Astronomers look forward to building on planet-hunting telescope’s discoveries
By Andrew Grant
Web edition: May 23, 2013
When scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics scheduled a conference called “Exoplanets in the Post-Kepler Era,” they figured that era would…
Read more about:
Gone perhaps, but Kepler won’t soon be forgotten

Checklist:
Headline
􀂆 Does the headline appeal to self-interest, offer exciting news, or arouse interest
through curiosity?
􀂆 Is the headline positive, rather than negative?
􀂆 Does the headline suggest that the reader can obtain something easily and
quickly? Does it make an irresistible promise?
􀂆 Does the headline make use of the powerful words of mail order advertising?
􀂆 Does the headline stress the most important benefit of the product?
􀂆 Does the headline stop the reader and cause him or her to read further?
􀂆 Is the headline believable? Can you back your claims by facts?
􀂆 Does the headline tie in with the copy?

The Offer
Are all the elements of the offer present in the copy?
􀂆 Product description and benefits
􀂆 Terms of sale
􀂆 Options available (if any)
􀂆 Dates products are available
􀂆 Price
􀂆 Guarantee
􀂆 A clear way(s) to buy the product

􀂆 Bonuses

Copy Content
􀂆 Do you gain interest at once by use of a story, a startling or unusual statement, a
quote, or news?
􀂆 Do you describe what sets your product or offer apart from other similar
products?
􀂆 Do you show benefits and advantages that appeal to emotional needs so that
your offer is irresistible?
􀂆 Do you establish credibility with your reader through the use of testimonials,
statements by your accountant, or some other means?
􀂆 Do you encourage immediate action by listing a reason to order now (limited
quantities, time limit on offer, etc.)?

Copy Quality
􀂆 Is the copy written in a conversational tone which avoids jargon, and uses
contractions?
􀂆 Does your copy move right along? Does it guide the eye down the page with use
of colors, sub heads, and photos?
􀂆 Do you use short words, short sentences, and short paragraphs?
􀂆 Do you use lots of subheads throughout your copy, bulleted lists, and bold
keywords

********************************************************************************************************

Guidelines:
What Cost?
􀂾 Top quality advertising costs more, but it usually brings the best results.
However, don’t overspend on advertising, direct mail, and other promotions. Be
sure to always measure your return on investment (ROI) to know that you are
making more than you are spending. This usually means you’ll need to track both
the number of leads or clicks you are getting from an advertising source and then
compare that to the number of sales from the same source.
Experiment to find what works and what doesn’t. When you do then drop what
doesn’t work and do more of what does work for you.
􀂾 With offline advertising don’t invest in full color printing when one or two colors
will do the job. There is no need to use the costliest papers, elaborate art, or
other extravagances to sell profitably

Keep Good Records
􀂾 A word of caution: to succeed in direct marketing pay close attention to details.
But don’t get bogged down in them.
􀂾 Keeping accurate records, results of ads, advertising costs, printing, postage,
cost-per-order, and other figures are important to the success of the business.
However, do it in the simplest, easiest, least time-consuming way possible.

Repeat Business–Key to Maximum Profits
Continuous profits come from continuous sales. Here are some methods to stimulate
repeat orders at minimal cost:
􀂾 Never Forget the Customer.
The email list of customers built up is a most valuable asset. Use it to send offers
of merchandise at frequent intervals. Anyone who has ordered from you once is
much more likely to order again.
􀂾 Use Package Stuffers & Bonuses
A regular catalog or a special offer rides “free” in outgoing orders. Offer your
customers an added bonus that they can’t get from other affiliates and load it with
other products you sell. This can bring in new sales and profits.

􀂾 Advertise on Envelopes.
If you are enclosing advertising in the envelope, consider using the envelope
itself to feature one or more special offers. The additional printing cost could
prove insignificant compared to the extra sales produced.
􀂾 Mail order can be a profitable and interesting full or part-time business. But
remember, you will probably lose money before you start making it. So don’t
make major investments until you have gained experience and until you have
found the right product at the right price and the best means of advertising it to
the most receptive market. It’s better to test your advertising online first and then
take what works online and use it offline too.

