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If you’re building your luxury home from scratch, it’s worth it to invest in quality construction materials that’ll last a lifetime. It’s your dream home, after all, so you definitely don’t intend to sell it anytime soon.

 

The roof is one of the areas in your house where the material you choose can give you the best return for your money based on the roof’s longevity. These are the premium materials you can count on for decades:

 

Concrete tile

Lifespan: At least 30 years.

Concrete tiles can withstand stormy weathers and fire. Each tile is individually installed so it’s easy to replace damaged tiles. Since concrete is an engineered material, there’s a wide variety of colours, shapes, and sizes you can choose from. This allows you to better colour coordinate the look of your house exterior.

 

Clay

Lifespan: At least 50 years.

Also known as terracotta or ceramic, clay is very durable due to the high-heat intensity of its baking process. It can take on stormy seasons – including heavy rain and snow – without fading in colour or cracking. With its overlapping construction, it creates pockets of air insulation underneath each clay tile. This helps warm up the house in winter and cool off the house in summer. And if you want to have a rainwater-collecting system set up, clay is the best roof material for cleaner rainwater.

 

Steel

Lifespan: At least 50 years.

Steel can be a green material if you select a higher composition of recycled metal. In winter, its smooth frictionless surface means that snow would simply slide off on a slope. In summer, it keeps the house cooler since it reflects sunlight away and any absorbed heat dissipates quickly.

 

Aluminum

Lifespan: About 50 – 100 years.

Aluminum is a versatile material that comes in various colours and can even simulate the look of other roofing materials. It’s a very light metal and can do without any need of reinforced support for the roof. Similar to steel, it can be a green material with your choice of recycled metal composition. It also reflects sunlight in the summertime to maintain a cooler interior.

 

Copper

Lifespan: 100+ years.

Copper is one of the two longest-lasting roofing materials available. Many iconic buildings of the world are still standing with their original copper roofs. Copper’s most attractive quality is its distinctive colour: the new red-gold surface that eventually turns a bright turquoise as it oxidizes over time. It’s lightweight and malleable for all sorts of custom roof shapes. At the same time, it’s durable enough to take on inclement weather, fire, and pests. Copper is also very energy-efficient as its reflective surface helps maintain interior temperatures. To top it all off, it’s a green material since it’s 100% recyclable.

 

Slate

Lifespan: 100+ years.

Slate is the other longest-lasting roofing material available. The historic buildings – especially cathedrals – that have stood the test of time with a slate roof are testament to its longevity. It’s usually done in the form of tiles cut from a natural and dense metamorphic rock. Slate is pretty much resistant to whatever condition you can think of: water, fire, mold, etc. It can take a beating in the worst of storms and won’t be affected by extreme changes in temperature either. Once installed, it barely requires any maintenance work. Slate is also another good roofing material for collecting rainwater.

 

Besides the safe feeling of having a secure and long-lasting roof over your head, the roof is also where you can make a bold statement. So don’t forget to think about the colour and shape of the roof that best reflects what the luxury dream house means to you.

 

Once you’ve made your restaurant ‘grammable, you have to make Instagram part of your daily restaurant management routine. You also want to make it easy for customers to promote your restaurant on Instagram.

 

To do that, consider these extra details in your restaurant:

 

Lights before camera and action

Because photos form the bulk of Instagram posts, you should set your restaurant up for ideal photo-taking conditions. Make sure you put in large windows and even skylights to open everything up to as much natural light as possible. Another Instagram-friendly feature is to install dimmer-switch lighting for each table. That way, customers can adjust the lighting to suit their quality photo needs.

 

Focus on your specialty

What are the unique selling points of your restaurant? Once you’ve identified what they are, run with their concepts. If your specialty drinks are popular, hype them up with creative presentations. If it’s the live music that draws crowds, make the stage the centre of attention. And if it’s the food, of course, artistically arrange every meal in white dishes so all the ingredients stand out from photos. The best way to have your restaurant’s Instagram page go viral is to design everything to point to your restaurant’s specialties.

 

Build up your Instagram page

Get your Instagram name as close to your restaurant’s name as possible. If the name is taken, try tacking on your city’s abbreviation to the end. This is to make it easy for customer’s to search and tag your restaurant. Be sure to also switch your restaurant’s Instagram account to a “Business Profile” on the settings page. Your customers will then be able to directly call the restaurant via the “Contact” button. Next, encourage customers to follow your Instagram page by advertising it on your menus, place-mats, coasters, or even the feature wall.

 

Develop a personalized list of hashtags

Decide on an official hashtag for your restaurant brand and use it on every post you make. Add on the hashtags for your restaurant’s area and city as well. Then make an optional list of popular foodie hashtags you can use whenever you post a photo of your restaurant’s dishes.

Here’s the fun part: come up with your own witty hashtags that relate to your restaurant. It could be puns on your restaurant name or extensions of your restaurant slogan. Whatever you come up with though, try not to go over six hashtags per post. People will often skip a post if it’s too loaded on hashtags.

