Tag Archives: Home

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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Useful Advice When Starting A Home Improvement Project (3)

October 26, 2022   Matt

Useful Advice When Starting A Home Improvement Project

Having a honey-do list can make it so that you are always waiting around for someone else to get something fixed around your house that you could easily do yourself. Here are some simple home improvement tips that even a beginner would be able to complete. Take charge of your home, and do what needs to be done yourself.

You should make sure that a home with any additions is properly zoned and has all of the licenses that the area requires. There are some people who will build additions without permission first. If an addition is not registered, your insurance company could refuse to give you full insurance.

When undertaking home improvements, either by yourself or through a contractor, it is important that all parties know the budget that they are working with, and that the budget is realistic. Trying to renovate “on the cheap” can lead to inferior materials being used and no profit being gained at the time of the property resale.

To add appeal to your home and increase its value, consider replacing your existing shingles with architectural shingles. Also known as dimensional shingles, these shingles can simulate the textures of natural substances like slate or wood, and they resist wind better than regular shingles, making them an ideal choice if your home is located in a region that sees high winds.

If your home is an older house there’s a good chance you might have outdated PVC windows, which are difficult to maintain and often yellow with age. Replacing the PVC with modern plate glass can make a significant difference in the look of the house. Glass windows will also allow more natural sunlight into your home, creating a more open, inviting atmosphere.

For a professional finish when painting furniture or other items, consider using spray paint instead of painting with a brush. You can better control the application of the paint, and when the furniture dries, it will not have any brush marks. Modern spray paint comes in a huge range of finishing textures and colors, so you can find paint to complete almost any project.

If you are looking to invest in repairing your home, whether it is the interior or exterior, a valuable resource for getting ideas and helpful tips and advice are television programs on the home and garden network in your area. Not only will they give you ideas, more often than not, they will show you how to go about tackling the project while giving you motivation to complete your own projects.

Think you need to re-tile your bathroom? Try cleaning the tile and re-grouting first. Using this method can save you time and money over a complete re-tile project. It’s also easier to achieve by yourself. A toothbrush is a wonderful tool to use when cleaning grout. A quality steam mop can make a huge difference as well.

You now see that some tasks around the house may not be as hard as you originally thought they would be. With the ability to get tasks done around the house, you can free up some time to spend with your significant other having fun or just taking it easy and relaxing.

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Selling A Home: The Best Real Estate Secrets (4)

October 21, 2022   Matt

Selling A Home: The Best Real Estate Secrets

Selling a home when you are in a huge amount of debt can be scary and overwhelming. How quickly your home sells often depends on the real estate agent you choose. You can use the guideline that has been provided below to learn what to look for when hiring a real estate agent.

Curb appeal is a very important factor in selling your home; meaning that it is just as important what your home looks on the outside as it is on the inside. Before even looking, most people are concerned with what a home looks like from outside. If you are selling your home, make sure to clean up your yard, add some patio furniture and plant some nice flowers and plants outside for maximum curb appeal.

More often than not, it is not enough to simply put a “For Sale” sign in your front yard and wait for prospective buyers to knock down your door. Consider the selling process in a more holistic way; you must include marketing and advertising elements to get the word out. Take out print and online listings, post flyers, and be prepared to sell, sell, sell.

Appeal to tech-savvy and younger prospective home buyers by including video tours and panoramic views of your property. These need not be very lengthy or elaborate, but should load quickly and change seamlessly from one room to the next. Offering a full 360 degree view can help to highlight the most attractive areas of the house.

When selling real estate, you should always hire a professional cleaning service to come in and do a detailed cleaning. When buyers walk in, they will be impressed at how things look and are more likely to not be as concerned about how the mechanical systems function, since they can see that the home is spotless and well maintained.

If you do nothing else to renovate a house, replace all the light switches. Light switches draw the eye of a prospective buyer. It probably won’t convince them to buy a house, but it can be a point in your favor. Buying new light switches can be a smart, inexpensive investment.

If you are good at pitching to people, consider selling your house by yourself. By doing this, you avoid having to pay the huge fees that some estate agents charge. You will also get to meet all of the potential buyers in person, making it easier for you to determine whether or not their offers are serious.

When you are planning on selling your home on the real estate market, opt to not be present during the showing of your home. While this may not be optimal to your lifestyle, potential buyers will not feel like they are invading your home. If it is impossible to leave your house, limit your location to one room and do not discuss anything with the potential buyers.

If you use the information that has been provided you should be able to quickly sell your home and you may even be able to make a profit. The real estate agent will be able to help you through the entire process and the right agent will make the process a breeze.

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