What to Consider When Adding On

Additions can be a good way to get more functionality out of your home. Your addition might be an extra bedroom for your expanding family, a home office to provide you with a space to work from home, or even a sunroom or hobby area. Your add-on might even be a way to add more space to existing rooms, removing or extending walls to let your current kitchen, bedroom, or other area flow seamlessly into your new addition. There are just so many possibilities.

Regardless of what you plan to use the room for, though, adding on to your house is a big undertaking and may be kind of a big investment as well. Even relatively small additions can be a big project, so it’s important that you know exactly what your plans will entail before you start work on expanding your home. To help with this, here are a few things to consider when making plans to add on to your home.

Planning the Expansion

Though you may have a good idea of where you want your addition to go, it’s important to spend some time actually planning it out. Consider details such as where the property line is located, whether there are any size or location restrictions based on state and local building codes, and whether there will be issues with the location of utilities or the slope of your property that could cause problems. Taking the time to rule out potential problems with your addition now will save you a lot of headaches down the road.

Another thing to keep in mind is how well your addition will combine with your existing home. While you obviously have a good reason to want more square footage, if you just have an added room tacked awkwardly onto your home, it can have a major impact on your home’s overall value. A good addition will blend seamlessly into your existing home, matching the exterior and making it difficult to tell that an add-on was made down the road.

Cost and Investment

Depending on the sort of addition you want to make, the budget for your add-on can fall within a pretty wide range. It’s very important that you spend some time researching exactly what it will take to make your expansion plans a reality. The time of year, materials costs, and factors such as the size and types of materials you choose will all affect how much you’re going to have to spend. Taking the time to do a bit of research and consult with your contractor about the options available to you can end up making a big difference in the final cost of your expansion.

This is important not just because of the immediate impact to your pocketbook, but also the overall difference that it makes on your home’s value. All the money that you put into your addition is an investment in your home, and you want to get the biggest return on that investment that you can. Making smart choices and not letting your budget balloon out of control will go a long way toward maximizing your home’s value in comparison to the cost of your add-on. It’s more work now, but you’ll be thanking yourself if you find yourself wanting to sell your home at some point down the road.

Wood Isn’t Your Only Option: Building Materials Outside the Box

Whether you’re adding a shed to your property, expanding with a new room, or building an entire house, the cost of lumber is likely going to affect your plans. Though not quite as high as it peaked early in the pandemic, buying lumber in any quantity still isn’t exactly what one would call a cheap endeavor. There may be a bright side to all of this, however; the high cost of lumber is highlighting the fact that there are actually a few alternatives to wood out there that you might not have thought of.

This doesn’t mean that you can completely avoid the use of wood in every project, of course. Some projects work better with alternative materials than others. Still, the fact that there are options out there other than just using lumber for everything might help you to think outside of the box and find at least some cheaper (and in some cases, possibly even better) options when planning out your next construction project.

Non-Lumber Construction Materials

Lumber is probably the most well-known material that’s used for framing construction and building out projects, but it isn’t the only option out there. When it comes to creating frames for rooms and buildings, steel and other metals are not only an option but they’re actually becoming an increasingly popular one because of the added strength that they provide. Metal framing is used in everything from sheds to exterior garages to whole homes and creates very sturdy structures that can stand up well against severe weather and other events.

Metal isn’t the only wood alternative that you can use in construction around the home, either. Plastics such as composite decking and fencing are increasingly popular for use around the home, creating a look that is often reminiscent of wood while providing superior resistance to fading and weather damage. Bamboo products are also seeing an increase in use as a building material, as they have similar capabilities to wood but often come at a lower cost than wood lumber because of the fast rate at which bamboo grows. Even concrete and fiber cement are seeing a growing popularity as materials, especially given their relative strengths and the ability to mold both to a variety of shapes to better match the project at hand.

