Outdoor furniture: Everything in the garden is lovely

Retire the old patio set and treat the garden as an extension of your home. Try unusual lighting, colourful seats and an ultramodern greenhouse or grill

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from Property | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2uVRGXP
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Councils face a losing battle as they crack down on rogue agencies

Despite dawn raids and legal action, the number of unlicensed rentals in houses of multiple occupation continues to grow

It was before sunrise on a wintry morning that we gathered on a street corner in north London – a clutch of council officials, two police officers and myself. At a signal, the officials hammered on the doors of two tatty maisonettes above a surgery and waved warrants at the bleary faces that appeared in the windows.

This was a dawn raid on two of the myriad houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) being let without a licence in London and was part of a council crackdown on landlords and lettings agencies that flout the law to exploit tenants.

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from Property | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2WSmFQM
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The time to sow is now | Allan Jenkins

Warmer weather, spring sunshine and gentle rain means it’s time to plant your seeds

It’s April, the time of showers and warmth, so it’s likely safe to say it’s the month to unleash your soil. Uncover cloches if you sowed hardy vegetables in March, and lift them from any over-wintered chards and kales.

Plant any potatoes you haven’t yet got in the ground and earth up any earlies already in. Go back over seed beds. We don’t divide our plot into beds except by sowing different rows in different directions: a combination of leaves, say, running one way, beets another, herbs perhaps scattered through, calendula, too, for colour and companion planting. There is no right or wrong, though best not to sow the same seed in the same place every year if you have enough space avoid it.

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from Property | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2FTsRBc
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The time to sow is now | Allan Jenkins

Warmer weather, spring sunshine and gentle rain means it’s time to plant your seeds

It’s April, the time of showers and warmth, so it’s likely safe to say it’s the month to unleash your soil. Uncover cloches if you sowed hardy vegetables in March, and lift them from any over-wintered chards and kales.

Plant any potatoes you haven’t yet got in the ground and earth up any earlies already in. Go back over seed beds. We don’t divide our plot into beds except by sowing different rows in different directions: a combination of leaves, say, running one way, beets another, herbs perhaps scattered through, calendula, too, for colour and companion planting. There is no right or wrong, though best not to sow the same seed in the same place every year if you have enough space avoid it.

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from Home And Garden | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2FTsRBc
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How to buy a house in Scotland Nottingham Estate Agents

We asked David Corrie – head of Estate Agency at Galbraith’s Castle Douglas office – to explain the process of buying a house in Scotland to potential buyers from the rest of the UK. Scottish estate agents, particularly those in Dumfries & Galloway and the Borders, are often asked by people in England (and indeed […]

The post How to buy a house in Scotland appeared first on OnTheMarket.com blog.

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Valley high: finding a new life in Wales

One couple has made the move from a home in Brighton and work in the London ad industry to a remote house in Powys

Several squares of paper are taped discreetly to a wall of Rob Perham and Clive Sweeting’s kitchen, spelling out the names of nearby Welsh villages phonetically. “We’re working on our pronunciation,” explains Perham. The first time he visited Wales was when he went travelling in his 20s and it was a revelation. “I remember thinking, ‘What is this place and this language?’ It was beautiful and like nothing I’d seen before.”

It was so damp in the basement that frogs were hopping around – and in the attic you could see sky through the slates

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from Property | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2FTf8KH
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Valley high: finding a new life in Wales

One couple has made the move from a home in Brighton and work in the London ad industry to a remote house in Powys

Several squares of paper are taped discreetly to a wall of Rob Perham and Clive Sweeting’s kitchen, spelling out the names of nearby Welsh villages phonetically. “We’re working on our pronunciation,” explains Perham. The first time he visited Wales was when he went travelling in his 20s and it was a revelation. “I remember thinking, ‘What is this place and this language?’ It was beautiful and like nothing I’d seen before.”

It was so damp in the basement that frogs were hopping around – and in the attic you could see sky through the slates

Continue reading...

from Home And Garden | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2FTf8KH
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