How to use Different Flooring in Different Rooms?

May 25,2018 / By Priyanka / No Comment

Your home’s flooring is one of the more luxurious investments you will make when beautifying the interior. Your selections are many, and picking different fabrications for each room need not result in a haphazard look. The connection between the flooring types is color.

Select your interior’s color palette before shopping for flooring. You should go for three different types of flooring from any one point in your home.

Color Scheme
Good interior design includes a color scheme for the entire house. Modifications in color choices depend on the location of the rooms and the number of levels in the house.

Starting with the hallway/entrance hall, select either stone, mosaic, tile, wood or a slate to mark the welcoming entry to your home. If you have a smaller apartment, laying one color and type of flooring throughout the main living areas vividly enlarges the living space.

Living Areas
The living room flooring can be sculpted laminated, wood, bamboo, tile, stone or carpet. The main aim is to mix and match the color of the floor with the hallway, as one flows into the other. An exact match isn’t necessary as long as the hues blend.

To avoid monotony in large spaces, consider an insert piece of carpet surrounded by hardwood. A dining room works best with stone or tile flooring.

Family Areas
Your family room’s flooring, specifically if it runs into the kitchen, should continue the color theme and benefits from a similarity to the kitchen flooring. If you choose carpet, go for a sculpted finish in a darker shade to prevent stain marks.

Tile, wood, and stone work best in high-traffic rooms. The kitchen should be tile, cork or stone, and it must keep within the color scheme of rooms that lead into it. Avoid laminate and wood in case water overflows and causes warping.

Bedrooms
The bedroom is where you show your creativity in the flooring. Children’s rooms should have hard-surfaced flooring. A distressed laminate is less costly than wood and stands up to too much wear and tear.

If the main bedroom is away from the living area, the colors can feed off the room’s decor, as long as they don’t clang with the entryway flooring.

Choose a neutral color for the entryway, preferably in laminate, tile, and wood, and your choices of bedroom flooring widen
If you are going for a hard surface flooring in your bedroom, area rugs on either side of the bed provide a warm footpath.

Blend the colors with the flooring you have selected for the bathroom. Placing a faux-Oriental carpet, with rubber backing, in the middle of the bathroom adds stylishness and hue.

maintenance Smart Residential Living

Pet-Friendly Homes in India is the new market gimmick

Dec 7,2017 / By Priyanka / No Comment

A few years ago it was problematic to find an apartment complex in a main Indian city that would rent to pet owners. Pets were not welcome with authorities mentioning a variety of reasons some valid and some flimsy. Though no law prohibitions people from having pets, and Resident welfare associations have no power to throw out denizens with animal companions.

Today, it is stress-free to find an apartment complex with pet-friendly features and facilities. Acceptance of pets has become more common in both old colonies as well as forthcoming building complexes. Building complexes in localities like Koramangala in Bengaluru, now welcome pets as long as owners warrant hygiene and no trouble to other residents.

The newest rules passed by the Animal Welfare Board of India are in favour of keeping of pets in an apartment or a society. Some of the major points covered by these guidelines are:

• No RWA has the right to prohibition a denizen from keeping pets.
• This ban cannot be compulsory even if a majority of people are in favour of this ban.
• A ban on a pet cannot be based on null and void reasons like a dog barking.
• A ban cannot be hosted regarding the size of pets in a society.
• No society by-law or regulation can authenticate a pet-related ban.

Pet-friendly housing features

But with the changing demographics and rising demand for pet-friendly housing, developers and architects are integrating pet facilities in the design of individual homes. Apartment developments coming up in Bengaluru now feature rooms with pet-sized furniture, custom-built cabinets for food bowls and nooks with heated window seats. There are some complexes that even come with a dog pool separate from the people pool.

Developers are also making special rooms for pets like veterinary clinics, day boarding, dog-walking services, grooming stations, miniature dog parks, and rooftop dog walks with special cleaning systems. Some builders are adding insulation between walls and floors to soften pet noises, mainly barking.

