Tag Archives: House

Mom, Do You Want To Get Out Of The House And Make Some Money?

July 03, 2023   Matt

Mom, Do You Want To Get Out Of The House And Make Some Money?

Question: I’m a stay at home mom and I want to contribute to our income. I don’t want an online business, though. I really don’t like computers. What can I do?
Signed, Let me Outta Here!

Dear Let me Outta Here!
There are just oodles of ways to make money and still have the flexibility to be home when you want to be.

Here are just a few ideas.

Crafts. If you have a craft that you enjoy, soap, jewelry, painting, or anything else crafty, then you have the potential for income. Find out where craft shows are, fairs, bazaars, church events, and reserve a booth. It’s an inexpensive way to test out a business idea. All you need is some inventory (which, if you don’t sell, you can give as gifts or sell on eBay) and some basic supplies like business cards.

Wedding Photographer. Do you have a talent for photography? You can work for yourself as a wedding photographer. Work only when you want to, and be home with the kids during the week.

Home Daycare. This one can be hit or miss. If you love kids, and you’re home all day anyway, then taking in one child during the day or after school can help you to bring in a little cash. Check with the laws in your state, first, though, as they do differ in their requirements.

Face Painter. This job is in high demand. Every carnival, birthday party and church festival needs a face painter. And, if you love kids, this can be a very rewarding way to make some extra money.

House or Office Cleaning. If your schedule allows it, you can book cleaning appointments for regular clients. The hourly rate for housecleaners can be lucrative, and you get a great workout in the process.

As you can see, these are just a few of the ways you can work for yourself. You’ll have the flexibility to set your own schedule so you can still attend school plays and be home when you need to be, but you can also help your family by bringing in some money at the same time.

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Preparing Your Old House for Sale

March 10, 2023   Matt

Preparing your old house for sale

If you’re selling your house, you have to do several things to ensure its ready for a smooth and easy sale. You can hire an estate agent, interior stager or complete sales teams to sell your house – or you can do it yourself.

Houses are considered to be easiest to sell when they are clean, tidy, free of clutter, and the walls are neutrally toned – some sites and experts suggest painting your walls white, others suggest that you should paint them with pale, neutral, matching colors. If this isn’t possible, it is important to make sure your walls are clean – removing clutter and cleaning woodwork and painted walls, can give your room a much needed lift.

If you’re de-cluttering, you can also begin packing whilst doing so, but considering some houses sell up to three months before you’re planning on moving OR up to a year after you’ve moved, its also important not to plan to sell straight away, unless your house is in a highly sought after area, and you’ve got a good, competitive price. If not, you might be in for quite a wait on selling your house – and you also have to find a new place to move to yourself.

Estate agents, and Realtors do a great job of selling houses, but in an ever increasingly competitive market, you have to do very unique things to sell your house – it has been reported that some people are offering new cars, or paying the tax on your house for the first year of your stay in the new house. The housing market is always expanding, but you can’t sell just anything – dilapidated houses can’t simply be considered ‘fixer uppers’ and all houses for sale have to meet ever increasing stringent codes – or have new owners that will fix these to meet those codes.

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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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Whole House Air Purifiers or Single Room Air Cleaners – Which is Best?

December 05, 2022   Matt

Whole House Air Purifiers or Single Room Air Cleaners – Which is Best?

Whole house air purifiers can bring a whole new environment to your entire home. While single room purifiers can effectively clean the air within a specific location in your home, many families desire the same standard of cleanliness all around their home. Whether you have allergy sufferers in your family who’d like to sit comfortably in any room in the house, or simply want that whole house freshness, then whole house air purifiers might be for you.

A whole house air purifier operates by connecting it with your household air duct system, allowing the air flow from the entire building to be processed by the one whole house air cleaner. The same technologies employed in single room air purifiers are used here, so you can choose from HEPA, electronic or other systems, as best suits the purification needs of your family. Whether you are looking for an allergy relief air purifier, or a UV system to blast those micro-bugs, there is a whole house air purifier ready to meet your needs.

The whole house air purifier does, however, have its critics, as some experts feel that one whole house air cleaner does not possess sufficient cleaning power to remove airborne dust and particles from around your whole home. Some estimate that as little as thirty percent of your household air will even pass through the whole house air cleaner, leaving a full seventy percent of the air in your home unclean.