Advertising Psychology
Advertising psychology as applied to selling products and services are basically the
same today, as they were 50 years ago.
As a business owner, you should have an understanding of how powerful ads can make
customers act using a basic understanding of human psychology.
Advertising invokes one of the strongest of human incentives when it comes to buying.
You should incorporate it whenever you can in your ad copy.
􀂾 If you make people curious about a product because of a particular quality, they
will buy and become customers.
􀂾 Advertised products or services perceived as being of high quality and high value
sell very well. Buyers will often judge a product by the low to moderate price you
have placed on it. On the other hand, a customer may have no interest for a
product at all until he notices a high price tag. The message here is that if it has
a high price tag, it must be worthy of being interested in. When choosing
products to sell, consider what effect the price has on the customer’s perception
of the product.
You will also see this sales strategy used in advertising.
􀂾 Enhancing the “perceived value” of an item will draw people to it. For example,
saying that you have a “powerful and useful” product is one approach.
􀂾 Saying that you have paid “thousands of dollars” in product research and
development will also add value to your product or service in a customer’s mind.
If you were willing to take that kind of high risk, your product must be something
special!

*************************

To be continue

YounPharaoh

]]> http://feelingthecolor.wordpress.com/2013/05/23/day-23-rainy-day/ Thu, 23 May 2013 16:04:33 +0000 crazyl3gs http://feelingthecolor.wordpress.com/2013/05/23/day-23-rainy-day/
Day23 – Rain day, a photo by Alexandru Georgescu on Flickr.

After getting out from a meeting, I was amazed about how it started to rain. Actually, it was a really big storm that hit the city. Good that I had my camera with me and coud take a picture of that. Being at work, I don’t have my personal computer with me, so the processing is done with Snapseed, on my iPad. I applied some BW and some film effects that looks pretty okay. Hope you enjoy it!

Street art: Quay Street / Nelson Street, Bristol
A valiant attempt to beautify a nasty concrete environment

‘Space & Place’ Capital Grants

Kawagoe city is known as “Little Edo” (小江戸 Koedo) after the old name for Tokyo, “Edo”. Most of the buildings were dismantled in the 1870s.

bricks are put together.”
Theory of Architecture :
There are different school of thought when it comes to theory of architecture. But the earliest thought is that. A build must have the following basic features.
Durability – it should stand
up robustly and remain in
good condition.
Utility – it should be useful
and function well for the
people using it.
Beauty – it should delight
people and raise their spirits.
According to Vitruvius one of the renowned individual in architecture, said the
architect should strive to fulfill
each of these three attributes
as far as possible. But Leone
Battista Alberti , who
elaborates on the ideas of
Vitruvius in his treatise, De Re
Aedificatoria, saw beauty
primarily as a matter of
proportion, although ornament
also played a part. It follows that The most
important aspect of beauty
was therefore an inherent part
of an object, rather than
something applied
superficially; and was based on
universal, recognisable truths.

Modern concepts of
architecture

The great 19th-century
architect of skyscrapers, Louis
Sullivan, promoted an
overriding precept to
architectural design: ” Form
follows function “.
While the notion that
structural and aesthetic
considerations should be
entirely subject to
functionality was met with
both popularity and
skepticism, it had the effect of
introducing the concept of
“function” in place of Vitruvius’
“utility”. “Function” came to
be seen as encompassing all
criteria of the use, perception
and enjoyment of a building,
not only practical but also
aesthetic, psychological and
cultural.
Meanwhile, the Industrial
Revolution laid open the door
for mass production and
consumption. Aesthetics
became a criterion for the
middle class as ornamented
products, once within the
province of expensive
craftsmanship, became
cheaper under machine
production. Nowadays, computer are now use to produce architectural drawings with applications such as Autoradiography, revitalise architecture etc.
Vernacular architecture
became increasingly
ornamental. House builders
could use current architectural
design in their work by
combining features found in
pattern books and
architectural journals.

