The New Year always feels the same. As December draws to a close, we contemplate the past 12 months with a mixed bag of emotions — pride in long-sought accomplishment and disappointment with a loss of a job, poor test grades, or growing distance between friends. Setbacks are an important part of life, but you don’t have to let them drag down your morale for long. Home repair and renovation is a great way to boost yourself out of a funk. Even simple home habits such as keeping flowers on the table or adding new pictures around the house can contribute in overwhelmingly positive ways to your mood. The best part of home improvement planning is that many of the fixes you might hope to make can be done on your own or with the help of a general contractor. Reach out to friends or small businesses to find the right commercial construction company for major repairs like a foundation maintenance, installing vinyl siding, or other work your home needs.
As December approaches this year, think about some home improvement projects that are long overdue in your own home. Re-evaluate that list of fixes you hope to make and dedicate yourself to tackling a few — or even all of them — and start the new year with a fresh outlook and a more modern home environment that gives you joy to return home to every day.
Jump-start your home improvement goals
If you have a list of fixes you’d like to make but are unsure about how to achieve them – or are just approaching the idea of making some updates to your home, then a trip to a home design center may be the best first step for you. For the unfamiliar, home design centers are dedicated showrooms that display models of flooring options, paint samples, window choices, and even drapery and wall paper options.
A visit to your local showroom can be much needed help in visualizing the renovations you hope to make in your home. Color, style, and even layout design is hard for many of us to see in our living space. Most homeowners are so accustomed to the way it has always been that they can’t picture the changes they want to make — even with a vague idea of how they want to remodel. A trip to the showroom can ease this mental block completely. Not only will you see splashes of color and artistic flourish at every turn, you can compare design elements and price in a way that cannot be done with simple online searches. The best way to decipher your preference between hardwood flooring and carpet — feel them, walk around in shoes, socks, sit down on each flooring choice. At a showroom, you can “test drive” some of the features you are considering adding to your living space.
Tackle big problems before they spread
Some troubles that creep up on us in our homes are simply too difficult or skill oriented to address on our own. For issues such as air conditioning or foundation repair, the most important thing you can do is not to delay. By waiting to call a professional, you will only make matters worse.
These troubles can sometimes present themselves as regionally specific issues, but they aren’t confined to one location by any stretch of the imagination. Searching for an HVAC contractor in Cumming, GA, is a routine search for the residents of this north Georgia community, where the summertime is blistering and temperatures in the winter drop into freezing. AC units are pushed for all they are worth here, but communities like this exist all around the country — and air conditioning repair is certainly not confined to residents of the southern states. General temperature fluctuations sharing striking similarity exist in New York, Seattle, and Texas, to name a few. The only difference is the elements that attack your exterior devices while you sit comfortably indoors basking in your home’s climate control capabilities. In fact, while the typical air conditioning equipment that sits outside your home now is likely estimated to last for 15 to 20 years, it has and will continue to require routine maintenance to run at all. As well, experts recommend considering your options for replacement with a new, more efficient model after just 10 years.
While we often think about AC troubles affecting Southerners, it is often assumed that slushy conditions in the north are to blame for foundation problems in homes. Home foundation repair in Stow, OH, for instance, is a routine project for many locals. This affects Americans all over the country, however. Foundation damage is caused by expansive soil movement that occurs with high presence of moisture in the ground. Snow can contribute to these troubles, but so can rain or even tectonic activity that is a feature of California suburbs.
Foundation damage can represent more than a simple home repair, though. Homes with foundation damage have historically had a hard time selling, and often lose value exponentially as the problem gets worse. This is one fix you will want to make immediately if you find yourself facing a cracked or degraded foundation. Beyond that, foundation damage can permit water into your home, bringing even more damage to walls, flooring, furniture, and the very stability of your home.
Commit to vanity improvements, too
Not all repairs or upgrades in your home will constitute immediately essential fixes like a broken window or cracked foundation. That doesn’t mean that these aren’t important though. Aesthetic improvements to your home are a great way to improve your mood or boost the value of your asset if you are planning to sell your house. Minor home improvement projects like new indoor paint or replacement tile in the kitchen can freshen up the monotony of your home life, but major bathroom remodeling projects or installing new kitchen counters can serve to drastically change the feel and modernization of your home. Bathroom updates can take many forms. You can tear out the entire room and build it back from scratch, or simply install new hardware to fit your style. No matter the changes you hope to make, a fresh bathroom always makes a great impression on your attitude and morning ritual. You spend a significant amount of your day in the bathroom, either getting ready to go out for the day or cleaning up at the end of one – make the bathroom your space with a little personal flair and style.
Another important addition to your to do list is exterior painting. This is another big job that must be tackled regularly and can vary wildly in frequency as well. Exterior house painting in Massachusetts, for instance, is an often-needed update because of the proximity to the Atlantic Ocean and harsh environmental changes that occur throughout the yearly weather cycle. Five to seven years is normal in New England, whereas in central Texas, the need for a fresh coat of paint may be more spread out across the lifetime of your residence, requiring a new coat every 10 or 12 years.
No matter where you live, home improvement projects are a constant surprise for those who aren’t keeping a watchful eye on the status of their home’s structural features. Make sure to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to roofing and structural repairs, painting, interior designs, and air conditioning unit integrity. By keeping up with your home’s ever-changing needs, you will always find yourself well-equipped to solve whatever issue arises in your home next. It’s a constant battle, but one that can be won easily with just a little diligence.