Fairfield Lake Marion Realty

House Design Stone Cladding

5 Reasons Why You Should Get Stone Cladding Installed By A Professional

September 18, 2018

Building and renovating can get quite expensive, especially when you have to employ skilled tradespeople for everything. This leads to a lot of people doing the simple things – things like painting and installing floors – by themselves.

Some people even attempt to do more difficult things, like installing new stone cladding, without the assistance of a professional. Unfortunately, this often leads to problems, and may cost you more than it’s worth in the end.

With this in mind, I’ve put together a list of my top 5 reasons why you should always use a professional when you’re installing new stone cladding. These include:

They Will Save You Time

A professional with experience installing stone cladding will be able to work a lot faster and more efficiently than you will. They might charge quite a high hourly rate, but the fact is that they will be able to finish the job in a fraction of the time that it would take you. This will free you up and give you more time to spend doing the things that you enjoy.

Landscape & Gardens garden design, landscaping

A Garden For The Whole Family

March 3, 2018

You may have the most elaborate landscaping garden design in your backyard, the best looking in the neighbourhood, but if it isn’t functional, then all that work may have been in vain. While we all love to have beautiful gardens with lush plants, if we have family then their needs should be taken into consideration as well. One way is to divide your garden into two or three visual interactive spaces:

one for play and relaxation
one for your garden
and maybe an area for pets.

For the kids, a large open space of lawn would be ideal. You can also use the area to place a table and chairs for outdoor lunches or a romantic summer evening dinner.

Your Firewood

Do you have a tile fire or even an open fire? You need a place in your backyard to store the firewood. It has to be properly set up at a reasonable distance from the house, and also it might attract unwanted animals, such as snakes, mice and even rats.

Renovations Safety, Scaffolding

Scaffolding and Levels of Safety

January 20, 2018

One of the most dangerous types of work in many countries is construction. This can be especially relevant when it comes to home renovations. Scaffolding forms an integral part of construction when we are talking about anything above a single storey building. Although brickies do require scaffolding as well when laying the top few lines of bricks even on a one level house. Building and construction companies make workplace health and safety their foremost priority, and when it comes to scaffolding they always hire a professional to set it all up.

Accidents

The leading cause of injury in the building and construction industry is falling from heights. Working at heights requires some form of protection to minimise the risk of falling. If you are an owner builder or even doing some odd jobs around the house such as cleaning or replacing gutters, you are going to need scaffolding to make the job easier and safer.

Scaffolding, while being an effective measure to prevent falls, has to conform to Australian Work Health Safety Regulations when erected. It’s not the sort of DIY job one would undertake. Professional, licensed scaffolding companies supply, erect, maintain and then dismantle scaffolding for all major jobs in the country.

House Design Fencing

Benefits of Wood Plastic Composites for Fencing

January 9, 2018

One of the newest types of fencing material is made from a combination of wood and plastic. It not only uses recycled plastic but waste wood, such as sawdust, that would otherwise go into landfill. Fencing contractors would tell you that the end product has become extremely popular over the last 12 years since it was first invented.

Wood plastic composites can be used for other purposes besides fences. It is suitable for things like signposts, bollards, outdoor furniture, composite decking, bin retention, posts for vineyards, and sheeting, to name just a few.

However, using this type of material for your fence has many benefits.

It combines the best properties of both wood and plastic materials.
The raw materials used – waste wood and plastic – are in plentiful supply.
It turns waste wood and plastic into helpful things that many people need, keeping them out of landfills.

Landscape & Gardens Lawn

Is Mowing a Lawn a Science?

December 9, 2017

There’s nothing like the sound of a lawn mower starting up in the neighbourhood early in the morning. Well, maybe chainsaws at dawn would come close. We take mowing the lawn to be a simple task, and this is true. Clear the hose, the sprinkler, the kids’ toys, and the dog’s chewed bones, check the petrol, adjust the choke, and pull the cord, away you go. For the lawn care professional, there is a bit more involved.

It’s not just achieving a beautiful looking green carpet of freshly mown grass, but knowing what regular mowing does to the lawn and the overall health of the turf.

Two Considerations

If you look at the way in which we mow the lawn, only two factors come into play – the height at which we mow, and the frequency. That’s it. The only changes we can make are within these two parameters.

Renovations Timber Flooring

Hidden Treasures – Timber Flooring

November 22, 2017

Many years ago, in the 1980’s it was, I purchased my first home in Western Australia. The suburb was up in the Hills area – Greenmount. It was an old timber home, constructed probably circa 1950’s or a tad earlier. One of the main reasons for buying that home was the view. It had spectacular, uninhibited views over Perth. All the floors were jarrah timber flooring. But do you know what? They had all been carpeted over and in the kitchen, believe it or not, they had laid ceramic floor tiles over the jarrah floorboards.

The house even had a name: York House, as it was built on Old York Road. We lived in that home for the next 13 years, raising a family and making home improvements almost every weekend. The yard was half an acre of clay and unforgiving granite boulders. As I played football, the gardening served as a secondary way to keep fit!

Home Maintenance Electrical Work

How to Save Money on Electrical Work

September 11, 2017

Can we safely say that the days of non-qualified tradespeople doing work in your house are gone? Or are there still remnants of those types of people wandering the neighbourhood offering their services door to door? When it comes to hiring an electrician you are sometimes caught between the need to save money and getting an expert job done in an area where mistakes can be fatal. So, hiring an affordable electrician can sometimes feel like Catch-22.

You don’t want to take any shortcuts on electrical work. But you also don’t want to hand over a king’s ransom for a minor electrical job. Let’s look at a few ways you can save a bit of your heard-earned when you’re in the market for trying to find an electrical contractor.

Renovations Gazebo

5 Things to Check out Before Installing a Gazebo

July 19, 2017

Unlike an attached verandah or patios a gazebo is a free standing structure this means it is not attached to the house, not that it is not attached to anything else. Unless you want to risk it blowing over, it is a good idea to ensure it is attached to something firmly, even if that is the ground on which it stands. Here are 5 things to check up on before you go ahead and build that gazebo.

Check the drainage to ensure that the spot you have chosen does not become a pool of water during rainy times. It could be that the lay of the land means it is a natural watercourse or pool. It is also important to find out what kind of soil you have. Some soils hold water while others form a good foundation that drains freely.

Home Maintenance Pool Cleaner

How to Keep Your Pool Cleaner

June 22, 2017

Automatic pool cleaners are ideal for cleaning the swimming pool and can save a lot of hard work. Some are good for large debris such as leaves and grass, while others are made to clean the water of small particulate that makes it cloudy. More expensive cleaners do both, but what they all have in common is using up power.

So how can you keep that pool cleaner and save money? If your pool tends to have a lot of leaves and grass in it, the best thing to do is remove it before it gets to the pool, then you will be able to purchase the kind of cleaner that attends to the finer particulate. This can save costs in power and in the kind of cleaner purchased.

House Design air conditioning

What You Need for a Split System Air Conditioning Unit

March 19, 2017

If you’ve decided to get air conditioning to help you cope with the heat of summer, a split system air conditioning unit might be just what the doctor ordered. For a start, it is easy to install in a home that is already built and it is reasonably priced. You can choose between cheaper models and more expensive ones, depending on your budget and needs.

If you live in a small flat, you wouldn’t need to have a large one, so the cost would be moderate. A larger home may need to have a larger model to cool it more effectively. There are many different models to choose from and within each brand, you get different sizes, so there is sure to be something that suits you with the wide range of units available.