For new homeowners, buying a property is a chance to create a space that truly reflects their personality and style which is a much-needed freedom after years spent renting and worrying about deposits. I absolutely love housewarming parties and always try to come up with interesting gift ideas that would also be useful for my friend. From decorative accents to functional pieces, here are some must-have items I recommend getting that will transform a new house into a cozy and inviting place.

#Luxurious bed sheets:

Although it might seem like a basic present, a simple look at the price of some high-quality bed sheets will make you understand why exactly they are an excellent gift idea. Even though we spend almost a third of our life sleeping, we often tend to skimp on things like bedsheets, pillows, and mattresses which will inevitably have consequences in the future. Some high-quality, luxurious bed sheets made of fabrics like sateen, silk, or cotton will not only provide a blissful tactile experience but also promote a restful night’s sleep. By giving your friends such a housewarming gift, you are investing in their comfort, style, and overall well-being.

#Cozy blanket:

Nothing screams coziness and comfort more than a knit throw that you can use to snuggle on cold nights or enjoy a hot cup of tea on the porch. Thanks to their unique design and the high-quality fabric that they’re made of, Irish throws and blankets make a wonderful, long-lasting housewarming present. With its intricate patterns and high-quality craftsmanship, an Irish blanket you can find at Keilys Irish Dance not only provides warmth but also serves as a beautiful decorative piece. Choose one of a neutral color such as white or beige that will be perfectly suitable for any bedroom or living space.

#Cocktail-making kit:

No housewarming party (or any party, honestly) would be complete without cocktails, so get your friends a cocktail-making kit if you want to ensure that they are always ready to have some fun. This gift is perfect for those who enjoy mixing drinks and experimenting with flavors and it includes essential tools like a shaker, muddler, jigger, and even a recipe book with various cocktail recipes, alcoholic or not. With this kit, they can become their own mixologist and impress their guests with delicious homemade cocktails.

#Family portrait:

If you want to truly shock the new house owners in a good way and make them a present that might even become a family legacy, delight them with a personalized family portrait. If you’re an artist and you can do this by yourself, it will make the gift even more special, but otherwise, you can also commission a talented artist to create a custom painting featuring all family members. The personalized portrait can be displayed prominently on their walls, serving as a constant reminder of this exciting chapter in their lives and the most important people they got to share it with.

Superglues were the answer to many industrial and domestic problems, but most of us have discovered one of their annoying disadvantages – when they drip or smear onto the wrong surfaces they seem impossible to remove.

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There is nothing worse than fixing an item and laying your superglue down perhaps on the window sill and finding that it has dripped all down the new radiator that you purchased from a company like Aluminium Radiators UK. Incidentally, if you are looking for a new radiator take a look at stockists such as apolloradiators.co.uk/designer-radiators who will be more than happy to help you.  Removing superglue from metal surfaces is easier than you’d think and here is one method of going about it.

Instructions

First, protect other surfaces and assemble the tools and materials you need. These are clean lint-free cloth, acetone, a small paint scraper, and a hammer. Acetone is an ingredient in many household products such as nail polish remover, so you can use these instead of pure acetone.

Moisten the glue with the acetone, using a clean cloth to apply it, or you can moisten a section of the cloth and leave it on top of the affected area for 5 to 10 minutes to soak in. The acetone will not dissolve the glue, but will gradually loosen its grip to the metal surface.

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Once the superglue has softened, carefully attack it with the scraper, gently tapping with the hammer if necessary. You can also use the hammer to squash the glue as this helps make it malleable, and may even slip it from the surface. If these techniques aren’t sufficient, give the glue raps with the hammer. If it has been sufficiently weakened by the acetone, it will break up and come away.

Finally, clean up the residue. Your acetone laden cloth will remove remaining smears of glue and leave a clean polished surface.

Replacement

A common reason for needing to clean superglues from metal surfaces is because the bond has failed. In order to redo the job, you have to get rid of the old clinging glue. If this is a recurring problem, you need to identify a more reliable adhesive solution.

Fortunately, manufacturers of adhesives usually have them tested by a rating agency that applies standard test procedures (see https://www.astm.org/Standards/adhesive-standards.html). You can get these test results from the manufacturers. Don’t be afraid to contact manufacturers and suppliers direct.

