Ideas For Kitchen Cabinets

How does one get the best ideas in creating their dream kitchen cabinet or countertop?

Most designers will tell you, you can never look at too many photos of kitchen cabinets and countertops. Create a file of features you like; it's OK to make judgments based on appearance in this case. Select colors, styles, details, and configurations you love. Then, think about function. Imagine you're preparing a holiday dinner : What storage systems would make it easy for you to find your baster, roasting pan, and muffin tins? Picture your dinner guests perched on stools at your island bar : what type of countertop would be the most comfortable under their elbows - and the easiest to clean once they've gone home?

Of all the products you'll consider for your new kitchen or bath, cabinetry offers you the greatest chance to customize. You'll be amazed by your options : raised-panel doors for traditional settings; slab (unadorned) doors for a sleek, streamlined approach; glossy lacquered finishes that convey a contemporary European look. Choose from woods as familiar as maple, oak, and cherry or as exotic as wenge and anigre.

Discover a seemingly limitless array of colors created by stain, paint, and glaze. Add decorative hardware, glass inserts (available in a variety of textures and patterns), and embellishments such as corbels and legs. And remember, you'll want to outfit cabinet interiors with storage systems suited to your stuff and style.

New cabinets are an investment you probably will live with for some time. They will likely also require the largest portion of your budget - often as much as half - for kitchen products. Your first step when shopping for cabinetry is to weigh your budget against your desire for customization. Door styles, wood species, and storage options combine to create a one-of-a-kind kitchen, but also ramp up the cost. A professional designer can help you make choices that balance your budget with your vision of your future kitchen.

Here's some buying tips when shopping for cabinetry :

• Collect pictures of kitchens that appeal to you to establish the overall flavor you're interested in before you start comparing specific products. Such a portfolio is an ideal starting point for working with a designer, who will ask questions about the pictures and plan a design based on your answers.

• Study cabinets at home centers and showrooms. With displays that often mimic full-size kitchens, you can compare finishes, get a feel for what it's like to bend and reach when opening doors and drawers, and investigate the many accessories that boost storage and convenience.
  

• If you're interested in glass-front cabinets, first decide what you'll store in them. Clear glass is best when you wish to put items such as a dinnerware collection on display and you want visual "open space". Ribbed and other types of patterned glass add a textural element. You'll still see what's behind these glass doors, but the effect is somewhat abstract. Frosted-glass doors are the best choice when you want to break up the monotony of wood doors while obscuring contents.

Shopping for cabinetry and countertops will likely be the most daunting - and priciest - aspect of creating your new space. But if you see things my way, you'll no doubt discover that it's also the most rewarding. Let the matchmaking begin!

History of Wharfedale

One of my greatest passions in life is to find time to sit down in my room, with a warm cup of coffee in my hand, and listening to a CD from my favorite all-time 80's band; a-ha. And thanks to a great pair of Wharfedale loudspeakers, these guys seem to be performing "live concerts in my room" on a daily basis, if you know what I mean. These loudspeakers communicate not just the music as it was recorded, but also the very essence of the performance! This inspired me to finally sit down and write a post on the History of Wharfedale.

Wharfedale was in fact founded in 1932, by Gilbert Briggs who built his first loudspeakers in the cellar of his home in Ilkley in Yorkshire, England. This quiet market town was located in the valley of the river 'Wharfe', hence 'Wharfedale', the unlikely setting for the birth of a brand that was to become synonymous with quality and technology wherever hi-fi was used throughout the world.

In 1933, a small factory was established in nearby Bradford in order to build the increasingly popular loudspeaker drive units. In the same year the Wharfedale Wireless Works won both first and second prizes in a national competition organized by the Bradford Radio Society. These were but the first of many awards that the company has since received. From this time, Wharfedale went from strength to strength, and, following a move to a larger factory, production reached 9,000 speakers in the year 1939.

During the war years the company concentrated on the production of transformers for military equipment, but in 1945 a new factory was found and loudspeaker production restarted with a staff of over 20. Production levels grew dramatically with loudspeakers being shipped across the world and in 1956 Wharfedale formed its own subsidiary company in the USA and the following year opened a massive new automated cabinet factory in Bradford.

