Tag Archives: Home

Get A Cheap Home Owner Insurance Quote

March 09, 2023   Matt

Get A Cheap Home Owner Insurance Quote

Home owner insurance is not always required. If you live in a home you own out right, with no lenders or financers you probably are not required to purchase a home owner’s insurance policy. Therefore, you can avoid that extra insurance bill every month. Good for you, right? Wrong.

Home owner’s insurance may seem like just another monthly bill; however, if you find yourself in a situation in which you’ve been robbed or your home has suffered water damage, fire damage, or any kind of damage from weather elements, those extra monthly insurance bills will suddenly seem like a wise idea. And, if your neighbor comes knocking at your door one day, only to fall down an icy stoop? Well, those extra monthly insurance bills will suddenly seem like an even wiser idea.

So, how can you get a cheap home owner insurance quote to protect yourself from tragedies and accidents? It’s simple, really – you just need to know how to cut corners; and I don’t been in a Scrooge-like, penny pinching way.

First, make indoor home improvements. This means checking out your electrical system, which could make your home a fire hazard, and plumbing system, which could make your home susceptible to water damage. Consider installing durable windows and sturdier locks. A safety alarm system isn’t a bad idea, either.

Next, make some outdoor home improvements. Fix any creaky steps, loose stones or concrete in your walkway, loose shutters and shingles, and get rid of any scrap metal you plan to build something with, but neighborhood kid might want to use as a plaything.

Finally, store all of your very precious and irreplaceable valuables in a safety deposit box in the bank. Period.

Making these safety changes will show home owner insurance companies you’re serious about keeping your home, your family, your valuables, and your visitors safe, thus encouraging them to give you a cheap home owner insurance quote.

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Homes For Sale – Tips To Help Make Your Home More Marketable

February 18, 2023   Matt

Homes For Sale – Tips To Help Make Your Home More Marketable

You’ve finally decided that you want to sell your house. Your house is on the market, and you’ve found a real estate agent you can trust. Now what? The next and most obvious step is to get your home sold. To help aid in the selling of your home, I will outline some tips that I personally believe will benefit in the marketability and potential selling of your home. The goal here is to obtain that all important “stamp of approval” in which the red imprint reads: “SOLD.”

Usually, the first place your potential buyer is going to see, will be the front of your house. The goal here is to make it as attractive as possible, but more importantly, inviting. First impressions are very important. First positive impressions, if you will, are even more important. The key here is to make sure everything looks neat and clean. Cut the grass, pull out the weeds, trim the bushes, plant some flowers, and clear out the walkway.

Make sure your home is clean. These include things like steam cleaning your carpets, mopping your floors, dusting hard-to-reach areas, and cleaning your windows (both inside and out). Potential buyers are very picky people, and as such, they like to inspect as much as they can.

Try and keep both colors and styles neutral. The key here is not to influence your buyer with your own personal style. Someone might walk in, look at a red wall, and be immediately turned off. The idea is to try and make them visualize the colors for themselves. Keeping things neutral is a good solution to this “problem.”

Check lighting. No one wants to look at a house that they can’t see. Seems obvious, right? Unfortunately, as a real estate agent myself, I’ve had quite a few cases where this element has been overlooked. Check your light bulbs, and make sure they’re working. Although I recommend checking all the light bulbs, I’d be more concerned with the areas in the house that are darker or that require more artificial lighting. These include places like the basement and bathrooms. It’s also a good idea to open your curtains. Simply put, the more natural light, the better.

Make repairs if necessary. These include things like a fresh coat of paint, patching up of any holes in the wall, and torn patio screens. You want your buyer to feel like your home has been well taken care of. This is a big plus.

Try to avoid clutter. One of the worst things that can happen is when your buyer feels “boxed in.” Try and keep clutter to a minimum. Remove any unnecessary items such as too many pictures and accessories. The goal here is you want to have your house feel like a home, yet at the same time have it as spacious and organized as possible. You want the buyer to get a good sense of the space and visualize it as their own.

