Category: Home & Living

Remodeling a house includes everything from installing a new sink, stove, or cabinetry, to removing walls for the purpose of expanding living space. Some remodeling projects are small and can be completed over a long weekend, while others are expensive and may take several months to finish. Here are a few reasons why people choose to remodel their homes.

To Boost Its Market Value

If you plan on selling your home in the near future, having some or all of your home undergo a remodel can help to boost the amount for which you can sell the property. Although renovations are expensive, they can pay off in terms of having your house on the market for a shorter period of time or being able to make more of a profit from selling the property.

Even if you are not planning on selling your house soon, renovations can make a huge difference when it does come time to put your home on the market. Before undergoing any major renovations prior to selling, consider getting some home deep cleaning services done to make your home look the very best it can be.

To Make a Change

Everyone gets bored of their house or its location from time to time. Undergoing a remodel can be the change you need to make in order to enjoy being at your home again, as you did when you first moved in. Sometimes, all it takes is a new coat of paint on the walls to give the structure a completely different feel. For example, consider painting bedrooms in calming colors such as sea green or navy blue, to give a sleek new look and a calming effect on the walls.

To Accommodate New Lifestyles

Families grow and change from the time that they purchase a home. One reason to remodel a house is to accommodate new additions to the family, whether that is a baby or an older parent who needs care. These circumstances are a good reason to install a new bedroom in a home.

Working from home is another reason why homeowners might consider a remodel. If working from home is permanent for one or more of the residents, it might make sense to put up new walls dedicated to this working space. At the very least, it could be a good idea to rearrange the space in a room and place a desk next to a window or other source of light.

To Increase Functionality

Another good reason to remodel a house is to increase its functionality. This might include, for example, replacing the kitchen counters with ones that are lower to the ground in order to make them easier to access for someone who uses a wheelchair. Functionality might also mean replacing older appliances with newer ones. Similarly, remodeling for safety reasons makes a lot of sense. Those stairs that are rotting away? They should be replaced before they cave in on someone walking on them.

If you have been thinking about remodeling your home, consider these reasons to do so.

Anyone who works in a commercial kitchen can tell you it’s like no other workplace. The fast-paced environment, constant noise, and stress of meeting tight production timelines are all part of the job. Fortunately, with the right strategies and techniques, you can become an even more efficient operator to thrive in this challenging environment.

Whether you rent space from a friend or family member or you’re managing a kitchen at a restaurant, being organized is the key to success in any setting. Since many commercial kitchens are shared spaces where multiple operators share appliances and prep stations, efficiency is extremely important. Planning out your workflow ahead of time will help limit confusion and wasted steps during peak hours.

Use Labels and Markers

If you’re managing multiple people in a small space, you need to be able to quickly identify who has what job and what they’ve completed already. From a visual management standpoint, you can label and mark just about anything you want. This will help your staff quickly identify where they can find supplies and tools as well as their job assignments. For example, you can label and mark items like containers for food storage, cutting boards, and even drawers with sticky labels. You can also use different colored markers to label your employees’ aprons, which can help you quickly identify who is working in each area of your kitchen and what they’re responsible for.

Create Custom Shifts

A calendar will allow you to assign different tasks to employees depending on their availability. For example, you can assign one employee to clean duties on Monday and Wednesday nights, another to purchasing duties on Tuesday, and someone else to inventory on Thursday. Custom shifts will help prevent everyone from getting overworked and will help keep the doors open with minimal employee turnover. Once you have the calendar set up, make sure everyone is aware of the hours and what their duties entail.

Try New Recipes

You don’t want to serve the same menu every day, but you also don’t want to keep switching things up between specials. You want to find a happy medium between offering a variety and keeping your kitchen consistent and efficient. To do this, you need to try out new recipes to find the dishes that are simple to execute and popular with your guests. Once you’ve found a few recipes you like to serve, keep them as specials for at least a month so you can track their popularity. You can also rotate your dessert recipes to see what does the best with your clientele.

At the end of the day, the key to operating your kitchen like a pro is to be ready for anything that might come your way. Whether you’re hiring new employees or retraining current ones, implementing the right strategies and techniques can make a huge difference in your overall productivity. There are many things that can go wrong in a kitchen setting, but with the right practices, you can avoid issues and make your kitchen easier to work in.

As it moves closer to the summer months, it’s time to start thinking about how you’ll get your home and family ready for all the fun you have planned during this time.

While summer can be a great adventure, it can also bring with it certain hazards or threats that could be dangerous if you’re not careful and prepared. So to ensure that you’re all ready for whatever summer has in store for you, here are three ways to prepare your home and family for safe summer fun. 

Prepare For Summer Storms 

Although most of the summer weather in many places is hot and dry, there will come times when summer storms roll in. When this happens, you’ll want to be sure that your home and family are ready for these potentially scary events.

As part of your preparation, you’ll want to make sure that your home is a safe place for you and your family to hunker down while you wait out a storm. Double-check things like your roof, siding, and any landscaping that could blow around in the wind. As for preparing your family, make sure you have enough non-perishable food and clean drinking water to last you for a day or two in case you lose power during a big storm. 

