoppers faced a new breed of websites have sprung up that although hope to make money do try to inform and help customers. A typical independent site that is packed with "how to guides" and top ten tips features is JJ's Hints and Things. The breadth of topics covered is staggering - you may be looking for information about choosing stuff for babies such as suitable baby sleepwear and you'll find an entire nursery section crammed with tips and helpful suggestions.

Hints and things aims to have something for everyone and being focused on the home the site is organised in a room by room structure. Even the kennel is included in the garden and garage
areas.

It would seem appropriate to use the subject matter of recent posts here and demonstrate the functionality of helpful sites when choosing and buying home furnishings.

Moving around the different rooms on Hints and things you almost always find something that spurs you on to follow up - this feature in spare room explained how you can make your bedding stay in better shape and last longer and a workshop article gives a whole load of tips about choosing curtains and curtain fabric.

Throughout Hints and Tips there are links to recommended online stores and shopping price check sites where you can search for the best deals.

Save-Buck$ currently offers the facility to check the prices and delivery details on home furnishings and its recently revamped interior decoration and curtains section allows you sort through different fabrics and ready made curtains and find matching curtain poles all from the comfort of your home.

Don't forget that sites like e-bay and online classifieds adverts will have a continually changing range of hardly used goods especially with the fast changing styles and fashions of curtain and home furnishings offer and if time permits they are well worth checking too.

Venetian Blinds - Affordable Style

Following the previous post about curtains we were pleased to be in touch with JJ at Hints And Things who brought her site's excellent workshop - building, decorating and DIY section
which included a feature about choosing curtain fabric which seemed appropriate to the post.

Whilst on the site we couldn't help notice the prominence of features about using blinds as an inexpensive yet stylish alternative to fitting curtains.

Blinds Vs Curtains

Various types of blinds were discussed but as the summer approaches the versatility from a range of venetian blinds offered won over all - being able to let in varying amounts of light depending on the time of day and the position of the sun was considered to be vital to a blinds success and as described here venetian blinds achieve this well.

A close fitting metal blind can prevent daylight penetration as well as any black out roller blinds
whilst keeping a contemporary look to the room it's fitted in.

Another very popular choice for UK homes is to fit wooden blinds that don't entirely block all light but if well chosen can help keep a room bright and airy whilst offering privacy.

From the feedback on this How to Fit a Curtain Pole video we shall find and publish a series of how to videos which will cover the various pitfalls when measuring, choosing and fitting blinds.