Living Room Furniture – Home Entertainment

Your living room furniture has never been so important, as staying in is now the new going out. Tiffany floor lamps are a great way to add ambience and style to your living space without leaving the front door.

Living room furniture has always been about comfort and cosiness. But now we want style and designer flair too. Our living rooms are where we go to retreat from the big bad world, where we unwind after a long day in the office, and where we enjoy lazy weekends on cold, wet days. It isn’t surprising then that we devour catalogues and brochures on luxurious living room furniture – sumptuous sofas, easy chairs, chic coffee tables and bohemian bookcases. Our living room furniture is all about expressing our personality and style, add a beautiful rug and a few personal touches – flowers, photo frames, ornaments – and it’s not surprising our living rooms are the favourite room in the home.

Living Room Furniture – A Long-Term Investment

We spend most of our time in our living rooms, so it’s important you invest in living room furniture that you will appreciate and enjoy day-in day-out. According to a recent report in The Observer, staying in is the new going out. Shutting the front door, relaxing on your sofa, and indulging in a DVD is all the rage. You can forget going out when there’s a recession on and its freezing cold outside. What’s more, if you have beautiful living room furniture, why would you want to go out? It’s cheaper, warmer and it has never been so entertaining to stay indoors with state-of-the-art TV, game consoles and luxurious living room furniture.

As Good as Going Out

The facts point to an increasing trend of homeowners battening down the hatches, as one leading DVD rental service has reported a 40% increase in the number of people signing up for its services. Alongside fantastic deals on luxurious living room furniture and up-to-date entertainment in the home, supermarkets have reported a rise in sales on ranges such as the Waitrose ‘Good as Going out’ range and the Dine In for a tenner deals. What’s more, it seems more people would rather invest in their homes buying beautiful living room furniture and home entertainment systems that will have a greater return on their money. A survey by Abbey bank showed 39% of people are staying home instead of going out to save money, and 20% admitted to feeling less sociable since the credit crunch began. http://www.housetohome.co.uk/idealhomemagazine

Roper Rhodes Bathroom Furniture – The Perfect Addition

Give your bathroom additional style with Roper Rhodes bathroom furniture.

Contemporary bathroom furniture can help to turn your room from a practical place into a complete environment. UK supplier Roper Rhodes’ bathroom furniture comes in a wide range of beautiful styles and complementary colours, so that you can choose exactly the right pieces for your home.

Get it Right with Roper Rhodes

Bathroom furniture is becoming an essential part of the modern bathroom, whether it’s stylish cupboards under the basin, or freestanding drawer units for towels and other necessities. Roper Rhodes’ bathroom furniture allows you to achieve a complete look in your bathroom with the minimum of fuss and hassle. If you’re looking for sleek lines, modern styles, classical influences or functional designs, you’re bound to find something in the Roper Rhodes collection, which includes:

• New England – clean and white, this modular range of Roper Rhodes bathroom furniture gives you the storage you need without taking the eye away from your bathroom suite or general room theme.

• Sapporo – minimalist ledges, open washstands and glass shelving characterise this great collection, perfect for a contemporary apartment.

• Valencia – designed around a more traditional theme, Valencia still has modern grace and style, along with great practical features, giving you the best of both worlds.

These are just some of the outstanding designs from the Roper Rhodes bathroom furniture collections. You may be looking for inspiration or know exactly what you want; this is a great place to start. It doesn’t matter whether you have a small bathroom or a huge space to play with. Roper Rhodes segments its bathroom furniture into modular styles, washstand furniture and fitted bathroom furniture, so there really is something for everyone. Check out the Old Pine Company for fantastic furtniture for your home.

Roper Rhodes Zara Bathroom Furniture – Curve Appeal

For clean simplicity, choose the curve appeal of Roper Rhodes’ Zara bathroom furniture..

If you’re looking for a washstand that has elegant lines and curves and that will work just as well in a traditional bathroom as a contemporary one, look at the design of Zara bathroom furniture from Roper Rhodes. With plenty of storage, soft-closing doors and a great finish, this is the perfect choice for your home.

Elegant Design from Roper Rhodes

Zara bathroom furniture is a great example of the way that Roper Rhodes puts real emphasis on great design. Zara has simple lines, and a beautifully-curved front that will make it one of the most eye-catching things in your bathroom. With a glossy white finish, this piece of bathroom furniture offers great storage, with two deep drawers that are fitted with soft-closing runners, helping to keep your bathroom a calm and quiet place to be.

Choosing Zara Bathroom Furniture

Roper Rhodes designs and builds a range of fantastic bathroom furniture for your home, so why choose Zara over its other collections? It’s simple. Zara offers great styling, practical storage, contemporary accessories and an affordable price tag, giving you the best value for money. Zara is perfect for smaller bathrooms – and in most homes, the bathroom is the smallest room in the property – offering a great wash stand design along with the ability to store towels, toiletries, cleaning items and much more, helping you to reduce the potential for clutter in your bathroom.

http://www.furnituremagazine.com/

Teak furniture: A potted history

Did you know that teak has been used worldwide since its use in shipbuilding in the Middle Ages? As popular as ever today, we take a closer look at teak furniture and teak throughout the ages.

Teak grows in most areas between the Tropic of Cancer and the tropic of Capricorn. There are three species:

• Tectona grandis (Common Teak) is by far the most important, with a wide distribution in India and Indo-China
• Tectona hamiltoniana (Dahat Teak) is a local endemic species confined to Myanmar
• Tectona philippinensis (Philippine Teak) is endemic to the Philippines

It is believed that teak was introduced to Java from India between 400 and 600 years ago, but it can be dated back to as early as 7th Century Siam (now Thailand), where it was used to construct and decorate royal residences, religious buildings, and trade ships. Other cultures began using teak wood for shipbuilding in the Middle Ages, and its buoyancy, water resistance, durability and anti-fungal properties make it an ideal material for marine construction to this day. Teak maintains its durability and malleability for so long, in fact, that often teak flooring from old ships was recycled into park benches. There are some teak benches in English towns that are over 100 years old.

In the late 1800s, teak began to be used seriously for outdoor furniture. Heavily admired in its native India, teak soon travelled to Victorian England, where teak benches and chairs became the perfect compliment to an English garden.  Popular in the 1950s and 1960s in a style often known as Danish modern, teak furniture had a second boom in popularity and now teak is one of the most sought-after types of vintage furniture. Today teak is used primarily for the decks, trim and detail work in yachts and cruise ships, carving, cabinetry, panelling, residential and commercial flooring, the construction of homes and in the creation of beautiful, durable furniture.

Teak is a deciduous tree and contrary to popular belief it grows in the dry, hilly forests of South East Asia. It grows quickly initially, but will take about 50 years to reach full maturity. It can grow up to 150 ft tall with a trunk diameter of 5 ft. This steady growth has clearly made it difficult for countries to keep up with demand. The possibility of increasing this rotation time to 30 or 40 years has been discussed by many countries, but experimentation with a 25 year rotation has resulted in poor quality wood.

The world's first teak plantation was raised at Nilambur during the 1840s, paving the way to ensure a steady supply of teak timber in the face of dwindling resources in the natural forests. Since then, teak plantations have spread steadily not only in its native range, but also in other tropical regions across the world. These plantations are government-regulated to ensure that the correct number and size of trees are being felled, and to ensure the proper re-planting of trees to maintain the productivity of forests for future generations.

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