There are many reasons anyone might want an extension built on their home, and it’s worth the price no matter what, but there’s a lot you should know before you start looking at the numbers. This is a permanent change, and it can do a lot for your home, but you need to be sure it’s what you want. If you’re not a professional when it comes to construction work, you’re likely out of the loop of what it’s going to take to have your extension built, and you may have some inaccurate expectations of what’s possible for your home.
An extension is more than just an improvement on the house, it’s an investment that can help to raise the overall value of your home when it comes time to sell it. Prices can rise and fall through neighborhood development or lack thereof, and it’s important that you know how to control the value of your house if you’re aiming to sell it!
When it comes to your home, whether you’re a landlord or a tenant, you’re going to need someone you can put a lot of trust into. You want your construction to remain faithful to the plan, and that can be a difficult task for someone who isn’t an expert in the industry. It’s best to ask around others who have had similar work done if they can recommend anyone to you, else you may end up with something not quite like what you asked for!
Know the timeframe
If you’re in a rush to have your extension done before a certain deadline, you’ll want to know how long it’s going to take so you can plan your life around it. Of course, you’ll likely want to be out of the way a lot of the time when the builders are there, and it’s best to make sure that you won’t have your expectations ruined by poor planning!
Manage your expectations
Managing your expectations is important when it comes to any venture, so it’s extra important that you’re able to do it when it comes to something so significant. You need to be considerate when it comes to pricing, possibilities, and even design choices. Not everyone is a great designer, so investing in someone to design the exterior for you might be an even better choice! It’s hard to know what you want if you haven’t been given a second option!
The red tape
It all depends on where you live, but there’s usually a lot of red tape when it comes to getting planning permission for extensions or other construction, and it can be a nightmare to deal with. If you have a mixup with your paperwork, it can delay the construction for quite a long time, making the whole thing a lot more complicated than it has to be. Finding someone who can help you with all of the red tape is a good idea if you’re in a rush to get it done! Nothing is more frustrating than having to delay the construction for a few months just because of some small mistakes.
If you want to make sure you raise a happy dog, you’re going to need to put the time and effort into training them. While it takes a lot of effort and consistency, it’s so worth it. Your dog will better understand the hierarchy of the house, and they will know that you’re the boss. If they don’t receive the training they need to thrive, they could end up with issues like anxiety, as well as behavioural issues that make everybody miserable.
Here are some pointers to help you train your dog and keep them happy:
Consider Investing in A Pro Trainer
If you’re not sure you can commit to the training properly, it may be best to invest in a professional trainer. This will help your dog to get off to the best possible start – teaching them while they are young can make a huge difference. Look for somebody reputable. Even a few sessions could help, and they can take a look at how you are with the dog and give you pointers.
Use Treats The Right Way
Special treats, like those from Petness.com, are a great way to train your dog and keep them learning. Just remember that if you give them too soon or too late and they won’t learn, so timing is key.
Having a routine is important for both dogs and people. Feeding them at the same times each day and taking them out at similar times can be a great way to keep them happy and ensure they are in the best state of mind to learn.
Socialize Them With Other Dogs
Socializing your dog with other dogs can be a good way to get them used to behaving around other animals. Just remember that this can depend on your dog, as well as the other dogs. Some dogs don’t like being around other dogs/animals, so it’s important to keep this in mind.
Don’t Feed Them From Your Plate
Feeding your dog off your plate can make them prone to begging. They may even try to sneak food off your plate when you’re not looking!
Make Sure You’re Consistent With Rules and Ways of Training
You should be on the same page as the whole family when it comes to training, and this will ensure total consistency and the best results. Your dog should know the hierarchy if they are going to behave.
Invest In The Right Training Equipment
A good lead and collar are essentials. Just be very wary, as certain harnesses can be bad for their posture. Choke chains are archaic and very bad for your dog, and they teach them nothing, so avoid these like the plague, too. The right training equipment will ensure a happy, healthy dog for life.
Are you willing to put the effort in to train your dog correctly and ensure their happiness? If not, it may be worth reconsidering your decision to get one. Thanks for reading!