Prepare For An Influx In Pests 

As the weather starts to get warmer, you’re going to notice a lot more pests coming around your home. If you start to find them in your home or taking up residence outside where your kids like to play, you’ll want to take some steps to keep your home and family safe from these pests.

Outside of your home, you can spray for bugs and take steps to remove any debris from around your house, as pests like to make places like these their home. Inside your house, keeping things clean and dry will do wonders for discouraging pests from coming into your home and overstaying their welcome.  

Prepare To Take On The Heat 

While summer’s hot weather can be a welcome change from the cold of winter, you’ll need to teach your kids how to keep themselves safe when out in the sun. Wearing sunscreen and keeping hydrated when playing outside can all help your kids to avoid things like sunburns, heat exhaustion, and more.

To stay cool while you’re at home, make sure you get your air conditioner checked up before you start running it for the season. And if you don’t have an air conditioner, learning how to use fans and shades on your windows can be very effective at keeping your house cool.

To help you home and family have the best summer ever, consider using the tips mentioned above to ensure that everyone and everything will stay safe this coming season.

Juggling kids with anything is difficult. Juggling kids while breathing is difficult. But the bigger the family, the bigger the house you need to keep them safe. Let’s go over some tips on how to keep your sanity once you purchase your new home.

Plan if You Can

If you have time before having your first kid to save money and get certain areas of your life on track. About half the time it happens though, pregnancy is usually not prepared for. It’s best to have an addition to your family once you have a steady job and room for them. You may need to look at a new home because of this reason.

The most important part of prepping for this is to have some savings put away. You’ll need money for a down payment and for your kiddo. You’ll need an additional bedroom and probably new furniture and other products. Babies come with about $10,000 worth of stuff.

Maybe you already have kids and you just want to get a place where you and your partner can escape and get some peace. In fact, an essential way of creating a healthy living environment is to give everyone plenty of room to escape if need be. Whatever the reason you may need to worry about juggling kids and house, planning is the best way to do so.

Try To Estimate

Next, it’s best to establish how much you will need to save if you plan on moving to a new home soon. Look at how much house you can afford. This is based on your income and expenses each month. You will need a down payment and that generally comes to about 5-20% of the total cost of your potential house.

For an estimate, your housing costs should not be more than 30% of your monthly income. That means if you make $4,000 a month, $1,200 is your maximum housing expense each month. Keep this in mind when you are house hunting. And if you want to be even less stressed out, try to spend even less than 30% a month on housing if you are able to.

It’s really all about how you can make your life easy once you have a family and a mortgage and all of the additional expenses as well. If possible, see where you can save money on other expenses you don’t use. Check out your monthly expenses and see what you don’t need or what you can get a better rate on.

Also not sure

Another way to be able to afford your kids and their needs and your bills are by consistently stashing away money. Whether you have a savings account or you put money under your mattress, save money any way you can. Put aside funds as soon and as early in life as you possibly can. You could never be too prepared.

Children come with some unexpected expenses. You can’t predict exactly how much you will need to have put aside for your child but like mentioned above, kids come with a lot of stuff. Even if you don’t buy them a ton of stuff, other people will get it for them. Soon you’ll need an extra room just for toys.

It’s mostly important just to stay vigilant and keep track of your spending. Children mostly just need your love and attention. Focus on providing a nice home for them to come home to. They don’t need you to buy them anything even though it is tempting. But it shouldn’t be difficult to pay on your home when you realize that’s all your kids need you to do for them.

Groundhogs are only cute when they are not in your yard. Because when they are in your yard, they are eating plants, digging 15m tunnels and displacing about 300kg of soil. Groundhogs are very intelligent animals, so getting rid of them might not be as easy as getting rid of other rodents.

Ways to Getting Rid of Groundhogs

1.     Set a Harmless Trap

Some states have laws against harming groundhogs and other animals. So, before setting traps, ensure it cannot harm the groundhog in any way.

Use a box trap far away from its hole with fruit as bait. As soon as the box trap captures it, you can call animal control or look for a way to release it far from you. The box trap will trap other rodents disturbing your garden if you are lucky.

2.     Call Pest Control

Getting rid of one groundhog is easy, but what if they are many, and the trap can only capture one per bait? To get rid of your groundhogs and other rodents all at once, call pest control for prompt help.

If you do not know of any pest control around you, check out here.

3.     Make Their Home Inhabitable for Them

You can make groundhogs so uncomfortable in their home that they will permanently move away from your yard. You can make their home uncomfortable by:

●       Fumigating their holes

The release of carbon monoxide in their holes will force them out and inherently drive them away if they do not find a habitable spot.

●       Flood their holes

If groundhogs want one thing for their home, it is dry land. Flooding their holes makes them too uncomfortable to remain there.

4.     Scare Them Off

Scarecrows and Pinwheels are good for scaring groundhogs, but they can not scare them off permanently because they get used to them.

Creating vibrations in the ground can do the trick. Groundhogs frequently experiencing palpitations in their holes will eventually leave the place. You can use solar stakes to cause ultrasonic pulses and sounds. Windchimes and windmills will also have similar effects.