Even through that, I don’t really think we knew what we were getting ourselves into when our builder said he needed us to pick out windows and would be sending us a few examples. Who knew there were SO many choices and options?! The decision for windows we thought would be relatively standard and simple… turns out we were wrong.

Among the choices he sent, it looks like theres one clear thing that separates them into two categories: blank over blank, or blank over clear. The blank would be the where the grid design would be placed. So essentially, both panes can have the grid design, or, the upper can have the design, with the lower being a clear window. Lucky for us, we only have to pick windows for the front of the house. The builder puts clear over clear in all the other windows, which makes sense, because nobody really sees the windows on the back and the sides of a house anyway.

So.. that said.. here were our choices..

Four over four – the grids separate the window into four squares, and each window has identical grids.

Four over clear – the top is separated into four grids, but the bottom has no grids at all.

Six over Six – Six grids this time, on both upper and lower sashes.

Six over Clear – six panes on top, nothing on the bottom

Prairie (this also comes with the option of having clear on the bottom)

Modern or Modified Prarie

Farmhouse (always comes clear on the bottom)

Ultimately, we narrowed it down to the farm house style, and the prairie style, with a strong lean towards prairie. Our house is one of three nearly identical in a row, and picking one of these really will help differentiate it from the other two. In addition, its just more our style, having something a little less ordinary, but still a bit classic looking.

We’ll have to wait until they’re installed for a full reveal of what we truly end up choosing. Ever think about windows? Realize there were this many choices? Have a favorite?

Window options emailed from our builder, also from here

Night Shot of Chattanooga, TN, Aquarium taken with Large Format 4×5 Film

This was my second successful building shot using a Large Format camera and was also in Chattanooga. I also scanned this 4×5 film in, edited it in photoshop, and cropped it to 8×10. This city is so beautiful and wasn’t hard to enjoy searching for this lovely aquarium to photograph.

Since 1970, landscape architecture students from across North America have gathered annually to share ideas, hear speakers, and participate in design competitions in an event called LABash. This year, UGA’s College of Environment and Design was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to host this conference in Athens, GA.

Thanks to the students who attended LABash, Athens Area Habitat for Humanity is the proud new owner of a brand new community space at The Foundation, an apartment complex in the area. Once an area riddled with crime, Athens Habitat bought The Foundation property, renovated the units, and created a haven for deserving families to call home.

However, the biggest flaw in this property was an unused 4,700 sq ft area between the buildings. This is where UGA’s College of Environment and Design stepped in.

Donnie Longenecker, the coordinator for the design competition and lecturer at UGA, started planning to include a public service component at last year’s LABash. He and Bob Anderson of Permaloc, the project’s main sponsor, worked together the past year to make their idea a reality.

The students who participated in this year’s LABash were encouraged to team up and submit a plan for a community space in a quick-fire completion conducted by Pratt Cassity of the UGA Center of Community & Design and Preservation. The competition allowed students to get real experience in design while strengthening ties between UGA and Athens businesses and nonprofits. At least 60 students from 18 different universities across the nation showed up to compete.

“As a professor, you love to see students get their hands dirty both at the drafting table and in the field,” said Cassity. “This project was perfect for that.  It involved so many different and diverse people all working on something that really improved the lives of folks in a small but very physical way. It [was] a win-win project from the word go!”

The submissions were judged by a panel of experts comprised of sponsors, UGA faculty, Habitat staff, and Tom Tavella, the president of the American Society of Landscape Architects. Once the winning teams were chosen, the construction commenced.

Over the next month and a half, volunteers would cycle through the work site and pour their effort and energy into building something beautiful for people they did not know. The project was officially completed on May 3rd, 2013 and the residents are already making use of the new space and all it has to offer their families.

*Images via UGA LABash 2013 Facebook page, taken by participants, including Audra Lofton and Donnie Longenecker.

Take a full moon and a tripod add a dash of pen torch and let cook at 8 minute on ISO 100

2 player #terramystica. I’m the Swarmlings and am Vs Engineers.

