Form Manipulation

Not exactly sure what do you want to achieve. However, if for example user presses a button the form should change its height to 700. Slowly :)
That's pretty easy:

        private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            timer1.Start();
        }

        private void timer1_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            this.Height += 10;
            if (this.Height >= 700)
                timer1.Stop();
        }

All you need is to twick a bit with timer interval and increment (this.Height += 10).

i think the timer is overhead, why not simply put the height in the event handler and avoid the timer?

private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            while (this.Height < 700) {
                this.Height += 50;
            }
        }

Not the effect I’m looking for maybe i did not explain myself thoroughly enough....

I would like the hidden area to slide into the bottom of the form over say 4 seconds....

if you want to do it in a predefined time you will need to use a timer as anarki_jimbel suggested...
so you need to make the form 700 height, and currently its 300 height. so you need to sum about 100 to its height every second to get to 700.

set the timer's interval to 1000 (1s) and

private void timer1_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            this.Height += 100;
            if (this.Height >= 700)
                timer1.Stop();
        }

as he suggested.

OK I have 2 panels visible in the 300 x 700 area, in the hidden area I have a some more panels and some controls  etc.   When an event is fired in the 300 x 700 area I would like the bottom half to slide out from 300 x 700 to 700 x 700 over a 4 second period.  
I don’t want the opacity to fade in, I would like to have the panel slide out if possible.  
I am will to buy a 3rd party piece of software to achieve this effect if I have to.

It's not too basic task, I think.
say I have two panes, one visible and one hiddent beneath. When I click the button I shift panel2 location to make it visible.
That's easy. However redrawing the form may look ugly but this is another story:

        private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            timer1.Start();
        }

        private void timer1_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            this.Height += 10;

            panel2.SetBounds(panel2.Location.X, panel2.Location.Y+10,panel2.Height, panel2.Width);
            if (this.Height >= 700)
                timer1.Stop();
        }

use Javascript :

http://www.dhtmlcentral.com/script/script.asp?id=25

In this example you can write your html code in menu division.