I am an KLC Graduate and did the full year course. I found it a very good foundation in both the ergonomics of design, learning the principles which hold a design together underneath the style, lighting design, space planning, teh legal side of clients & contractor relationships who to brief other professional and how to create great presentation work to have a clients really understand what you are doing. We had access to some of the best designers in the industry, who I still meet and continue to learn from. When you are all working around each other every day for a year or more it can be easy to be "inspired" by other students but KLC doesn't teach you to have a "style", that is something they expect you to have. That doesn't mean every student has it and others aren't influenced by the stronger designers on the course which may be the reason that you felt there was a generic look. The thing I would like to stress the most about the school is that when I graduated 12 years ago, they found me, as well as the rest of my year, an amazing job in a leading design company. People have continued to have strong design careers many not only in the H&G top 100 design companies but many of them now running them. KLC has a strong Alumni association so at any point in your career you can have career advise. There is no short cut into this very competitive industry I'm afraid to say but the right commitment to the training that fits you opens so many doors. There is also more to being a designer than the pretty and KLC prepared me for a career that involves so much. I wish you the best of luck.

Buy cupboards that are designed to conceal major appliances such as fridges/ovens/washing machines

From this site: http://www.contractflooringjournal.co.uk/blog/anhydrite-screeds-handle-with-care/ The second paragraph: Although calcium sulphate screeds are sometimes sold and applied as a fast track option, their drying times are in fact similar to sand/cement screeds: typically 1mm per day up to a thickness of 40mm, and then an additional two days per mm over this. So at a max of 70 mm you are possibly looking at a total of around a hundred days full drying time. However, you are now well over the drying time as regards the chemical reaction that hardens the cement, is it simply still damp or has it not gone off properly and hardened? As Bespoke Interiors mentions, a dehumidifier will help to reduce general humidity and help to dry the floor if it has gone off, otherwise if the floor is not hard then you have an issue either with the product or the application of the product. I recommend reading the whole article to give you some background knowledge, that's assuming it is a calcium sulphate cement, calling it calcium cement instead of the full name means it could be any one of several cements with different calcium compounds that have different properties. Calcium aluminate cements are also used for decorative floors and calcum oxide is the basis for Portland cement.

Thank you Judith. We have now had the hall completed today and it is much better and I noticed the subfloor boards were more level. I think I'm going to wait until they have completed the sitting room and if that is fine ask them to take the kitchen floor up. I think they could relay the subfloor with new planks and put it back again.