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February 06 2012
Find the perfect gift
Why is it always so that when you have to find the perfect gift, you end up thinking that does this really reflect the things I want to tell when giving the gift? Gifts are tricky mostly because the gift should look like you but still be useful and yet delightful for the receiving party.Many ways to make building easier
Making building (in Finnish: rakentaminen) easier is a trickier topic. There are many ways to make building easier but I think the key factor in making it easier is good service.House Renovation
The following weeks we planned thoroughly the renovation (in Finnish: remontti)and we called several times the local K-rauta to get some advice. We got the planning to a stage where everything was ready and just an order a way and we did it.Selling your apartment
I have many friends who are selling their homes at the moment. A couple of them have actually bought new apartments already even though the old one has not been sold yet.February 03 2012
Selling your apartment
The key in selling your house during hard or easy times is to renovate. Renovate it just enough to meet the demand of the inspecting eye. The potential buyer should not find the floors outdated or worn out. The buyer should not find the bathroom nor the water closet to be too used or outdated either. The whole apartment should give an image of being well cared of and renovated. It should give the picture that it’s safe to move in and when the buyer really steps in, it should immediately give a good vibe.
You can scale your renovation (in Finnish: remontti) to be either really only a facelift or then do it the proper way. In both cases you do a service to yourself and the buyer. For all kinds of renovations you get basically everything that you need from the same place. When you go to your local K-Rauta and you tell them that you are renovating your house to be in mint condition when it goes for sale, they will help you find the best solutions.
Selling a house means that your selling a place to live for the person who is buying it. You should not be selling something that isn’t really fit for living as it is. This means that when you renovate, you should be thinking all the time about the worst case scenario buyer who does not like anything that would remind the buyer of the apartment being old. You should really put effort in getting it into the condition that when the buyer steps in, he or she feels that they could move in immediately.
If you do it right and you get everything done before you start to sell the apartment, you have alreay won the first half of the game. The other half is to sell the image for the buyer of a livable and lovable apartment. That is way much easier to do when the actual apartment backs you up.
Making everything easier
Making things easier for yourself is a skill. You learn it usually by doing things the hard way. Making things easier isn’t about being lazy, it is at its best a form of risk management. You learn to do things so that you don’t have to work too much and still the result is good.What keeps people coming back
The service in itself doesn’t mean hiring the best people in the world. It is the example you give when hiring new people. You have to show that it is part of your business culture to serve every customer as if it was your first one.Time for a renovation
My grandmother was for a very long time not willing to do anything new around the farm. Everything should be as it was before and as it will be for the future generations.Back to roots
Roots is something that people grow when they live in one place for a long time. First roots seem always to be the strongest ones. First roots are usually associated with the person you become.February 01 2012
Making everything easier
Making building (in Finnish: rakentaminen) easier is a trickier topic. There are many ways to make building easier but I think the key factor in making it easier is good service. When you find a place where the staff knows what they are doing, and you can even get some good advice, you are in the place where they can make building easier for you.
Making building easier doesn’t necessary mean that you have to order everything installed or in ready packages but you get good tools and materials that come with useful information. I’ve gotten superb service and gotten everything to make my building easier from K-Rauta. I found out that I even get inspired more when I step into the store because I know that it won’t be so hard and for what it’s worth I’m not alone in the project.
Easier life means more results in shorter time and more time for yourself. It is a well-known fact that everything that saves you money or time is worth gold. Good service is the key in saving time and a well-equipped store with good materials, like Rautia, saves you money at least in the long run. Making your life easier should also be fun. Searching for the alternative ways of doing things has always been and will always be the right way to go.
January 31 2012
What keeps people coming back
Things that really matter when you are going back to the store for the second and the third time is the experience you had the first time. How was the store, was there a good selection and then last but definitely not least the service. The service culture is really important when trying to lure the customers to come back. If a customer had a good experience and nice service, it is almost guaranteed that the customer will come back. If the selection was not so good or something was wrong but the service was still good, it might save the whole situation.
The service in itself doesn’t mean hiring the best people in the world. It is the example you give when hiring new people. You have to show that it is part of your business culture to serve every customer as if it was your first one. This way you are guaranteed to have more customers and loyal regulars. When people talk about stores, you can’t really influence them anyway else but to try to offer them the best service you can. This is important because if they get bad service the negative storytelling seems to have more power than the positive.
I started a renovation (in Finnish: remontti) recently and I had no clue how to manage the whole project. I went to the local K-Rauta and told them about my renovation project, showed some pictures and even asked if they would know anyone who could help me with the interior design. The service I got from there was absolutely great. Not only did I get all the equipment I needed, I also got a lot of good advice and they also asked me to come back with new pictures when the job is done. This service really keeps me going back to that store in the future.
January 30 2012
Time for a renovation
My grandmother has been living in the same house her whole life. She was born in the house and she says she will also like to pass away in the same house. This is not unusual to her generation. Many people had to flee the war and families settled around farms where they then had many post-war generation kids. These kids grew up in these farms and also with the new war knocking on the door they had to be the heads of the families. This possibly created a special bond between the farms and the people.
