Category: Lifestyle

  • Moving home with your pet

    Dog Moving Home

    We’ve teamed up with Kingsway Vets in Skipton to give our new homeowners some advice on moving home with their pets. 

    Bob Pettit of Kingsway gives his top tips…

    Moving house is a stressful time for everyone including your four legged friends, but responsible pet owners can take steps to help their companions cope. Your pets don’t have the benefit of understanding why it’s happening so the disruption is even more distressing for them as everything that is familiar gets packed up in the old home. Routine tends to go out of the window and everything your pet is used to in life suddenly changes.

    Consider sending your dog or cat to family, friends or a boarding kennel whilst you make the move. This has the advantage of keeping your pet safe, stress free and away from the commotion, allowing you to pack, unpack and get settled. Once you are in, and a few boxes are unpacked, it will give you more time to spend precious time with your pet and begin to help them settle into their new pad.

    Alternatively, on arrival at your new house, ensure your dog or cat is somewhere secure until you have one room ready that you can put them in safely. Put their familiar belongings in the room such as their bed, favourite toys and a food and water bowls. Keep the doors and windows of the room closed, so they can’t escape, and put a sign on the door to remind and prevent anyone inadvertently letting your pet out by mistake. Once you have all your belongings moved in, and the house is a little bit more like home, you can let your dog outside to explore their new habitat. Ensure your garden is secure and stay close to them.

  • Recreate the look

    Untitled-2We often get asked where we source our interior furnishings in our Show Homes so we thought we’d share some of them with you.

    Our latest Show Home, The Gate House at Kearns Village in Rossendale, has been a big hit. If you like what we have created, you can now recreate the look yourself.

    Our Creative Director, Caroline, creates all of our Show Homes with the help of an interior designer. Her brief to Emma Gordon of Eye Candy Interior Design, was to design an interior scheme that enhances the homes architectural features.. Natural stone sits alongside slim line aluminium windows creating the perfect canvas for timeless interiors.

    We opted for a neutral palette with soft accent colours and textures to create this look. Farrow and Ball paint colours contrast against the white squared edged skirting to achieve a contemporary twist on traditional design.


    Recreate the Living Room

    Rectangular Coffee Table:  Gilmore Space

    Rug: Designers Guild (unfortunately unavailable now but we also love this one)

    Sofas: Made by Emma’s furniture maker. If you would like more information give Emma a call on 01484 462226.

    Recreate the Dining Room

    Dining table: John Lewis (expensive, but will last you a lifetime!)

    Side table: John Lewis (again, not cheap but worth it!)

    Dining Chairs: bespoke

    Lamp: Loaf

    Recreate the Master Bedroom

    Bed: Loaf

    Chairs: John Lewis

    Bedside tables: Swoon Editions

    Recreate the study

    Desk: Swoon Editions (now sold out but this is very
    similar)

    Chair: Oka

  • To everyone with a dog

    IMG_4443 copyWe sometimes like to tell you something other than rave about our homes (we’re sorry if we go on but we do rather like them and I suppose that’s why you like us!)… so today we’d like to tell you a story about the family dog, Storm (pictured below).

    Storm was diagnosed with bladder cancer about 6 months ago, she was given months not years to live. She’s been with us 12 years. Determined not to give up on our dog we searched for natural aids to help her fight the cancer. As luck would have it, a company called Millie’s Wolfheart moved into the offices across the road from us. Millie’s offers a complete food free of grains for working dogs (your dog doesn’t need to be a working dog to eat the food of course!)

    You might think a gluten free diet is a bit of a fad, especially for a dog, and so did we at first, but when you have a little think about it, dogs never did eat grains. We put Storm on their Hunter Mix ever since she was diagnosed. This mix is 80% fish and meat and 20% veggies, everything is natural, not an additive in sight! In addition to this we put her on a doggie multivitamin – this might seem extravagant but we were willing to try anything!

    The vets gave Storm a scan 6 months after the first and low and behold, her tumour hasn’t grown. The vets were surprised. We were, and continue to be, over the moon.

    We won’t say the food and the vitamins are a miracle cure, and this post isn’t a ploy to try and get you to buy anything. We were just so excited by the results we wanted to share just in case any of you may be in a similar situation, desperate to try something to help your furry friend.

    You can find more about Millie’s and why a dog should eat a gluten free diet in the links below.

    https://www.millieswolfheart.co.uk
    https://www.millieswolfheart.co.uk/Why-Gluten-Free/

    Thanks for listening….

  • Horton in Ribblesdale School

    We had a lovely teacher drop into our Falcon Park development in Settle last week

    She asked us if we would share information with you about the school 🙂

    Horton in Ribblesdale Primary School is a small, yet highly achieving school for pupils aged 3-11.

    They’ve been rated outstanding by Ofsted and offer excellent pupil to teacher ratios and have achieved the best combined SAT results in North Craven in 2013 & 2014.

    What’s more, for all your working mums and dads out there, they offer wrap around care 8am – 6pm.

    For more information on the school click here.

    Horton in Ribblesdale School is less than a 15 minute drive from Falcon Park, Settle.

  • Recreate the look

    Our Show Home at Elsey Croft, Skipton

    We’ve had a few people ask us where to get certain items from our Show Home so for the next week or so we thought we would share these items with you so that you can recreate the look yourself. Whether it be in one of our homes or not! 🙂

    The sofa and armchairs

    These come from a company called Sweetpea & Willow. We went for the made to order range and selected the Alfred Collection as we love the square yet cosy style and the interesting legs. They take 4-6 weeks to arrive, but  come in 5 different types of fabrics and an array of colours – we think its worth the wait!

