New Garage Door Considerations

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Depending on the size of your home, a garage door can represent between 30 and 40 percent of the exterior of your home. This means choosing and installing the right garage door is an important decision, not only in terms of cost, but in terms of appearance and functionality.

What considerations go into your purchase?

There are many considerations to take into account when installing a new garage door include the color, finish, and composition of the door, the strength and durability of the track, the insulation R value, and whether or not there is a warranty available. Check with the installer and manufacturer for warranty information.

Since the garage door is such an extensive part of the appearance of the front of your house, you want a door that provides aesthetic value to the appearance of your home. They come in a variety of colors and styles to complement your home. Some styles available include raised panel, flushed, elongated, and ribbed. The compositional materials include fiberglass, wood, aluminum, steel, and composite materials. The choice you make regarding these materials depends not only upon the appearance you want to achieve, but the size of your budget and the functionality you want to achieve with your new addition.

Steel or Wood?

Should you choose a steel or other type of metal or wood door? This depends, again, on the purpose you wish to achieve. Wooden doors are often more attractive, less utilitarian in appearance, but they can offer more maintenance challenges than a steel door. Wood doors need to be painted, while steel doors do not. Also, steel doors typically have longer warranties and can be insulated.

What is the R value?

The R value is the measure of resistance of specific building insulation materials. In the case of garage doors, this boils down to choosing either polystyrene or polyurethane for your insulation. Polystyrene has an R value of 2 per inch while polyurethane rates at 4. Despite the lower rating, many construction experts recommend polystyrene because it is waterproof, where polyurethane is an open cell foam subject to water damage. Closed cell foam alternatives for polyurethane can be used, but they are typically more expensive, making polystyrene an obvious choice for insulation.

Your new or replaced garage door will be a large addition to your home, so considering both form and functionality is an essential part of making a your purchase.

Web Design – What Is Your Websites Purpose?

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Before even starting to think about web design or the actual structure of your website and certainly before choosing colors, photos and other superficial elements your website must have an agreed goal – a purpose for being designed. This article will explain the importance of having clearly defined and recorded goals in place before web design work is even started.

It may seem like an obvious point by all websites are commissioned to be built by a web designer with some goal or set of goals in mind. Some common purposes for having a website designed are:

To create enquiries about a product or service

To sell products or services online

To build up a mailing list of email addresses

To create an online community of website members

To distribute documents or other files

Your reasons for having a company website designed may be different, or more likely are among the common purposes above. The point to grasp here is that whatever the purpose of having your website designed – there should be some reason for it and that reason should be recorded any agreed with your web designer before work even starts.

If you were having an extension built onto your home would your even dream of letting the builder start laying bricks before you had seen a detailed plan of what was going to be built and had agreed what would be involved in the work? Having a website designed is no different what so ever. In order for your website to be a success you need to agree with your web designer exactly what the website is intended to achieve on behalf of your business and then every resource available to the designer can be used to drive the web design work forward. The objectives that you have agreed can then serve as a guide to the web designer and are a fundamental and inbuilt part of the project.

For example if your goal from the website is to create enquiries about a product of service (as lots of website design goals are) the web designer then knows that an easy method of contact needs to be displayed on each page. This will influence his decisions about where to put calls to action on your pages and then lead him to ask questions about what information you need to collect from your online enquiry forms e.t.c.

It is also very, very important to record your agreed goals. Before I even produce a web design specification I make sure that I am aware of the goals that the client requires from the website. I then make sure to specify these goals right at the very start of the web design specification. This means that the purpose of the project is clearly recorded in the website specification and forms part of my contract with the client.

Another advantage of having clearly defined and recorded goals is that you can use them to drive review meetings with your clients. You can periodically arrange project review meetings which assess the websites performance against the agreed goals. You can then propose possible solutions which may correct any shortcomings with the website. In this way the web design client and the web designer himself are working together in an efficient way to achieve a common goal.

