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Advantages and Disadvantages of Building a Home

Moving into your own home is an exciting time, whether you purchase a pre-built one or decide to build your own. There are several advantages and disadvantages to building a home instead of buying one ready to live in.

Advantages

• When you build, you get more say about the design of the floor plan and can usually add or change certain features without it costing much – or anything. For instance, you could add a laundry chute from a bathroom to the laundry to save a lot of work and heavy carrying.
• You get to choose the materials the home is build with inside and out. The colour scheme is your choice and so are the light fittings and window treatments.

What to do with your Unused Swimming Pool

Most kids love to have unlimited access to a pool; they would be in it for hours every day if they could. However, parents are not always the same. As you get older, it takes more effort to go swimming in the backyard pool and you probably have many other things you would like to do instead. So now that the kids have left home or are more interested in their hairstyles than swimming, is that backyard pool gathering metaphorical dust? Why not convert it into something else? Something that could become a very interesting hobby. What?

A fish pond! This is not only ecologically sustainable, but you will have a great supply of fresh fish on hand for dinner.  We tend to think of a fish pond as something about knee high holding rarely seen fish only a few centimetres long. If your swimming pool was converted to a fish pond there would be no reason not to grow fish to eat in it. It is deep and big enough that many fish would thrive.

The Easy Way to Choose A Colour Scheme for the Living Room

It’s not that difficult to work out an amazing colour scheme for your favourite room.  You don’t have to be an interior designer like Sam Sorgiovanni to have a home that pops with all the right colours. It can be quite an easy job to choose colours for any room if you have a pretty mat or even a piece of artwork you really love and intend to use in it. Here’s what to do.

• Choose the main colour in the artwork and use a colour chart to find a paler or lighter version for the walls of the room. This will usually be a background colour, not the part that pops out at you.
• From the wall shade, choose a slightly darker hue for the carpet.

7 Gardening Ideas to Make Your Garden Pop

Are you tired of your old garden that seems to be more weeds and dirt than anything else? Having an attractive garden around the home can add value and aesthetics and enhance your lifestyle. Everyone needs something pretty to look at and if you are constantly surrounded by dreary, half-dead plants it will eventually get on your nerves and poison your mood. So here are some tips to not only make your garden pop, but to brighten up your mood as well.

• Spend a little more on organic fertiliser to ensure your soil is healthy. Few plants can grow well in soil that cannot provide the nutrients they need.
• Start again with your basic garden shapes and add different plants for a better look. Do a little research so you know what their growing habits are and can plant them accordingly. There are many great gardening makeover books available you can learn from.

Who Should do the Electrical Maintenance Work in Your Home?

It is very easy for the home handyman to think it’s okay for him to fix small electrical problems around the house. After all, it can’t be that hard to take apart an old light switch or power point and install a new one, can it? Every trained electrician would tell you that it is illegal for the DIYer to do work like this, even if it appears to be easy. In fact, if it is not done correctly it’s likely to electrocute someone.

Electrical maintenance work should only be done by a licensed electrician such as Electrician Perth Experts because of its inherent danger. It is fatally easy to do some small thing wrong and it can result in a house fire or worse, loss of life.  Government regulations allow only small things to be done by the untrained person and you can be in trouble if you repair or replace light switched yourself. How would anyone know?

Latest Trends in Renovating Kitchens

If you ask a kitchen company like Kitchen Professionals it is no use renovating a kitchen only to find you have not incorporated at least some of the latest trends; you would still be dissatisfied with it. The kitchen is one of the most used rooms of the home and increasingly, is becoming a part of the living room with modern floor plans.

This means it is moving away from the traditional kitchen look and fitting in more with the look and feel of the space it shares. Here are some of the latest trends in kitchen design that you might be able to incorporate into your kitchen renovation – that said, only keep the ones you like!

16 Reasons to Own a Plunge Pool

A plunge pool is a pool that is small but deep. It is used as a way to cool off and invigorate yourself, or it can be heated for more comfort, especially in the winter. Sam Sorgiovanni has included plunge pools in many of those amazing super yachts he designs and they are ideal for this. They can also be ideal for your home for a lot of reasons.

• They make great use of available space or odd corners.
• They can fit into places such as a small courtyard, where a larger swimming pool would not fit.
• Because they can be heated they are suitable for use year round.
• They are comparatively cheaper to heat than a swimming pool.

7 Garden Plants that Help Beautify Your Skin

Once you decide to engage a landscaping company such as Lone Pine Landscapes to have some landscaping done, it will surprise you how it improves the look of your garden. But with a little effort, your garden can also improve your skin. By growing certain plants in your garden there will always be something you can pick and use to help your skin look naturally beautiful, reduce scarring, treat acne or heal burns.

Here are some plants you might want to add to your garden for this reason.

• Aloe Vera is well-known these days for its soothing, anti-oxidant properties. It is included in many lotions that help prevent or ease sunburn or other kinds of burns. Having it in the garden means you can pick a piece and squeeze the sap onto a burn for quick relief and no scarring. It may help get rid of stubborn acne and is also useful to remove make-up if you have sensitive skin. An easy care plant that doesn’t need much water.

Residential Uses for Limestone

Limestone is a popular building material that has many uses, both inside and outside the home. Any home that makes use of limestone is one that has great value.  People can easily see that it is desirable and beautiful, not to mention a home of good quality, so they are willing to pay more for it. If you use limestone from a company such as Meteor Stone in building your home it will always be a valuable asset.