An interesting element to the start of the game is choosing the factions. Each faction has different abilities, as well as different costs for building and upgrades. The faction player board controls what resources you receive – a mechanic used in games such as Eclipse. Each faction has differing costs for resources, upgrades and income, and this is something you need to pay attention to when strategizing. The faction also specifies which land type you can build on – for the Swarmlings it is swamp.

Initial placement is quite spread out. This could cause problems for gaining power.

When playing the game, you are caught between wanting to be far enough from others to enable you to build in hexes you want, but also wanting players to build adjacent to you so that you can gain power. In Terra Mystica, you can choose to lose victory points and gain power each time an adjacent hex is built upon. Power becomes quite a useful mechanic. This makes 5 player games very intriguing. Balancing your needs to build versus giving power to opponents in an interesting dilemma.

Went for an early stronghold, to get more use from my action. Spent all my workers…

Each faction’s stronghold has differing abilities too. Usually these are abilities you can use once a round, but sometimes they are passive abilities. For the Swarmlings, the stronghold ability enables you to upgrade from a dwelling to a trading house each turn. Every trading house built gives you power and money as income. However, returning dwellings means you are losing your replenishment of workers, which are integral to building.

One of the reasons I went for an early stronghold was the round bonus. Each round (of 6) gives you a bonus. These are chosen randomly at the beginning of the game. Round 1 gave victory points for building a Stronghold – an extra incentive to get that done this round.

Stronghold Vs Stronghold. It’s left me, and my opponent, a little low on resources though.

My push to get my stronghold built used up all my starting resources. This means I was low on resources, and therefore actions, this turn and needed to pass early and use the bonus cards and clever play to re-balance my income.

As you pass each round, you choose a new ‘bonus card’ from a limited stock. This adds extra strategy to your decision of whether to pass early or keep going. You always keep any unspent resources for the next round.

As you can see from the picture, all of my buildings were set on swamps. I had to pay to terraform that land before building.

Along with the bonus card, I’ve accumulated quite a bit of power.

Power is an interesting element of the game. With enough power you can utilise a number of special ‘power’ actions that are available on the board, to be used only once per round – these can range from terraforming spaces to gaining workers or gold. Each of these actions can be integral to giving you an advantage over other players should you choose them first.

Finishing the town got me a huge worker bonus, thanks to my faction’s ability too.

Each time you build a town, you gain a town tile. The tiles have victory points on them but also a bonus. As my faction had high worker usage for building, I chose the ‘bonus’ workers. My faction’s ability also enabled me to gain workers every time I built a town. This way, I was able to gain the workers I needed to do more building.

Built a temple and gained a favor. This one should combine well with my trading post ability.…

Whenever you upgrade your trading houses to temples (or a temple to the sanctuary) you gain a favor. This gives you points on the cult track and/or a special ability. I chose the one that gave me bonus victory points for the amount of trading houses I had at the end of the round. As my Swarmlings’ stronghold ability enabled me to upgrade to a trading house every turn, I was able to maximise this bonus.

My second town. Gonna bust out the priests on the cult track, as it is round 5.

There are only 6 rounds in the game. Here I was coming to the end of round 5. As we were close to the end, I chose the town card that enabled me to gain a priest. Along with the priests I gained for temples, it enabled me to spend them and move up the different cult tracks for the endgame cult track bonuses.

Grabbing a quick 6 victory points in the spade track before endgame.

On the final round, the end of round bonus no longer applied, so I grabbed as many victory points as possible. I upgraded my spade track. This gave me 6 victory points, but also enabled me to terraform land for cheaper – something it was too late in the game for me to take advantage of.  In retrospect, I should have done this much earlier.

Score track is very close, just endgame bonuses now.

At the end of the game, there are extra victory point bonuses for certain conditions. Each player gets points for being first, second, or third on each of the four cult tracks. First, second and third bonuses are also given for having the most adjacent buildings. This means many of your built hexes must be adjacent – which some factions’ abilities help with. However, the towns in the game cannot go beyond one if all your builds are adjacent. This means that balancing your playing decisions and style is quite a task.

