Month: December 2013

Create an Everyday Escape for Friends and Neighbors Using Residential Fountains

Residential fountains provide homeowners with a surprising number of benefits, but homeowners aren’t the only ones who count. Guests and neighbors can get just as much from your water projects. Invest in the right features and enjoy the following results:

1. People Appreciate Your Investment

Whether you’re creating large gardens or shoveling snow for the whole block, your neighbors appreciate when you invest in their community. They especially enjoy features that help raise property value. Building a fountain makes your home look special, but it’s also a draw to the neighborhood.

2. People Will Start Talking About Your Home

“Have you seen the Murphys’ fountain yet?” No one is going to stop by your home to see your fountain without stopping in to see you. This gives you a chance to invite them in and make a new first impression with people you haven’t bonded with before. As more people visit your home and spread the word, more people will feel comfortable doing the same. Adding a fountain to your outdoor design is a good way to make new friends in your area.

3. A Successful Design Makes you a Resource

Landscaping projects can be labor and cost intensive. Providing the neighborhood with a stellar example of how to do things right makes you to go-to homeowner on the block. People will want to know who you used for your project, why and how you made your project work. Community experts get more respect and often find they have more influence.

Discuss which residential fountains would be best for your home at www.wplawinc.com/corporate-contact

Don’t Ignore the True Benefits of Commercial Fountains

Commercial fountains aren’t just pretty to look at. Designed correctly, they can have a significant impact on your bottom line. Consider these following points when deciding whether or not to include a fountain or other water feature into your company plans.

1. Fountains Draw Attention

There’s a reason the Bellagio Hotel is so well-known. Although it’s an amazing hotel overflowing with luxury, it stands out in Las Vegas because of its fountain system. It’s big, brash, and dances in awe-inspiring displays. Thousands of visitors come to see the Bellagio Fountains, even if they don’t stay in the hotel. While people visit, however, they often notice other things happening on the property they wouldn’t have discovered otherwise. The significant impact of the hotel’s water feature encouraged mall developer Emaar Properties to create a $218 million fountain display to open alongside their Dubai shopping complex.

2. They Also Create Good PR

Award-winning fountains draw a different kind of attention. The media covers stories about where these structures are built, who was hired for the design, how much the project cost, and why they stood out from other water features. Your company name appears in press releases and on websites, and its picture can be seen in magazines and online. These are all great for exposure. People who haven’t heard of you before will, and they’ll associate your business with good investments. That’s important for attracting quality clients and partners, as well as reinforcing a good brand reputation for the purpose of hiring.

3. They Boost Your Website Optimization

When your name and often your company’s domain name appear frequently online as your fountain draws attention, it gives your importance in search results a surprising boost. You’ll wind up with high quality backlinks leading to your site and search engines will identify your URL as a quality resource. These traits all effect how high your website performs in search results, whether or not someone is searching for information on fountains or design.

Check out pondless water systems and other commercial fountains at www.wplawinc.com/corporate-contact

Creating Your Own Kind of Beautiful with DIY Fountains

DIY fountains offer surprising benefits for the home and business owners who plan and build them. Before tossing the chance aside, really look into what it takes to create your own water features. You may be very surprised at how simple it is and how satisfied with the final product.

People Love to Do Good Deeds

Living in our often materialistic world, it’s hard to believe this human truth; the happiest people focus on doing for others more than filling their own needs. People get big rewards from living altruistically. DIY fountains add enjoyment, beauty, and charm to previously drab or worn spaces. Your project won’t only help you appreciate your property more. It will help you feel responsible for adding some beauty to the world.

People Love Feeling Competent

There’s something to be said for a job well done, especially when you learn new skills in the process. Designing and constructing your own fountain will add to the list of things you like about you. You may not create another one again, or you may turn the new skills you learn into a new source of income.

Fountains Provide Relaxation and Peace

In life, it’s often more about the journey you take than your final destination. Fortunately, for a do-it-yourself fountain or water feature project, the end result provides a serious boost. They often provide calm and relaxation through the comforting sounds of babbling water. They elicit the tranquility of being with nature and help block out the noises of the busier, more complicated world.

Building your own fountain may seem like a complicated endeavor, but the market is full of products to help you on your way. It’s easier than it looks, by far, and provides a surprising number of benefits.

Learn more about DIY fountains at www.wplawinc.com/corporate-contact

Outdoor Grills and Kitchens Maximize Your Property Investments

Outdoor grills and kitchens can be found in residential and commercial settings. They make sense for families who enjoy entertaining outdoors, and they add a unique touch to businesses serving food or hosting banquets.

