Home Improvement Tips That Can Change Your Life
Home improvement has been around for as long as there have been structures in which people have lived in. We all want our homes to be comfortable and look beautiful, and sometimes the only way to accomplish that is to do some updating. You can continue reading to find a few good home improvement tips for this modern age of technology and convenience.
When engaging in outdoor home improvements, picture the result and ask yourself if it will stick out like a sore thumb in your neighborhood. If so, do you want to be the owner of the house that is so different? It’s better to make changes that stand out for their quality and aesthetics than for being crazy.
Never agree to a discount from a contractor for not bothering with paperwork. Without a contract you are completely out of luck if the contractor doesn’t fulfill his obligations and do the work to the quality that you expected.
Carpet the bottoms of the drawers you keep your hand tools in. This will not only make the shop room a quieter place but it will help protect your valuable tools. Keep those tools rust free by spraying the carpet lightly with machine oil before you place the tools inside the drawer.
When hiring a contractor to do home improvements, do some research on them to make sure they are qualified and hold the proper licenses to do the work. Check the Department of Consumer Affairs, validate their licenses, and check to make sure they carry insurance so that if someone is injured in the home renovation, you do not get sued.
Do not forget your yard when considering home improvements. Improving the outside of your home is not only aesthetically pleasing , but it can also save you money on utilities. Planting trees can block cold wind in the winter and hot sun in the summer. Planting shrubs and drought tolerant plants versus grass saves money on watering and often looks better.
If your walls are in bad condition, consider using wallpaper instead of paint. Wallpaper can hide all manner of damage on a wall, like hairline cracks, grease marks, chips, pen marks, etc. Paint on the other-hand, can draw attention to even the smallest defect on an interior wall. Wallpaper also have the added advantage of making a room feel cozier.
If you have wood or faux-wood paneling in your home, consider refinishing it rather than getting rid of it in a renovation. Removing the old paneling requires having it hauled away, while new wall covering must be brought in. Wood paneling can be easily sanded down and the voids filled in with drywall compound.
Put in an outdoor motion detector for your outside lighting. This way the lights will only be on when they are activated and not all day or all night unnecessarily. Most people don’t need their outside lights other than when they come home or leave after dark.
With careful reasearch and planning, most people can do some home improvement with good results. It’s not always as easy as it looks though, and one should proceed with caution. It’s easy to get into a project and find it is much more costly and complicated than it looked in the beginning.