Posts Tagged ‘Dream’

How to Design Your Dream Kitchen

You’ve got your eye on that luxury wooden kitchen and you’ve got savings set aside, but you don’t know where to start with planning your new kitchen. You hate your present kitchen and know that you need a different layout but what? It is important to plan a kitchen carefully – you don’t want to spend thousands of pounds on something that looks great but just isn’t functional.

Some kitchen companies will come round to your home, draw a floor plan and advise you on the best layout for both the room size and shape, and your needs. If you are going to have a handmade wooden kitchen, the company will be able to accommodate any needs and room size, and will even be able to make custom cabinets for odd shaped alcoves. It’s good though if you have thought things through before they come to the house. Think about how you use your kitchen and what function it needs to fulfil. Here are some considerations to help you with your planning:-

1.Style – When choosing a style of kitchen, think about your house. A modern kitchen with brightly coloured cabinets and lots of stainless steel may not suit a thatched cottage or period home. Think about your style too. There are so many styles of units, appliances,work tops, sinks and handles to choose from that you are bound to find the perfect match. Companies that offer custom handmade kitchens will easily be able to find something that matches your style and the style of your house.

2.Entertaining – How is your kitchen used? Just for you and your family or do you entertain frequently. Think about your lifestyle. If you hold frequent dinner parties, you will need lots of work top space, a good size oven and hob, a dishwasher, a decent sized fridge/freezer or a large fridge with a freezer in a utility room or garage. Some people even have a second dishwasher! If you have a large kitchen and parties always end up in the kitchen, you may want to incorporate a central island for a bar area or seating area which can be used as a breakfast bar when you’re not partying.

3.Storage – How much storage you need will depend on your individual habits. If you have a large dishwasher, you will have extra crockery, glasses and cutlery to use when the rest is in the dishwasher. If you love cooking and baking, you will probably have an extensive collection of bakeware, cookware, utensils and gadgets, all requiring storage space. There are many storage solutions – pull out larders, corner carousels, deep drawers for pans, crockery display units, ceiling mounted pan hanger/herb drier, racks on the inside of cupboard doors etc. Think about how storage solutions can be incorporated into your kitchen design.

4.Cooking habits – If you love cooking, you will want a kitchen which allows you to pursue this hobby. You will want a good sized sink, plenty of work top space for preparation, a large hob and oven and you may want a large American style fridge to house all your fresh ingredients and a freezer if you cook in large batches. You may also want to think about incorporating items like spice racks into your kitchen.

5.Shopping – Are you the kind of person who does a big shop once or twice a month or do you shop a few times a week? Thinking about your shopping habits will enable you to plan the right kind of kitchen. If you do big shops, you will require a freezer and a large fridge and lots of storage space for cans and jars. If you do small, frequent shops, then you may not require as much storage space.

Thinking about all of these considerations will help you to plan a kitchen that will not only look great, but will also be functional and practical for your lifestyle.

Dream Island

Greece is one of the world’s favorite holiday destinations. It offers thousands of beaches, great weather, beautiful towns and villages, a rich history and more.

Mykonos lies between Tinos and Naxos. An island with very little vegetation, it has an area of 85 sq. km., a shoreline of 80 km and a population of aproximatley of 5.000. The island can be reached by air from Athens (daily service from Athens airport and more than ten flights a day during peak periods), Rhodes, Santorini and Herakleion (Crete) or by ferry from Piraeus (94 nautical miles), Rafina,the Dodecanese, Crete, and Thessaloniki. The trip by ferry from Piraeus takes about 6 hours. A local boat service takes visitors from Mykonos to nearby Delos.

Mykonos its the most famous of the Greek islands and one of the world’s most popular holiday resorts has been welcoming visitors for over half a century.

Here, the steep mountains to be encountered in most of the Cyclades give way to low, rocky hills, which combine with superb beaches to make up the landscape of the island. The capital, Hora, with a little fishing-boats nestle happily side by side with luxury yachts, presents quite a different picture from the majority of Aegean island towns.

While it is usual for island villages to be built on naturally amphitheatrical sites, Mykonos is spread out over a flat area and conveys an impression of solid aesthetic cohesion. Here the people which adore thesea will find outstanding golden beaches such as Agios Stefanos, Psarou, Kalafatis.

Mykonos is a busy island with all the amenities of a mode and resort and with plenty to do by day or night for those who want to have a lively time. Yet visitors fond of more peaceful holidays will still find quiet corners in which to relax.

A Bahamas Private Island Vacation to Dream About

An almost unbelievable Private Island Vacation in the Exumas to dream about if you have a bottomless pocket, called Musha Cay, but you need to take a look anyway to keep your dreams alive.