Gilbert has built quite a reputation for himself for pioneering a hifi industry. His popularity extends to the books he has written which led him to stage an audacious series of concerts to compare live vs. recorded music. These concert demonstrations became very famous, using Wharfedale loudspeakers with either Quad or Leak electronics. It also led to the very close working relationship between Gilbert and Peter Walker of Quad that led to the next major development for Wharfedale.

In 1958 Gilbert Briggs, by then over 68 years old, sold the company to the Rank Organization; a major UK industrial group which also owned the audio electronics company Leak and also Heco; a German loudspeaker company. Rank made major investments in R&D and in marketing and distribution. Wharfedale continued to lead the loudspeaker world in technological developments with the introduction in 1960 of roll-surround suspensions and in 1961 the first use of ceramic magnets.

By 1988 Wharfedale Loudspeakers plc was listed on the London Stock Exchange and in 1992 the company changed its name to the Verity Group plc and purchased a number of other companies including Mission; Cyrus; Quad (all British hi-fi companies) and Premier Musical Instruments. The then managing director of Wharfedale led a management buyout and formed a new company; the International Audio Group which incorporated Wharfedale loudspeakers; Quad audio electronics; Leak high-end audio electronics and Airedale loudspeakers.

As for the man who started it all, Gilbert Briggs died in 1978 but his legacy and enthusiasm lives on in his products. Today Wharfedale is a truly international company with its Marketing and Design departments headquarters in Huntingdon, England.

So the next time you have a look at a Wharfedale loudspeaker, remember, you're getting a product which has a 75 year experience, one of the most advanced research and development programmes, and high quality control processes in the industry.

Build Superior Landing Pages

Imagine running a huge online marketing campaign for your site, complete with all the blog buzz, advertisements and search engine placements. You're expecting tons of traffic to hit your site, you think the job's done, well sadly, not quite. One very important factor many fail to spend time working on - Build superior landing pages. Definitely a very important tool when it comes down to any marketing campaign, if you ask me.

Landing Pages are basically the web page where the visitor reaches, after clicking on a link or promotional ad. Its a page where detailed information about a specific product or service that was mentioned in that link is displayed. At the end of the day, no amount of hardwork put into your marketing campaign will be worth much if there's no conversion! So, create that superior landing page and you're on your way to a very successful site.

Imagine this, your site now gets around 10,000 page views a month and you think, wow, that's a lot of traffic. But remember, that does not promise success, because you could lose all that traffic in matter of weeks if you don't have an equal balance of conversion ratio at your landing page. What do we mean by conversion - Once these visitors reach your landing page, naturally you need them to do something or rather, (like maybe, buy your product, subscribing to your weekly newsletter etc). Once the visitors carry out the desired action similar to this, you've then had, what we call, a conversion. And this ladies and gentlemen, is the sole purpose of having a good landing page. Learning how to optimize the page, is another trick in itself.

Before you begin developing your landing page, consider its real purpose. What do you hope your visitors would do when they reach there? Here are 11 pointers which should help you improve your landing pages :

1. Consider it's main purpose.
   
2. What is your goal? Do you want to sell a product, help people learn about a particular service, do want them to provide you feedback?
3. Content is a vital part of a landing page. Know what to include in, and what not to.
4. Provide detailed information about the said product or service, something which is relevant and focused.
5. Avoid linking to other areas of your site, as you want them to convert on that one page, and not wandering off to other parts off your site whilst being entertained by your fancy colorful animations.
6. Keep in mind who your audience are, make sure the information you provide meets their requirements.
7. Make sure the look and feel of your landing page is consistent with your other marketing materials.
8. Include the keywords or phrases which were used in your advertisement, and add them into your page title and headline.
9. Keep the load times of your landing page under 5 seconds.
10. Routinely update your landing page. If you decide to change your campaign, change your landing page as well.
11. Make sure that none of the links in that page are broken or outdated for that matter.