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tilecleaningtoday · 6 years ago

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Cleaning, Polishing and Sealing Tumbled Travertine Floor Tiles in Northamptonshire

I was called by the owner of a property in Braybrooke who was keen to have their Tumbled Travertine tiled kitchen floor renovated. The floor hadn’t been cleaned professionally for over eight years and the owner was concerned that dirt was getting trapped in the natural holes and crevices (pits) which are a natural feature of Travertine.

I went over to survey the floor at the property in Braybrooke which is a lovely small village in north west Northamptonshire halfway between Market Harborough and Desborough. We carried out a test clean on two separate tiles in the kitchen, the customer was thrilled at how clean they came up and especially with the grout. She said it reminded her how they used to look when they were first installed.

A quote to restore the floor was sent and was quickly accepted; a date was then agreed for the work to be completed. The job would take just two days to complete, one day to clean and then a return visit to seal the floor.

Cleaning a Tumbled Travertine Tiled Kitchen Floor

On our return the first thing we did was to protect the kitchen units by removing plinths and covering base units and appliances with a protective film. This ensures nothing is accidentally damaged during the process. We then commenced work with a rotary scrubbing machine fitted with a tile brush attachment. This was used to scrub in a hot water dilution of Tile Doctor Pro Clean mixed 3:1. The slurry was then removed with a wet pick up, followed by cleaning the grout with hand brushes using more Pro-Clean. The strong alkaline product makes quick work of removing the ingrained dirt and grime and removing what was left of the original sealer. The next step was to burnish the stone with a set of Tile Doctor Diamond Encrusted Burnishing pads which polish the floor to achieve an as new look. The pads are run over the Travertine tiles with water in sequence from coarse to very smooth. After each pad is applied the floor is rinsed with water and the slurry removed with the wet pickup machine. Fans were left in place to assist drying the floor whilst I spent time filling the larger holes with filler in a colour chosen to match the existing floor as closely as possible.

Sealing a Tumbled Travertine Tiled Kitchen Floor

The floors were left to dry off fully overnight and I returned the next day to carry out the final polish with a very fine 3000 grit burnishing pad and to apply two coats of Tile Doctor Ultra-Seal which will protect the stone going forward. Ultra-Seal is a no-sheen, natural-look, penetrating sealer which is formulated to provide maximum stain protection and is especially recommended for food preparation areas like a kitchen.

The floor looked so much better and the customer was very happy that it had been restored to its’ former glory as requested. She really thought the floor was beyond saving. We suggested that she used the Tile Doctor Stone Soap for ongoing cleaning. Most floor cleaning products sold in the supermarket are not recommended for the cleaning of natural stone as they can erode the sealer prematurely so always read the label. Source: Travertine Tile Cleaning, Polishing and Sealing Service in Northamptonshire

#Tumbled Travertine #Travertine Polishing #Travertine Filling #Travertine Cleaning #Tiled Floor Cleaning #Northamptonshire #Kitchen Floor Tiles #Filling Travertine #Braybrooke

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chriskarrtravelblog · 5 years ago

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Upstairs Downstairs

We explore what relationships were really like between the upstairs and downstairs residents of Britain’s big houses

In the new Downton Abbey film, veteran housekeeper Mrs Hughes is unequivocal in briefing staff: “I want every surface in this house to gleam and sparkle,” she tells them, and this, says, historian Dr Mac Graham of Holkham Hall, is exactly the effect the grand Norfolk home is after today.

The parallels don’t stop there. While the staff of Downton Abbey prepare for a royal visit, Holkham Hall, seat of the Earls of Leicester, has hosted many a royal guest, starting with a young Queen Victoria. Just 16 and still a princess, Victoria visited as part of a tour, arranged by her mother, of what would soon be her realm.

Marble Hall, Holkham Hall. Credit: Ivan Vdovin/Alamy

In the film, staff find their noses put out of joint by members of the royal household who rather take over things, and this is likely a true depiction. When Victoria visited, she would have come with a full entourage – her mother, her ladies in waiting (who may well have been daughters of earls themselves), and her own servants, who would have slept near her on a specially designed mezzanine floor. The royal chamber would have had two bells, one to summon the queen’s own servants, and another to summon a member of the household staff.

By now, we’re all familiar with the terms ‘above stairs’ and ‘below stairs’, but this implies that staff were very separate from the residents of the house and their guests. In truth, staff often lived and worked much closer than that, much like mice in the walls, scuttling up and down staircases hidden behind silk wallpaper and huge tapestries.

On the new ‘Hidden Passages and Servants’ Stairs’ tours of Holkham Hall, visitors can go behind the scenes and see just how well this 18th-century property was designed to enable staff to get to the family and high-status guests in the quickest possible time.