A Private island vacation in the Exumas in the Bahamas will have to remain a dream vacation for almost all of us, but there is a private island for rent if you can afford it, and it is called Musha Cay. It is the ultimate luxurious barefoot dream island vacation covering more than 150 acres of absolutely unspoiled tropical paradise.

Here on Musha Cay you will find deserted sugar white pristine beaches, and sea the colour of turquoise that even the best photographs can’t do justice to, and in addition it so clear and clean. Musha Cay Resort can accommodate up to 24 guests and there are over thirty staff to pander to your every whim. The private island that is Musha Cay is available to only you and your party so your experience will be totally private. The island can only be booked in total so there is only ever one part there at a time.

The choice of accommodation is firstly your own ten thousand square feet Manor House on a small hill with sweeping views, or a thatched roof beach house which is even more private than the privacy of the island tucked away out of sight and sound. There are also two guest villas with two bedrooms, or a five bedroom beachfront villa. All of the properties are quite beautifully designed and laid out very much in an English Colonial style.

Musha Cay not without reason is said to be the world’s most luxurious private island resort, and is the ultimate place to stay in terms of being totally spoiled and also in a completely private environment. In fact the owners have deliberately kept the three surrounding islands uninhabited to ensure the privacy of the guests.

Apart from the things you would expect like a championship floodlit tennis court, and a beachfront state of the art fitness gymnasium, a beachfront freshwater pool, plus beach bar, which is set against this beautiful backdrop of white sand, turquoise sea, and blue sky, there is any number of activities to occupy your time.

Imagine cutting through this beautiful water whilst exploring in a speedboat, riding a jet-ski, or leisurely sailing in a catamaran or a sailboat. For the more energetic there is of course windsurfing, and should you fancy a bit of snorkelling or even diving then the local coral reef it totally unspoilt.

Imagine Musha Cay as the ultimate romantic wedding destination, for yourself and your partner plus 22 hand picked friends you love dearly. The very professional and courteous and very efficient staff will ensure your great day is an unparalleled success, and what an incredible place to tie the knot. This could be the only place where you have a great wedding followed by a honeymoon with all the guests still present. You can do that on Musha Cay because of the total privacy in the thatched beach house for the honeymoon part, and the Manor House for your pre wedding festivities.

The cuisine, is something to wonder over in total awe, basically you can have what you want when you want, and wherever you want, and to ensure perfection send your food requirements to Musha Cay before you go. The drink is the same routine, whatever you want wherever you want. This really is the most exclusive, simply the best private island vacation anywhere in the world, and for exclusive use for one week – a paltry $3,02,050 a week!

A Home In Italy, A Dream Also For The Reality Shows!

All televisions from all over the world have been broadcasting reality shows of all types, shapes and contents, showing how anonymous singers would start a successful career, or how celebrities would survive in a tropical island or simply living in a luxurious flat with all sort of comforts doing just nothing until people vote you out.

But lately seems that some TV channels, especially from Northern Europe, have started to be attracted by the Italian life style and want to see how some people from their country would cope with it.

Everything started in Netherlands, where the producers of KRO, one of the main TV channel of the country, choose central Italy, in the stunning region of Le Marche, more precisely in the town of Piticchio, a peculiar small village with a population of 720 people, as a set of a new reality show.

Four Dutch couples left their home, family, job and friends behind to take part of the “De Italiansee Droom”, so it is called the reality show, which means “The Italian Dream”. The TV channel bought a house to be restored in the centre of Piticchio and the participants had to restore it and convert it in a nice and cozy Bed & Breakfast. The property consists of a three storey house of 120 square meters each floor plus a basement, and an annex, a former jeans factory, for a total property surface of 1000 square meters.
Just to give you an idea of the amount of restoration work to do, the property before restoration had one single bathroom for the whole house and after restoration the B&B had to have 6 bedrooms, each with an en-suite bathroom.

Obviously, that was the “easiest” part of the game as they also had to learn all the Italian life style aspects: they had to learn the Italian language, how to cook Italian dishes and, last but not least, how to restore a typical Italian home. To do so the producers choose three locals, an Italian teacher, a chef and an architect, to teach them how to accomplish the tasks and to judge the results.
After the first five weeks the couple with the lowest score would leave the reality show, after other five weeks the other couple with the lowest score would leave the game. Eventually the winner between the two remaining couples would literally win the whole B&B.

The reality show had such a great success that the format was taken also by a Belgian channel which duplicated the reality in another town in Le Marche, the village of Montelparo, and also a Danish channel has commissioned The Italian Dream and four Danish couples have already reached Italy, although the program will be on air this coming spring. There are rumors that also a British channel is interested in the format.

The stunning scenario of central Italy and the charm of the Italian life style that the reality show offered to its audience have also given a further boost to the already high interest for Italian homes for sale from Belgian and Dutch investors with a strong increase in property demand in the whole Italy, particularly in the region of Le Marche where the reality shows took place.