Top Design Tips for your Luxury Kitchen

For most people, the kitchen is a hub of family activity; a place where hours upon hour are spent preparing beautiful banquets and delicious desserts. However, you should be just as proud of your kitchen design, as you are of your culinary creations. When thinking about a new kitchen, or improving your current space, there are endless possibilities for the design to bring innovation and class to your room. Here are some great design ideas for your luxury kitchen.

Will you go classic, or modern? You might even find a harmony between the two!

When you take a step back and look at your kitchen, what is it that stands out and takes up most of the visual space of your kitchen? For most people, the main two aspects are cabinets and countertops, so make sure you think about these carefully before you make your purchases.

Countertops are a fantastic way to add class to your kitchen; they’re also the most important thing to invest in as far as quality is concerned. Your countertop will be dictated mostly by your budget, but shopping smart means that you can get great material for a fraction of the price. Carrara marble is an expensive option, but if you’ve got the budget for it, your luxury kitchen will look the part. Quartz is a great alternative for durability though, and often preferred for its great looks but low maintenance. Remember though that whatever you buy, all materials need maintaining from time to time. Make sure you keep up with protective coating and other care instructions to make the most of your investment!

‘So Last Season…’

Cabinets are undoubtedly the most prominent aspect of your kitchen and beautiful cabinetry is a sure-fire way to give your kitchen the ‘wow’ factor.

Dark wood is currently in fashion, but be aware that kitchen cabinets trends rotate more often than other areas of your luxury kitchen. Open shelving is also in for contemporary kitchens, but some styles lend themselves to closed cabinets for the sleek, minimalist look. If your budget allows, you can keep your luxury kitchen at the height of fashion by redecorating every 5-6 years. Neutral colours and materials will mean a beautiful, light kitchen to work in, and usually won’t mean a terrible fashion faux pas!

Turn Up the Heat

 

Not just a pretty face; Induction hobs look stunning, and are much more efficient than gas!

Luxury kitchens wouldn’t be much use without some luxury appliances to go with all the décor you’ve picked out. Thinking outside the box is what sets just a ‘lovely’ kitchen apart from a true luxury kitchen.

Induction cooking is something well worth considering; not only does it look sleek and modern, but it also saves around 60% of your budget compared with a gas option. The future of ventilation is one to investigate for your luxury kitchen, too. Down draft systems are state of the art ways to lose your cooking smoke, steam and smells without the big ventilation hood above your appliances. Going state of the art can save you money, in addition to looking great, and lasting for year after year.

Artistic Appliances

Our next great tip is one that not many people implement in their kitchens. To add an elegance to your luxury kitchen, and make a great design statement, think about framing your kitchen appliances! Not all luxury kitchens will suit framing, but usually vintage styles and wooden themes go beautifully with this design idea. Carved posts and artistic wooden columns make for a lovely homely feel to your luxury kitchen. They really help to add a touch of class, almost like having a four poster bed for your oven!

You Get What You Pay For

The classic phrase dictates that a wise investment will stand the test of time. In the kitchen industry, getting what you pay for is particularly pertinent.

If you’re planning a luxury kitchen, then your budget might be a scary thing to look at. The most important thing to know is that even though it might seem like you’re breaking the bank, the long term benefits of going high-end are well worth the initial cost. If you’re going to do it right, do it right the first time. The final top tip, is that you’ll only have to re-do a low cost kitchen again if you decide not to invest in the right areas.

Conclusion

Having looked at different ideas, it’s clear that your options and design ideas for your luxury kitchen are vast. Whatever your style, if you build it to last, your kitchen will serve you well, and look fantastic for many years to come. A perfect blend of practical and beautiful will make your kitchen the talking point of your neighbours, and be the little piece of paradise that your hard work deserves.

Tests for Surface Cracking in Concrete Structures

Problem of concrete cracking

The wing wall to a highway bridge abutment shows random surface cracks and spalling several years after construction.

Aims of testing

The principal aim will be identification of the cause of deterioration followed by an assessment of present and future serviceability. Appointment of blame may follow.

Proposals

Visual inspection of crack patterns, and their development with time, may permit preliminary classification of cause as (a) structural actions, (b) shrinkage, or (c)material deterioration. This may be followed by strength assessment as in A2 if structural actions are suspected, or chemical/petrographic testing if material deterioration is likely. Cores may conveniently be used to provide suitable samples and should be taken from the areas most seriously affected. Chemical testing to detect chlorides or sulfates will be selected according to the crack pattern whilst microscopic examination can check for frost action, alkali/aggregate reaction and entrained air content.
Serviceability will be determined on the basis of the extent of deterioration and the ability to prevent worsening of the situation.