 

Stay Instagram-active

The key to keeping your followers engaged is to maintain a regular posting schedule. Don’t go overboard on frequency though – the limit should be two high-quality posts per day. Remember to also geotag every post with your restaurant location. This is so that you can populate the tag with your own posts showing your restaurant in the best light.

As for the content of your posts, do feature rotations of your most popular dishes or attractions. Provide sneak peeks of experiments on new dishes and invite feedback. Share behind-the-scenes shots of your staff and the busy kitchen activity. Snap photos of your restaurant’s neighbourhood. And above all, follow local foodies and interact with your followers through photo comments.

 

Designing your restaurant for Instagram is smart for marketing and growth purposes. Just don’t overlook the traditional restaurant renovation preparation ideas while you’re at it!

 

The explosion of Instagram’s popularity has been a huge boon to restaurant owners. Never has there been a more economical and exponentially effective marketing channel for restaurants. It’s come to the point where many restaurants are now designing their restaurants specifically to leverage the power of Instagram. And you may want to consider it, too!

 

In this first part, we’ll walk through optimizing your restaurant for Instagram, starting at the renovation phase:

 

The feature wall

This will be the stand-out piece that anchors your entire restaurant identity – from customer experience to Instagram marketing. Not only will it strengthen customers’ impression of your restaurant, but it’ll be a magnet for Instagram influencers to pose in front of. If it’s done well, you’ll get a second lineup to your restaurant just for that wall.

Whether you design the feature wall on the exterior or interior or both, make sure you align it with the restaurant brand you want to create. Scrutinize every colour shade, lighting angle, and texture. This is where you should absolutely be a perfectionist. The feature wall will become one of the most photographed and share-worthy aspects of your restaurant.

Find a creative way to display your restaurant’s name or logo on the wall. Hire a local artist to paint a colourful mural. Mount intricate carvings backlit by LED lights. Hook up a custom neon sign with a quirky phrase or your restaurant slogan. The sky and imagination is the limit when it comes to ideas for the feature wall.

 

Décor reinforcements

Take the time to think about what you’d like the theme or atmosphere of your restaurant to be. Then reinforce that via thoughtful selections of décor. Consider not only the look of each item, but also the mood that it brings up by itself and when it’s combined with other items.

 

Finishing touch for the walls and floor

We’ve talked about the feature wall earlier, but don’t stop there! You can do more with the finishes of the other restaurant walls, too. Make them as elaborate as whimsical wallpaper or as simple as the colour scheme of your restaurant logo. Eye-catching flooring is also huge on Instagram. Spend a little extra on distinctive flooring patterns or textures. You’ll know it works when you see your restaurant’s Instagram geotag feed blow up with shoes-on-floor photos.

 

Unique furniture

Furniture plays an important role in restaurant theme as well. It opens up the door to many interior design possibilities. The style, material, colour, and even the ergonomics of furniture all contribute to a memorable sitting experience for your customers. What you want to do is make sure the experience they’re getting matches the theme you’re building.

 

Ceiling features

You can affect the mood inside simply with ceiling height and its architectural features. Keep it low if you want an intimate setting and raise it up if you want beautiful chaos. Exposed ventilation will give your restaurant an industrial edge while hiding them behind waffle ceilings and crown mouldings will give it an elegant air. As for the main lighting fixtures, choose the ones that best complement the desired atmosphere.

 

This sets the stage for a strong Instagram community to thrive around your restaurant. Next, we’ll get into the finer details of attracting more Instagram followers and engaging them.

 

Office layouts show how much management values productivity, creativity, and company culture. Here are all the ways your company can make its statement:

 

Closed office

Everyone has their own enclosed office in this work environment. The door is the signal to others whether they’re available or not for a conversation. They can fill their office with as many personal effects as they want and lock the door at the end of the day.

The advantage of this layout is that employees can meet clients in private. They also have a quiet place to focus on their projects. What’s more, there’s security as sensitive information can be locked up. Most importantly, they have a home away from home that’ll put them more at ease to perform their best.

The silos setting though makes collaboration difficult or nearly impossible to achieve. Since everyone’s isolated in their private little worlds, it’s harder for employees to know what’s going on with the company as a whole.

This kind of environment is best suited for law, medical, accounting, or consulting offices.

 

Open office

In an open office, most of the walls – both physical and metaphorical – are torn down. Everyone works in close proximity to one another with no closed doors getting in the way of communication.

This breaks up hierarchical structures and encourages communication among employees. With a permanent open-door policy, an open office fosters a sense of community. It’s a more relaxed setting that invites employees to give their input. It’s also the most cost-effective way to maximize use of space.

What you have to account for though is the work environment being much noisier. And because there aren’t any enclosed spaces, there’s a lack of privacy for staff who need to concentrate.

All this only describes an open office in general because it’s actually a very broad term when it comes to office layouts. Open offices can be broken down into these different types:

Cubicles

This was one of the earliest open office types where cubicles were laid out in large grid patterns. The modern variation is not that rigid anymore. Essentially, each workstation is enclosed on three sides by dividers.

Employees get more privacy with this design. They can focus better with dividers made of good sound-insulation material. They get all that while still having the option to communicate freely with colleagues in an open office environment.