The question is really whether they’re right for you. Here are several questions you can ask yourself:

Do you have the outdoor space for a built-in grill?

One of the smallest built-in models available is the BI Pro 500RB from Napoleon Gourmet Grills. It’s 30 3/4-inches long and 20 5/8-inches deep, but still enjoys 760-sq. inches of cooking space. You may also want to add additional features such as an outdoor refrigerator, wine chiller or kegerator. The built-in amenities have their own space requirements. With such a wide variety of outdoor kitchen options, there is something for almost any size outdoor area. An outdoor kitchen area will improve your ability to use the property as well as its value.

Do you have the kind of property needed to enjoy outdoor cooking?

Most people live or own a business in an area safe for enjoying outdoors. Very few situations can’t be changed through the use of landscaping and greenery to make guests feel safe and comfortable. The one exception might be an industrial location where smells or noise are a nuisance. Barring those situations, you can work with a designer to create an escape where friends and clients come to get away from the daily grind. Outdoor grills and kitchens add to the appeal, and for the right businesses, create potential for a secondary income.

What about your neighbors’ feelings?

Entertaining outdoors can create noise and it’s important to consider how your neighbors might feel about this kind of change. Before you go to the expense of installing an outdoor cooking area, you may want to tryout a portable grill or at least talk with a few of them about their schedules. If the guy next door works nights and sleeps all day, having parties every weekend will quickly lead to problems. This is especially true for businesses. Make sure your area is zoned correctly and secure any permits you’ll need before you invest in the process.

For most homeowners, adding an outdoor kitchen or grill allows you to enjoy more of your property more of the time, and to be more social in your time outside of work. They add value to your home and make life more fun too. Likewise, businesses can increase their reputations and their profits. It’s important to do your due diligence, but don’t let the what-if’s rob you of the experience.

Discover more about the perfect outdoor grills and kitchens for your needs at www.wplawinc.com/corporate-contact

Plan Water Features to be Cool and Easy to Clean

People get confused when it comes to water features. They assume if it’s beautiful, it must be expensive and difficult to take care of. This couldn’t be a bigger misconception. A quality fountain design and installation takes maintenance into account and incorporates products and technology to make maintaining that masterpiece easier.

Filtration

Maintaining water quality is the most important element in reducing maintenance headaches and costs. Poor water quality leads to murky water, clogged nozzles and foul odors. A reputable fountain contractor will insist on using some type of filtration. In many cases filtration will be used in conjunction with other water quality processes such as UV lights.

Automation

Setting various features of your fountain on a schedule or allowing them to be controlled offsite by computer or mobile device helps you maintain the ideal standards for your water features, regardless of your other obligations. Save money on labor and still make sure your fountains stay in tip-top shape.

Environmentally Friendly

Water-conserving fountains sound like an oxymoron, but designs can easily be tweaked to either use less water or recycle and filter water so visitors enjoy an impressive display while your utility bills stay low.

Easy Drainage

One of the most important points of maintenance in cold weather areas is the ability to fully drain a fountain before it freezes. The design company you work with can install special equipment and make this job easier and more thorough, preventing frozen feature elements that can lead to excessive damage.

Get help planning water features at www.wplawinc.com/corporate-contact

Show Stopping Commercial Fountains

Outstanding commercial fountains get recognized each year at tradeshows in a number of industries. Pool and spa associations and landscaping groups in particular pay attention to these fun and inspiring water features. Award winners can tell you a lot about current trends and innovations. However, taking a look at some of the most famous commercial fountains in history can also give you a starting point.

1. Bellagio Fountains

The fountains in Las Vegas have more flare than any others in the world. Along the Strip, none impress visitors more than the Bellagio Fountains. Like the chorus girl routines performed nightly indoors, the fountains dips and drips are colored and professionally choreographed to thrilling music in order to keep guests enthralled. The waterworks feature over 1000 devices and create sprays reaching over 450-ft. in the air.

2. Fountain of Wealth

Found underground in Suntec City’s shopping complex, this Singapore curiosity remains one of the largest commercial fountains in the world. Its bronze shape includes an inner circle supported by five towering beams, and makes a show stopping centerpiece.

3. Dubai Fountain

Contrary to popular opinion, the Dubai Fountain is not, in fact, a public project. It was financed by Emaar Properties to coincide with the opening of the Dubai Mall. Designed by the same company responsible for the Bellagio Fountains, it’s 25 percent larger. Featuring 6,600 lights and shooting water nearly 500-ft. into the air, the choreographed fountain celebrates a variety of popular and traditional Arabian tunes. Finished in 2009, it cost just $218 million.

Before cementing your plans for commercial fountains, check with the experts at www.wplawinc.com/corporate-contact