There are many uses for limestone in and out of the home, both practical and decorative. Here are some of them: –

• In the kitchen, limestone makes excellent flooring, but it is also great for bench tops.
• In the bathroom you can use it for flooring and walling as well as vanity tops.
• On the deck, it can be used for flooring and bench tops for external kitchens or a barbeque area.
• Outside it can be used for pavement and paths.
• External stone cladding

10 Tips to Hiring a Professional Handyman

Even though you pride yourself on being a handyman there are some maintenance or renovation jobs you just cannot do. It may be that what is needed is outside of your field of expertise, it’s illegal for an unqualified tradesman to do it or it requires the tools that you don’t have and that are not worthwhile purchasing because you wouldn’t use them enough to get the value out of them. So when you have to hire a professional handyman such as JCA Services, here are some tips to ensure you get it right.

• Make sure the handyman can do the job you want done. Not all skilled handymen do all jobs, or they may not be qualified for all work, such as plumbing and electrical work.
• Ask them to show you their liability insurance as well as their other professional qualifications.
• Use someone local as long as they have all the qualifications you need. That way you will pay less for travelling time.
• Ask around to see if you can get recommendations on the quality of their work. They may even take before and after photos for their portfolio or website.

6 of the Latest Landscaping Trends

Beautiful Sydney landscape design always adds value and beauty to your home and increases your enjoyment of life. It should never be an afterthought, or given less attention than it deserves because how we live our lives affects our health and longevity, so anything that can give you a change to relax and enjoy your leisure time is well worth the cost and effort. Here are some great landscaping trends that have made 2016 more enjoyable and will continue to do so for those who implement them.

• More people now are seeing the value of consulting professional landscapers and landscape designers – and allowing them to transform their surroundings. It saves you a great deal of time and effort when professional landscapers do the work and you can be sure it will be done properly.

Tips on Excavating for Renovations

Once you have decided to renovate your home it is wise to take a second look at the job to ascertain just what is needed. Many home renovation jobs are quick and simple fixes with all the work done internally. Others that may seem simple can sometimes prove to be more complicated – and costly – depending on whether you need to do foundations or structural work.

One thing about adding a deck or another room is that foundations will be needed and this usually includes some kind of excavation. Few homes are built on dead level ground, which means that an excavator hire will be required and the excavation needed could be more comprehensive that first thought. In addition, people don’t use a pick and shovel to excavate these days. You will need to hire an excavator of some kind to do the job.

When the budget seems to get blown out and you can’t see where it’s all going to, it is usually those hidden things such as excavation, foundation work, plumbing and so on that it must be spent on. Here are some tips to help your budget if you are renovating with excavation.

8 Cleaning Carpets Tips

While nothing can clean your carpets like a good steam clean from Brilliance Carpet Cleaning Perth, you cannot call them in on a weekly basis. And when you have children, pets, visitors, food and drink all in the same room there is bound to be something that gets spilled, staining or dirtying your carpet. Leaving it there for months until the next professional clean job is due is a bad idea. Not only will it look horrible, it will set and become almost impossible to get out. So here are some carpet cleaning secrets that you can use to keep your carpet looking respectable in between times.

4 Reasons to Choose a Colorbond Roof

Once, all roofs were built with tile and corrugated iron was the only other choice, but it was seen as the cheap alternative. Even though it lasted well, was easy to transport and erect and offered a strong and durable roof, it was still mostly used for sheds or homes in the outback or rural areas. There was no colour choice in those days as metallic silver was the only available colour.

Then Colorbond roofing was invented, adding a whole other dimension to the building industry. Here are 4 reasons why so many people choose to build their homes with a Colorbond roof.

• Its physical attributes. It is light yet durable and made for Australian conditions. These include bushfires. Colorbond is idea for roofs in bushfire prone areas as the smooth shape prevents windborne embers from sticking. It is easy to maintain and the colours remain bright and vibrant over many years. It is quick and easy to install, thus saving building costs. And it has thermal properties that mean it helps to keep the home cooler.
• The great colour range allows your creativity to bloom. With colours that reflect the Australian landscape you can mix and match to your heart’s content, or choose just one colour overall so that it complements the other colours in your home. Many people love the look of a lighter roof colour enclosed by a darker colour for the guttering. This defines the shape of the roof like a frame does with the picture it surrounds, setting off the colours so that they are more vibrant. You can even choose a colour to reflect some aspect of the environment around your home.

6 Ways to Save Money on Home Renovations

Renovations can often make a difference between staying in the home you love or calling a removalist such as Brilliance Removalists Perth to get you to a new home. While many people try to work out which renovations will cost less or provide the most value, they may not think about ways to save money when doing those renovations. But once you put your mind to it you will find there are plenty of ways to save on renovations so you don’t blow your budget.

Here are 6 ways to save money while doing those renovations or improvements.

How to Save Your Carpet from Tradies’ Boots

If you have carpet on your floor you will no doubt know that having carpet cleaning done on a regular basis will keep it looking bright and fresh all the time. But regular does not mean often. According to Brilliance Cleaning, Six to twelve months is usually enough, depending on whether you have pets and toddlers. Professional cleaning done more often than that simply causes unnecessary wear the tear to the carpet, plus it disrupts your life while you wait for it to dry.

So what happens when you have tradies coming through the house to renovate or repair it? You can’t expect them to take their boots off at the door; they have to wear them on the job for protection.  But if the route to their job leads across your carpet it is highly likely to get very dirty, especially if the weather is wet and they’ve had to tread on unpaved areas to get to your door.