The drawback is that it may cause a sense of claustrophobia for some employees – especially for those whose cubicle is in the middle of the room. One way to counter that is to use glass dividers to let in more light to filter through cubicles.

Cubicle open offices are ideal for customer service, technical support, and sales offices.

Semi-dividers

This is a modification of the cubicle style to address the claustrophobia issue. Everyone is still partitioned off, but the dividers are half the usual height.

That way, employees can actually see and talk with each other. It outlines their individual space without contributing to feelings of isolation.

Noise and privacy can be a concern though for employees who need to focus.

Consider this kind of set-up if you’re an advertising, news, or magazine firm.

Team zones

In this arrangement, staff are grouped together by their team functions. Partitions may separate different teams, but there are usually none between team members.

The advantage is that teams can focus on collaboration with their members. They’re free from distractions outside the team. Discussions and brainstorming can happen on the fly without setting up special meetings.

This can lead to feelings of disconnect though with other teams in the company. There’s very little cross-departmental communication on a daily basis. General meetings would have to be scheduled more often.

Having said that, this is a great layout for software/app development and video game development companies.

Nomadic

This is probably the most minimalist style of them all. There are no workstations anywhere. Instead, the entire office is a common area of couches, lounge chairs, and shared tables. Everyone works off of laptops, tablets, and smartphones. They get everything wirelessly from the cloud or company servers.

With this set-up, technology is fully embraced to streamline company operations. The lack of barriers for staff also create lots of potential for creative collaborations. Spontaneous conversations are not only possible, but also necessary to find out how they can help one another. Another benefit is that infrastructure and capital costs are significantly lowered.

Of course, this means that privacy is hard to come by in the office. The lack of a dedicated workstation often leads to a lack of a day-start routine. That can be a major cause for drop in productivity.

Even so, web development or online companies may like this kind of work environment.

 

Hybrid office

It’s difficult to pigeon-hole companies as strictly closed office or open office. A particular office layout may appeal to your company operations, but your company culture may have other needs. The reality is that most companies opt for a hybrid office set-up, with elements of both closed and open offices.

 

However you mix-and-match your office layouts, just don’t forget to create an inviting office space.

 

Quality is the result of rigorous testing from design down to the manufacturing process. That’s what you can expect with luxury kitchen appliances. For example, Miele goes as far as to run silk stockings over their appliances to make sure there aren’t any unseen rough edges. Sub-Zero and Wolf put their appliances through extreme conditions to test their durability.

 

Luxury kitchen appliances are for home chefs who know what features will complement their cooking style and habits. They know what they need to create their signature gourmet dishes. If this sounds like you or if you’re on your way there, these are the latest features to consider:

 

Cooktop

Modular cooktops are where it’s at when you want to customize the kitchen to your cooking preferences. You can modify your cooktop with electric/gas/induction elements, fryers, grills, steamers, and even teppanyaki modules. You should also get cooktops with dual-zone elements so you don’t have to worry what size of cookware to use. Cooktops with a smart surface allow you to change heat power/location simply by sliding your cookware to a different cooking area.

 

Dishwasher

At the luxury level, dishwashers vie for the top spot through speed and efficiency. This results in variations on deep-cleaning with pressurized multi-directional jets and evenly circulated air from heat elements. The target is clean and dry dishes in one hour or less. Premium dishwashers also come with built-in water filtration systems as well as automatic sensors for more efficient power and water levels.

 

Range

The top-quality ranges are all about controllable power and versatility. Dual-fuel ranges and dual-stacked burners are a must for precision heat control. You should be able to customize the stovetop combination of gas burners, electric plates, French plaque, lava-rock grill, and reversible griddles. You’ll also want one gas and one electric oven on the bottom with one of them a steam-convection combo. Then top it off with Wi-Fi connectability and built-in temperature probes for remote-controlled heat settings.

 

Range hood

For range hoods, first decide whether you want ducted or ductless. For air quality, go with ducted; for installation convenience, go with ductless. What comes after is a juggle of features to balance highest fan efficiency with lowest noise level. Then there are the cosmetic designs – lots of them! You can choose from designs like wall chimney, island, built-in, under-cabinet, or integrated. You can even get some that are disguised as a piece of art or as part of a light fixture.

 

Refrigerator

If you like to have lots of fresh ingredients on hand, get a refrigerator that’s restaurant-grade in both temperature control and size. You also need separate compressors and evaporators to set different cooling temperatures for each compartment. That’s to ensure you cover the broad range of fresh ingredient cooling and humidity needs. Also, smart fridge doors are the future. Some have tinted glass panels that’ll turn transparent with a knock so you can see inside even with the door closed. Others have a touchscreen that can serve as a communication/entertainment system.

 

Don’t forget that you also have the option of integrated looks for your appliances. Some brands offer custom front panels or flush builds so your appliances can blend into your kitchen design. And, of course, be prepared to allocate at least 14% of your kitchen design-build budget to appliances. It’s worth it though when the end result is the ultimate luxury kitchen of your dreams.