Holkham Hall’s servants’ staircase

Guests might be surprised to learn that one staircase acts as the main artery of Holkham Hall, with a labyrinth of corridors that run behind the rooms, making it easy for staff to scuttle around without being seen.

Dr Mac Graham, who has been instrumental in the curation of these tours, says: “We are able to show how the housekeeper and her staff were able to get to those rooms very quickly up one little flight of stairs – you think you’re way behind the scenes and then suddenly through a little discreet door, you’re in one of the most lavish rooms in the house.

Holkham Hall

“It wasn’t random,” Dr Mac Graham continues. “If you go back to a Tudor house or an older house it is going to be ramshackle and difficult to find your way around. Here it is very organised and symmetrical: everything has been thought through.”

At the end of the tours, which take place every Wednesday from April to October, you come down the butler’s staircase where you can see a big row of bells, much like in Downton Abbey, which gives some idea of the machinations that go into running a house like this.

hough the divide between the owners of big houses (and their important guests) and staff was often clear, sometimes relationships were known to cross boundaries.

In the 1820s, high society was shocked when septuagenarian Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh of Uppark House, in West Sussex, fell in love with his young dairy maid (some 50 years his junior) and married her. The story goes that on hearing young Mary Ann Bullock singing, Sir Harry proposed to her on the spot, saying: “Don’t answer me now. But if you will have me, cut a slice out of the leg of mutton that is coming up for my dinner today.”

Holkham Hall’s Old Kitchen

When Sir Harry’s mutton arrived, the slice had indeed been cut, and the marriage subsequently took place. Despite creating quite the scandal, it was nevertheless a successful marriage, lasting until Sir Harry’s death in 1846. Perhaps at the age of 71 Sir Harry felt it was time to put his bachelor days behind him.

Lady Fetherstonhaugh then found herself the owner of a vast estate, which by the 1850s totalled some 5,149 acres and employed 203 workers. When she died, in 1874, Mary Ann left the estate to her sister, Frances, who then took on the Fetherstonhaugh name.

Uppark’s exterior. Credit: © National Trust Images/Andrew Butler

Today, the sumptuous interiors of the first-floor rooms remain resolutely Georgian, while visitors can explore the servants’ quarters in the basement, such as the Still Room, where preserves were made and the finishing touches added to the family’s meals before they were taken upstairs to the servery. All the rooms below stairs are presented much as they would have been in the late 19th century.

Once of the most opulent houses in Jacobean England, Audley End House is a beautiful 17th-century country house in Saffron Walden, Essex. Considered a prodigy house, originally built to entertain King James I, it was later owned by King Charles II, who would stay here when he attended the races at nearby Newmarket.

Many visitors are struck by the grandeur of the Great Hall (which has stood in for Balmoral and Windsor on screen), or the state bed, commissioned ahead of a royal visit in 1794. However, to really get a sense of the hard labour that went into running a house of this scale, a visit to the 1880s service wing is a must.

The kitchen in the basement at Uppark. Credit: © National Trust Images/Oskar Proctor

Here you can see the Coal Gallery and the Wet Laundry, and learn about the specific hierarchy, not just between those who lived below and above stairs, but also between the servants, who themselves had a clear pecking order. On weekends from April to September, you can also watch the cook and her staff prepare dishes using traditional methods and adhering to the recipe book of Avis Crocombe, who was the head cook here in the 1880s. Her job was no small feat: one Christmas alone, Lord and Lady Braybrooke and their guests consumed 541lb of meat and 34 rabbits. Roasted swan was occasionally on the menu, too.

And then there is Blenheim Palace, the house built by the Duke of Marlborough and his wife, the formidable Sarah Churchill, on land gifted by Queen Anne following the Duke’s victory in the War of the Spanish Succession.

The gilded state rooms give a sense of the history and prestige of the house. An Upstairs tour will bring you into the bedrooms where guests of the Marlborough family stay even today (and show how the rooms are linked by secret doorways or corridors). Guides will also reveal anecdotes about past residents and guests, from Winston Churchill, who was born here, to Charlie Chaplin and Bill Clinton.

Meanwhile, the Downstairs tour gives you a peek at how staff scurry through passageways and tunnels to ensure everything keeps ticking along nicely. Service is not taken lightly here and the pressure is on: from the moment food is plated up by the Michelin-starred chef, staff have just 34 seconds to place it on the table, one floor above. Mr Carson, Downton Abbey’s exacting butler, would no doubt approve.

The post Upstairs Downstairs appeared first on Britain Magazine | The official magazine of Visit Britain | Best of British History, Royal Family,Travel and Culture.

Britain Magazine | The official magazine of Visit Britain | Best of British History, Royal Family,Travel and Culture https://www.britain-magazine.com/features/inspiration/upstairs-downstairs/

source https://coragemonik.wordpress.com/2019/12/09/upstairs-downstairs/

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timberflooring9-blog · 7 years ago

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Timber Flooring Melbourne

Timber Flooring Melbourne https://timberflooringmelbourne.net.au [email protected] +61451588219 Unit 2/40 Lily Street, Braybrook, 3019, Melbourne, Australia We provide laminate installation services and timber materials for customers in Melbourne, Australia.

