Improve Your Home With These Great Suggestions
The best way to find a new home for yourself is to just improve the one you currently own. When the market is geared towards buyers, it’s difficult to get full value for your home. Rather than attempting a sale, how about transforming what you own already? This article has some tips to renew your home.
If you can afford it, go for hard wood floors and stay away from laminate. Laminate looks like real wood but it cannot be refinished. This means they’ll have to be completely redone if a new look is desired.
Use a wet sponge on your drywall installation. Skip the sanding and sponge drywall seams instead. Sponges can smooth out seams of drywall every bit as effectively as sanding. The benefit of using a sponge is that it doesn’t gather dust like sanding.
A drill is perhaps the most important tool for any home improvement project. A drill can give you a lot of flexibility when installing screws. A good cordless power drill with the right drill bits for Phillips and flathead screws is ideal.
Pouring bleach on the inside of the toilet bowl can help keep it sparkling clean. Although bleaching toilets might smell bad, it lowers the risk of spreading germs and illnesses. In addition, it improves the look of your toilet. Use some scented bleach if you need to mask the smell.
Use two-liter bottles that are empty to store things in your kitchen. They are quite useful in that you can see through them and will hold up well when protecting sugar and flour or other dry goods. You can keep them on a shelf, in the refrigerator, or even in the freezer. You can pop off the cap and the contents will pour right out.
Always turn off the main water supply before working near pipes in your home. Find the shutoff for water in your home before you begin any kind of work on rooms that use water. Neglecting this step can give you a flood to deal with in addition to your initial plumbing problem.
If you are employing a handyman to do some work, get everything in writing. When you’ve got a solid contract going for you, you shouldn’t have to be concerned with hidden charges or other unpleasant surprises. Not having a contract could really end up coming back to hurt you.
It’s usually quite dark in basements. In fact, some basements have no ambient light at all. If you want your basement to be very comfortable, you should start with a good lighting plan. If you are lucky, you will have a basement with high walls that are above ground level. You might be able to put windows in this area if this is the case.
Think outside the box in terms of artwork. Instead of expensive objects of art, try using unconventional items such as 3D tiles. For example, you can use multicolored tiles to form a pattern or mosaic on a focal wall.
Quality Tools
It is important to use the highest quality supplies and tools when doing a home improvement project. Purchasing high quality tools can be costly, but it is a very worthwhile investment. Cheap tools and materials can break or wear down quickly. Therefore, you should purchase quality tools that will last for a long time.
Almost any building supply you can think would be use in a home improvement project is great fodder for thieves. Keep your materials in a secure location when you are not actively using them. If the home itself is secure, with windows and doors that lock, it is fine to leave the supplies inside. If the house itself is still open, a lockable storage container will discourage theft.
You need to make sure you think about the paint before any other projects are attempted in the room. Painting your ceilings and walls will go faster and easier if you get it done before installing your flooring. Your flooring could get paint on it, even if you have drop cloths put down.
A great way to put a nice addition to your home is to put in new covers on the outlets. After enough time, even outlet colors can become dingy or fade in color. These new outlet covers will freshen your home’s appearance.
Installing smoke alarms in your home and checking them regularly can significantly lower your homeowners’ insurance premiums. This is especially true for older homes that are not constructed from fire-resistant materials. Saving money isn’t the only good thing, they can also save your life.
New paneling is something to consider when you are wanting to create a new look but have a limited budget. Paneling can be relatively inexpensive and adds a new look to your home. Another benefit is that the panels can be removed with little work or damage.
A protective guard or screen installed on your gutters can prevent them becoming clogged by leaves and save you the arduous task of frequent cleaning. A gutter guard keeps leaves, sticks and other debris from filling your gutters needlessly. You will only need to check the top of the guard from time to time to make sure that the guard is not covered with any leaves.
Make a simple and inexpensive back-splash for your kitchen using wallpaper and varnish. Buy wallpaper you like. Use tools to measure the amount of wall space you have and cut the paper just a bit bigger than that. After applying a thin coat of paste, allow it to become tacky in consistency. Hang the sheet of wallpaper and use the squeegee to help smooth the paper and eliminate any bubbles. Trim any extra paper with an exacto knife for clean edges and a great fit. Brush on varnish. Then sit back and enjoy the look of your thrifty, but new, back-splash.
This article has provided you with all you need to know to get started. Home improvement is not as daunting and complicated as you may believe, and it is less costly if you do a lot of the work yourself.