DIY Home Improvement Ideas for Beginners

We partnered with a home improvement company for this post. The opinions in the post are honest. All reviews and opinions expressed in this post are based on our personal views. We are excited because we know you will love it.

The more a home is lived in, the more likely it is that it needs a makeover. We get used to having a home just how we first set it up. However, shuffling furniture and reimagining a space is an amazing way to give a home a new burst of vitality. Makeovers are expensive, though, so many people split the difference with DIY projects. For anyone new to this, worry not. There are many DIY home improvement ideas for beginners that help build skills and are also affordable and fast.

Practical Home Management

Home maintenance goes beyond decor and repairs; it includes practical tasks that keep everything running smoothly. For example, someone looking to replicate a key can ensure that all family members have easy access to the home. This small but important task enhances convenience and security, making it an essential part of home management.

Swap Out Fixtures and Hardware

There are places in every house that are touched and handled more than we realize, particularly light switch plates, doorknobs, handles, railings, and similar assistive fixtures. After a few years of constant use, hardware starts to show its age. Alloys especially become stained and worn by the oils and acids on the many hands that interact with them daily. Replacing these items is very simple and typically doesn’t require much besides a basic electric drill.

Refresh the Look With Paint

Aside from replacing stained and aged hardware, giving old furnishings new life is a worthwhile project. Look at the shelves and storage spaces around your home. These features are easy to remove, replace, or restore as desired. Wooden shelves especially are an ideal project for beginners, as this material is very forgiving. Wood can be painted, sanded, beveled, stained, and so on—all useful skills for a burgeoning DIY pro.

Furniture upgrades are enjoyable DIY projects too. In addition to reupholstering chairs and couches, most furniture will readily take a coat of paint. Explore refreshing your household items and revitalize them with colors and textures of paint.

Reimagine Décor With Adhesives

Gone are the days when the only options for home improvement required precision and years of experience. Nowadays, homeowners divide DIY home improvement projects from the costly and permanent investment of a full remodel. Vinyl has made flooring, tiling, and redecorating a cinch, letting people release their creative side without the huge time and money sink.

Some easy and affordable DIY improvement ideas for beginners to make everyday life cozier are scented drawer liners. Adding them to a dresser, cabinet, or shelves that see frequent use brightens up a space. They’re easy to install and are designed to help protect furniture. As mentioned, flooring is also available in inexpensive vinyl tiles. Simply peel the back and arrange. They are an ideal way to reimagine a space or build a design into an existing floor.

Guest Post - Bringing the Outside in with the Help of a Landscape Gardener

It's easy to make your home more comfortable and relaxing. You simply connect it to nature by bringing the outside to the inside. Plants and natural materials instantly create a calm, serene atmosphere. Their effect can be remarkably therapeutic and can help alleviate stress. They'll also make your home look cozy and welcoming.

Spring Color

It's exciting to plan upgrades for your house as the winter months fade away. Spring is the perfect season to choose a new color scheme for your rooms. To provide a soothing backdrop for your plants, you should choose natural, earthy colors. Take your inspiration from the plants and views outside your windows. If there are nearby bushes with dark, evergreen foliage, choose a color to complement them. A pale gray-green or pastel yellow ochre could be ideal. Light blue can make your room connect with the sky outside. Remember that pale colors make a room look larger while dark tones make it appear smaller.

Indoor Jungle

You'll need to use plants that are suitable for indoor spaces. There are many evergreen varieties such as tropical palms and vines. They'll love a warm, sunny location near a window. You can add an exotic elegance with pots of flowering orchids in beautiful colors. They are relatively easy to grow and have a fragrant aroma. Amaryllis is a large, colorful plant that can create a striking focal point in a room. Jasmine with tiny white flowers is perfect for climbing around a window frame to highlight the plants outside. A landscape gardener can advise you on which plants will thrive indoors and how you should care for them.