Conclusion:

Having clearly defined goals is an essential part of any web design project. Without clearly defined goals your web design project has no real direction and has no real chance of fulfilling its potential. As a web design client you must take the time at the beginning of your project to effectively communicate your required objectives to your web designer. A responsible web designer you should always make sure to understand the intended goals of the website design project before making any other web design decisions.

Choosing the Right Wall Decor

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Using the traditional paintings as a part of wall decor is now cliched. While there is certain undeniable charm to a Delacroix or Blake, it seems a waste somehow to not use the varied and vast options available today. Designers have never had it better. There option of mix and match, merging one century’s art form with another is a difficult task and one which requires a great amount of skill, knowledge and talent. The overall effect that one is trying to create is very important to understand. Different decors suit different styles of houses. Understanding one’s space and ones design sensibilities is important to creating the most pleasing wall decor.

To begin at the start, what is wall decor? Wall decor denotes and art work or design that is placed on a wall. This can include wall hangings, Art Tapestries, drapes, wall paper etc. Wall hangings usually refer to paintings, murals, photographs, certificates, etc. Drapes are also included in the category as they add to the over all effect and greatly affect the color choice and scheme in a room. Wall papering a wall is also considered decor, because it ads a certain feel to the room. In short, anything that changes the feel and vibe of a room, altering the way the wall relates to the rest of the room.

There are various considerations while working with walls. Firstly, the sheer expanse of a wall is important to consider. You can choose to decorate the entire space or just a portion of it. Next, the other features in the room are to be noted – such as the function of the room, the color of the walls, the furniture in the room and finally, the shape and structural design of the room. Among these aspects, some are more important than the others. Or example, the function of the room highly affects the choice of decor. A work space is different from a kitchen which is different from a bedroom which is different from a living room and so on. A house does not have to stick to one pattern of wall decor. Each room can have its own flavor.

A huge factor is, of course, money. Art, these days, is very expensive. The well known artists are almost unaffordable for the average person. If one cannot afford to pay for high – end paintings, a simpler option would be to use pictures and other art tapestries that represent the characters of the members living in that space. A framed painting by a child, photographs, posters and metal art are just some affordable options.

If the budget allows it, hiring a designer to do up the space can be the best option. A designer has been trained to cater to different needs. However, it is important to find someone who understands your tastes and personality. At any point, you must be able to relate to the surrounding decor in your house. If not, it can run the risk of appearing pretentious. It would be the best thing yet, to design your own space if you can.

Goal Setting – How to Handle Constructive Criticism

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There will be many times in your life when you get criticism; sometimes constructive, and let’s face it, sometimes not. How you deal with this criticism is vital to your future success.

For most people the first reaction that they will have for criticism, is a knee jerk reaction where they feel hurt, and in need of defending their actions and offering a countercritisim. This is often not the best response as criticism gives us the opportunity to learn more about our actions, and also to grow more.

This article explores accepting criticism for what it is worth. Now before we go into the details, we would like to clarify that we are not asking you to roll over and accept all criticism; what we are suggesting, is that sometimes the criticism may be true and that the criticism, however badly delivered, could be a good learning experience. So here goes…lets look at how you can use criticism for good.

Next time, you are giving criticism, take a deep breath, say thank you for pointing that out to me. Have a quick think, to see if the criticism is accurate. If it is accept it and say…you are right (etc). If you don’t think it is accurate. Simply, say…I will take that on board. You will quickly learn that this will make you feel a lot happier, and if the other person is saying criticism for malice, they will soon lose interest.

An example could be as follows:

You are driving with your wife next to you, when she makes a comment on how close you are driving to other cars. Your first reaction was a knee jerk one, and you automatically take offence to the comment and get defensive. However, you take a few seconds to calm down. You have a quick think about it, and realise that there was merit in her words. ‘Your right…I do sometimes drive to close to other cars…thank you for pointing it out to me, I shall try and drive safer’. Is the reply you give. Your wife felt acknowledged, and you started driving safer. Win-Win.

Of course the above is a very simplistic example, but it does show how the process works. Criticism offers a lot of opportunities and allows us to grow. Without it, we can become quite stagnant. So next time someone is offering criticism consider it, and if you think it has merit take it on board.