Smart devices to watch over pets

The improvisation of smart technology and home automation has added another dimension to pet-friendly features in apartment buildings. Latest mobile applications allow you to set up cameras in your apartment so you can use your smartphone to check up on your pets while you are away at work.

With the help of these smart gadgets, you can also lessen some of your own fears about what your pet does when you are away.
Technology is also simplifying communication with your pets even if you are not at home. Dual mode pet monitors not only keep a watch over your pet’s activities but also let you communicate with them. All you have to do is turn on the mic on your phone, and your pet can hear you at home and react to you in real time.

Conclusion

After many years of prohibiting companion animals, apartment complexes in many major Indian cities are now accepting and welcoming them. Some developers have even started using pet-friendly features as a marketing gimmick to promote their properties.

Like any additional facility or amenity, pet accommodations experience extra investments and maintenance costs. However, pets are like family and most owners will do anything for them, when it comes to keeping them happy and healthy, irrespective of cost.

maintenance Smart Residential Living Tips

Handling of Cash/Payments in your Society post ban on Rs.500/1000 notes

Nov 10,2016 / By Nimesh / No Comment

In a landmark announcement Govt of India has rendered Rs.500/1000 invalid legal tender. This has a widespread impact on how we transact in the society on day-to-day basis.

Lets look at some of the important aspects:

1) Cash in hand (Collections made till Nov 9): Deposit the notes in your bank account without any issue

2) Reassess if your society will fall into Service Tax bracket (Rs. 5000/month or Rs.60000/annum per flat) and do the needful registrations and declarations to avoid any complications

3) Move to electronic media for all payments collection (Either netbanking or preferably to a Payment Gateway to handle all modes(credit card, debit card, netbanking & international payments) )

4) Remember if you are depositing more than Rs.10 L in this financial year as cash in your account, you have a high probability of IT scrutiny and hardships

5) Ensure you have filed IT Returns for your Society

Keeping the above in mind we have to look into two aspects of money management and how you can do the peacefully:

Money Collections:

1) Preferable mode of payments should be electronic. Handling cheques and cheque returns is a big cost. You can also move to a payment gateway to handle all electronic payments including international payments( netbanking, credit cards, debit cards & international cards: Know more here )

2) In case you still are collecting cash, avoid collecting banned notes. Also ensure that you deposit all your collections and withdraw petty cash separately instead of using the collections directly.

Payments:

1) Use cheques or electronic payments for all payments as far as possible.

2) For payments to workers, ask them to create bank accounts and deposit the same in it.

3) Use small petty cash for any other services provided to you

4) Any recurring payments should be moved to electronic medium

Please find attached the benefits of using CommonFloor Groups online payments and comparison with other modes of payment. GET FREE ONLINE PAYMENT GATEWAY

We hope you have a smooth transition to electronic money management for your society. Please reach out to us to help you make the transition: Call 080 4278 2600 or SMS to +91 9901002797 or write to cf-groups-help@commonfloor.com

Disclaimer: This post is for general information perspective. Please talk to your Chartered Accountant for specific queries about your society.

image courtesy : hindustan times

maintenance Smart Residential Living uncategorized

Property Taxes slated to increase with BBMPs proposal to include common area as well for computation

Jun 19,2015 / By Team Commonfloor Groups / No Comment

Are you tired of the high property tax, that you have to pay every year? Unfortunately, this will only increase further with BBMP proposing a plan to charge property tax on the common areas in commercial and apartment complexes. Common areas are playgrounds, swimming pools, gardens/lawns, parking spaces etc. All this while, flat owners in a way were paying less tax, says BBMP, as taxes were only being calculated as per the carpet area which is the actual usable area minus the wall thickness. However, since the common areas are used by all on an overall basis, the tax thus paid is comparatively less.