I won with only 7 points in it. It was the cult track that tipped it over in the end.

There are four different cults that you have to vie for. As you go up the cult tracks you gain extra power. You position on the tracks also count towards endgame bonuses. Many people have said the cult track is just tacked on to the game. This may be true. However, I have won, and lost, games because of points scored from the cult track. It often makes the difference.

On the whole:

This isn’t a review of Terra Mystica. You should be able to tell from this play whether it is the type of game you would enjoy and research further from there. I enjoy it. It is a medium to heavy euro with lots of choices available. The lack of dice and cards makes you feel that you are really in charge of strategy and that your destiny is yours – except when clashing with the choices made by other players. I believe this game will have a lot of replayability, with a lot of variation everytime you bring it to the table.

The new extension to BBC Broadcasting House in Portland Place, London ©Paul Scott – www.frontelevation.co.uk 

“For me it’s about two main things. First is the ability to deliver top drawer products, second is the people.  The finished product looked like my drawings (at least in my mind’s eye); every element was well manufactured and beautifully assembled. The team was very personable and easy to work with.”  Bruce Briggs, Project Architect on MERO-SCHMIDLIN (UK) PLC

Whilst the terrorist atrocities of The Baltic Exchange (1992) Bishopsgate (1993) Canary Wharf (1996) may well be long forgotten the damage to the buildings and in many cases BY the buildings left its mark on construction design. As in the more recent Oklahoma Bombing in the USA 90% of all injuries were caused by flying glass. The selection and application of blast resistant glass needs specialist advice and all public buildings now have to take this element into account at design stage.  Like most threats it can be hard to determine the size of the explosion and the proximity to your location.  The channelling effect of other buildings and street architecture can change the way the pressure wave effects buildings.   Post examination of explosions can reveal some odd results.  Unprotected buildings further away can sometimes have more damage than more immediate buildings.  Although there is a pressure wave the result is glass being pulled out of buildings rather than being pushed in.  Once the initial pressure wave of air has hit the building there is a vacuum left where the air has been violently moved out of position.  It is the suction effect that can pull the glass outwards.

©Paul Scott – www.frontelevation.co.uk 

This image shows the extent of the ‘floating facade’ designed and installed by MERO-SCHMIDLIN. Obviously terrorism is a prime concern with any public building. A lot of attention has been paid to mitigating damage to, and by, the building in the event of a blast.

With these instances records show that 10 times as many people are injured by glass than any other cause and as explained above the shock wave can cause damage and injuries over a very wide vicinity.

The glazing encapsulates both the old and the new fabric of Broadcasting House to form a ‘Cyclorama’ Facade.

With this in mind MERO-SCHMIDLIN were tasked with designing and supplying glazing and fixtures that would hold the glass in place and withstand a whole range elements. With the glass facade suspended seven storeys above the ground, the installation was always going to be complex. In some areas there are walkways between the outer building stonework and the glass facade to allow for maintenance. The ‘Horseshoe’ design of the building can also cause a vortex with high winds especially at high level so all of the bespoke stainless steel bracketry had to designed with that in mind in addition to the bomb proof requirements.

This image shows the extensively engineered fixings used for the MERO-SCHMIDLIN glazed facade

The glass is a mixture of acid etched and screen printed and is a very prominent feature of the design. The facade also featured precision cut Portland Stone panels to match the existing structure. With CAD computer and Robotic cutting techniques, natural stone can now be engineered to achieve incredibly slim profiles. Whilst the use of natural stone may have its detractors with regards to sustainability, these methods enable a block of stone to be cut so thin it can now be used as a rainscreen cladding rather than a supportive block. As such far less stone is required and it can now become a lightweight long lasting alternative to aluminium, steel or composite cladding.

©Paul Scott – www.frontelevation.co.uk 

This image shows how the Portland Stone has been used in the facade paying homage to the iconic 1932 Art Deco building of which it adjoins.