Minimizing Wood in Your Projects

Even with a variety of materials as options, you may still need to (or want to!) use some wood in your construction projects. You may simply prefer the look of wood, or have specific idea in mind that does require wood. This doesn’t mean that you have to commit to wood for the entire project, however, and you can use alternative materials in places where they aren’t visible or won’t affect the project in substantial ways as a means of reducing your overall project cost.

A great way to do this is to use alternative materials for framing and then attach wood to that frame. You can also use wood in areas where it’s strictly necessary for the project that you have in mind and then supplement that with paintable composites or fiber cement siding so that the end product can get a coat or two of paint to make it all mesh. There are a number of ways that you can be creative and keep your costs low while still giving you the look and functionality that you want in the end.

Conquering Cottage Kitchen Clutter

Cottage-style kitchens are an increasingly popular option when it comes to creating an attractive yet functional kitchen layout. These cottage kitchens usually rely on an open layout so that everything is easily accessible regardless of what you need. In lieu of bulky cabinets and endless drawers, these kitchens make heavy use of open shelving and pegboards to hold everything. It can be a very attractive look for your kitchen and a pretty functional layout as well, but if you’re not careful, it’s also an invitation for chaos.

The ugly truth is that cabinets and drawers became popular because they keep all of the clutter and disarray hidden safely away and add a bit of built-in organization to the pandemonium of kitchen layouts. Do away with most of the cabinets, and all that clutter is left out in the open. Fortunately, there are ways to tame it. It does require a bit of thought in your approach, though.

Be Smart With Your Shelving

One of the big traps that people fall into with cottage kitchen shelving is trying to maximize its display properties without thinking about how to maximize efficiency. The look of plates, glasses, and various other bits of kitchen must-haves arranged neatly on shelves is certainly appealing. If you’re not careful, though, you’re going to end up with at least some of your shelves being overcrowded and a pain to work with as you sort through them to find exactly what you’re looking for.

The key to successful shelving is to arrange everything so that it’s not only appealing to look at but also on the shelves for a particular reason. Before placing anything on shelves, stop and think about which shelves those specific items would be best on. Consider where in the kitchen you’ll use them the most, and install shelves in those areas so that your prep tools can be near your prep station and your baking tools can be near your oven. Supplementing your shelving with under-table drawers, cabinets, and other unobtrusive storage solutions can also aid with this without ruining the cottage aesthetic you’ve created with your shelving.

A Place for Everything

Pegboards are another common sight in cottage-style kitchens, but they can become a messy array of items stuck up seemingly at random if you aren’t careful. It can take a little while to find an ideal layout of your spoons, tools, and other pegboard items, but once you have it then you should do everything you can to keep it. Even a few items placed incorrectly can throw off the entire arrangement and lead to your perfect organization falling into clutter.

A great option here is to get everything placed on your pegboard and then carefully trace around the various items lightly with a pencil. Once you have outlines of everything, remove it all and take the pegboard down. Carefully fill in those outlines with paint, using a variety of colors that match or accent the dominant colors in your kitchen. For added flair, paint a small stripe on the handles of your spoons and other tools that match the space you filled in for it on the pegboard to make it easy to see when anything is out of place.

Why Is My Furnace in the Attic or Crawl Space?

Though it’s not as common as traditional furnace setups, some homes feature a furnace that’s installed in either the attic of the house or in a crawl space. It might seem at first that this would be inconvenient compared to standard furnace locations, and in some ways it can be. There are some advantages to having an attic-mounted furnace or a furnace in the crawl space, however. If you’re thinking of buying a home (or recently bought one) that makes use of one of these alternate furnace locations, it was probably done to take advantage of one or more of these factors.

With that said, you may have some questions about your furnace and how to maintain it. First, the good news: A lot of your maintenance will be about the same as you would have with a more traditionally located furnace. There are a few specific things that you may be wondering about, though, so here are some things that you should know about using and maintaining these furnaces.