After all is said and done, it is important to note that the aforementioned tips do not guarantee a sell of ones home, although it can certainly help. Everyone is different, and there are other variables to consider. But like I said, these certainly can help. As a final test, invite a friend over and have them share their opinions with you about the presentation of your home. In the best case scenario, it is best to invite someone that has never been to your house (or not that often). In this way, they can view your home with a “fresh pair of eyes.” All of these suggestions boil down to one common goal: You want your home to feel inviting, and have your potential buyer view it as their own.

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Improve Home Value And Appearance With These Helpful Tips

February 08, 2023   Matt

Improve Home Value And Appearance With These Helpful Tips

Home improvement does not necessarily mean completing an upgrade inside of the home. Repairs to the driveway or grooming your lawn can also be considered home improvement. There are a lot of things under this umbrella, and there is a lot you should learn before attempting to handle improvements. Check out these great tips.

When doing new flooring for your home improvements, make sure you take the time to do your baseboards properly. Baseboards are there for a reason. They need to be sealed with caulking so that water does not get between them and the floor causing rot and water damage to the sub-floors and walls.

Try keeping your home insulated. Insulating your walls is a relatively low cost home improvement that will help you save money in the long run, along with protecting the environment. Keeping your house insulated not only keeps it warm in winter, but it also keeps it cool in the summer.

If you are in need of space in your bathroom, you know that the two things taking it up are usually the bathtub and the sink. Opt to install a pedestal sink in a small bathroom instead of one with cabinets on the bottom. It not only gives your bathroom an expensive appearance, but also frees up much needed space.

If you need to do a project around your house, but don’t have the tools to do it, consider how often you will use the tools before buying. It may be more cost-effective to rent or borrow what you need instead of spending the money to purchase items that will be seldom used.

If you can’t stand the smell of wet paint, try mixing a few drops of real vanilla extract into each gallon of paint–so long as you aren’t using white. The lovely smell of vanilla will overpower the paint fumes, so painting a room or piece of furniture can become a much more pleasant task.

One of the smallest improvements to your home with the biggest impact is a deep cleaning of the house. Spending the time to clean every section of your house will improve the overall smell, look, and environment of your home. A thorough cleaning is often overlooked as a cost effective method of home improvement.

The two rooms in your home that repel or attract the most home buyers are the kitchen and the bathrooms. This is why it is very important for you to keep both of these rooms updated. Buyers love extra bathrooms and updated kitchens, so keep that in mind when planning to do any home improvement.

Store your glue bottles upside down! Ever get annoyed when the tips of your glue bottled inevitably dry up between uses? Removing those plugs of glue is no fun. To prevent this just turn your tightly capped glue bottle upside down and sit it down inside another container to keep it propped up.

It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to throw on some new wallpaper or pull up an old rug, your home improvements will not go as planned unless you’re properly prepared and knowledgeable about what you’re attempting to do. Be sure that you’re taking this information seriously and working to implement what you have read above.