Interpretation of testing results

Shrinkage cracks are likely to occur at an early age and follow a recognizable pattern, as do cracks due to structural actions. Material deterioration is therefore indicated in this case, and may be due to chemical attack from internal or external sources or due to frost action. Chloride attack is unlikely since the cracks do not follow the pattern of reinforcement, thus initially test for sulfate and cement content. If the results ofthese tests indicate acceptable levels, petrographic examination will be necessary to attempt to identify aggregate/ alkali attack or frost action. If frost action is indicated, micro-metric examination will yield an estimate of the entrained air content for comparison with the specified value.

Expansion and alkali-immersion tests on cores may be required if alkali/aggregate reaction is found. If future deterioration can be prevented by protection of the concrete from the source of attack, this should be implemented after such cutting out and making good as may be necessary. If the source of deterioration is internal and not of a localized nature it may prove necessary to replace the member once it reaches a condition of being unfit for use.

Load Tests For Piles

The purpose of carrying out pile driving test is to confirm on the design bearing capacity, soil condition, design length of pile, construction period and applicability of construction equipments and the pile driving test shall always be carried out in the presence of the Engineer.

Therefore, the Contractor should carry out the loading test for the pile before proceeding series of piling. The method of loading test should be followed by Engineer’s directions. If it is not specified in the designing document, corresponding to each diameter, length, bearing capacity of pile from the quantity of trial piles must be more than 1% of pile quantity and minimum at least 2 piles.

STATIC LOAD TEST
Before proceeding series of piling, the Contractor must carry out the static loading test for the pile. The Contractor must establish the pile static loading test thesis and submit for the Engineer’s approval before implementing. The test must follow strictly the approved designing document. Its content must mention the followings:
• Features of construction
• Features of the ground at the constructing site and at the testing position
• Proceeding method
• Resting time of pile after completing proceeding until testing
• Trial capacity and greatest change of pile position as anticipated.
• Method and procedure for loading extending
• Anticipation on the time, progress of trial organizing.
• Requirements on testing equipments
• Other necessary requirements.

DYNAMIC LOAD TEST
Dynamic load testing shall be performed during pile driving work. Wave speed shall be measured for pile prior to setting up the pole for loading test. When measuring the wave speed, pile shall be laid down horizontally on flat ground, and measure shall be taken to prevent contact with other piles. Pile shall be driven down to the depth of reaching ultimate bearing capacity.

During driving of pile, the stress acting on pile shall be monitored and controlled to stay below the allowable value. When necessary, striking energy transmitted to pile shall be reduced to maintain the stress below the allowable value by adding cushion or by reducing the output hammer energy. After completion of dynamic loading test, the Contractor shall report the results to the Engineer for confirmation and shall determine the number of pile and driving depth for the Work.

When passed 24 hours from the completion of dynamic pile load testing, test instrument shall be attached to the pile and pile shall be re-driven. Penetration depth of pile during re-driving shall be less than 150mm, and the number of hammering shall be less than 50 times.

She Loves You..

TOP TEN NEW SPECIES 2013

Lilliputian Violet
(Viola lilliputana)

Not only is the Lilliputian violet among the smallest violets in the world, it is also one of the most diminutive terrestrial dicots. Known only from a single locality in an intermontane plateau of the high Andes of Peru, Viola lilliputana lives in the dry puna grassland ecoregion. Specimens were first collected in the 1960s, but the species was not described as a new until 2012. The entire above ground portion of the plant is barely 1 cm tall. Named, obviously, for the race of little people on the island of Lilliput in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.

Country: Peru

Lyre Sponge
(Chondrocladia lyra)

A spectacular, large, harp- or lyre-shaped carnivorous sponge discovered in deep water (ave. 3399 m) from the northeast Pacific Ocean off the coast of California. The harp-shaped structures or vanes number from two to six and each has more than 20 parallel vertical branches, often capped by an expanded, balloon-like, terminal ball. This unusual form maximizes the surface area of the sponge for contact and capture of planktonic prey items. 

