Our home is our castle, and it may be the most expensive purchase we make in our lives.
Moving into our homes is often rushed, with furniture put in the places that are easiest at the time, but may be better placed elsewhere around the home
When we first move in, the last thing we are likely to do is starting decorating or renovating. All the stress of the move and the desire to get settled will often stop us from making changes or adding color to our home, maybe until we have lived there for years.
It can be easier than you think to give your home a new look and add some of your own personality to your property. It doesn’t take much time or money to make a big difference, and you could create a living space that is much more in tune with your needs. Here are five simple ways to renovate your house, and make it feel like home.
Landscape Your Garden or Yard
Your garden or your yard may well be an underused area of your property. Gardens often get overgrown, and a concrete yard can become stained or discolored. The space outside our homes can be renovated in a weekend, with very little financial investment. It may take some hard work at times, but this can be very rewarding too, and an opportunity for a family to work together to change their home.
Give Your Kitchen a Makeover
The kitchen is often the heart of the home, and if you haven’t made any changes since you moved in, then the center of your home may make it feel like someone else’s. Making changes to a kitchen can sometimes involve changing plumbing or electrical outlets. By using a handyman service like Edward’s Enterprises, they can take on the challenge of re-routing pipes or wiring for you for very reasonable prices. You can even get a price for a project from them online using the form on their website.
Brighten Up a Hallway
Adding light colors to a hallway can completely change a space. Hallways and landings are often overlooked, but you will use them many times a day. You could even fit a feature like a small library or music area in a nook, or the space under the stairs. With a little imagination, you can transform a dull throughway into your home’s latest room with a few shelves, the right books, and a little chair and lamp to sit in and turn a few pages.
You don’t even need a lot of space; with a fold-out chair, you can fit a small, quirky reading space into a long thin hallway. If you haven’t got a power outlet handy but still want a reading light or some music, you could get a USB power band and some USB powered lighting, and you could charge your phone up while you read.
Modernize Your Bathrooms
Bathrooms are an important part of the home. Just from changing the faucets and showerhead you can give a bathroom a more contemporary look, without the expense of a new sink or tub. If you do want to replace a sink or tub, or even your toilet, don’t be afraid to search a salvage yard. Hundreds of beautiful, old buildings are demolished every year and many of them are scoured by salvage merchants before the demolition crews knock it down.
In salvage yards all across the country, there are some of the most unique and characterful bathroom pieces from the turn of the twentieth century, just waiting to be restored. There are bathtubs from hotels and hospitals from the 1910s and 1920s that would look sensational in a modern wet room with a rainfall showerhead above and modern faucets.
If you’re looking for a modern toilet with updated water efficiency features, go for a macerator toilet to help reduce the work and cost of installation. A macerator toilet, or an upflush toilet, is also ideal if you have a small bathroom or if your bathroom is located in the basement, the upper story, or an area with low water pressure. You can save money by buying vintage fixtures, but modern units can offer you up-to-date features that are just what you need for your home.
Make Your Home Smart
Modern technology is finding its way into the home, with intelligent light switches, air conditioning, and even doorbells. Having an app-enabled home will be a desirable feature in the future. There are a number of different products available all using IoT or ‘Internet of Things’ technology. This allows things like light switches, power outlets, and even doorbells and thermostats to be interconnected and controlled from a computer or smartphone.
More and more homes are being built or converted to use this technology, allowing the home’s residents to operate switches from their phones from anywhere in the world. You can answer your doorbell from work, check security cameras from a friend’s house, or turn the thermostat up when you are on your way home from your smartphone.
It doesn’t have to be time consuming and expensive to renovate our space and give it a new look. Some quick and simple jobs can be very effective, and with a bit of color and moving some furniture around, we can make our homes feel like new.
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