What is home improvement?

Direct from Wikipedia. 

Home improvement, home renovation, or remodelling is the process of renovating or making additions to one's home. Home improvement can be projects that upgrade an existing home interior (such as electrical and plumbing), exterior (masonry, concrete, siding, roofing), or other improvements to the property (i.e. garden work or garage maintenance/additions).

Contents

  [hide] 

• 1Types of home improvement
  • 1.1Comfort
  • 1.2Maintenance and repair
  • 1.3Additional space
  • 1.4Saving energy
  • 1.5Safety and preparedness
• 2Home improvement industry
  • 2.1Renovation contractors
• 3In popular culture
• 4See also
• 5References
• 6Further reading

Types of home improvement[edit]

While "home improvement" often refers to building projects that alter the structure of an existing home, it can also include improvements to lawns, gardens, and outdoor structures, such as gazebos and garages. It also encompasses maintenance, repair, and general servicing tasks. Home improvement projects generally have one or more of the following goals:^[1]

Comfort[edit]

• Upgrading heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems (HVAC).
• Upgrading rooms with luxuries, such as adding gourmet features to a kitchen or a hot tub spa to a bathroom.
• Increasing the capacity of plumbing and electrical systems.
• Waterproofing basements.
• Soundproofing rooms, especially bedrooms and baths.

Maintenance and repair[edit]

Maintenance projects can include:

• Roof tear-off and replacement.
• Replacement or new construction windows.
• Concrete and masonry repairs to the foundation and chimney.
• Repainting rooms, walls or fences
• Repairing plumbing and electrical systems.

Additional space[edit]

Additional living space may be added by:

• Turning marginal areas into livable spaces such as turning basements into recrooms, home theaters, or home offices – or attics into spare bedrooms.
• Extending one's house with rooms added to the side of one's home or, sometimes, extra levels to the original roof. Such a new unit of construction is called an "add-on".^[2]

Saving energy[edit]

Homeowners may reduce utility costs with:

• Energy-efficient thermal insulation, replacement windows, and lighting.
• Renewable energy with biomass pellet stoves, wood-burning stoves, solar panels, wind turbines, programmable thermostats,^[3] and geothermal exchange heat pumps (see autonomous building).

Safety and preparedness[edit]

Emergency preparedness safety measures such as:

• Home fire and burglar alarm systems.
• Fire sprinkler systems to protect homes from fires.
• Security doors, windows, and shutters.
• Storm cellars as protection from tornadoes and hurricanes.
• Bomb shelters especially during the 1950s as protection from nuclear war.
• Backup generators for providing power during power outages.

Home improvement industry[edit]

Further information: Hardware store

Home or residential renovation is an almost $300 billion industry in the United States,^[4] and a $48 billion industry in Canada.^{[5][full citation needed]} The average cost per project is $3,000 in the United States and $11,000–15,000 in Canada.

Professional home improvement is ancient and goes back to the beginning of recorded civilization. One example is Sergius Orata, who in the 1st century B.C. is said by the writer Vitruvius (in his famous book De architectura) to have invented the hypocaust. The hypocaust is an underfloor heating system that was used throughout the Roman empire in villas of the wealthy. He is said to have become wealthy himself by buying villas at a low price, adding spas and his newly invented hypocaust, and reselling them at higher prices.

Renovation contractors[edit]

Perhaps the most important or visible professionals in the renovation industry are renovation contractors or skilled trades. These are the builders that have specialized credentials, licensing and experience to perform renovation services in specific municipalities.

While there is a fairly large ‘grey market’ of unlicensed companies, there are those that have membership in a reputable association and/or are accredited by a professional organization. Homeowners are recommended to perform checks such as verifying license and insurance and checking business references prior to hiring a contractor to work on their house.

In popular culture[edit]

Home improvement was popularized on television in 1979 with the premiere of This Old House starring Bob Vila on PBS. American cable channel HGTV features many do-it-yourself shows, as does sister channel DIY Network.^[6]Danny Lipford hosts and produces the nationally syndicated Today's Homeowner with Danny Lipford. Tom Kraeutler and Leslie Segrete co-host the nationally syndicated The Money Pit Home Improvement Radio Show.

Movies that poked fun at the difficulties involved include: Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948), starring Cary Grant and Myrna Loy; George Washington Slept Here (1942), featuring Jack Benny and Ann Sheridan; and The Money Pit (1986), with Tom Hanks and Shelley Long. The sitcom Home Improvement used the home improvement theme for comedic purposes.

