What to Look For When Renovating an Older Home

Renovating an older home can be a lot of fun, but it can also be a lot of stress. There's nothing quite like the empowerment you feel in making an older home more modern. However, you also have to know what to look for when renovating older homes, choosing the specific projects to tackle, and then somehow keeping it all under budget.

Character to Build Around

Older homes are alluring to many people because they're in established and mature neighborhoods. They have great locations and have usually been around long enough for trees to grow up. There is also a unique charm to many older homes. It might be a quaint fireplace, bay windows, or just crown molding in the dining room. Always keep an eye out for such features. Don't just keep them. Build around them all you can and even accentuate them. In an age of cookie-cutter homes and prefabs flooding many markets, lots of buyers prefer something with individual style. You might just be one of them.

Age-Related Risks

Older homes may have stood the test of time, but how well have they really fared? Take a quick look inside any available circuit breakers to see the inspection and installation dates of the electrical system. Have a contractor get up on the roof, check the foundation for cracks and settling, get a technician to look over the HVAC system. Quite a bit of the home's infrastructure may need to be replaced just to bring a home up to code. Even if a lot of it can be grandfathered in, you might want to do it anyway just for peace of mind.

Opportunities for Modernization

After you decide on specific features to keep for character and deal with old-age problems a home might have, it's time to look for ways you can help bring the home into the modern age. This might be a sweeping overhaul of a whole floor by blowing out walls to introduce an open-concept living, but it can also be as practical as adding more electrical outlets, Wi-Fi, and USB ports for recharging mobile electronics.

Give the Lawn a Facelift

After you’ve worked out the inside and are comfortable, don’t forget to update the outside too. If a sprinkler system isn’t already installed, then that might be the first thing you look into. Not only will it help the grass, but you can have other lines set up for flower beds and trees also. 

Whether you live there or you sell to someone else, the next residents will be happy you looked out for all of these. 

Why You Should Get Your Boiler Repaired as Soon as Possible

Keeping your boiler up and running is an essential part of maintaining your home. Unfortunately, it is also something that many homeowners can overlook. Here are some reasons you should keep your boiler maintained and get it repaired as soon as possible when it breaks.

Catch Problems Early

Your boiler is not an appliance only used during the winter. Every time you use hot water, it is thanks to your boiler. Your boiler might be experiencing issues right now that are only going to get worse during the winter.

If you have your boiler serviced annually, technicians will be able to identify and repair problems with your boiler before they progress and become major, expensive, and inconvenient repairs. Boiler issues do not fix themselves. They are only going to get worse the longer you ignore them.

Avoid Buying a New Boiler

It may surprise you to know how affordable it is to service your boiler and make minor repairs. It is definitely less expensive than purchasing a new boiler entirely.

Doing regular maintenance and checks on your boiler will keep it running correctly. When minor issues are identified, they can be fixed right away. This minimizes the chances of your boiler completely breaking down on you later. A well-maintained boiler will last longer than one that has never received service. This will save you money.

Reduce Energy Bills

Any money you spend on a boiler repair will be recouped in the money you save on your energy bills. During the restoration, the technician will review the condition of your boiler to make sure it is running correctly. The amount of money you will save will vary based on the age of your boiler, how energy efficient it is, and how much you use it. However, keeping your boiler in good condition means that it will use less energy, lowering your bills.

Keep Your Family Safe

In addition to keeping your boiler running efficiently, repairing it keeps it running safely. Thousands of people are hospitalized or die from carbon monoxide poisoning every year. This is often caused by a faulty boiler. Unfortunately, because the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning include nausea, dizziness, breathlessness, and headaches, which can be confused with other illnesses or dismissed as nothing at all, people do not realize how their faulty boiler affects them until it is too late. Servicing your boiler ensures that you and your family are safe.

Annual boiler maintenance and repair should not be overlooked. You can avoid having to purchase an entirely new boiler for much longer if you keep yours properly maintained, taking care of any problems that might arise before they have a chance to destroy your boiler. You’ll also be able to keep your family safe from dangers such as carbon monoxide poisoning, something that can be hard to detect until it’s too late. Overall, there are only benefits, both long-term and short-term, to keeping your boiler in decent condition.

Home Repairs You Should Not Attempt to Do Yourself

In a world of giant hardware stores and endless do-it-yourself shows, it might seem like no home repair is out of the realm of the average weekend warrior. While you can accomplish a lot with some planning and an instructional video, there are limits on where this approach will get you. Knowing these limits ahead of time will ensure that you don't end up with any injuries or property damage and instead get the perfect results that you have in your mind.

Electrical Repairs

Anytime you're in close proximity to electricity, there's a risk of electric shock. Even simple tasks, such as installing a new light fixture, can turn deadly if you don't take the necessary precautions. Hiring a qualified electrician will save you a lot of time and ensure that you don't inadvertently receive a new hairstyle.