Identifying the best adhesive for your particular job is difficult. Packets in the DIY store rarely display sufficient impartial information. Epoxies are often chosen but have numerous disadvantages, so choose suppliers who provide the best advice.

Christmas Day for many invokes images of the Queen’s speech. The Queen has made an appearance on Christmas Day TV every year since 1952, bar one occasion. There can be no other living person with such a constant presence in our lives on Christmas Day, other than Santa of course! It could well be that no other monarch in our future will make as many Christmas messages to the people as the Queen has.

The tradition began in 1932, when the Queen’s grandfather, George V began a radio broadcast which he did until his last Christmas message of 1935. There was no broadcast made in 1936 as Edward VIII had abdicated the throne just weeks before Christmas. His successor was the rather reluctant George VI, the Queen’s father. He did not make a Christmas broadcast until 1937, missing the following year and resuming in 1939. The tradition has remained almost annually since that date.

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Before television, all transmissions were sent out over the wireless, delivered from Sandringham at around 3 pm on Christmas Day. They were all delivered live with one exception when George VI’s final message was recorded in advance due to his poor health. On the Queen’s succession, she continued the same tradition, even sitting in the same seat at the same desk as her father and grandfather had done.

It wasn’t until 1957 that she delivered her first Christmas message on television as well as radio. In 1959, she confined herself to sending the message on the radio as she was heavily pregnant but since then she has appeared every year on television. Initially, the message was broadcast only on the BBC but in 1997 this was changed to alternate between the BBC and ITN. Sky News was also added to this rotation in 2011. Don’t miss her speech this year because of TV troubles. For TV Aerial Installation Cheltenham way take a look at http://steveunettaerials.co.uk/services/tv-aerials-repair-and-installation-cheltenham/

George V’s broadcast was only meant to be a one-off, but it proved so popular that he had to repeat the process each Christmas for the remainder of his reign. It soon became a British tradition that people felt brought the monarch closer to their people and successive monarchs have felt the need to continue George V’s innovative idea. George VI found it particularly challenging as he suffered a serious speech impediment and did not look forward to the live broadcast.

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The original broadcast of 1932 had been written for the King by Rudyard Kipling. The reason 3 pm was chosen was that it was deemed the best time for reaching the majority of British Empire countries across the world.

Some of Queen’s speech facts

There was no broadcast in either 1936 or 1938.

The tradition was only firmly established when war broke out in 1939 and George VI felt the need to support and reassure the nation.

The only year the Queen has missed a broadcast was 1969. A special documentary had been made that summer about the royal family, so the Queen decided they’d been on TV enough that year and issued a written message instead.

The speech is now available on the radio, on television, the internet, in HD and on the Royal Channel on YouTube.

The Queen writes her own messages within a religious framework and a focus on current events and issues. It is one of the only times we get to hear the Queen’s views and she doesn’t need to turn to the government for advice.

In the Victorian era keeping the water hot fell to the task of the Wash Copper boiler. This was an essential part of the modern household kit at the time even into the 1900s.  Without the Wash copper, you would not have had any access to hot or boiling water. Most of them were used for cleaning and washing.

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There were two types available to the Victorian housewife. In older homes, the Wash copper wash built into a utility room or kitchen safely sealed away behind a tough brick exterior.  The lid was either a copper one or some thick wood. The coal or if it was a more modern version gas or oil burner had some access via a metal gate cut into the brickwork where the fuel could be placed or ignited. Copper is an excellent conductor of heat so the water would soon be nice and warm or at boiling after a relatively short period of time.

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The other type of copper boiler was one that could be lugged around the house wherever it was needed. Although the brick version was safe it was static meaning that you had to carry the water around in tin bucket or you washed the items there. The heat from the boiler could be intense, hence the brickwork and the mobile copper were the same. It had an enameled surface to protect and insulate the copper wash inside and this meant that it gave off pleasing warmth that it was apparently nice to rest an aching shoulder against it.

More expensive versions contained a tap or even a system that could vent off the steam into a flue. If it was a hot summer’s day this was a bit of a blessing. If the copper was used just for washing the family’s clothes the whole lot was dumped into the copper wash and “spun” around using a washing dolly. This was a stick with feet on the end that could turn the washing around. It was also used to extract the clothes so that they could be dried through a mangle.

Great care was taken to ensure that the copper wash was kept clean and tidy. Just as you would look to a Boiler Repair Gloucester business through a company like www.hprservicesltd.com/gloucester-boilers/boiler-repair-gloucester/,  the copper was monitored for rust and grease. It was such a vital part of the house that nothing detrimental could be allowed to happen to it.

