Guest Post - Innovative Bathroom Remodeling Tips

Everyone is in the race to acquire a home for himself and his family. Most people save up, some get loans, and others find means to raise enough money to own a home. However, owning a home does not only include buying the house but maintaining it. Every section in the house needs maintenance, especially delicate parts like the bathroom. At times, the best way to maintain a good bathroom is to remodel it. Remodeling a bathroom requires techniques and steps to follow. Here are some tips for you to remodel your bathroom.

Choose a Design or Plan for Your Bathroom

The first thing you have to do when remodeling your bathroom is to know what you are changing it into. You cannot just bring down the whole bathroom without planning how to remodel it to your taste. You have to create your design or choose an existing one that suits your taste.

Even if you have plans on calling a remodeling company to remodel your bathroom, you will still have to discuss the design you want. You can choose the way you want your bathroom to look and what amenities it should have. You can check out designs from friends or even check online for designs that suit you.

The bathroom design mainly entails the bathroom layout—the position of bathroom essentials, the structure of the bathroom, etc. The design is like the bedding floor of remodeling your bathroom; all other remodeling steps take place on the design.

Customize Your Bathroom to Your Taste

Customizing is vastly different from choosing a design. Customizing your bathroom gives it a signature look and differentiates it from other bathrooms with the same design. Customizing the bathroom is like spiking the bathroom and giving it a pro appearance.

To customize your bathroom, you will have to choose the color for the bathroom walls. You can also decide not to paint the wall but coat them ceramic tiles. These tiles have designs that give the bathroom an excellent look. Whatever method you use, make sure you give it the best because that is what your bathroom deserves. Customizing your bathroom also includes adding appliances to the room. You have to consider your bathroom's space before adding the devices so you won't choke up the whole place. You can also make use of top-notch floor designs for your bathroom.

You can choose the vintage style and give your bathroom the ancient feeling using the hardwood bathroom flooring. You can also make use of linoleum bathroom flooring, depending on what you want. Other flooring types for your bathroom include ceramic tile, vinyl, porcelain tile, engineered hardwood, and laminate bathroom flooring. There are also other types of flooring with their benefits and limitations. So you have to choose the one that suits you best. Customizing depends on your taste of fashion; fill it to the brim.

Replace Old or Worn Out Appliances

There is no doubt some appliances will become irrelevant in the process of remodeling your bathroom. Some appliances might be bad, while others might be too old and might be a dent in your design. Other devices might not fit the type of design you planned for. These appliances can come in the way of your design and can be a significant obstruction. You might have to change them, get a new one, or even discard them. If your design does not accommodate other designs, you should also get rid of them.

Several appliances can need replacement in the bathroom. Appliances like showers, water filters, washers, and even water heaters can require replacement. You can consider your water heater replacement and other necessary equipment when remodeling your bathroom.

Finishing Assessment

A finishing assessment entails checking out your work after everything gets accomplished. You might have to look into more details of the bathroom to be able to detect the flaws. It helps make sure that the bathroom is perfect to your taste. When conducting a finishing assessment, you might have to look into space in your bathroom to make sure it is well-spaced. You also have to consider the bathroom and the ventilation organization and ensure they suit your taste. You might have to look into every structure in the bathroom to ensure perfection.

There are several innovative ideas for remodeling a bathroom, but none is the best if it does not meet your taste. Go for the best creative ideas and follow the needed procedures for the best result. Having a well-remodeled bathroom is an excellent way to start the maintenance of your home.

Author Bio: Lena Linetti is an architect based in San Francisco.

4 Reasons Why Your Heating and Cooling Won't Turn On

As a homeowner, very few issues are as frustrating as a broken heating and cooling system. Luckily, most HVAC issues can easily be taken care of as long as you catch them early on.

Tripped Circuit Breaker

Whenever an appliance is no longer working in your home, the first thing that you should do is double-check the circuit breaker. The breaker box is usually found on the side of a home, but yours could be located in a closet, garage, or patio. At the breaker box, there should be a single switch that runs to your HVAC system. If that switch is red, then the circuit breaker has been tripped and you will need to reset it.

Severely Clogged Air Filters

Many homeowners don’t realize that severely clogged air filters can actually result in a system malfunction. That is just one of the many reasons why you should regularly check and replace your home’s air filters. While every home is slightly different, most residential air filters need to be changed at least once every month or two. As an added bonus, regularly replacing your air filters will also improve your HVAC system’s efficiency, and that is going to lower your heating and cooling expenses.

Broken Thermostat

Even though most modern thermostats are very durable and will run smoothly for quite a few years, those devices aren’t going to last forever. At some point, your thermostat is going to break, and that is when you will need to call an air conditioning repair company. An experienced technician should be able to replace your thermostat in a matter of minutes. To further improve your home’s energy efficiency, you might want to speak with your HVAC technician about replacing your old thermostat with a “smart” thermostat.

Refrigerant Leak

In the vast majority of residential HVAC systems, the refrigerant is kept in a closed line. If that line ever leaks or appears to be damaged, then you must immediately contact an HVAC company for repairs. The refrigerant that is put in HVAC systems is highly toxic, and that is one repair that you never want to carry out on your own. Your technician should be able to patch the leak or completely replace the faulty part in a matter of hours.

While some of these issues will be annoying to deal with, they can typically be avoided with a little bit of maintenance. At least once or twice a year, you might want to consider hiring an HVAC technician who offers preventative maintenance services.

3 Easy Stress-free Ways to Build Your Dream Home

Owning a home is a significant milestone in life. However, before getting there, potential homeowners have to struggle with a critical question. Do you buy or build?