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How to Build a Home Sauna

February 07, 2023   Matt

How to Build a Home Sauna

Three Important Questions to Answer Before Building
Considering that home saunas are believed to produce numerous health benefits and provide a relaxing spa experience, it’s no wonder than more and more people want to know how to build a home sauna. The answer to this question depends on several factors, including your budget, the space available, and how handy you are. There are three important questions to answer before you begin building your home sauna.
What Will You Use For Heat?
The first factor to evaluate when planning how to build a sauna is your heat source. Will you use electricity, gas, wood or some other type of energy? Many people consider the wood-burning sauna to be the top choice, especially if you have easy access to wood and no hesitations about burning it.
Wood provides a pleasant aroma and a traditional atmosphere, but obtaining the wood can be quite labor intensive unless you buy it already cut. Before choosing this heating method, it is also important to know if local building regulations will allow a wood stove, and if your home owner’s insurance will cover it.
Electric stoves are most popular with people who don’t have a wood supply available or who don’t want to spend time and money cutting and hauling wood or dealing with ash disposal. Nearly all homes have electricity available already, so it is a convenient heat source for both indoor and outdoor saunas. In addition, electricity is the standard power source for infrared saunas, which produce radiant heat with special electric heaters. If you are interested in infrared saunas, electricity will likely be your heating source.
Gas is usually cheaper than electric and provides a practical choice for those concerned about budgets. It is a clean fuel source and relatively easy to obtain no matter where you live. When using gas as a heating source, it is important to test for carbon monoxide.
Often times, your heat source will determine whether you build an indoor sauna or an outdoor structure. If you use wood for heat, it may be inconvenient and messy to haul wood into the house. And insurance policy may only allow wood heat in a separate, outdoor building. Also, an electric heater requires wiring that may not be available for a large model or outdoor sauna without an expensive bill to an electrician.
Where Will You Put Your Sauna?
Once you have decided how you will generate heat in your home sauna, the next step is to decide where you will put the sauna. As has been mentioned, your heat source may impact where you decide to locate your sauna.
For example, if you intend to heat with electricity, you may not be able to put your sauna down on the edge of the lake without special wiring brought in. If you plan to cut your own wood, you may want to place your sauna close to the woodpile.
In addition, for steam saunas, a water supply is an important consideration when deciding on a location. Indoor saunas may need to have plumbing and drains installed. Outdoor saunas will also need plumbing unless you intend to collect water or haul if from a faucet or nearby pond.
But many of these choices are purely for convenience or budgetary reasons. In reality, your choices for a sauna location are limited only by your imagination, and people have come up with some very creative sauna locations and designs.
In addition to more traditional home saunas built in bathrooms, basements or in separate sauna buildings, people have put saunas on floating platforms in a pond or lake; they have built them on trailer beds, and even in a van or the back of a pickup. Of course these unique plans may require a bit more adaptation or special materials, but the Internet is filled with design plans for all types of saunas from standard to sensational.
What Design Features Do You Want?
Choosing your design is the next step in building a sauna. Do you want something simple that is prefabricated and ready to put together? Or do you want to cut the wood and collect the stones yourself? Are you handy with tools or at least willing to learn? Or would you prefer to hire someone who knows how to build a sauna?
Another design aspect is the size of the sauna. How many people do you plan to accommodate? How big do you want your stove or heater to be and how much are you willing to spend for heat and materials? Do you want a shower area included? How about a room for changing or cooling off? All of these questions will help you determine the size of your sauna, which in turn will impact your overall design.
Infrared saunas and some smaller, standard saunas come as precut kits with the wood, heaters, rocks, or other materials all included. These kits can often be assembled in just a few hours. Many manufacturers will take your dimensions and cut the materials to fit, often including benches and pre-hung doors.
Maybe you want to use an existing design or create one of your own. Brochures from sauna manufacturers and retailers provide good ideas, and staff usually are willing to answer questions. In addition, there are numerous Internet sites that are devoted purely to saunas and related information. Many include design plans and instructions as well as discussion forums to ask questions and learn from others’ experiences. A simple search will bring up both personal Web sites and those from manufacturers.
When deciding how to build a sauna, the wide variety of choices in designs, locations, materials and heat sources make the planning fun, yet essential, to the overall success of the project. The nearly limitless options available in saunas make it easy to find a home sauna to fit any budget, location, and lifestyle.

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Turn Your House Into Your Dream Home With These Home Improvement Tips (2)

January 29, 2023   Matt

Turn Your House Into Your Dream Home With These Home Improvement Tips

Home improvement can be as simple as painting a room or more complicated like remodeling the house. Regardless, these are some tips you may find helpful to avoid unnecessary frustration and/or headaches.

