Gifts Forum

Most homes have more bedrooms than any other room in the house. The bedroom is your personal space for each family member, couple or house mate. This is the one room that can be called your own and therefore is often influenced very much by your own styles and tastes.

After you’ve picked a general colour and theme for your bedroom the next step is to pick suitable bedroom furniture. As it’s called a “bedroom” a bed is a good piece of furniture to pick first. Depending on the size of room and how many people occupy it your choice of bed size can range from single or double up to super king size. Other common pieces found in most bedroom furniture sets are a chest of drawers, wardrobes and bedside cabinets. These can all be picked in varying sizes with chests of drawers ranging from 3 drawers up to 9 drawers and wardrobes being in double or triple size (depending on the number of doors). Once you’ve established the sizes and room for your main bedroom furniture items, you can then establish whether you have space for additional furniture such as blanket boxes or dressing tables. These pieces are less essential for the general bedroom but can add a finishing touch if not forced to fit into a space.

With your dimensions sorted and furniture items allocated space it is then down to picking the right style you’re looking for. Bedroom furniture is available in many styles and finishes like all rooms, the most common being pine or oak wood furniture. However in recent years mirrored furniture has made and appearence along with the still popular black or white painted styles of bedroom furniture. What you choose for your bedroom will be decided by space and cost. With many of the more unique bedroom sets, such as as mirrored or painted bedroom furniture costing more as opposed to the flat pack pine bedroom furniture most commonly seen.

Overall your bedroom is a place of relaxation and rest and therefore should be a calm and warming room. As long as your bed is comfortable and sturdy and your wardrobes and chests of drawers can store your clothes appropriately then your bedroom furniture has served its purpose.

Your mum probably told you that you should look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves! She was only partly right! It’s as important to look after the pounds these days, especially as the credit crunch bites.

Shopping online is a great way of doing research on products without having the pressure sales techniques from sales assistants. You can find all sorts of useful information out when you’re reading the online information stores like Dixon’s give you. They offer a basic overview for the not so technical and then the detailed specification which makes all the difference to the techie expert!

Whether you’re looking at brand new LED televisions or cheaper more basic LCD televisions you’ll find that Dixon’s have plenty of helpful and practical advice. The information for each product gives you dimensions, technical information on what inputs it can take and what you can connect to it. Newer TVs have up to 4 HDMI slots on which is great news if you’ve got digital tv, satellite and recorders to connect up.

Buying new electrical items is less stressful when you’ve got chance to directly compare them online. You can spend as much time as you like reading real customer reviews and checking out the functions and optional extras each has.

Practical advice when you’re picking expensive electrical entertainment items for your home. You want to be sure you’re making the right decision to get the best product possible for your money. Making good financial sense, which would make your mum happy too! Dixon’s online electrical shopping is a great way to shop for high value items offering you a price match promise too!

This week’s gardening suggestions are to dodge the rain showers! It’s hard work sometimes, but the rain makes the weeds grow so they need keeping under check. Learning to use a hoe is important and you’ll discover why you should space your rows of veg the right distance apart, as well as in straight lines. It’s only when you’ve twisted and turned whilst hoeing that you realise your lines of onions weren’t as straight as you thought.

Some weeds can just be hoed off. Especially annual weeds and if it’s hot! The poor little weeds just frazzle on the soil surface in hot sun which kills them off. In damp weather they might just take root again. It’s a tricky decision whether to spend hours back breakingly weeding by hand or whether to hoe and hoe again.

Gardening is supposed to be fun, so don’t overdo it – a little each day is probably best!

Even if you weed out all the weeds big enough to pull out you can guarantee there’ll be some more there tomorrow! The dandelions need digging out, as do the docks with their nasty long roots. Even a tiny bit of dandelion root can grow so it’s worth doing your best to get rid of them. The alternative is to actually pick the leaves and eat them as a salad vegetable! But don’t let them flower and set seed else your neighbours won’t like you!

Chickweed is one of the quick growing annual weeds that’s quite invasive. It’s got tiny white flowers and is quick to set seed too. It can easily smother seedlings so it’s worth trying to get rid of as much as possible each time you weed.

Don’t neglect the edges of your vegetable patch too. There’s as likely to be weeds growing in the edges that will creep onto the soil as soon as you turn your back. Strim away the weeds if you can and compost them all. If you’re leaving a plot or bed empty for any length of time then you could either cover the surface with plastic or weed cover or plant a green manure crop to cover the soil. Green manure plants are great – you let them grow and dig them in before they flower. They add nutrients and organic matter to the soil and also hopefully stop the weeds colonising the land too!

Green manure crops are usually quite cheap – you buy a packet of seeds and springle them on! This is certainly easier to carry home from the shops than a bag of compost! The land being used means it doesn’t suffer as much wind or rain erosion as a bare patch would and they maintain the soil structure too. They are also good for wildlife – those that flower provide the bees places to feed! Some of them like red clover are not only good for bees but fix nitrogen too! There are many types of green manure available and they can be planted at different times of the year.

Located in Spain in the southern part of the Valencian community, Alicante is a tourists’ delight. The area is rich with history going back over 7000 years. The five attractions listed below are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to sights to visit on your trip to Alicante.

Castle of Santa Barbara

Standing high on Mount Benacantil in the center of Alicante, the Castle of Santa Barbara was built in the ninth century by Muslims. The castle has changed hands many times over the years, beginning with its capture by Castilian forces led by Alfonso de Castila, later Alphonso X, in 1248. It was opened to the public in 1963 and remains a popular attraction for tourists.

Santa Maria Basilica

Built in the 14th century on the ruins of a mosque, the Santa Maria Basilica is the oldest church in the city. It was rebuilt in the 15th century due to a fire. This beautiful church offers many sights, including a Valencian baroque organ from the 17th century.

Alicante Theatre

Opened in 1847, the Alicante Theatre is a wonderful building that will delight both architecture and theatre buffs. The outside of the theatre is done in the neo-classical style, while the inside is divided into three sections – the vestibule, the horseshoe shaped auditorium and the stage – following Italian typology of the period.

Archaeological Museum of Alicante

Highlighting the history of Alicante, the Archaeological Museum of Alicante is sure to interest lovers of history. It was founded in 1932 to showcase the more than 80,000 pieces found in local archaeological sites. On your visit, be sure to watch some of the educational movies which teach the history of the area from the Stone Age to Medieval Times.

Town Hall

Erected on the site of the former town hall, this Baroque style Town Hall was designed by architect Lorenzo Chapuli in the 18th century. Be sure to check out the columns on the facade as well as the towers. Visitors will also enjoy rooms in Town Hall such as the Salon Azul, styled in the period of Queen Isabel of Spain.

Alicante is just two and a half hours from London and three hours from airports further north. Flights to Alicante are extremely regular due to the popularity of this region with holidaymakers.