MERO-SCHMIDLIN worked alongside Bruce Briggs who was one of the leading project architects and Neesha Gopal of Ramboll Whitby Bird who were the facade consulting engineers. Both of these very experienced specialists were very complimentary about their experience working with MERO-SCHMIDLIN.

This image gives us a glimpse between the building fabric and the floating facade.

Neesha Gopal of Ramboll Whitby Bird (Facade Consultanting Engineers) said:

 ”The installation was very tricky hanging the glazing element seven storeys off the ground to an existing structure. There were issues with a cantilever bracket which Mero-Schidlin overcame using the workshop facilities we had available to them on site. Mero-Schmidlin site and design teams were very pro-active throughout the whole process and this is an ethos not shared by all the facade contractors we are involved with.”

 ”What Mero-Schmidlin brought to the table was that if they had any issues they would come to us first rather than create any complications. This enabled the whole installation process to run very smoothly.”  Neesha Gopal, Facade Design Director – Ramboll Whitby Bird

Bruce Briggs one of the projects architects also found the relationship very pro-active when asked What did MERO-SCHMIDLIN bring to the table that impressed him, either on-site or pre-site? he replied:

“For me it’s about two main things. First is the ability to deliver top drawer products, second is the people.  The finished product looked like my drawings(at least in my mind’s eye); every element was well manufactured and beautifully assembled. The team was very personable and easy to work with.” Bruce Briggs – Project Architect

©Paul Scott – www.frontelevation.co.uk 

The glazing and facade is very complex even without allowing for the challenges of British weather or terrorist activities. Constructed from flat stainless steel sandwich sections, the outer skin meets the architectural intent of square, straight lines, and flush connections, and is suspended just over a metre from the inner façade. Fixed to this structure is a mixture of clear and opaque point fixed glass panes with flush silicone joints that aims to replicate the visual appearance of the Portland stone. The inner skin is constructed from a modified Schűco curtain walling system with laminated double glazed units for security enhancement, whilst in certain locations a maintenance walkway passes between the two skins.

A huge amount of steel framing was used alongside Stainless Steel fixings and fittings. It is to the great credit of everyone involved with the design and installation that very little of the structural framework goes unseen.

The glazing wasn’t just restricted to the exterior of the building. Inside MERO- SCHMIDLIN provided full height glazed screens at almost 4m high to the restored art deco reception area. These screens featured virtually no visible supporting steelwork, and bronze pattinated brackets and fixings where visible. To the lower levels of the facades, MERO provided three glazed stainless steel canopies. These canopies cantilever out from the Portland stone clad walls, supporting laminated glazing panels that are point fixed from above. These canopies were fabricated in one piece off site and lifted into position, to provide minimal disruption to the busy site.

©Paul Scott – www.frontelevation.co.uk

For more information on this project see the following websites:

MERO-SCHMIDLIN (UK) PLC  www.mero-schmidlin.com

Ramboll Whitby Bird www.ramboll.co.uk

Briggs Architecture www.briggsarchitecture.co.uk

Lend Lease               www.lendlease.com

Blog Written & Assembled by Paul Scott, Front Elevation www.frontelevation.co.uk

If you want to transform your yard, try re-edging your flower and rock beds using a soft, curved design. Curved beds are much more modern and contemporary than straight lines and sharp corners. Cutting a crisp edge is inexpensive, and it will make your landscape look manicured.

Consider investing in a drip style watering system. This is because irrigation systems like these are easier to install and can leave the plants fed with continuous water. You will also find that drips of water work more efficiently than a full stream of water, helping you to avoid the dangers associated with over-watering.

landscaping services in london Prior to starting a landscaping project, get the soil tested. Having a soil test done will let you know what can grow well in your local area. Your plants will thrive, and your landscaping will succeed beautifully.

Know the precise measurements of your target work area before you head out to select your plants and materials. This will make it simpler to figure out how you need of everything. By spending the time to do this, you’ll avoid purchasing more or less of what you need.

building wiki Spending as little as possible often gets you what you pay for. Many times, the less expensive landscaping supplies lack quality and will not stand up and to the extremes in weather. Although specialty stores are slightly more expensive, novices should use them so they can get the advice and high quality supplies they need to succeed.