Although the vast majority of HVAC systems are based on similar main components – a heat source, cooling unit, blower, and ducts – these units can be packaged in different ways and there are many system enhancements. Here are some of the common terms and elaborations you are likely to encounter.

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Air handler unit (AHU)

The AHU is usually a metal enclosure containing the major system components, such as the heating and cooling coils, blower, filter racks, sound attenuators, and airflow regulators. Many AHUs are located inside a building. An outdoor unit is often called a ‘package unit’. When designed for the roof, it is called a ‘rooftop unit’.

The plenum

The plenum is a kind of spaghetti junction that directs airflows. That sounds simple enough, but it is a critical part of an efficient HVAC system and requires careful design. A supply plenum channels outbound air from your AHU to the different zones or rooms that need warm, cool or freshened air. A return plenum receives air from return grilles and directs it back into the AHU.

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Ducts

Ducts are air-tight channels that conduct air from the supply plenum to the outlet grilles. Ducts also collect and return ‘spent’ air. It is the balance of air inflow and outflow that enables the system to work efficiently.

Although ducts can be manufactured in many shapes and materials, the most common is galvanized spiral duct. This offers excellent weight to strength ratio, is easy to work, join and bracket, and is available from suppliers such as https://www.dustspares.co.uk/ductwork-parts/galvanised-steel-spiral-duct.html.

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Duct fittings

Controlling airflows to take different routes through a ducting network is a specialized skill. Specific fittings help to maintain the balance, including cells, tees, reducers and vent caps. Fittings that split airflow from the main duct into branch ducts are particularly important.

Dampers and diffusers

Dampers are like valves and enable the airflows to be adjusted. They can be manual, remotely controlled or automated. Fire dampers seal ducts automatically if smoke is detected. There are also special dampers to measure airflows, prevent backdrafts, and for other specialized purposes.

Diffuser grilles are often fitted internally to keep airflow uniform, avoiding warmer air separating from cooler and preventing inefficient eddies.

Vents

Room outlets include grilles, diffusers and register boxes. They are carefully designed to distribute outflow evenly in the optimum direction(s) and with minimum noise.

One of the most celebrated films about the tank in World War Two is that of Fury. This is a fictional account but it is based on actual events surrounding the Sherman tank in question. Let’s have a look at the film in a bit more detail before you set offsetting out your day.

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The writer and director of the film used several sources for the movie. The principal source was a non-fiction book called Death Traps. This is a controversial publication as the small Sherman M4 tank was used more than the large and better armored Pershing tank. The M4 stood little to no chance against the massive King Tigers they faced. The only way that they could destroy the Tigers was to get around them and hit them in the thinly armored rear. The damage that was caused would have required a little bit more than your standard metal bonding adhesives, although http://www.ct1ltd.com/product-applications/metal-to-metal-adhesive make some incredible ones, that would have been able to sort some of the damage out. The flaw in that plan is pretty obvious as getting past the Tigers in the first place was problematic.

This is illustrated in the film Kelly’s Heroes where one of the characters points out that the only way he can distract the 3 Tiger tanks is by allowing them to knock holes in his tank or they need to hatch a plan so that he can get behind them.  The serious side of this situation is that loss to US tank crews was extremely high and the author’s comment is that they were sacrificed to make the cheaper more fuel efficient Sherman which was already showing its age when the War moved from Africa to Europe. The director also spoke to veterans and family members who had seen the effects of tank warfare first hand. He also studied historical records and came across a story he could use for his tale of the Fury.

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The Fury is a Sherman Tank driven by a veteran crew that has cut their teeth in North Africa. They now find themselves in France facing stiff German resistance as they try to drive them back to Germany and out of the occupied country. They are joined by a rookie tank member that has trouble fitting into the group. They refuse to give him a nickname until he has proved himself which seems to be the mission of the tanks Captain. He shows the young the recruit the brutality of war forcing him to commit acts of war that he was not expecting. After a young girl that he starts a love affair with is savagely killed he starts to harden and as the tank is crippled by some large Tigers, the crew hide out playing dead. They launch themselves at the passing Germans from inside the Tank killing scores of them before succumbing one by one. Only the young recruit, with the nickname Machine by this point survives.