Filtration and Air Flow

Most of the time, when people get nervous about a furnace that’s mounted in the attic or crawl space it’s because they think they’ll have to venture up there every time a filter needs to be changed. For the most part, airflow with an attic-mounted furnace or one that’s in the crawl space will be pretty much the same as a more traditional furnace setup. The thermostat is still on the wall, there are still vents in every room, and the air return is still inside the main house. This means that maintenance tasks like changing out your air filter will be pretty much the same as it would be for any other furnace, as the filter is placed in the air return.

Attic and Crawl Space Advantages

As mentioned before, there are a few advantages to placing a furnace in the attic or a crawl space. Some of these, such as a possibly reduced installation cost, will only affect the homeowner who installed the furnace in the first place. Even if you bought a home that already had a furnace installed in the attic or crawl space, though, there are still advantages that you can enjoy.

One of the biggest is that this installation type frees up space in the home that would otherwise be taken up by furnace equipment. If that doesn’t sound like that big of a deal, think about what you could do with an extra closet or a little bit of additional storage space that’s convenient to rooms like the kitchen. Depending on the layout of your house, an alternate location for your furnace could also simplify the ductwork layout and make checking for damage or other ductwork issues much easier.

Accessing the Furnace

There may be a few times when the location of your furnace becomes inconvenient, such as if your pilot light goes out and you actually have to venture into the attic or crawl space to relight it. In most cases the pilot light will be situated to make it convenient to access, but you still have to get to the furnace unit, which can be annoying at least. Bigger issues may arise if you run afoul of actual hardware issues, as the more enclosed space and slightly different layout of the furnace can make some forms of maintenance more difficult.

In these cases, it’s best to call an HVAC pro for any maintenance beyond the basics. They’ll have a better understanding of how the furnace is laid out and just the tools that they need to fix it even in a tighter space. 

 

Make Your Home More Pet Friendly

Having pets can enrich your life in a number of ways and can even improve your overall mental health and wellbeing. Unfortunately, not every home is really set up for pets. By making some improvements to your home and its layout, you can make it much more pet friendly, and help keep your furry (or scaly or feathery) friends safe and happy as you spend your time together.

Exactly how do you go about making your home more pet friendly, though? There are a few things you’ll need to consider, including the type of pet you have, its indoor/outdoor habits, and its size. While many of these things are specific to your individual pet, there are some more general changes that you can make to help make your home more pet friendly as well.

Update Your Interiors

If you’ve got an older house, you might want to do a few interior updates to help ensure that your pets are safe from harm. Redoing the walls to remove old paint that could have lead or other unwanted compounds goes a long way toward this goal, while also giving you a way to significantly change the look of the inside of your home. Your floors may need an update as well, such as replacing old frayed carpet with new carpeting or installing new vinyl. This could also be a good idea if you’ve got old wood floors and are concerned about scratching or splinters as your pets go back and forth with heavy paws and claws.

There are other changes that you can make as well. Replace frayed curtains or broken blinds with something a bit more modern to not only keep your pets safe but also keep your home looking nice as well. Depending on your home, you might have additional projects in mind that will not only improve the look but also help to keep your pets much safer from day to day.

It’s All About Access

A big part of making a home pet friendly comes down to controlling access. The parts of the house (or outdoors) that your pet is allowed into should be easy for them to access. Areas where they aren’t allowed should be difficult for them to access, but ideally easy for you to get into. Home updates to accommodate this can include things like adding pet doors, installing new doors that latch easily, or hanging interior gates that you can use to block and unblock access to specific rooms or other areas with ease.

If you have pets that are allowed outside, these sorts of considerations apply out there as well. Installing a fence, adding a watering station, or making other exterior accommodations for your pets will help keep them safe while outside, even as they’re allowed more freedom than they would have gotten as an indoor-only pet. Just make sure that any exterior changes that you make don’t run afoul of local ordinances or HOA agreements before you start work, so you can avoid problems down the road.

It’s Their House Too

In some cases, you may find yourself wanting to make some bigger changes to your home in order to better accommodate pets. Perhaps you want to change out some of your windows with larger ones so that your pets can more easily look outside. Maybe you need to update your HVAC system to better remove pet dander from the air. You might even decide to add on a small room or other area that’s designed specifically for your pets’ use. 