People often spend many years and a lot of money building their clothing collection. It’s easy to feel great pride in the wardrobe you have at home, with this part of life being used to express the aspects of your personality that you want people to see when they first lay eyes on you. Of course, though, it can be all too easy to let your clothing fall apart if you don’t take the right care when storing it at home. To help you out with this, this post will be exploring some of the key areas you need to consider when you’re choosing how you store your clothing to keep them fresh forever.
Mold
Mold is a horrible issue to find in your wardrobe, with this sort of life finding it easy to re-propagate once you have cleaned it all away. If you find mold in your wardrobe or chest of drawers, this could mean that you need to clean the whole space, working to get rid of any water sources in the area. You can get special chemicals that can be applied to your furniture to prevent mold from returning in the future.
Creepy Crawlies
Most people associate creepy crawlies in their home with food or drink, rather than clothing. Unfortunately, though, certain insects, like moths, love nothing more than chowing down on your favorite garments, and this means that you need protection against these invaders. Sites like Moth-Prevention.com offer a range of products that are designed to halt moths in their tracks, giving you an easy way to keep your home protected.
Sunlight
Next up, it’s time to think about sunlight. The light that comes from the sun is extremely powerful, with the UV spectrum being one of the most damaging to humans. UV light can also damage clothing, though, breaking down the dyes and pigments that give your favorite outfits that color, while also weakening the materials that make the clothing. This makes it well worth keeping your clothing out of direct sunlight when it is being stored.
Chemicals
There are a lot of chemicals in the world that can damage clothing, and some of these are used in normal homes. Bleach is a great example of this, having the power to remove almost all of the color from certain materials. Your clothing should always be stored away from strong chemicals, ensuring that they stay fresh for as long as possible. The chemicals you use to clean your clothing can also have an impact on their lifespan, and this is a key area to keep in mind.
With all of this in mind, you should be feeling ready to take on the challenge of keeping your clothing in top shape when you store it at home. A lot of people struggle with work like this, finding it hard to know what steps they need to take when they are trying to improve the quality and lifespan of their clothing.
Every homebuyer knows that, far from being the money pit that it can sometimes seem, property is one of the best investments we’ll ever make. Time, alone, can add value if the housing market goes the right way, and, as we’ll discuss here, experts widely believe that home improvements can also more than pay for themselves.
The trouble is that, if you’re staring down the barrel of expensive renovations, it’s easy to get bogged down in the technicalities of whether an improvement really is going to prove lucrative. That’s an issue considering that, often, we seek home loan refinance for jobs like these on the assurance they’ll pay for themselves. If things don’t work out that way, you could end up owing more than you make, or at least failing to pull a profit.
That can come as a significant blow, and many homeowners feel deceived by misinformation when it happens, but that needn’t be the case. In reality, well-planned home improvements can certainly pay for themselves. All you need to do is consider the following to make sure of it.
Often, misunderstandings regarding how lucrative improvements can be stem from generalizations about the housing market. Quite obviously, a loft conversion isn’t going to offer the same money-making benefits in a remote country house as it would in a city property. There’s simply no way to compare the two, and trying to do so is guaranteed to lead to disappointment.
To make sure that doesn’t happen, always look at local properties with similar improvements for reference. It’s now incredibly easy to look at local houses on the market, and even to view past sales figures. Doing so should enable you to see first-hand how much a like-for-like improvement is worth in your particular area.
By checking this information before you commit to anything, you can judge whether a job is worth doing and, if yes, how much you can spend on it and still see your money back.
Understand the most lucrative solutions
While it’s true that home improvements can be lucrative, some are most definitely more worth your while than others, sometimes surprisingly so. For instance, loft and kitchen conversions will only add around 10% to overall house value, while bathroom renovations are even lower at 3-5%. These may still seem like large enough sums but, when you consider how much you’ll pay for them in the first place, they aren’t exactly big earners, if they’ll bring you any profits at all.
By comparison, popular additions such as a garage or cellar conversion can increase prices by as much as 30%. These jobs, ultimately, don’t cost a great deal more than those lower earning options, meaning that you’re almost guaranteed to see a much better return from getting stuck in.
And, of course, improvements such as decoration, which many of us make the mistake of investing in before a move, don’t offer any monetary gain at all, making them most often not worth your while from a financial perspective.