Don’t gather up all the grass clippings as you mow the lawn. As the clippings decompose, they provide your lawn with nutrients, which means that you can apply less fertilizer.

Before you visit lawn or garden centers to get plants, measure your landscaping area first. By having correct measurement it will be easier to determine the amount of plants you need. This way you will buy the correct amount and are not making multiple trips to return or pick up items a second time.

Think about your location prior to beginning a landscaping project. Make plans for each plant or flower bed to reside in the best area for their individual needs. Pay attention to how exposed your plants will be to sunlight, wind, and other conditions in different locations.

Peat moss is a plant’s best friend when it comes to survivability. Peat moss gives your plants lots of nutrients that they may otherwise be lacking. Additionally, peat moss is a very beautiful contrast to the rest of your landscape.

As you have seen, landscaping plays a pivotal part in how your home looks and feels. Even though it can be hard to get your home properly landscaped, it is possible with some effort. Make sure to implement the tips you’ve just read and you will soon have a beautiful looking landscape.

CHICAGO (CBS) – Two people were taken to the hospital early Thursday, after a CTA bus crashed into a building.

WBBM Newsradio’s Bernie Tafoya reports police said someone cut off the #52A Kedzie bus around 4:45 a.m. as it was driving north on Kedzie Avenue near 64th Street, with at least one set of the bus wheels rolling on wet metal sheeting covering roadwork on Kedzie.

An officer said someone cut off the bus, and when the bus driver slammed on the brakes, the bus slid on the metal sheeting.

The bus crossed into oncoming traffic, then crashed into a one-story building housing the Southwest Youth Collaborative at 6400 S. Kedzie Av.

A white van, apparently headed in the opposite direction of the bus, also was involved in the crash.

Chicago Fire Department Cmdr. Will Knight said two people were taken to Holy Cross Hospital in fair condition. The bus driver was not hurt.

Kedzie was closed to traffic between 63rd Street and Marquette Road while police investigated and the scene was cleared.

Use fans to keep your home cool in the summer. Using a ceiling fan to circulate air in a whole room is a smart way to keep cool. Try to avoid using the air conditioner unless absolutely necessary.

While you want your home to run well, you should pay attention to visual details, too. Buyers will judge a home on visual appeal and may be deterred from buying if they notice something wrong. While visual improvements aren’t always the most important, they are when it comes to selling your house.

Drive nail holes in the rim of your paint can! This helps because it will make less of a mess with the paint when the lid is replaced. Driving several holes in the circumference of the lid should do the trick.

loft conversions east grinstead Eliminate the sound of floor squeaks with construction adhesive. Although you’ll need to enter your basement or crawl space to apply it, it will still be worth it to stop the squeaks. What you do is use a caulking gun, then run a line down every floor joist. That way, your floor all sticks together.

Don’t forget about safety. Home improvement projects can be hazardous if you don’t take the proper precautions. A quick search of the Internet will provide you with how-to videos to make your project a little easier.

The caning in your chair will sag over a period of time. There is something you can easily do to fix this. Just wet the bottom with a sponge. This should be done with warm water. Allow the caning to dry overnight. Repeat this process until it is fixed.

Before starting a new project, you should alert your neighbors of the schedule for your project. The noise, clutter and chaos from any construction area is always annoying. Neighbors will be thankful to know the schedule of any work being done.

If you have tons of repairs to be done before you move in, you should have the heavier repairs done first. Small projects like completing your basement, altering paint colors, and renovating bathrooms can be done in pieces after you’ve moved in.

Add a coat of glaze to bathrooms to give them a vibrant look. A new glaze will make your fixtures look brand new. While new floors can be expensive, reglazing your existing tile usually costs less than $500. Glazing a bathroom is a good way to raise the house’s value without spending tons of money.

loft conversions in croydon You will not even believe what you can do to make your existing house better! Just follow the advice provided here and you will be in great shape. Take these tips and add your own. Your home improvement journey has just begun!