The Pros And Cons Of Hiring An Home Renovation
Elements of a Kitchen That’ll Be Ready to Party When You Are
Dinner parties and in-person book club brunches may be the stuff of daydreams right now, but consider this mandated pause on hosting the perfect opportunity to get your kitchen in shape for its post-quarantine debut. Gathering with others will be at the top of the to-do list when social distancing rules relax, so now’s the time to make sure you, and your kitchen, are ready to rock.
To entertain even a small number of guests, or just your family, you need appliances that are true workhorses. A wide French-door refrigerator allows for easy storage of crudité trays, sheet cakes, and extra party snacks. A double oven lets you simultaneously roast and bake multiple dishes at different temperatures, while a five-burner stovetop ensures you have plenty of room to boil, sautée, and fry all at the same time.
There’s nothing worse than ending a fun night with a mountain of dirty dishes in the sink. A high-capacity, efficient dishwasher is every entertainer’s savior. If room allows, consider installing two dishwashers and two sinks, one for prep and one for clean-up.
Even if you have a formal dining room, chances are that guests will congregate in the kitchen, so incorporate seating for a designated gathering spot. Carve out a nook with an eat-in table, or add bar stools to a kitchen island or counter
Entertaining items like large serving dishes, punch bowls, and cake stands can be annoying to store. They take up a lot of space, often can’t be stacked, and wind up being in the way when not in use. The solution? Designate one cabinet or shelf as the “party pantry.”
Huge Mistakes to Avoid When Painting Kitchen Cabinets
Painted kitchen cabinets may look super simple on Pinterest – imagine, just a few coats of a new color and your kitchen will be spruced up in no time! In reality, painting kitchen cabinets is a project that definitely has many potential pitfalls.
To set you up for success, we’ve outlined some of the biggest blunders and outlined how to easily avoid. That way, you can tackle this big job with confidence. With our advice on how to paint kitchen cabinets you’ll end up with an updated kitchen you can’t wait to show off!
You have unrealistic expectations.
Painted cabinets look lovely, but they aren’t going to look totally smooth. “If the cabinets have a visible open grain, the grooves are going to show through the paint,”
You don’t allow yourself enough time.
“This isn’t a lazy Sunday project,” says, who, along with her husband, chronicled kitchen painting projects on her popular blog Young House Love. She says people often think it’s a weekend job, but it takes at least four to seven days when you build in the proper prep time (and snack breaks, of course)
You don’t clean the wood before painting.
“No matter how clean you think your kitchen is, you need to wipe everything down with a grease remover,” says. Otherwise, when you add a water-based paint to an oil-covered door, the paint won’t stick. He recommends a paint-prep degreaser called TSP, and a non-scratch delicate scrub sponge for stuck on spots.
Home Renovations Have the Highest Return on Investment
It’s sad but true: not every home renovation offers a great return on investment. In fact, most upgrades that you make around the house wind up costing hundreds or even thousands more than they’re worth. If you love the result, then those overpriced changes can be worth it. But if you have any intention of selling your house in the future, then you’ll want to choose renovations that make sense, cost-wise.
Garage door installation
The garage door might not be the first renovation you think to do when you’re channeling your inner Joanna Gaines, but it turns out that this particular replacement has one of the highest returns you can get. You’ll get back almost exactly as much as you spend. And if you get your new door for a discount? You might even make money on the project.
Manufactured stone veneer
Curb appeal is worth a lot of money to buyers. Some might not even stop to check out your open house if they don’t like how it looks from the outside. Putting in a stone exterior is a difficult and pricey upgrade, but adding a manufactured stone veneer costs much less and helps increase the value of your home.
Entry door replacement
First impressions matter – that’s why a solid, attractive steel entry door is worth the cost. You can get an expensive-looking door installed for cheap and then recoup almost all the money you spent buying it.
Wood deck addition
Homebuyers are almost always looking for space to entertain and that includes outdoor areas. A deck isn’t cheap, but it will increase the value of your home enough to almost cover that cost.
Benefits of Renovating Your Home!
Whether you are looking to transform your house to put it on the market, or simply want to enhance your living environment and the aesthetic of the space where you spend the majority of your time, a partial or complete home renovation boasts an array of short term and long term benefits for homeowners.
Increases Property Value
From a fresh coat of paint to new fixtures and appliance upgrades, renovating for a profit is certainly doable with the help of industry professionals. From understanding colour palettes and timeless designs, there’s a number of simple home improvements that can drastically improve the value of one’s property by modernizing the interior, refreshing the exterior or simply opening up a previously small and lifeless space.
Enhances Energy Efficiency & Reduces Utility Bills
When people think of home renovation, they generally associate it with lavish and visible improvements to a home, including a fresh paint job, complete layout redesign and new colour scheme. However, one hugely beneficial part of renovating your home is upgrading old fixtures and plumbing to modern and more energy efficient models, which effectively help to lower your utility bills. Simply upgrading your plumbing and fixtures alone can make a world of difference, not to mention even greater long term savings should you choose to opt for the green, eco-friendly options. Despite the initial expense, it’ll pay off in the long run!
Maximize the Space
Houses can get cramped over time as families grow, resulting in the space looking small, outdated and impractical.
Helps to Avoid the Cost and Stress of Moving
When you get tired of a home, your first instinct is to pack up and move – right? With a home renovation service, you get to recreate the space as extensively or minimally as you want to design your dream layout and design, allowing you to save the hundreds of thousands it would’ve cost you to relocate to a new home. Aside from the obvious prices associated with purchasing a new property, there’s also plenty of additional costs, such as agent’s commission, legal fees and relocation fees
Things I Wish I Had Done Differently: Home Renovation Edition
I may design homes for a living, but that does not mean I’m immunized against making mistakes. Actually, I make the most mistakes when working on my own homes- mostly because I’m overwhelmed by options and ideas and make decisions on the fly instead of with careful consideration, as I do when working for someone else. “Ehhh, that’ll fit- we don’t need to measure” is a phrase that now gives me chills.
This weekend I began cataloguing some of the things I wish I had done differently in my renovations. Most of them are from our first phase of the renovation right after buying our house, I think I had learned a lot by the second phase (still obsessed with my master suite). But in life some of the best lessons come from examining your failures as to not repeat them again!
MY KITCHEN FAUCET
From the beginning wanted a pull down spray faucet with a single lever instead of the separate hot and cold handles. I, of course, love the look of widespread handles and went that direction- beauty over function, a common designer downfall. Now with a baby (and after a couple years of use), I fear I maybe should have listened. The issue still stands that finding an attractive single lever, pull down spray faucet is very hard- but there are some good options here, here and here.
CHROME VS. BRASS
Apparently I just blew it on the faucet. 🙂 I was scared to go with brass for my kitchen faucet and now I wish I had been ballsier and listened to my inner voice and not the other people who thought it was crazy to do a brass faucet. I’m glad I went for it in my master bath, because daaaaaammmnnnn do I love it. But trying to find a single lever antique brass faucet with a pull down spray is like trying to locate and capture Nessie.
MY BACKSPLASH
I still love my white subway with grey grout but I wish I had done two things- 1) run the tile all the way to the ceiling around the doorway to the mudroom and around the window above the sink. I also forgot to specify the spacing I wanted (assuming things makes an ass of–well, just me) and they did it way tighter than I had wanted. I wish I had said something and had them redo it instead of just feeling too guilty to ask them to make it right.