Factor for passing time
Before you assume that you’ll ultimately cover the costs of improvements down the line, it’s also worth bearing in mind how long you intend to stay in a property after the event. After all, even an addition or renovation that adds value now might not necessarily do so when you come to sell. And, if you’ve refinanced for the purpose, that’s going to leave you in hot financial water.
The good news is that the big earners mentioned (garage conversions, etc.) generally hold up well as they add a lasting room onto your property. By comparison, bathroom or kitchen conversions that already held questionable value can altogether fall out of favor over just a few years. After all, those shiny new fixtures won’t last unless you intend to sell tomorrow.
While you should never hesitate to invest in these changes if you think they’ll improve your living situation, it’s thus pointless to consider the ultimate impact on home value. As much as we hate to break it to you, there probably won’t be any.
Always consider the costs of your alternatives
As house prices generally continue on an upward trajectory, more homeowners than ever are considering supposedly value-adding changes over a complete move into a new home. This is, in large part, fantastic news, but as with everything, you should always consider the costs of all your options.
Admittedly, this isn’t as easy as just looking at upfront pricing which, as well as failing to represent real value where work is concerned, will always see a home move coming out on the bottom. The trouble is that this is ultimately unrepresentative as it doesn’t factor for anything other than the obvious.
To make sure that you’re gaining an accurate representation of costs across the board, you should instead consider essentials such as –
The square floor space on offer
Potential longevity of your investments
Whether you would need to move in the future regardless
Etc.
By asking these questions and studying the market vs costs quoted for the work you can say, once and for all, whether your chosen home improvement is really as lucrative as the experts have led you to believe.
A final word: to improve or not to improve?
As you can see, home improvements aren’t the cut and dry value-adding solution that many of us have been led to believe, but that by no means suggests that they aren’t still often worthwhile.
By doing your research and understanding the value you could add versus the state of the market on the whole, you’ll be in a much better position to make informed decisions, not only about the work you pursue but also about how you choose to pay for that work.
Ultimately, your goal here should be to ensure yourself a home that is exactly what you dream of. Simply make sure that you’re approaching that reality with the fairest possible overview to ensure that you don’t pay over the odds to achieve it.
Home moving can be quite an overwhelming exercise; there’s so much to do, from moving to unpacking and decorating your new place. 40% of US study participants asserted that home buying is most tedious in modern times, while 44% indicated they feel nervous throughout the entire process. While everything from your old home may not fit into your new place, there are a few others you can make good use of without spending so much. If you’re willing to get creative, here are four ways to use your old furniture in your new home.
When you visualize some rooms in your mind, you tend to envision a particular furniture design in your living room. You may imagine your new place with a classy couch, two chairs, and a loveseat, for example, but that isn’t the only functional setup. Just like every home space, your furniture has its own potentials and limitations. You can attempt several furniture layouts in real life or try pencil sketches to identify what’ll work in your new place. Sorting out where the furniture fits best will offer you further insight on what parts you’ll have to include, move or take out to create your desired room design.
Make the best of the mess
Your moving cost can be much higher when you have to move heavier or larger belongings such as furniture over long distances. Therefore, before you hire a moving service, you may have to decide what you’re keeping or eliminating. But what if you can strip and reassemble some items to create a new avatar? Before choosing to dispose of old furniture, check whether you can dismantle and assemble it into a new piece for your home.
You can make do with the wood from the old pantry to create a small shelf or convert your big old dining table into a work or study desk. This way, you get the charm of the old wood for your home décor and a smart cash-saving strategy too.
Save your chair
There’s always that space for the old chair in your home corner; this adds extra seats to your home while creating a nostalgic feeling. Whether it’s old or not, don’t dispose of a comfortable seat, as you can repair, reupholster and use it again. However, if you’re a DIYer, there are several ways you can repurpose your old chair, including making a storage box, an open-air seat, a writing slate for your sidewalk, a beverage stand, or an outdoor swing.
If you consider buying a new bed, let’s say, a bigger one, your old mattress can still come in handy. You can reuse your old beddings to make a daybed which can be a great fit for your den or home office. You can either purchase a minimalist bed framework or utilize the old one and mount it against the wall. If you have to buy, pick one with sides and heap in a few pillows for a relaxing couch or an extra bed for guests.