#Timber Flooring #Timber Flooring Melbourne #Laminate Flooring Melbourne

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nawafithme · 7 years ago

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Siri for Realtors? 5 tech hacks shaking up Austin real estate – Austin Business Journal

In an industry where scanned documents and printed paper still reign, it can be easy to overlook the dozens of new technologies under development to make real estate transactions faster and simpler. Robot-assisted rentals, paperless property purchases and super smart homes are just a few examples of how Austin companies are integrating technology to streamline traditional processes. Here are a few new technologies to hit Austin in the past month, plus a few additional ones featured at South by Southwest.

Kelle: Keller Williams’ answer to Siri

Austin-based Keller Williams Realty Inc. wants to invest $1 billion into developing new technologies to serve its 177,000 associates across the globe. Much of that investment is happening at its new tech innovation hub, called KW Labs, which opened in Austin last October.

The latest product to emerge out of the tech hub is a virtual assistant called “Kelle” which acts as a real estate version of Apple’s Siri.

Agents can ask questions like “How close am I to reaching this month’s goals?” or “What listing appointments do I have today?” and get an instant response.

“What’s unique about this is if you look at any other voice assistants out there, those are general purpose. We wanted to create that experience for something that is focused on real estate and hyper-focused on Keller Williams,” said Daniel Morris, director of product management for Keller Williams.

The artificial intelligence assistant can help agents grow their referral networks, organize their schedules, track their goals, connect with other agents and manage their client database and track interactions with clients, among other tasks. Software developers plan to add more features so agents can view properties, manage offers, organize transactions and find training tools.

The AI software also taps into Keller Williams’ massive cloud of data to give agents market information.

“Kelle advantages our agents with simplified access to that data and as we build more insights that will increase their productivity and competitiveness,” Morris said.

The Kelle app is only available to Keller Williams agents but the company hopes to eventually make it available to its development partners.

Smart homes + keyless entry = super smart homes

Kate Braybrook of PSW Real Estate LLC doesn’t consider herself to be tech savvy — but she knows many of her Austin customers are. That’s why her company partnered with Missouri startup Homebase. The Kansas City-based company customized its smart home and secure entry app for PSW’s new condo project on East Fifth Street called Eastline.

Starting this summer, condo owners at Eastline will be able to use the Homebase app to schedule handymen, home cleaners or other services even when they’re away from home. The background-checked service workers get a temporary digital key to gain access inside the house, using the condo’s keyless entry system.

Homebase — which also provides property management tools for landlords and renters — is also running a pilot program with Amazon to test a new feature that will give delivery drivers temporary access to drop off packages behind Eastline’s condo’s gates.

“We know that our consumers — most of them are smarter than us,” quipped Braybrook, director of multifamily for PSW. “We do not have the right [tech] people, but we have the right partners.”

Eastline welcomed its first residents earlier this month. The two-story condo project also includes 5,000 square feet of first-floor retail and courtyards.

Braybrook said Eastline’s 48 units are about 60 percent sold. The real estate company saw Homebase as a way to attract young tech professionals and boost security. Its Austin investors include Will Winkler of PSW Real Estate and Boris Portman.

“This partnership has been so much more than a door lock system,” Braybook said.

Machine learning boots MLS listings?

A Los Angeles- based real estate tech firm is on a mission to convince Austin homebuyers and sellers to skip the MLS altogether. Instead, REX Real Estate uses big data, machine learning and artificial intelligence to micro-target would-be buyers with sophisticated online advertisements.

There are dozens of digital trails consumers leave online every day — and REX tries to harness all of that data to predict not only when someone will want to buy or sell a home, but what type of home they may want. It then uses this data to customize ads and market specific properties toward consumers.

So, for example, if someone is shopping at a home improvement store frequently, has lived in a home for several years, plus has added to their family recently, REX could predict that person has a high likelihood of moving out of their house soon.

“There is something so arcane about the residential real estate space. Of course we put our homes on Zillow and Trulia, but that’s not enough to passively hope it sells on a website. You have to approach people,” said Jack Ryan, CEO and co-founder of REX Real Estate.

REX cuts out a lot of the initial legwork agents do to market properties. However, showings, checking documents and other tasks still need human assists, Ryan said.

Still, skipping MLS and saving agents time means the firm can afford to cut its own commission fees to 2 percent — compared to 5 percent to 6 percent for many residential real estate transactions.