How to Prevent Groundhogs

What is better than getting rid of groundhogs is preventing them. You can avoid groundhogs using the following methods

Install a fence

A fence around your yard will keep groundhogs and similar rodents away from it. To prevent loopholes, make the fence at least 3 feet high and 1 foot deep in the soil.

Use repellants

There are some natural herbs and smells that repel the groundhog. Place them around your yard to keep the groundhogs away. Some repellents are

• Epsom salts
• Strong scents; lavender, castor oil, garlic, and so on.

Keep a well-trimmed Yard.

Groundhogs are attracted to tall grasses and unkept yards that make it easy for them to feed on and make homes. Having a well-trimmed yard discourages groundhogs from choosing your lawn as a habitat.

Getting rid of groundhogs does not mean they cannot be back in your yards a few months or years later. Try the preventive measures and if they persist, call the local pest control.

Having an older home is often a personal and financial choice. After all, in many cases, an older home is smaller than the modern alternative. But, they do tend to have more character.

Unfortunately, it’s this character that generally means you will have a bigger issue with pests and are going to need a reputable pest control service. In short, they prefer older homes. Here’s why:

Ease of Access

Older homes were made to a different standard than the modern versions. This is because rules and regulations change, usually for the better. A key factor of this is the different materials that make it harder for pests to find or chew a way into your home.

In other words, the older home is an easier target.

Wear & Tear

You may not be able to do a lot about the materials your home is built with. But, you can address wear and tear issues. The biggest problem is gaps and cracks that appear in your façade, often as a result of settling, although they can be a result of damage and neglect.

Filling all these cracks and holes will deprive the pests of the easy entry point that they use. If you make it harder for them to get in they will go elsewhere.

Moisture Levels

Pests choose a home based on food, water, and warmth. Unfortunately, older homes are more likely to have an issue with moisture. Due to the materials used, older houses tend to retain more moisture. They are also more likely to develop leaks and have standing water in gutters and other places.

This is simply because the house is older and things start to sag.

You’ll need to verify whether you have any standing water or water leaks. It’s also worth considering methods of lowering moisture in the house.

Location

Older homes tend to be found outside cities and in more rural communities. This is because cities are constantly rejuvenating and rebuilding. Naturally, the more rural your home the more pests there are likely to be around it and the higher the probability they will invade.

It’s a good idea to speak to your local experts, you can click here to find them, and find out what pests are operating in your area. Being prepared will make it easier for you to protect against them.

Modifications

Finally, older homes often have modifications undertaken and even extensions added. This is to ensure they are big enough for the occupants. Unfortunately, if this type of work is done without an inspection first then you could simply be building over a termite’s nest or something similar. This effectively gives the pests access to your home.

Equally, poor workmanship when adding extensions and improvements can make it easier for pests to get in.

The Bottom Line

It is easier for a pest to get into an older home and often more appealing for them to do so. The good news is that you can prevent it from being an issue by sealing up your home, checking moisture levels, keeping your food stored in containers, and making sure your house is clean.

If there is nothing to appeal to a pest it will go elsewhere.

While picking a home to buy is a big decision in and of itself, choosing the home that you’ll raise your family in for the foreseeable future can put even more pressure on the situation. But luckily, there are some things that you can look for in a property that will greatly increase the chances of you and your family living in a great home with a great community around it.

To help you see how you can find these things, here are three tips for choosing a home to raise your family. 

Focus On Safety

When you have little ones running around, the very first thing that you should focus on when looking at a home and property is safety. 

Safety both inside the home and on the property surrounding the home is of the utmost importance. To discern the safety of a home, Patricia-Ann Tom, a contributor to Realtor.com, advises that you look at areas like the stairs, closets and cupboards, electrical sockets, and more. You’ll also want to ensure that the structural integrity of the home is sound, or you’ll want to repair things like the foundation or anything else that needs it. And as for the outside of the home, you’ll want to survey if there’s anything standing water that could be dangerous as well as looking for a home that’s fully fenced in. 

Look For Outdoor Space

Although you and your family might be spending the majority of your time inside your home, for the sake of your kids, you should also try to find a home or neighborhood that allows them outdoor space to play in. 

Keep in mind, however, that having a big yard also means talking on a big responsibility. According to Kate Ashford, a contributor to Parents.com, it’s ideal to have a backyard that’s easily accessible both for your kids and for any kind of maintenance tools that you’ll need to use back there. Otherwise, your family might not take advantage of this space or it might become overgrown and unusable. 

Check Out The School And Neighborhood

It’s not only the actual house that you’ll be living in that you should be concerned with.

As your kids get older, they’ll be going to school and getting more involved in your community. So to make sure they’re afforded the best opportunities to learn and grow in a healthy environment, Diane Schmidt, a contributor to The Spruce, recommends that you check out the school and the entire neighborhood before you choose to move into a particular home. By doing this, you’ll get a good idea of what kind of overall life your kids will have if you live in this area. 

If you’re in the market for a home that you can raise your family in, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you find the right fit.