    Have a look at the sofa here.

    The beds

    We bought all of our beds in the double bedrooms from Loaf.

    In bedroom one we chose the ‘Smoke’ bed in their ‘clever velvet’ fabric in ‘steel’. We love the retro feel to this bed and the steel colour perfectly blends with the concrete effect wallpaper we have chosen. See the bed here.

    In bedroom two we chose the Freya bed. Unfortunately you can’t choose a colour range for this bed but we love it anyway. See the bed here.

    In bedroom three we chose their French sleigh bed – the ‘Lou Lou’. We went for a simple neutral colour but there is a great range of colours to choose from. We also love the ‘French Grey’. See the bed here.

    The wallpaper in the living area

    Lots of you liked this wallpaper. It’s from Cole & Son’s range ‘The Historic Royal Palaces Collection’.

    The collection takes its inspiration from Hampton Court Palace, The Tower of London, Banqueting House, Kensington Palace and Kew Palace.

    We think it creates a really interesting feature in the living area and meant we didn’t even need to put any frames up!

    Find it here.

    The media unit in the living area

    We bought the media unit in the living room at Elsey Croft from Inspirit Deco that do wonderful things with reclaimed materials.

    They are mostly treat yourself items as they are a little on the pricey side, but could be the centrepiece of your room!

    Shop their store on Etsy here.

    To be continued…. 🙂

  • Yorkshire – Voted the second most picturesque county

    Yorkshire: the second most picturesque county in England

    We’re extremely pleased to read the latest poll commissioned by Skyes Cottages.

    Yorkshire received second place just behind Cornwall yet in front of Cumbria and Devon…..personally we think we should have got the top spot!

    Yorkshire has a long list of areas to explore which is why it was also voted Europe’s best destination by the World Travel Awards in 2013.

    View Yorkshire.com’s stunning places to visit here.

    Images above show the coastal town of Scarborough, one of the Yorkshire 3 Peaks, the village of Appletreewick and the centre of Harrogate.

  • New Years Resolutions for your home

    blank list of resolutions on blackboardWe all like to make new years resolutions, but we don’t always keep them.

    Be a little bit nicer to yourself and set them for your home instead. Here’s a couple of suggestions from the Skipton Properties’ team:

    Curb your energy use – even if you don’t live in a new home there are certain things you can do to reduce your energy use like switch all your energy bulbs to low efficiency ones. They are more expensive but the cost will come off your electricity bills! Try and resist setting your dishwasher unless it’s absolutely full and invest in an external washing line to hang out your clothes when its dry rather than using your dryer (we ask our new homeowners to limit drying clothes inside due to condensation) Lastly, and an easy one, always turn off the lights when you’re not in the room!

    Clean out your clutter – everyone puts this off until the Spring – hence the term ‘Spring Clean’ but we think you’ll feel a lot better about your home if you spend January doing this instead. Do it room by room and no cheating, and donate to charity where possible. If you’re moving home soon, there is even more reason to do this now!

    Frame your children’s art – if you have children, instead of doing the usual and attaching their works of art to the fridge, get them framed and hang them properly on the wall. You’ll find your kitchen looks much tidier and your keepsakes will be kept safe.

    Entertain at home more – eating out is expensive. One of our new years resolutions is to entertain at home more. All our homes are designed with the kitchen at the heart of the home and are perfect are at home entertaining!

    We wish you all a great 2015!

  • DIY ideas for Christmas for you and your children

    We are all getting into the Christmas spirit at Head Office. Now that our tree is up we’ve really started counting down.

    We’ve all thought of our best Christmas ideas that you can make at home, making your Christmas that little bit more special.

    reindeer puppets

    1) Make a Red-nosed Reindeer Puppet

    This has been tried and tested by our Office Admistrator, Dawn.

    You won’t need a lot, just a brown paper bag, glue, scissors, pencil,

    red card and some googley eyes (you can also draw these if you wish).

    It will take 30 minutes to make.

    For information on how click here.

    Credit: BBC

    Snowball recipe for new home owners

    2) Snow Ball Truffles

    Make them for yourself or make for the kids. You’ll both love them. They make a great dessert on Christmas Day or send them to school for your children’s classmates to enjoy.

    The best thing about these is how simple they are to make. They only have three ingredients yet taste great.

    Find this recipe on BBC Good Food here.

    Credit: BBC Good Food

    felt santa ornament

    3) Felt Santa Decorations for your Tree

    All you need is some red and white felt, red string and some black beads for eyes, plus this handy cut out that you’ll find on the website here.

    There are also Snowmen and Gingerbread templates too!

    Credit: The Pin Junkie

    Mulled Wine

    4) Jamie’s Mulled Wine

    Most of us like to give the mulled wine making a go so this had to go into our Christmas DIY post.

    Tried and tested by our Office Manager, Judi, it’s one of the best ones out there.

    Ready in no time at all!

    Click here for the recipe!

    Credit: Jamie Oliver

  • Discovering Keighley – The Lord Rodney

    The Lord Rodney

    Have you all tried the Lord Rodney?

    The Lord Rodney is another of the hidden gems in Keighley we’d like to highlight. The gastro pub is situated tucked away on Church Street. Customers who have rated the pub on Trip Advisor have given it a rating of 4 out of 5. Some of the most recent reviews state it has beautiful food and we tend to agree.

    We particularly love the spicy nachos and crispy salt and pepper squid to start. For our main we always go for the Timothy Taylor beer battered chips or a simple steak. The pasta and pizza is also quite good too!

    They hold a range of events – steak nights, Caribbean nights, wine tastings.

    For more information have a look at their website: http://www.lordrodney.co.uk 

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