Country: NE Pacific Ocean; USA: California

Lesula Monkey
(Cercopithecus lomamiensis)
Discovered in the Lomami Basin of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the lesula is an Old World monkey well known to locals but newly known to science. This is only the second species of monkey discovered in Africa in the past 28 years, and was first seen by scientists as a captive juvenile in 2007. Scientists describe the lesula as shy having human like eyes. It is more easily heard than seen by the booming dawn chorus it performs. Adult males have a large bare patch of skin on the buttocks, testicles, and perineum that is brilliant blue in color. Although the area where it occurs is remote, the species is hunted for bushmeat and thus its status vulnerable

Country: Democratic Republic of the Congo

No to the Mine! Snake
(Sibon noalamina)

A beautiful new species of snail-eating snake has been discovered from highland rainforests of western Panama. The snake is nocturnal and a predator of soft bodied prey including earthworms and amphibian eggs in addition to snails and slugs. This harmless snake defends itself by mimicking the alternating dark and light rings of venomous coral snakes. Mining of ore deposits in the Serrania de Tabasara mountain range where the species is found is degrading and diminishing its habitat. The species name is derived from the Spanish phrase “No a la mina,” or No to the Mine. 

Country: Panama

A Smudge on Paleolithic Art
(Ochroconis lascauxensis)
In 2001, black stains began to appear on the walls of Lascaux Cave in France. These stains were so prevalent by 2007 that they became one of the major concerns for the conservation of the precious rock art at the site that dates from the Upper Palaeolithic. A white fungus, Fusarium solani, outbreak had been successfully treated when, a few months later, black staining fungi appeared. The genus Ochroconis primarily includes fungi occurring in the soil and associated with the decomposition of plant matter. While the two new species isolated from Lascaux, are as far as known harmless, at least one species of the group, O. gallopava, causes diseases in immunocompromised humans.

Country: France

World’s Smallest Vertebrate
(Paedophryne amanuensis)
Living vertebrate animals range in size more than 3,000 fold, from this tiny new species of frog as small as 7 mm to the blue whale measuring in at 25.8 m. The new frog was discovered near Amau village in Papua, New Guinea. It claims the title of smallest living vertebrate from a tiny Southeast Asian cyprinid fish that captured the record in 2006. The adult frog size, averaging length of both males and females, is only 7.7mm. With few exceptions, this and other ultra-small frogs have been found in association with moist leaf litter in tropical wet forests suggesting a unique ecological guild that could not exist under drier circumstances.

Country: New Guinea

Endangered Forest
(Eugenia petrikensis)
Eugenia is a large, worldwide genus of woody evergreen trees and shrubs of the myrtle family that is particularly diverse in South America, New Caledonia and Madagascar. The new species E. petrikensis is a shrub growing to two meters with emerald green, slightly glossy, foliage and beautiful dense clusters of small magenta flowers. It is one of seven new species described from the littoral forest of eastern Madagascar and is considered to be an endangered species. It is only the latest evidence of the unique and numerous species found in this specialized humid forest that grows on sandy substrate within kilometers of the shoreline. Once forming a continuous band 1,600 km long, the littoral forest has been reduced to isolated, vestigial fragments under pressure from human populations. 

Country: New Madagascar

Lightning Roaches
(Lucihormetica luckae)
Luminescence among terrestrial animals is rather rare and best known among certain groups of beetles — fireflies and certain click beetles in particular — and cave-inhabiting fungus gnats. Since the first discovery of a luminescent cockroach in 1999, more than a dozen species have, pardon the pun, come to light. All are rare and, interestingly, so far only found in remote areas far from light pollution. The latest addition to this growing list is L. luckae that may be endangered or possibly already extinct. It is known from a single specimen collected 70 years ago from an area recently heavily impacted by the eruption of the Tungurahua volcano. The species may be most remarkable because the size and placement of its lamps suggest that it is using light to mimic toxic luminescent click beetles. 

Country: Ecuador

No Social Butterfly
(Semachrysa jade)
In a trend setting collision of science and social media, Hock Ping Guek photographed a beautiful green lacewing with dark markings at the base of its wings in a park near Kuala Lumpur and shared his photo on Flickr. Dr. Shaun Winterton, an entomologist with the California Department of Food and Agriculture, serendipitously saw the image and recognized the insect as unusual. When Guek was able to collect a specimen, it was sent to Dr. Stephen J. Brooks at London’s Natural History Museum who confirmed its new species status. The three joined forces preparing a description using Google Docs. In this triumph for citizen science, talents from around the globe collaborated by new media in making the discovery. It is named, by the way, for Winterton’s daughter, Jade, not its color. 