Protect Your Outdoor Plants From Frosts and Freezes

With the time getting ready to change and the days getting longer, there are a lot of reminders that spring is right around the corner. Unfortunately for your outdoor plants, it might not be quite close enough to save them from a few more chilly nights. Depending on where you live, you may still have to deal with the occasional frost or overnight freeze for at least another month or possibly longer. This can cause significant problems for a lot of plants, and can really set back your landscaping and gardening plans if you wait until the danger of freezing is completely gone before putting things out.

Fortunately, there are a few different ways that you can protect your plants from late-season chills. While the specific methods you use will depend on where you live, the types of plants you have, and how low the temperature is supposed to drop, you should be able to find something to give your plants the protection they need. Here are a few suggestions to get you started.

Protecting Roots and Leaves

You’ve likely seen people covering up plants with sheets and other materials when a frost or a freeze is expected, but you might find yourself wondering if that actually works. Turns out, it does! Frost affects the top layer of exposed plant material and soil, so by covering your plants with towels, sheets, or even spare cloth or plastic, you can create a layer of protection between the fragile plant material and the frost. Cloth and plastic bags or similar items can work as well, just so long as you’re careful about not damaging the plants in the process.

Just because you’ve protected the stems and leaves from frost doesn’t mean that your plants are completely safe, though. Low temperatures can also damage roots, especially in times of prolonged cold. Putting mulch, towels, and other materials on the ground around your plants can help to protect against this by adding insulation that will keep the soil a bit warmer for longer. Since freezes typically don’t last too long heading into spring, even a little bit of extra insulation can make a big difference.

Providing Additional Heat

In some cases, you may need to provide additional heat to protect your plants against cool mornings or seasonally low temperatures as well. For potted plants this is easy, as you can simply bring the plants inside or place them in warmer areas like a closed garage. For in-ground plants, though, a bit more work is required.

It’s possible to buy or build small greenhouse enclosures that can cover outdoor plants and protect them from low temperatures. These enclosures may be as simple as sheet plastic supported by wire or plastic bottles with the bottoms cut out. Regardless of their construction, heat from the sun will increase the local temperature within the greenhouse unit and give your outdoor plants the little boost of heat that they need to thrive until temperatures start to rise again.

Landscape Planning

Putting some extra work into planning your landscaping can also go a long way toward protecting your plants from frosts and freezes. Choosing outdoor plants that are hardier against the cold will help to provide this protection, and a gradual rollout of new plants that’s staged from hardier to less hardy will keep your exterior looking vibrant without adding plants that will suffer from the cold. If you aren’t sure which plants to choose or how to time the rollout of new plants, there should be landscaping experts in your area that can help.

Filing a Homeowner’s Insurance Claim

Nobody wants to have to file a homeowner’s insurance claim. After all, filing a claim means that something has gone horribly wrong at home. Maybe it’s damage from a storm, or a frozen pipe that burst, or some other unexpected problem. Whatever the cause, the damage was severe enough that you need to make a claim on the policy that up until now you’d hoped would never actually have to be used.

Exactly what’s involved with filing a homeowner’s insurance claim, though? While the filing process is similar to that with other forms of insurance, there are a few things about homeowner’s insurance that might seem confusing if you’ve never really dealt with it before. To make sure that everything goes smoothly, here’s some advice on what to expect when filing a homeowner’s insurance claim.

Contacting the Insurance Company

The first thing that you need to do to file a homeowner’s insurance claim is to contact your insurance company. This doesn’t mean that you should drop everything and call your insurance, though. Depending on the situation, there may be a few other things that your insurance company tells you to do before they can actually start working on a claim, so you may want to at least get them started first.

If your claim involves burglary, criminal damage to your property, or any other legal matter, you’re likely going to want to go ahead and call the police, because your insurance company will require a police report. You’ll also want to shut off the water or gas if necessary and take any other actions that are required to make your home safe. Take pictures (ideally with timestamps on) before you take any action, so that you can show the insurance company what the situation looked like before your intervention, then take additional pictures once you’ve shut things down. This documentation will be important to your claim once it gets started.

