Sister Snog

Hey Good-Lookin! What you got cookin?
The kitchen is the heart of a home. A place of delicious aromas. Stews. Soups. Sunday lunches. Freshly baked bread. Time for family, friends and parties. Fanny made a career out of hers in the 60s. In the 70s Tom and Barbara shared a bottle of nettle wine or something stronger if Margo and Jerry popped round. The Golden Girls hung out in there during the 80s. Mr Lewie never ventured out of it.  And today Nigella and Jamie invite you into theirs.

Kitchens speak volumes
The kitchen is the number one improvement that prospective buyers look for. So it's worth investing in yours. Particulary if you feel like you’ve stepped into a time machine when you walk in to make a cuppa. If it’s time for a complete kitchen make over here’s Part I of Top-Tips on how you can achieve a trendy cooking space and still be able to cook.

Floor show
Good flooring can make or break a kitchen as well as setting the tone for the whole room. It needs to cope with knocks, spills, scratches and stains. Killer heels. Welly boots. Dirty paws. Flood or fire. Well, you’re spoilt for choice. Vinyl. Linoleum. Porcelain. Natural stone. Rubber. Cork. Even bamboo!

Hard-working-worktops
Worktops are one of the most visible elements in a kitchen. So why shouldn't they be as stylish as your wardrobe as well as hard-wearing and hard-working. Choosing the right worktop will take into account design, budget and maintenance. Traditionally the choice was between laminate for the cheap and cheerful, wooden for the rustic country kitchen or granite for a great look that lasts. Now there's quartz as a modern alternative. Looks good and is is super scratch resistant, stain resistant and wear resistant. Hmm! There's a thought.

Put your kitchen in the spotlight
Lighting is key. Be clever. Be creative using a combination of accent, task, decorative and ambient lighting to enhance the overall appearance of the kitchen. Use plinth lights. Incorporate stylish pendants over an island.  Or a chandelier for real dramatic effect.

Fantasy Island
Space permitting, incorporate an island into your kitchen. Mobile or static, it’s guaranteed to add a stylish focal point with a multitude of uses.  From storage and food prep to relaxed dining. Entertaining en masse or drinks a deux with a friend.

The sociable kitchen
Kitchens are not just for cooking. They're the hub of the home. A sociable place for family and friends. For invitations and celebrations. Think about adding a breakfast bar to a work surface or soft seating area for sitting, sipping or snoozing.

Samantha Morgan
Head of Design
Concept Interiors
www.concept-interior.co.uk
Follow Samantha on Twitter @smorganconcept

Yin and Yang
Sister Snog loves purple.  The deep purple haze. Rich. Regal with a splash of ceremony and a sense of occasion. Royal with a hint of aristocracy.  It sits between the blue hues of the Yin and the red hot sizzle of the Yang. Combine the two. Hey Presto! Sisters Snog's catwalk colour palette.

Hello Sweetie
Dip into the purple palette. You'll find Violet Creams and Parma Violets. Quixotic confectionary. If your taste buds can handle it. Rather like Sister Snog. An acquired taste for a refined palette.

Lavender and lilac
Lavender water evokes a sense of elegance. Victorian charm. Genteel ladies with frilly parasols. A walled garden draped in a gown of wisteria. Sipping chilled lilac wine in the gazebo. Humming a little ditty. Lavender's Blue.  Dilly. Dilly. For instance. And dancin'. If yer askin'. I'm askin'. In the rain. Purple rain of course!

Marvellous mulberry
Think purple. Think mulberry. Looks like a cross between an elongated blackberry. A robust raspberry.  Swollen longenberry. Certainly not your 'Average Bear Boo-Boo!' And did you know Buck Pal now stands where there was once a fine mulberry orchard. Then of course there's 'Peace, Love, Mud...and Mulberry'. The epitomy of understated Bo-ho luxury with roots in Biba-land. A peculiar juxtaposition. Rather like Sister Snog.

Mighty mauve
Think purple. Think mauve. First named in 1856 by chemist Sir William Henry Perkins. While he was tinkering in the lab late one night an unexpected residue caught his eye which turned out to be the first aniline dye.  It became known as Perkin's mauve and  the title of his biography Mauve: How One Man Invented a Colour That Changed the World.

Dress to Impress
Colour plays a key component of a brand's personality. Take a step back to think about what your brand colour says about you.  And be sure to dress it in a colour that speaks volumes.

Careers from the kitchen table
The number of people starting and growing a business from home rose to 2.8 million in 2009. Collectively these Kitchen Table Tycoons contributed £284 billion to the annual UK economy according to a survey by Enterprise Nation and BT. And many of the are women.

May all your donuts look like Fanny's
Fanny Craddock may have been crowned the 'First Lady of Food' but she's certainly not the only one who has seen her business leap off the kitchen table into the limelight. You can find  Cheryl Cullen and Kitten Kit keeping company with Sally Preston, chief cook-and-CEO at Babylicious, Rebecca Jay with her Dodo Pad and Julie Pankhurst who captured the desire to reunite with friends. So a big thank you to new technology which has at last created a new liberation for these Mothers of Invention by enabling them to run successful businesses from home.  

Oh! What a circus
Most Kitchen Table Tycoons double up as Mobile Entrepreneurs. Their average day. Rarely typical. And they rely heavily on smart phones, apps and instant messaging to manage their very-much-in-the-now businesses. Organisation. Communication. Accessiblity. Availability. All key to the circus of business. The Mobile Entrepreneur is both Mistress of Smoke & Mirrors and Master of the act of juggling and balancing the needs of the business with the demands of their customer or client. Which is what possibly explains the growth of the Virtual Office.

Step into the virtual world
Time is both the currency and the enemy of every entrepreneur. However, outsourcing telephone answering, admin, secretarial and support services can buy time. Many virtual office companies also have bricks and mortar locations that can masquerade as a business HQ. They'll open mail. Forward mail. Who's to know? They're perfect for a pitch. Marvellous for a meeting. Leaps and bounds better than Starbucks or Costa. And granny gets to keep the flat. It's a no brainer.

So if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen and say au revoir to the kitch'n'sync.

Sally-Ann Mannas
Group Marketing Manager
The Virtual Office
www.voffice.com
Follow on Twitter @aVirtualOffice