Natural Shelves

A large plant in a heavy, clay pot is safer standing on the floor. But many smaller bushes and flowers may need to be placed on shelves. Natural materials can complement your collection of plants and give your home an environmentally-friendly appearance. Shelving made of reclaimed wood is always popular. It can often look weathered with rough edges and have intricate grain patterns. But your home doesn't have to be rustic in design to appreciate plants. If you adore industrial chic, you can install shelves or tiered racks made of metallic girders. Adding your plant collection to them should demonstrate how effectively nature can harmonize with man-made objects.

Maintenance-Free Plants

It can sometimes be difficult to care for living plants. Many of them need to be given different amounts of water. It's an easy mistake to place a potted plant in the wrong location where it may receive too much or not enough sunlight. Choosing artificial plants is a convenient alternative. There are many realistic versions that can provide the same effect of harmonizing with nature, but without the hassle. A current interior design trend is a living wall where you fill an entire panel with foliage. It's an impressive feature to have in your living room, but you need to be dedicated to maintain it properly. Maintenance-free, artificial plants are the perfect answer. They look realistic and could give your home an incredible appearance.

Seamless Harmony

It's important to make your exterior space harmonize with the inside of your home. A landscape gardener can help you create a seamless transition between the plants in your backyard and those in your rooms. Spring cleaning and maintenance for the exterior of your house is an ideal starting point. It gives you an opportunity to redesign a patio or porch to incorporate new planting schemes. Floor to ceiling doors can be opened to show similar plants both inside and outside. Hanging up potted plants on your porch and inside your home gives a coordinated look.

Floral Fabrics

Soft furnishings such as drapes and cushions are another easy care solution. Beautiful textures and designs include fabrics with prints of flowers and foliage. It's easy to connect inside and outside by using the same fabrics for covers on chairs on your porch and in your living room. Rustic kitchens look very stylish with floral accessories. Sophisticated home interiors should aim to balance patterns full of flowers with striped or textured fabrics.

Conclusion

A landscape gardener can help you bring nature into your home. You'll create a tranquil atmosphere that's restful and soothing. Painting your walls in neutral, earthy colors provides a calm backdrop for your collection of plants. Natural accessories such as wooden shelving and colorful, floral fabrics help to complete a design of harmony. Flowering plants also add a beautiful scent to the air. Genuine or artificial foliage and flowers can transform your room. It should become a peaceful haven where you'll love to relax.

Author Bio:

Ray Brosnan is the co-owner of Brosnan Property Solutions, a property maintenance company who have helped many homeowners with their landscaping and home interior needs. 

7 Surprising Benefits of Hiring a Professional Window Cleaner for Your Home

First impressions count a lot. When it comes to our home or even business establishment, our building’s exterior is probably the first to be noticed. Before anyone comes in, he has already made an impression about you or the business based on what the outside looks like. Dirty or smudged windows because of accumulated dirt and debris will not wow your guests.

Are you struggling to keep up with your window cleaning regime? It might be time for you to consider having a commercial window cleaning done. Here are seven surprising benefits of hiring a professional window cleaner for your home.

1. It enhances the aesthetics of your home. 

As windows are a part of a house exterior, clean windows make your home look better. Whether you are trying to impress your neighbours or you simply want to make your house shine, a professional window cleaning service can make your abode look appealing and well maintained. They are guaranteed to add value to your home and improve its quality.

2. It extends the life of your windows. 

Unattended dirt and other debris accumulating in your windows can cause permanent damage. They can etch the glass and result in scratches that are unsightly. To protect your windows, you should have them professionally washed regularly.

Cleaning the windows by professionals will make windows last longer. These cleaners can remove corrosive substances from your windows which reduces the likelihood of having cracks and scratches, as well as glass degradation.

3. It uses the right equipment for the job.

Soap and water are not the only tools needed to make windows clean. Different windows may require different cleaning methods, cleaning solutions and even cleaning equipment. When you hire a professional window cleaner, you will not worry about all of these. You won’t need to spend extra on these cleaning needs. Their cleaning service company surely invested in the right equipment for the job. 