Whole house air purifiers can be a great way to clean the air in your home from one central location, but may not be strong enough to eliminate all the particulates that affect particularly sensitive people. So if you are looking for an allergy relief air purifier, or have a particular sensitivity to chemicals or odors, then a room-specific air purifier might be most suitable for you.

So consider carefully whether whole house air purifiers are for you, or whether you should consider room air purifiers in the most important rooms.

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In landscaping your home, you can have a small patio fitted into the front of the house where it will make for the perfect place to relax with a cup of chilled ice tea on a hot sunny day

July 22, 2022   Matt

In landscaping your home, you can have a small patio fitted into the front of the house where it will make for the perfect place to relax with a cup of chilled ice tea on a hot sunny day

Even if you hire a professional to do your landscape project for you, bear in mind that maintenance must be a responsibility you should accept and to that effect, landscaping tools such as rakes, snipers, and water pots should be in your tool shed.|The mental picture of how you want your landscape to look like can be further enhanced by the study of landscape design picture ideas available both online and in the library around your vicinity.

Only a very good landscape contractor can take the picture of the landscape you have envisioned in your head and reproduce it in reality for you; ensure therefore, that you select only the best of landscape contractors.|Taking down notes about landscaping ideas that you like and those that you don’t can help you define your goals and arrive at a specific landscape plan that expresses your desires.|Remember that landscape contractors vary in factors such as their style of landscaping, the size, the designs and other factors; make sure you find one whose style of landscape design dovetails neatly with yours.

People who are lovers of bird and butterflies can use their landscape plan as an avenue to attract them close by including flower varieties that they are partial too.|Landscaping as a whole is not a monumental task as long as you know what you want to achieve and how you are going to achieve it; you may decide to be your own landscaper or hire a professional for a more refined touch.

Having children who love to explore may prompt you to landscape your home by putting a stone wall in your backyard or fencing your entire home with an attractive stone wall. |If you are thinking of doing your landscape by yourself, be sure that you have the right landscaping tools that will make your job easier; those that are too pricey can be rented for a period of time.|You can make sure that your plants are well taken care of by installing automatic sprinklers which water the plants at the time you set it to.

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Simple Things That You Can Do To Improve Your House

May 24, 2022   Matt

Simple Things That You Can Do To Improve Your House

Making changes to your home can seem like a lot to undertake, as well as, a lot to bother yourself with. If you have a bit of information on making improvements to your home though, it can be easy to see how simple, quick and easy projects, can make as much of a difference as those time consuming, costly ones. This article will attempt to show you how to make those changes in a good way.

Use old toothbrushes for cleaning. Whether you are cleaning around the faucet on the kitchen sink or bathroom lavatory or cleaning up engine parts, old toothbrushes work great. Even better, they are free! Why buy a new brush and throw away something that still has a lot of usable life left in it. Save that money for something else.

Before you get started on any project, you need to first understand what you’re getting into. Going into a project without knowing everything will result in a half-finished set of cabinets and granite tiles without any grout in the seams. Go through the project first and work up a blueprint before you start on it.

Make sure you save your home improvement projects for the summer time. If you do home improvement projects in the winter, you will find that it is difficult to maintain optimal ventilation as it is too cold, especially in areas that get really cold and snow. If you wait until it is warm outside, you can comfortably complete home improvement projects with the best ventilation.

If you plan to renovate your whole house, start small by transforming one room or area of your home and see how it turns out. If it isn’t what you were hoping for, you still have time to hire help or learn how to better plan your entire renovation.

The dominant weather conditions in your region should be taken into account when you are considering which home improvement projects to take on. Regardless of how much you might want a specific new feature, sometimes it might be impractical because of the weather. For example, a complex backyard barbecue project would not be a very good idea in the Pacific Northwest because of the high amounts of rain in that area.

You can speed the drying of your drywall patch by using a hair blower! Any hair dryer will work as long as it is portable enough that you can direct the air flow from it over your patch. Keep the air temperature set to low and don’t try to dry the patch too quickly or it will crack.

While it is always nice to have a larger home with more than enough room, it is not a good idea to buy a house that has much more space than you really need. You will only end up paying a lot of money on heating costs for space you do not even use.

You have a home and you want to make it an extension of yourself. If you have never done anything like that before, knowing where to start can overwhelm you. As was stated in the beginning, all it takes is a bit of information. That information was presented to you here, so that you can have the home you have been wanting.

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