When decorating your home the idea of hiring an interior designer can be tempting – after all they’re qualified professional right? Well yes, but they don’t have some secret set of rules to follow – so you really can achieve just the same look yourself without the cost! In fact there simply aren’t any hard and fast rules to interior design – it’s all about what’s going to best suit your lifestyle and the space you’re decorating. That said, there are some basic principles that you can use to guide you to ensure a great result every time – and they’re not tricks or skills that take years of training to master. Anyone can do them from day one. So here’s a guide to help you master those design basics and take your home décor to the next level.
In this case, adding another bathroom or bedroom could significantly increase the worth of your home if it brings it up to the neighborhood standard. However, renovations to the basement, while attractive to home owners and prospective buyers, are often disregarded by appraisers because the basement isn’t included as living space square footage.
Kitchen and bathroom renovations are almost always at the top of the list for return on investment. Not only are they among the busiest rooms in the home, they also have plenty of fixtures and cabinets that can be updated to add value to the home. There is a dizzying variety of home fixtures at big box hardware stores that can significantly improve the appeal of almost any kitchen or bathroom.
Before committing to any home building plans, it’s a great idea to consider these questions:
1. How will the renovation affect the appraised value of the home?
2. How many years will you reside in the home?
3. How strong is the resale market in your location?
One great example of a renovation that is worthwhile over the long term is installing energy efficient lighting, heating and insulation. Even with government tax rebates, the work can initially be quite expensive, but the savings year over year will eventually pay for the renovation entirely within 5 to 10 years.
This might seem counter intuitive, but actually really helps when forming your overall design. Your wall colour is such a big part of your finished room, so why would you rush and have this be the first thing you choose before you really know if it’s even going to fit in with the furniture or accessories. Bring in at least a sample of your furniture colour, be it an upholstery fabric swatch or a painted piece of wood, and an accessory of your chosen colour – and leave them in the room for a few days before you go on to choose your paint colour, that way you’ll be totally sure that the largest area of colour in your room will tie in with your chosen accent colours. While we’re on the subject of wall colour, I should stress the importance of using tester pots to paint test patches in different parts of the room you want to paint. There are literally thousands of paint colors with various tints, tones and shades, and each one will look different in different rooms, and even in different areas of the same room due to varying light sources. Again, leave this a couple of days at least before painting the rest of the area so you have time to make sure you’re really going for the right colour.
Having some guidelines gives people a good starting point for furnishing and decorating their home, but at the end of the ay it’s your home and only you are going to have to live there and see your chosen décor full time. So the most important thing you can do is be true to yourself; if you have a unique style, stand firm and stick to it even if it’s not typically going to fit in with standard interior design techniques. You want a personal space that makes you smile and, above all, is comfortable – not one that’s overly designed and stylized.
This one is great news if you’re working with a tight budget – you don’t need to fill your rooms with loads of furniture for it to look good. Instead spend more of your budget on fewer but better-quality pieces, and your room will look ten times better than if it’s stuffed to the gills with cheap flat pack furniture. Pine furniture is a fantastic choice as it’s sturdy and will last forever, and will age beautifully as well as looking good now – it truly can last a lifetime.
There are two main reasons why people choose to renovate their home: to improve their quality of living while they reside in the home and to increase the value of the property so that they can make more money when it comes time to sell. The ideal circumstance is to get the best return on investment that you can whenever you choose to renovate your home. Some renovations can add value to your home as soon as they’re completed, while others may take years to recoup the investment. There is a lot of conflicting advice on which renovations provide the highest returns (often depending on which building contractors you talk to), an example of this would be the true benefit of green building projects. To help you cut through the noise, here are some general tips to help you choose renovations with the best return on investment.
If you’re looking to raise the appraised value of your home, it helps to understand that an appraiser isn’t necessarily interested in the types of appliances or the color of the paint used in the living room. They look at the prices of comparable homes in the neighborhood that have sold recently, and they also measure your home against the standards established in other local homes. If your neighborhood has mostly three-bedroom homes with 2.5 bathrooms and your home has only one bathroom and two bedrooms — your property will be appraised lower.
One of the most effective renovations when it comes time to sell does not require any extensive planning or expensive equipment rentals: simply remove the clutter from your home. This makes each room of the house more spacious and inviting, greatly improving the odds of getting your desired selling price without costing you anything!