4. It’s more effective than washing them yourself.

Professionally washed windows are cleaner and clearer. These experts leave no marks or smudges behind. They have the right tools, techniques and equipment to make sure that your windows will be sparkling clean when they leave. If you do the job yourself, streaks and specks of dirt are still probably somewhere around the corner. Your personal tools and cleaning method may not effectively remove them. 

5. It saves you time.

With the pandemic, most of us are probably working from home. This setup is not as ideal as it sounds. We may become tempted to do tasks unrelated to work, or we may be distracted by the grimy window facing us. We tend to clean up while working which ends up in tasks piling up.

Cleaning windows can be more complicated than having a bucket of water and a bar of soap ready. It may consume more time than you think. Instead of doing it by yourself, outsource your window cleaning needs to the professionals. It will save you time from doing tasks not related to your job and even increase your productivity.

6. It keeps you safe.

A professional window cleaner can deep clean your windows, their frames and everything around them. They can get rid of molds, clouds of dust, debris and other allergens that may have accumulated. You can then breathe better without the worry of inhaling any of them.

When you clean your windows by yourself, there is also a high risk of breaking the glasses or falling from a ladder while reaching for the top of the window. The cleaning solution may also pose a hazard to you. When you get your windows professionally cleaned, you won’t have to think about these risks. They are experts in what they are doing, and they know how to protect themselves from these hazards.

7. It reduces fatigue and stress.

Balancing work and home life is already overwhelming. A home to tend after a day of work can leave you exhausted and without extra time to clean windows. 

When you let the professionals do the cleaning for you, you can relax and bond with your family while they clean. You won’t need to spread yourself too thin. You will not stress out from all the house chores you need to do. You can have downtime to rest and take care of yourself or be with your loved ones instead.

Are you ready to hire a window cleaner?

Window cleaning is as important as cleaning the other parts of your house, yet it may not come naturally and frequently like how you sweep the floor. We tend to clean only when we see dirt building up on the window surface.

However, we should remember that our windows also deserve regular cleaning. If you want to maintain the beauty of your glass windows, book a professional window cleaner. You will be surprised by the value it can give to you and your home. 

How Basements Differ in Varying Areas of the United States

We partnered with a home improvement company. for this post. The opinions in the post are honest. All reviews and opinions expressed in this post are based on our personal views. We are excited because we know you will love it.

If there is one part of many homes that is somewhat of an enigma, it is the basement. While many older homes have partial or full basements, the trend in recent years has been to leave off a basement when constructing a new home. Considered great places for you to have extra storage or to finish and thus create additional living space for your friends and family, they can also be prone to high humidity levels and flooding after a heavy rain. While found in homes throughout the United States, basements do differ in varying areas, based on a number of factors.

More Waterproofing

While basements can be found in homes in all areas of the U.S., some are located in areas that are much more prone to flooding. This is particularly true of states in the southern U.S., such as Texas, Louisiana, and Georgia. As a result, whether you have a walk-out basement or simply a crawlspace, you likely make waterproofing a top priority. From using professional services for crawlspace encapsulation or sealing walls with waterproofing paint, these methods are very common with southern basements.

Coastal Crawlspaces

Though basements can be found in many homes on both the East and West coasts, more and more newer homes are now opting for crawlspaces. Done so based on such things as potential flooding, costs of building supplies, and other related factors, crawlspaces allow for access to plumbing lines and other components of the home, taking up less space in the process.

Bigger House Often Means no Basement

Oddly enough, in all areas of the United States, owning a larger home often means you will have no basement whatsoever. A large home, which is defined as one having at least five bedrooms, will rarely have a finished basement, or even an unfinished basement.

Daylight Basement

In areas such as the Midwest, which is generally viewed as the heartland of the United States, daylight basements are very common. In fact, this area of the U.S. is thought to contain the most basements of any area in the nation. Thus, if you live in or are planning to purchase a home in such states as Missouri, South Dakota, Nebraska, or other neighboring states, you'll probably have a daylight basement. Featuring no external doors and having half of it above-ground and half below, most are left unfinished.

  Whether you want an unfinished basement or one that is made to look spectacular, New Key Construction can help create it in almost any area of the United States.