REX launched in Austin in late February and already has 12 homes listed in the $350,000 to $750,000 price range, Ryan said. Two have pending sales, he said. Its three agents joined a team of about 10 data scientist and software engineers already working in Austin to serve the company’s operations in New York, Los Angeles and San Diego. Its investors include former executives at Google, McDonald’s, Sun Microsystems, Best Buy and Crate and Barrel.

Later this year REX plans to launch in seven cities, including Dallas, Denver and San Francisco. But its existing team of data scientists in Austin motivated it to launch in the Texas capital first.

“We’re a tech company and Austin is very tech friendly. People are like, ‘Got it’,” Ryan said.

Dotloop digitizes

Tracking all the paper trails in a real estate transaction can suck agents’ time and resources — and introduce liability if an agent loses an important paper document. So Krystle Copulos, broker-owner of Platinum Realty, has a paperless policy through which the entire transaction from start to finish is done digitally.

Copulos uses Dotloop, an online platform that integrates form creation, e-signatures and real estate transaction management systems into one place. Agents can collaborate with buyers and sellers to modify a document and avoid scanning and rescanning a document.

“When people print and scan documents multiple times, it becomes illegible,” Copulos said. “There’s something to be said for one, clean document with all the signatures that gets sent to all the partners at the same time.”

Dotloop, acquired by Zillow Group in 2015,also is used by Austin agents with Keller Williams Realty, said Alex Allison, director of business development at Dotloop.

Intellirent investigates

For rental properties, Platinum Realty taps into Intellirent Solutions Inc., which allows property owners to perform credit and background checks on prospective tenants, check into employment history and rent payments in “real time,” even outside of traditional office hours. Renters can use Intellirent to fill out one application that matches them to hundreds of apartments they can qualify for to streamline the apartment hunting process. The San Francisco company’s main Austin clients are REspace and Platinum Realty.

Platinum Realty also has its own app that allows customers to search for properties, among other tasks.

Surprisingly, it’s not the real estate agents who are hesitant to adopt new technologies, it typically comes from old-school customers who still want “wet ink on the page,” Copulos said.

“I find the ways to explain the benefits, and once they do it [digitally], they appreciate it,” she said.

Source Article

Learn More: http://www.nawafith.net/siri-for-realtors-5-tech-hacks-shaking-up-austin-real-estate-austin-business-journal/

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opticien2-0 · 8 years ago

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IRX 2017 Top five mobile innovations

Speaking at IRX 2017, Michael Braybrook, director of enterprise solutions at intelligent mobile engagement company mGage, listed his top five mobile innovations. Here are his choices, and the reasoning behind them.

Chatbots

Chatbots, says Michael Braybook of mGage, can help businesses answer common questions around the clock. By interacting with a chatbot instead of a contact centre, consumers can do their digital chores out of hours. Chatbots, argued Braybrook, can “probably answer 80% to 90% of queries” while also taking contacts that don’t require human contact out of the queue.

Emojis

It’s easy to see emojis as a joke, says Braybrook, but they represent the fastest-growing and most easily recognised language – and one that’s used by a new generation. He points to an experiment by Domino’s Pizza in the US which enabled customers to order their pizza by emoji, and then track delivery of the product using the system. “It’s really interesting to see the impact it’s had,” said Braybrook. “People start talking about the brand.”

Location-based services

These, says Braybrook are getting better all the time, and are used in cases from tracking customers via wifi to offering maps, navigation and information services. “In Selfridges, for example,” says Braybrook, “a location-based use would find out if shoppers are there, offer them an offer. If they are walking past it would pull them in with an offer. Once in the store, once you know where they are you can target them with an offer, or give them a card for free coffee at Starbucks on the fourth floor. Targeting people who are in-store, using wifi technology will become more prevalent in the industry.”

Using Google innovations

Google is putting the mobile web first, from beaming wi-fi into Africa to enabling mobile apps that rely on wifi rather than on voice. In retail, text messages are read and answered more quickly than email. These are a good way of communicating time sensitive messages, says Braybrook, such as targeting customers around pay day or around a bank holiday weekend. Given that 60% of all purchases are made a mobile, text messages can also be used in product search. Google’s click to text extension – a button that asks shoppers to text for more information – shows a way for further messaging innovations. Retailers might reply with a link to a video, for example. “In SMS,” says Braybrook, “messaging videos can be longer than the 15 seconds usually recommended for social media videos, because people are surprised to get it.”

Voice search By 2020, says Braybrook, citing Gartner, consumers will manage 85% of their relationship with a brand without interacting with a human. “They’re going to be searching on a phone and talking to a chatbot,” he said. Already customers are talking to Alexa and using Amazon Dot, as brands take ownership and implement strategies. The best response to a voice search, argues Braybrook, is a relevant descriptive video. “Right now it’s very new, and the best way to start is with video answers to search enquiries.”

The post IRX 2017 Top five mobile innovations appeared first on InternetRetailing.

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#Retail 2.0

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