Interior Designers in Bristol

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The office party season is over for another year. It’s a challenge for the organiser to find something that can include everyone, is good fun and is well located for staff to get to. At Jane Clayton interior design, we aim to get together with partners/friends at least once a year and go out with just staff once a year too. It is not every partner’s idea of a perfect night out to be dragged along to the other half’s staff do.For Christmas 2010, we voted to defer a Christmas Party until after Christmas, on the grounds that everyone had a lot going on before Christmas and there was little to fill the dark months of January and February. Not a good decision – once Christmas had come and gone, we never got round to our January party.I am an old Scrooge, who dislikes supermarket carols, fairy lights and flashing Santas. Noddy Holder’s “Wish it could be Christmas” doesn’t do it for me either. Yet something gets to us during December. Reps arrive at the office with big tins of Quality Street for the staff. A one kilo tin lasts about one hour ten minutes. Packets of mince pies. Chocolate brownies. Fruit cake. Danish pastries. They all go, within a matter of minutes. During the other eleven months of the year, carb consumption is limited to birthday cake only (that’s about 3 times a month in our offices) and of course a celebratory cake or two when someone gets engaged or pregnant, comes back from an exotic holiday or gets back on speaking terms with their mother. These important exceptions aside, the idea of being force-fed carbohydrates in any month other than December is abhorrent.So this year, we decided to resume all normal Christmas traditions and have a works party in December. A warehouse was converted into a kind of rustic ballroom. Tables and chairs dressed in Jane Clayton fabrics, good food and a great salsa band (www.salsanova.co.uk hired for the evening. Janey Robson (google her), expert salsa teacher, came along to show how it is done. To develop the Latin American theme a little further, the drinks menu featured mojitos, cuba libre and Tequila (misguided). By the time the taxis came (good thinking), the band was packing up and the disco had taken over. It was then that Old Scrooge found himself on the dance floor as Noddy sang “I wish it could be Christmas every day”. Not quite. But we will be doing it all over again next year.Richard Clayton is MD of interior designers Jane Clayton and Company Ltdwww.janeclayton.co.uk

Some friends in need of interior design help have just bought a large house on the Somerset Levels. The Estate Agent describes it as “in need of modernisation and improvement”. Just a bit. There is no bath or shower for a start. The lovely flagstone floors are layered with linoleum and several carpets. The newspapers under the lino date from 1936, perfectly preserved away from the light and now making an interesting little slice of domestic archaeology. It is a bit of a shame that the collection of patterned wallpapers, applied in the 1960’s, will have to come off and be skipped. They form an extraordinary record of the style of that time, with at least 3 patterns in each of 10 rooms. These friends are resourceful: she works up country (so will have access to a shower and money), while he is a skilled builder. He is also an ex-farmer, so able to turn his hand to almost anything. I have bet him that he will have installed a bathroom before BT gets his internet working. He’d install the internet himself if a broadband signal could be carried over a length of baler twine.The property is to be improved while they live in it, with a view to selling it at an improved price. Not so easy these days, with a number of people chasing hard to find restoration properties and an unreliable housing market. The challenge is to present the property well for a profitable sale without going over budget on the renovation. These capable friends do not need my advice, so I’ll give it anyway: 1. Keep a photographic record of hidden improvements such as damp courses and flashings. 2. Do not neglect the outside appearance – curb appeal and an attractive garden are important selling points. 3. Crisp and clean kitchens and bathrooms help sell. People like to feel that the bathroom has never been used before. 4. Decorate with neutral colours, with stronger colours in pictures and furnishings. 5. Carpet in a practical neutral plain colour, keeping it the same throughout - more economic and gives a feeling of space. There is no point in selecting a very expensive carpet. I wish them well with their project. We will be delighted to invite them over for a hot meal and a break from the hard work, as soon as they have got the shower installed.

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