The Claims Process

Once you contact your insurance company, you’ll need to go through the specifics of what happened in as much detail as you can provide. If you had to shut off the water or take any other action, be sure to describe exactly what you did and let them know that you have before and after pictures as well. Point out any safety concerns such as broken windows that need to be boarded up, or any other safety-related repairs that might need to be made, so that your insurance agent can make note of them before you take any additional action. Be sure to take before and after photos of those repairs as well.

After your initial call, and any temporary repairs or changes that your agent approved have been made, you’re going to have to fill out some paperwork and take additional pictures and videos to document everything you can about the claim. The insurance company will likely send someone out to inspect your home in person as well, and you may have to go over all of these details again with them. Make copies of all your pictures and videos, and save every receipt related to the incident, including both any materials that were needed for temporary repairs, and things like hotel receipts if the house isn’t safe to stay in until repairs are complete. It may seem like a lot of hoops to jump through, but once the company approves your claim, you’ll be glad that you documented everything.

Making Repairs

When your claim is finally approved, you’re going to need someone to make the repairs that your home needs. While your insurance company may have some suggestions, in many cases you’ll be free to choose your own contractors and other pros that will work with your insurance company throughout the repair process.

 

Dos and Don’ts of Home Trends

There are a number of trends in home decoration that you’ve likely seen come and go over the years. Some of them look pretty nice and create something of a timeless look, while others… well, it’s pretty easy to understand why they’re only temporary trends. Like them or hate them, though, following home trends can sometimes have a positive impact on the value of your home if you’re looking to sell. That is, of course, if you strike while the iron is hot.

But what if you’re not actually looking to sell at the moment and just like the way that a trend looks? Will going all-in on some big trend hurt your home’s value down the line if you do decide to sell later? This could be a legitimate concern depending on the trend. After all, even if you’re on the market and don’t manage to sell right away, you could find that going too far with certain trends will bite you before you find a buyer.

Home Trend Dos

There isn’t necessarily anything wrong with following home trends, either to bump up the value of your home in the current market or just because you like the look of them. If you’re thinking of making some changes around the house because of a current trend, here are a few things to think about:

• Evaluate the cost of a trend before jumping all in; some are surprisingly cost effective, while others will give you a bit of sticker shock
• Keep an eye on trending paint colors and the “hot colors” that paint manufacturers announce every year to stay ahead of color trends, so that your home can stay trendy without you having to pay a premium for trendy colors
• Pick and choose the trends you want to follow, and take only the parts that you like if you’re not committed to the entirety of a trend

Don’t be afraid to make some changes and upgrades in trendy styles, but don’t go overboard with it. This is especially true if you’re just looking to make some trendy home improvements before you sell your home.

Home Trend Don’ts

Some trends can really bring up the value of your home if you catch them at the peak of their popularity, but if you aren’t that lucky, then they can cost you money in the end. These are the trends that you should avoid unless you really like them. Here are a few things to look out for when considering home trends:

• Avoid trends that require major structural changes or construction merely for aesthetic purposes
• The overuse of bright, bold colors occasionally comes into fashion but will almost certainly go out just as quickly
• Unless it’s just a minor expense, stay away from trends that you just don’t “get” because there’s a decent chance that you’ll implement it incorrectly or miss the height of its popularity and not even realize it
• Even if it’s popular, watch out for trends that will be difficult for future homeowners to undo; potential buyers might see your trendy changes and start wondering how much it will cost to change them, and that could potentially spoil the sale

Basically, trends can be fun. Think twice about them though if they’re going to be too expensive, create too many headaches for future homeowners, or are likely to come across as garish or ugly.

Cashing In on Home Trends

If you do want to make some home improvements or other changes to follow certain trends, it’s important that you find the right pro for the job. Whether you need an interior designer, a painter, or even a plumber to help you follow a new fountain trend, you don’t want to pay more than you have to.