Roof Repairs and Installations

While repairing or replacing your roof can technically be a do-it-yourself task, there are a lot of variables involved that make this task better suited to a professional. One main challenge of roofing repair is the pitch of the roof that presents the risk of falling off your roof at any moment. There's also the concern of ensuring that you properly seal around protrusions in your roof so that you don't end up with leaks in your home.

Foundation Repair

If you see cracks in your home's foundation, you'll typically want to hire a professional to take care of the problem. That's because highly specialized tools are often needed to lift your home off of its foundation so that repairs can be made to the concrete. Trying to do this task yourself will almost never turn out well, especially considering the significant weight and forces involved in moving a house.

Re-Fitting Gas Lines

Routing a gas line to a new location seems fairly straightforward, especially if you have basic plumbing experience. The difference, though, is that if you do something wrong when you're working with a gas line, the mistake could result in an explosion. That's why, in many cities, it's illegal for anyone other than a licensed pipefitter to work on gas lines. Therefore, choosing a professional for these types of repairs is a legal issue in addition to the safety concerns that accompany such a task.

Final Thoughts

If you're realizing that the repairs you had in mind might not be the easiest to do yourself, there's still hope for the avid do-it-yourselfer. In many cases, you can perform smaller portions of a task without any worries about causing major damage. By taking care of these portions of the tasks yourself, you can still save money, even when you have to hire a professional to take care of the bulk of the work. Ultimately, it’s worth it in many situations to receive help from an expert that knows how to accomplish the task as safely and effectively as possible.

Revitalize Your Space with These Easy Home Upgrades

Ready to revitalize your space? Whether you love redecoration or your house hasn’t changed in decades, upgrading your house doesn’t have to be complicated. Let’s help your house feel more like a home with these easy home upgrade suggestions.

Small Personalized Touches that Make All the Difference

With home upgrades, we tend to think big, but you don’t have to do a large-scale renovation to make a significant positive impact on how your space feels. Small personalized touches can make all the difference, and it’ll be easier than you think if you can just find what will make your space exemplify your personality. Sometimes, this is as simple as marking the territory directly with the name. For example, the nursery pictured above would be pleasant but basic without the personalized neon sign that instantly elevates the space from generic to one-of-a-kind. 

We recommend that rather than trying to follow trends or match your upgrade to an influencer’s home you love, you focus your upgrades on your own interests, or the combined considerations of all the personalities living in your home. If you’re a sophisticated drinker, you’ll love having upscale barware, but if you usually just pop back a beer when you’re watching the game, you might prefer some homage to your favorite team on or near the TV stand. If your spouse loves baking with your kids, that might be something to factor into your kitchen, from upgrading your pantry area to hold more baking ingredients to buying a bigger cookie jar or cupcake holder. Your house will feel like a home when it feels like you.

Cultivated Decor that You Adore

Especially if you’ve been in a house for a while, it can be easy for stuff to accumulate, especially decorations. But when it comes to decor, it’s much better to have a cultivated selection of choices you adore rather than an overwhelming mess with options you don’t even remember buying. And that holds even with sentimental items: you’ll get more enjoyment out of your space and your decor when you only have one of grandma’s quilt art pieces displayed rather than one for each of her grandchildren. 

This means that you might have to really go through your decorations and consider what you really love and what you really could get by without. And it can really be as easy as recognizing that you don’t have a specific attachment to the landscape painting on your mantelpiece but you’ve always really wanted a historic map of your hometown. “It’s been there for ten years” isn’t a good reason to keep something on the wall unless you want it there. Your wall space is prime real estate. Even moving a picture to the opposite wall can change the feel of a room, so don’t feel like you necessarily need to rush out and buy all new art to upgrade your home.

Sleek Appliances for a Styled Look

A lot of us logically drag our feet about replacing appliances unless absolutely necessary, which makes financial sense. But when you’re looking for easy home upgrades, nothing revitalizes spaces faster than new appliances. It goes without saying that upgraded appliances will be an upgrade, but not just in giving you a double oven that finally heats up on the top and the bottom at the same rate or a washing machine that beeps like it’s supposed to again. Upgraded appliances also affect the space around them. We don’t tend to think of our fridges and TVs as design statement pieces, yet our appliances, for size and importance, do tend to define the room that they’re in. 

That means that with sleek new appliances, you can easily add a styled look to your home without changing anything else. New, matching kitchen appliances that are all white or all silver, for example, could instantly elevate the tone of your space. And don’t be afraid to experiment with less traditional looks for your appliances to find what really suits your style. Maybe you love the vintage mint green toaster or you’re ready for a chic countertop dishwasher, like the one pictured above. Find the style of upgraded appliance that gives your space the feel you want.

Don’t Be Afraid to Experiment

Finally, take heart. Most of our ideas for easy upgrades to revitalize your space rely on you knowing what you like, which can feel daunting at times. The good news is that there are no hard rules or hard timelines, so you can feel free to experiment with how you want to upgrade your home. And even if you live alone, you don’t have to work on the transition from house to home alone. 
At House to Home Organizing, we can help you get organized and centered on your goals for the space so you’re ready to make those easy upgrades that can make all the difference. Reach out so we can get started today.