Pet ownership is a part of life that brings a lot of joy, mixed with occasional concerns and a huge range of learning experiences. It’s easy enough to enjoy meeting a friend’s pet, buy gifts for a neighbour’s pooch, or follow one of the many social media accounts dedicated to dog pictures, but when you get a dog of your own there will be no shortage of moments when you sit and look at your pet and wonder what exactly they are doing – and then search online for an explanation, learning something you never knew in the process.
The difference between idyllically daydreaming about a dog you might get, and actually owning one, can be a culture shock. If you are actively considering becoming a dog owner, there are some things you will need to learn before you bring one home. The better-informed you can be, the better the experience will be both for yourself and for the canine who eventually becomes the newest member of your family. This all starts with picking the right dog for your lifestyle, and below we will look at a few questions which will help you make the right choice.
I can’t be around all the time. Is this a problem?
All dogs experience a certain amount of separation anxiety – much like people do in their early days – but there are definitely levels of seriousness. If you work outside the house and the dog will be left alone there, then it rules some dogs out completely. A husky or malamute, for example, needs not only a lot of companionship but huge amounts of exercise. Left to their own devices they can become distressed and even destructive. Your best bet in this situation will usually be a greyhound or French bulldog; they won’t love it when you leave, but they’ll get used to it and be more affectionate when you are around.
I already have a cat – are they going to get along?
There are so many cliches about cats and dogs, and their perceived unsuitedness, which is a huge surprise given that so many households are home to at least one of each. Cats and dogs can get along perfectly well, and even become firm friends, but there is no doubt that some breeds are more at home with a feline pal than others. Golden retrievers can be very comfortable around their purring, sleepy counterparts – and if you introduce them at the right time, they’ll end up playing together happily. Larger working dogs are less likely to see a cat as a friend, so give wolfhounds and sheepdogs a miss if you have a cat already.
I like long walks in deep countryside. Which dogs will be up for this?
This is where a husky or a malamute is the perfect pet. These dogs are bred for long, tiring walks through terrain that presents a challenge. Their ancestors pulled sleds across Alaska and other snowy corners of the world, so don’t worry about either of the above breeds, or a samoyed, being able to take on the walking trips you love. Depending on how tough the terrain is, you might also be surprised by how happy a poodle is with long walks and open water. In truth, most dog breeds we know of today were largely bred with working and exertion in mind, so you might find yourself struggling to keep up with them.
I’m worried about my neighbors complaining if the dog barks a lot…
Before we say anything else, a quick PSA: dogs who bark, bay or howl are not necessarily being mistreated, and anyone who assumes this is deeply misguided. Some dogs scream aloud for the sheer enjoyment of it among other reasons, and none of those dogs should be on your list if you have neighbors who are put out by noise. There are many quiet breeds who will fit the bill much better for you. Perhaps a Wheaten terrier, who will stay quiet while you’re out and greet you by jumping all over you when you return? Or a Scottish deerhound: they’re quiet, dignified and (at 3’ tall to their shoulder) also huge.
I’ve heard some breeds are a little … less intelligent. Which ones are those?
In truth, most dogs are as intelligent as any other, they all just suffer here and there from reputational cliche. It’s more about the work you put in training them – if you take the time, most dogs are trainable to a high level, and as the information here points out, there is little to choose between different types of the same breed (such as a labrador) in terms of intelligence. All in all, don’t get hung up on the potential intelligence of a dog; it doesn’t much impact behavior, and you’re getting them as a pet, not a potential CEO for your business.
Dogs are, for the most part, very unfussy eaters and will tuck into most of what is put in front of them, as well as some things that aren’t put anywhere near them. In the latter case, this tends to result in them making a big mess and then looking very ashamed. There are many different theories on how to best ensure a dog gets the nutrients they require.
Some people insist on a raw food diet for their dogs, but not only does this get expensive and time-consuming; it’s also very difficult to get the right nutritional balance. Ready-made dog food, however, isn’t always more balanced – it requires a lot of research, so be prepared to read up a lot when you first get a dog. The one thing we can say with 99% certainty is: the bigger the dog, the more it will eat – which may be worth factoring into any decision.
As long as you bear in mind a few ground rules, and recognize that there are certain environments that work well for certain dogs, you will find that any dog can be a good match for you and vice versa.
