Last order date for shipment before holidays :: 18th July 2025
As with most Italian manufacturers, our partner suppliers will be closing for their annual August holiday and there will be no manufacturing or shipping from the end of the day on Friday 18th July 2025. We will still be able to take orders and provide pre-sales advice and information throughout the August holiday shutdown and orders will be processed as soon as the manufacturers resume work.
New Year, new you
New Year, new start
New Year, new ... whatever
We seem to put a lot of faith into the transformative eruption that comes when poor, tatty ol' 31st December explodes into a bright, shiny 1st January. We set personal goals just for ourselves, to get fit, thin, happy, healthy, save money and be kind. Most of these are admirable aims and you'll be sharing them with millions of other people in that lovely, warm after-Christmas, happy glow.
But YouGov1 asked people to cast their minds back to the beginning of 2024 and say whether they had kept their New Year's resolutions. One in six (17%) said that they had but, of that group, only one in three claim to have kept all of the resolutions they made. And, of the overall group of people quizzed, one in five (19%) admitted that they failed to keep any of their New Year's resolutions.
" It could just be a simple case of challenge and reward. "
So, do we seem to be flirting around the edges of insanity at lea...
Retro clothing, retro music and even retro artwork. It's quite a big thing at the moment and seems to add a touch of warm nostalgia to people's rather stressed lives.
But it's not for everyone, particularly when it comes to houses and interior design. Retro has its own time limits and what's retro today is going to be old fashioned tomorrow. That's not a good idea for something as fundamental as your home, which is too valuable to need to be updated with every swing of the fashion pendulum.There are still probably hundreds of thousands of houses built in the 70s and 80s which still reflect that period in their interior design. You know what I mean - ranch railing on the staircase, formica kitchen units, or just lots of B R O W N!
But this also means that it offers you a blank canvas for bringing your home right up to date and give it some design integrity, some quality elements which will carry you and your home comfortably and s...
Did you see the rather moving episode of Channel 4's Grand Designs Series 22 Episode 8, which featured Tony and Ara's healing house set in a wonderful woodland garden? This turned out to be quite a big project, starting with the demolition of Tony's childhood home nestled in an idyllic woodland setting.
Their intention was to create a home of "healing" dedicated to health and wellbeing for themselves and guests, a project which they knew would be challenging and costly - but they had no idea just how challenging it would become.
It took the couple an unexpected four years of tremendous personal effort and distressing health setbacks. For Tony, though, he faced an uphill struggle of his initial lack of the skills needed for a selfbuilder but he persevered and overcame that steep learning curve. The shock of Ara's health challenges were more difficult to come to terms with, but they hope that the house, that was created as a ho...
If you've been following the previous instalments of our guide to loft conversion, you've probably already built up a good picture of how your potential loft room will look and feel. But we have often mentioned the need to look at the various statutory regulations (in UK) which come into play for loft conversion projects and we'll give you a quick overview in this issue.
There are two main areas of legislation involved - Planning Permission and Building Regulations. Planning Permission focuses on the look of the project, how it fits in the neighbourhood and how it might affect neighbours, and Building Regulations deal with the safety and structural integrity of any proposed work. There is also good information freely available on the Government Planning Portal by clicking here.
Many loft conversions won't need Planning Permission as they probably fall within permitted development rights, or unless you are thinking of putting in ...
Well, if you've been following this series you'll have an idea about the structure and safe access to your new loft room, but what about filling your room with daylight? There are four main types of window for lofts -
1) a dormer window, which projects outwards from the roofline,
2) a roof window, which fits in the slope of the roof,
3) a window in a gable wall or
4) a roof lantern (raised sections of the roof structure using double glazed units).
There may be planning implications relating to the look of the property, the impact on the area and on neighbouring properties and your decision should be made in consultation with your local planning officer.
If you are unsure just how many windows you need, a good guide is for the glazed area to be at least 10% of the floor area, and the lower the pitch of your roof, the longer the window needs to be for the best possible view. Windows positioned on both sides of the roof will help with the light distribution but whichever win...
"Red tape delays goods for more than half UK companies trading with EU"
The survey of Supply Chain Managers revealed that "the delays have been prompted by a combination of bureaucratic requirements now that the UK has left the EU and extra protocols to deal with Covid-19." Well, sadly for TheStaircasePeople Team - and for you - there is little that we can do to ease the current situation and get our import process back to its smooth, and speedy, pre-Brexit state.
The result of the perfect storm of new import processes and documentation combined with the additional health and safety requirements of an unprecedented global pandemic, has been to take the usual delivery timescales for our Italian staircases from an acceptable average of 10 days to a frustrating average of 4 weeks. But there is plenty of reassurance out there that things will improve as the new processes bed in, vaccinations against Co...
For a conventional style of staircase,... 