Considering this fact along with BBMP’s need for a higher influx of revenue where they are eyeing a 40% increase, they have planned to charge the common areas used by property owners in their gated communities. Also, club houses and community halls would be taxed separately as communities rent these out for functions and other commercial purposes. In other words these will be treated as any other commercial building and will be taxed in the same manner, the way any supermarket or a mall is charged for property tax.

If you are still wondering about calculations well here’s an example. If you are living in a community with 20 flats, each having a sq ft area of 10,000 for which each flat owner is paying tax individually. Now there are common areas like store room, gym, lawns etc. which all together takes up a sq ft area of 15,000. This 15,000 sq feet area would be proportionately divided among the 20 flat owners.

BBMP is currently only doing the required surveys and has ordered all the tax inspectors and revenue inspectors in each ward to survey the apartment complexes and ascertain the quantum of payments that requires to be made. The survey has already started in Mahadevapura and Bommanahalli zones and will soon reach the other parts of the city. Also, BBMP is studying the tax calculation on common areas made in other metropolitan cities before bringing about this move in a full-fledged way.

However, many apartment owners are not taking this change happily and feels that maintenance already covers the tax on common areas.

Do you think BBMP has made a fair move or is it unnecessary? Do let us know your thoughts on this in the comments section below.

Source:http://www.deccanherald.com/content/483211/tax-likely-apartment-pools-parking.html

maintenance Right Step uncategorized

Earth caves in under one of Bangalore’s posh high rises- 32 flats evacuated

Jun 16,2015 / By Team Commonfloor Groups / No Comment

People living in high rises have one nagging fear, their building being one of the firsts to collapse in the face of an earthquake. June 15th was one such day for the residents of the posh Queens Corner Apartments. Tremors were felt and with vivid images of the Nepal earthquake still fresh it was found out much to their dismay that a large section of the compound wall had collapsed along with a huge tree which even created cracks on the building. The collapse has affected not only apartments of Queens Corner but also the houses in the neighboring Income Tax Colony.

The reason is stated to be a huge excavation which was done very close to Queens Corner for the construction of a 20 storey building by Legacy Projects. However, residents are also saying that a large pipe which is close to 15 inch in diameter has been leaking for more than 10 days which had been left unattended in spite of making repeated complaints to the BWSSB and this has resulted in the earth loosening further caving in the earth and hollowing out a major section of area. So there’s this one enormous pit dug out by Legacy Global Projects Pvt. Ltd. for an apartment complex in the adjoining plot and the huge crater just below Queens Corner due to the earth caving in. The hollow which is about 15-feet deep just near block C of Queens Apartment have sacred the residents out of their living dreams and 32 flats of an entire block in Queens Corner apartment, Queens Circle were evacuated along with many residents of the affected Income Tax Colony. Residents evacuated from Queens Colony has either moved to hotels or homes of relatives while residents of the Income Tax Colony has been shifted to guest houses.

Lal Mirpuri, president of residents’ association of Queens Corner stated that repeated complaints had been made not only to BWSSB for fixing the leaking pipe but also to Legacy Projects just after they had dug out the huge pit which had resulted in cracks in their building. As per Defence News India, He also claimed that the association members had made several requests to Legacy Projects for building retention walls in the pit they had dug but all in vain. However, Legacy Global Projects claimed that the large concrete pylons they had built against the mud wall had also collapsed in the accident.
Legal action has already been taken and the builder has been booked under section 336 of the Indian Penal Code for an act endangering life or personal safety of others.

What would you do if something like this happens near your housing society? Any proactive way to deal with such situations?

Source :- http://goo.gl/jDfoHR

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Category : maintenance

How to use Different Flooring in Different Rooms?

Pet-Friendly Homes in India is the new market gimmick

Handling of Cash/Payments in your Society post ban on Rs.500/1000 notes

Property Taxes slated to increase with BBMPs proposal to include common area as well for computation

Earth caves in under one of Bangalore’s posh high rises- 32 flats evacuated