My grandmother was for a very long time not willing to do anything new around the farm. Everything should be as it was before and as it will be for the future generations. At some point she realized though that there is no future generation for this farm. The population of the village is vastly decreasing and there is no agriculture in the area.
I told here a few times that she should relocate to some of the cities nearby so that if she gets sick, she would be treated properly. She understood my concerns but politely said no.
One weekend I took her to the nearby town where we were supposed to go for some grocery shopping. I needed a shovel because of the new snow so we also popped by at the local K-rauta. That was the eye opener for grandma. After a while we were already looking at a new kitchen, new toilet and possibly even a new outdoor kitchen for the farm. She got so excited that it was hard for me to get her out of there.
The following weeks we planned thoroughly the renovation (in Finnish: remontti) and we called several times the local K-rauta to get some advice. We got the planning to a stage where everything was ready and just an order a way and we did it. For so many decades it had been untouched and nothing had been renovated but now after a full renovation and many visits to the local K-rauta store, I have never seen my grandmother happier than she is now. As for me, I got so inspired by the advise and all those cool products in K-rauta that I am right now about to start building (in Finnish: rakentaminen) my own house. Isn’t that cool?
Back to roots
A lot of people move away from their homes when they grow up. People move after a job or a study place or then just because they get bored of the same scenery. When people move, they tend to expect many things out of the new place where they are moving. People usually have expectations of happiness, an increase in income and having more activities that they can be doing during free time. Moving always has its ups and downs. Moving means starting something new and some say that new is always better, but for some it might also mean letting go of everything they have.
Roots is something that people grow when they live in one place for a long time. First roots seem always to be the strongest ones. First roots are usually associated with the person you become. You are who you are because of what happened where you were born and raised. Roots are also the thing some people start missing when they have settled to their new location. Missing the place where you were born and raised is natural because most of the memories are likely to be good and most of the things you remember are usually the best ones. How many people then end up moving back to their roots and at what stage does this happen? I know a few people who moved back to their roots and settled there with their new families. In all cases they were married and recently had had children.
One of my friends had enherited a piece of land and he decided to buy two pieces of ready house packages (in Finnish: talopaketit) from Rautia and to move there with his family. The change was big but the family got a good place to live in and my friend could handle his work online.
I think that for urban family that wants to move away from the hassle, buying a ready house package is the optimal choice. You can really give your touch to the house but all the critical building and assembly phases are done by professionals. You get a good idea on the internet what it is like to build a ready house package.
January 27 2012
Bob the Builder
Building (in Finnish: rakentaminen) used to be the base for everything. Families built their own houses and the father new where every single built and nail was located. If something went wrong.After the storm
How do you prepare for a storm? This is something that they don’t teach in Finland because we don’t have real storms. If we look at the States and their extensive training on managing storms,Building something for your children
What would be the single greatest thing you could give your children as a heritage or just as a gift? If you were to build (in Finnish: rakentaminen) something, what would it be?Envy is a disease
I thought before that banksters are cool. I used to think that all motor sports are cool. I used to think that if you’re working for a large corporation with a big salary, you’re cool. I never actually thought that I, who renovate houses for a loving, would be cool.When it just doesn’t work out
Relationships are a tricky subject for most of us. We think we know how it works and we seem to plan everything so promptly to back us up for the occasion of the right one stepping into the picture.What options are there in the countryside?
Countryside definitely offers options for living. You can build your own house or if you don’t want to spend years in struggle, you can also buy a ready house package (in Finnish: talopaketit).January 25 2012
What options are there in the countryside?
I feel that everyone is talking about the glory of the countryside and how it should be re-branded and given the glory it deserves. Countryside itself has not lost its magic. The people just moved to city after their jobs and then the rest of the countryside people could not stand to be alone and be left behind of all the reasonable development due to small population. It is a shame. We don’t have enough population to populate the countryside so well that there could happen some sort of development. I hope that some day we will have a flood of people who come not as refugees by wars or economy but for the environment. We have so much nature and beautiful countryside that should be utilized but no-one can really do anything because nobody wants to live there.
Countryside definitely offers options for living. You can build your own house or if you don’t want to spend years in struggle, you can also buy a ready house package (in Finnish: talopaketit). I feel that everyone is struggling with the idea of doing something in the rural areas. By doing something I mean something to improve our nature and keep the rural areas up to date. Lately I have also noticed that a small group of people has started to move towards countrysides to work from there. The only problem in that is the poor internet and cellular connections. For most of our work, that is crucial. I could easily move to the countryside if I were offered a ready house package and a good spot of land somewhere where there is water around. For me to move, it would also require a high speed internet connection and a flawless cellular network. I’m not being picky but these are the things I need for work and that is a fact.
But now when even thinking about countryside, I immediately have some reservations. I realize that I might not fit in, there might be problems with the connections in future and what if I don’t find ‘the right one’ there? These are all questions that one that is planning to move to the countryside has to deal with.
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