The latest population survey revealed that homeownership rates have risen to 65.3%. Building your dream home allows having a say in every step of the process. Unfortunately, it also comes with its fair share of challenges. Continue reading to know how you can stop the construction from causing you sleepless nights.

1. Get Your Finances in Order

Financing is the biggest headache when planning to build your home. According to a survey by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), the average cost of building a 2,776 square foot home is about $ 427,892. Unfortunately, not everyone has that kind of money just lying around. The good news is that this is just a minor setback. You can get financial assistance from lending institutions in the form of home loans.

Traditional mortgages are not an option when you are trying to build your own home. You will need to apply for construction loans. These attract higher interest due to the risks associated with construction. To secure this kind of loan, you must provide a detailed construction schedule along with quick estimates of the total costs. In addition to the plans, you also are ready with a 20%-25% down payment. On completion of the project, you take out another loan to repay the first one or refinance the loan into a permanent mortgage.

2. Choose a Contractor You Trust

Most of the stress associated with building a home is due to the fear of the unknown. You get some peace of mind when your contractor is trustworthy. Choose a company with experience and a proven track record. It is especially important because you will need to prove to your lender that you have a professional builder involved in the project.

Your contractor is required to draft a quotation. It is used by the lender to determine your qualifications for a loan. An inaccurate quote can make you miss out on the financing. To avoid hiring quacks, visit www.costcertified.com to find a certified contractor in your area.

3. Get involved

The best way to protect your investment is to get involved. You can do this without getting in the form of your contractor. The first way to do this is through site visitations. Make it a point to attend all construction meetings to get progress updates of your new home. You can be there during all milestones, such as framing and plumbing.

You are free to ask questions and bring up any issues while visiting the site. The second way to get involved is by staying in touch with the construction team. Request for progress reports at regular intervals to verify if the description matches what you saw at the construction site. Both site visits and reviewing progress reports will put your mind at ease for the duration of the project.

Final Thoughts

With proper financing and the right contractor, building your dream home can be a fun experience. Be prepared to get involved to make sure you get value for your money. Otherwise, building your home is a worthwhile investment.

Guest Post - How to make your laundry room stylish

People usually don’t pay much attention to designing a laundry room; perhaps because they don’t host parties there and it’s associated with somewhat daunting work. However, by considering the space for your laundry room, carefully thinking about the organization strategy and adding all the necessary things in an orderly manner, you can not only end up with a stylish laundry room but a highly practical, functional and efficient one. So, designing a laundry room has much more benefits than just an aesthetical appeal. You can turn any space, either small or big, an independent or a joint space into a fully-functional chic laundry room. You just need some creative ideas and perhaps a few DIY skills. For starters, take a look at some clever ways to create functional and stylish laundry rooms.

1. Designate an area for your laundry room

First of all, if you don’t already have a laundry room, you should find a suitable space for it. It can be a separate room, extra small, medium-size, or big – you can work with any space basically. Even if you don’t have a separate room, but you have a bigger bathroom, you can designate one part of it to be laundry space. It’s important to have all the measurements of the space on paper, as well as the measures of the washing machine and the dryer, being the bulkiest items there. This is essential as it will help you see if, where and how you can fit everything.

2. Save space by stacking up the washing machine and the dryer

If you’re dealing with extra small space, let’s say the width of a regular door, usual ceiling height and 1 to 1.5m depth, you might think it’s impossible to use up this space efficiently, for anything except for a storage room. This is where you’re wrong. Even in this space, you can fit a washing machine and a dryer, by stacking them up. Of course, you should purchase stackable models. It’s important to note that if you experience some issues with your machines, you should try to find washing machine parts or dryer parts and fix the problem before deciding to get new ones. It might turn out that it’s just a minor issue that can easily be fixed, being a more time and money-saving alternative. What’s more, you can even use the door to hang some racks that will hold washing and drying supplies. 

3. Think storage

Storage is the key component of every laundry room. The options are countless when it comes to smart storage options. You can use some wall shelves, floor shelves, retractable shelves, different kinds of rods and containers, baskets, drawer sets and many others. When considering all these numerous handy options, it’s essential to take into consideration the layout of your own laundry room and to choose them accordingly. In this way, you can keep all the necessities such as laundry detergent, fabric softener, color catcher sheets as well as laundry perfume and dryer sheets in easy hand reach. You can also store laundry baskets here. 

4. Consider installing a foldable tabletop ironing board

A suitable time-saving option for a laundry room would be installing a foldable tabletop ironing board. Of course, if your space allows you to do that. Remember to install it in the reach of an outlet. This built-in ironing board is a huge space saver as well. It is very practical and creates no mess. 

5. Add details for a more stylish appeal

Now that we have all the necessary features of a laundry room in the place, we should think about adding some decoration to make the room more appealing, stylish and fun. You can consider adding some greenery to liven up space. Many people opt for putting up different motivational posters. Some of the most popular ones include writings such as ‘wash, dry, fold, repeat’. You can also hang up some interesting paintings and add color by placing some accessories in bold colors. Adding an eye-catching backsplash or a rug can also be quite an effective stylish tool. Remember to go for one style and stick to it, in the same way, you do with other rooms around your house. 

These are just some basic tips to help you get started. You can get some more useful ideas online. It’s key to do thorough research and then decide what works for you by modifying some ideas if you’re unable to apply them as complete ones. 

Author Bio

Allan Wickerson is a passionate blog writer who is extremely keen on writing about health, lifestyle, home improvement, and technology. His exclusive hobby is surfing the net to find amazing articles that can inspire him with some fresh ideas for article writing. He loathes being a common person who wastes his time. Follow him on Twitter.