Before deciding on renovations for your home, go to several open houses in new subdivisions. You’ll see the latest styles and colors and get a better idea of how your home could look with those options than you would by just going through the hardware store. Many model homes even hire a decorator to include window coverings and furniture to complete the effect, so you can copy the ones you like best and skip a lot of trial and error when updating your own home.

You can stop heat loss from your hot water heater easily by covering it in a jacket. The jacket, which can be found at any hardware store, stops heat loss by 70%, making your home more energy efficient.This saves you money in the long run, as you can quickly regain the cost of the jacket in as little as 6 months.

Use semi-gloss paint on trim or moldings and high humidity areas. Semi-gloss paint looks fantastic on trim and moldings, as it really draws attention to the detail. It can also be used on bathroom and kitchen walls, as it is very resistant to humidity, and withstand stains. Be careful to only use gloss paint on a really smooth surface, as imperfections will be highly visible. That being said, it is the easiest of all paint finishes to clean.

For a paint finish that really lasts, always sand, strip and prime, prior to applying a fresh coat. Many people think that skipping the preparatory steps of painting will speed up the process, but down the road old paint will peel through the new finish, ruining your paint job and forcing you to strip off yet another layer of paint before repainting again.

If you are doing a home improvement project that involves demolition, slow down and take your time. It may be exciting to smash that wall open, but you could damage structural supports, plumbing, or electrical connections. The same is true of pulling down cabinets and other fixtures. Once you’ve demolished it, it can’t be put back, so pay attention to what you’re doing.

For a high-impact update that can be completed in less than a day, consider freshening up your front door with one or two coats of brightly colored, ultra-glossy paint. Homes with light-colored brick or siding look best with a bright red or blue door; darkly colored homes do best with a deep, cool color like eggplant or slate blue.

If you are trying to improve your cabinets, think about cleaning them rather than replacing them. Most cabinets will improve their look with a little cleaning. If you have cabinets that have small problems, such as smudges and mild grease build up, try using a dish soap and warm water solution to clean the exterior.

Remember, home improvement does not have to be a daunting task! The right information can help you to make sound decisions. Whether you do-it-yourself or hire out the work, enjoy your “new look” … a little effort goes a long way!

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Landscaping Ideas for Your Home

January 03, 2023   Matt

Landscaping Ideas for Your Home

Landscaping your home is improving the characteristics of the surroundings for aesthetic or practical use. Home landscaping will be easy for you since you know very well what needs to be improved.

The first thing that you need to do is to sketch your home’s floor plan. From there you can create various designs that will suit your taste. It will be easier to scale your drawings if you will use graph paper to sketch your floor plan.

Once you have finished your sketch, it is time to start designing your home. List the supplies that you need before your start. Do not forget to plan your budget as well. Look for building materials that are needed. You can ask a professional to help you plan the things that you need to accomplish.

Consider the seasons when planning on remodeling your home. A hammock under a shady tree works well during the summer, but what happens during the winter? Create a landscape that works well all-year round. Also think about other elements of nature like insects and humidity.

If you are looking for a little privacy, be creative in using plants, fences and arrangements.

Save space by adding seating or shelving in unusual places like cabinets under the stairs or large cushions on the floor as extra seats. Do you like to have guests in your home? Place functional seats in your kitchen, so you can chat with them while you are preparing your meal.

Other things that you need to consider when landscaping are:

• A well-planned backyard drainage system can prevent those “wet areas”
.
• The composition of the soil and its quality affects the types of greenery that you can plant in your backyard.

• Check which parts of the house and yard have appropriate sunlight. This also determines where you can place furniture and plants.

• Look at your yard from the inside of the house when designing it. You can appreciate the beauty of your yard from inside your home
.
• Ask yourself: How big is the planting area?

• How long will it take to finish your redesigning project?

• Make the design functional for the whole family. Each part of the house should be designed based on who uses that area the most. Examples include: study halls and backyard playgrounds for the kids, convenient kitchens for mom or dad, or an entertainment room for the whole family.

Be creative and start landscaping your home now!

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