I find a non perforated spatula/turner with a medium stiffness and a long handle is very useful. It can be used for flipping splattering eggs, oriental stir fry, turning steaks, or swatting smoke detectors.

I currently have about 5 large boxes of books in my house and 5 “unused” alcoves so alcove shelving seems an obvious solution to me! What I’m struggling to decide is 1) How far recessed from the alcove the shelves would look best (2cm or more in an alcove that is 30cm deep?), 2) how chunky/thick (top to bottom) the shelves should be and 3) whether to pack the shelves in eg for novels without leaving much space between shelves or make a taller space on the bottom shelf for photos etc? Any ideas please?

Hello Minipie, Sounds like you're going to have a very stunning bathroom. We definitely advise tiling your shower walls to full height for obvious reasons, however the rest is really up to preference and how much practical use it's going to get. If you're still having a free-standing bath then it really would depend on how far the bath is away from the walls to determine if you'll need tiles or a waterproof paint. We believe tiles would be the more practical solution as it will add a little more synchronicity with the tiles in your shower area. If your bath is being built in, then tiling all around it would be the best thing to do to make it watertight. Whatever you decide to do it's always nice to leave a wall or half of your walls to a lick of paint every now and again. It adds a bit of longevity to your bathroom and means you have the option to add different colours and freshen it up once in a while. Opun, Your home improvement experts.

Hi, thanks for the plan there, that's interesting and something id not thought of doing. I probably should have said in the original post that the door on the east wall, we need easy access to as our washing machine/tumble dryer is out in the garage which is access via conservatory. Also the conservatory has an internal "door" to separate the "south" and "east" parts of it. So we couldn't for example walk out the patio doors on the south side and then walk round to the garage through the east part, I hope that makes sense! The children are small so there is a lot of mess sometimes, though the southern conservatory has become a bit of a playroom so more toys etc could go out there. The desk and the TV would be could be used at the same time, me on the PC, partner watching TV for example, so I'm not sure how well that would work. Thanks for the ideas. I think maybe it would make sense to have the desk along that west wall out the way and then somehow fit in the TV/sofa/small dining table! Any more ideas? :-)