Country: Malaysia

Hanging Around in the Jurassic
(Juracimbrophlebia ginkgofolia)
Living species of hangingflies can be found, as the name suggests, hanging beneath foliage where they capture other insects as food. They are a lineage of scorpionflies charactersized by their skinny bodies, two pairs of narrow wings, and long threadlike legs. A new fossil species, Juracimbrophlebia ginkgofolia, has been found along with preserved leaves of a gingko-like tree, Yimaia capituliformis, in Middle Jurassic deposits in the Jiulongshan Formation in China’s Inner Mongolia. The two look so similar that they are easily confused in the field and represent a rare example of an insect mimicking a gymnosperm, 165 million years ago, before the explosive radiation of flowering plants. 

Country: China

TOP TEN NEW SPECIES 2013

Distribution Map

01 — Lilliputian Violet — Viola lilliputana — Peru
02 — Lyre Sponge — Chondrocladia lyra — NE Pacific Ocean; USA: California
03 — Lesula Monkey — Cercopithecus lomamiensis — Democratic Republic of the Congo
04 — No to the Mine! Snake — Sibon noalamina — Panama
05 — A Smudge on Paleolithic Art — Ochroconis anomala, Ochroconis lascauxensis — France
06 — World’s Smallest Vertebrate — Paedophryne amanuensis — New Madagascar
07 — Endangered Forest — Eugenia petrikensis — New Guinea
08 — Lightning Roaches — Lucihormetica luckae — Ecuador
09 — No Social Butterfly — Semachrysa jade — Malaysia
10 — Hanging Around in the Jurassic — Juracimbrophlebia ginkgofolia — China

Different Types of Bridges

Below are some of the different types of bridges:

Beam Bridge: A beam bridge is basically drawn from the log bridge. Its construction relies on low steel beams, concrete and box grinders. It is said that the construction of beam bridge is the technically the easiest and uncomplicated among all the other types. Some of the bridges of this type include highway overpasses, flyovers or walkways. In this type of bridge a flat beam is supported on its both ends on piers.


Truss Bridge: This type of bridges is constructed by joining straight elements. These elements are often joined by means of pin joints. There is an abundance of forests in United States and hence of wood as well. Due to this fact, a lot of truss bridges were made in the past with timbers iron rods. Timbers were used as a source of compression and iron rods were used handle the tension. In the course of history, the truss bridges became popular from 1870s to 1930s. One such popular bridge is Deck truss Railroad Bridge constructed on the Erie Canal.


Arch Bridge: Arch bridges are called arch bridge because of having a shape similar to arches. These bridges are normally constructed with weight equally distributed into the ropes or chains at both the ends. The oldest arch bridge that still exists is the ‘Mycenaean Arkadiko Bridge’ constructed in Greece somewhere around 1300BC. Although, Greeks and Etruscans were familiar with the arches, Romans were known to be the first who discover the art of constructing an arch bridge. Present day arch bridge are the modified from as they have become compression arch suspended deck bridge which rely on light but stronger tensile construction material.

Suspension Bridge: A suspension bridge is a bridge that hangs from steel cables which are supported by towers on each end. Technically, the load of the bridge is transformed into the stretchiness in the cables. Some of the popular suspension bridges include the Golden Gate Bridge of United States, the Humber Bridge of England and the Tsing MA Bridge of China.

Cable-stayed Bridge: These are almost similar to suspension bridge in their structure but with few exceptions. The major differences between the two exist in the quantity of steel cable used. In the cable-stayed bridge, the towers used to support cables are relatively shorter and require less amount of cable as compared to suspension bridge. Cable-stayed bridge has two different versions: the harp design and fan variant design. Cables are connected to several points in harp design while in fan variant, the cables are attached to the tower. In United States, Cable Bridge has the reputation of first of this type. Other popular bridge is Centennial Bridge.

Cantilever Bridge: These are the bridges which are constructed in such a way that they stand out in the direction of horizontal-axis in space. These bridges are supported just on one end. The bridges for low traffic are simply based on beams whereas the bridges for heavy traffic are comprised of box grinders or trusses. Two of the most popular cantilever bridges include the Quebec Bridge of Canada (1800 feet long) and Oakland Bay Bridge of Sans Francisco (1400 feet long).

Bridges are surely a great way to reach the places which people never think of by any other simple mean. Bridges not only connect far-off lands but also provide opportunity to the mankind to explore different aspect of new technology. A bridge may be a an inspiration of a man who saw a block of wood floating on a water surface or perhaps the urge to come in contact with people living far-off ends. Whatever the reasons, the bridge is surely a great way to defeat the physical hindrances.