See also[edit]

• Home improvement portal
• Housing portal

• Home repair
• Housekeeping
• HVAC - Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning
• Maintenance, repair and operations

References[edit]

1. Jump up^ "Kitchen Remodel: 101 Stunning Ideas for Your Kitchen Design". Decoist Magazine. Retrieved 2 August 2014.
2. Jump up^ "Add-on". English Oxford Living Dictionary (US). Oxford University Press. Retrieved 20 February 2017.
3. Jump up^ Use a Programmable Thermostat, Common Sense, to Reduce Energy Bills, Brett Freeman, oldhouseweb.com
4. Jump up^ Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, 2007
5. Jump up^ "Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation - Société canadienne d'hypothèques et de logement".
6. Jump up^ Cerone, Daniel (17 September 1991). "Tim Allen's Power Tools : Television: The comic who had Disney and cable executives abuzz parlayed his luck to develop 'Home Improvement". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 16 June 2015.

A Better First Impression With Commercial Pressure Washing

Soil, grime, and mold sneak up with you. What begins as a smidgen of a development can transform into a revolting and harming mess quick. This not just destroys the presence of your building, it can likewise prompt expensive harms not far off. By planning consistent business control washing, you make a little speculation that will enable your building's base to line in various ways.

A Better First Impression With Commercial Pressure Washing 

Your building just gets one opportunity to establish a first connection. On the off chance that the dividers, walkways, and windows are canvassed in soil, how would you believe that will impact potential inhabitants? Odds are, you will lose business as individuals will be so neutral with the muddled outside, nothing inside the building will alter their opinions. A business control wash every once in a while will change that.

A filthy outside likewise makes issues with your present occupants. Nobody likes returning home to a chaotic building and your absence of cleaning will leave numerous asking why they marked a rent in any case. Inhabitants will likewise begin addressing how you're utilizing their HOA charges. By consistently cleaning your building, you'll make a climate that is satisfying to new and old occupants alike.



Business Power Washing Services Are A Money Saver

On the off chance that you don't consistently clean the outside of your building, the earth development can cost you in excess of a couple of ways. A portion of the issues you could keep running into include:

Breaks creating on your dividers and walkways from buildup and shape.

The need to supplant windows that are excessively messy, making it impossible to see out of and clean.

Harmed drains that are stopped up with an excess of soil.

Claims from individuals that slip and fall on green growth developments on the floors.

Every one of these issues are substantially more costly than the expenses of a business control washing administration. Standard building upkeep unquestionably pays off at last.

Business Regular Pressure Washing Is Easy Pressure Washing

The more you let soil development, the harder it is to evacuate. In the event that you continue putting off your weight washing, the activity will be significantly more troublesome and costly.



Walkway business control washing by all inclusive site servicesYour cleaners will need to invest more energy to tidy up your building and should utilize all the more expensive gear and supplies. What's more, there is a more prominent shot that a few sections might be excessively filthy, making it impossible to clean and should be supplanted. When you plan customary cleanings, each activity will be speedy and basic.

Try not to get demoralized however in the event that you haven't booked a cleaning in a while. With business weight washing, it's preferable late over never. The correct cleaning administration will have the capacity to make your filthy outside looking great as new. From that point, you can get back on track to a consistent cleaning plan. It's smarter to pay for one marginally more costly cleaning today as opposed to tarrying to exorbitant harms and substitutions tomorrow.

Keeping the outside of your building clean is as simple or entangled as you make it. Kicking the cleaning can not far off will prompt greater bills and greater cerebral pains. With business weight washing, really a little goes far.

Inventive Commons Attribution: Permission is allowed to repost this article completely with credit to Universal Site Services and an interactive connection back to this page.

Searching for approaches to spruce up your home without placing yourself in the poorhouse?

Searching for approaches to spruce up your home without placing yourself in the poorhouse? Regardless of whether you're preparing to pitch your home or need to spiff it up modestly for your own particular satisfaction, we have 10 great techniques for you to consider.

The genuine cost and payback for each venture can fluctuate, contingent upon both your home's condition and general land showcase esteems in your district of the nation.

RATE SEARCH: Want to tap your home value to make enhancements to your home? Locate the least rates at Bankrate.com.

Lift your home's estimation

These basic updates can without much of a stretch add a large number of dollars to your home's estimation.

10 shabby fixes

Make your kitchen truly cook.

Give apparatuses a facelift.

Buff up the shower.

Advance up your capacity.

Include a room in a week or less.

Mind the mechanics.

Look underneath.

May there be light.

Reframe your entrance.

Consider check bid.

1. Make your kitchen truly cook. The kitchen is as yet thought about the core of the home. Potential home purchasers scramble toward this room when they first view a home available to be purchased, so ensure your kitchen looks clean and sensibly refreshed.

For a couple of hundred dollars, you can supplant the kitchen spigot set, include new cupboard entryway handles and refresh old lighting installations with brighter, more vitality productive ones.

On the off chance that you have a marginally bigger spending plan, you can give the cupboards themselves a makeover. "Instead of spring for a radical new cupboard framework, which can be costly, investigate procuring a refacing organization," says serial remodeler Gwen Moran, co-creator of "Construct Your Own Home on a Shoestring."

"Numerous organizations can evacuate bureau entryways and drawers, resurface the bureau boxes, at that point include fresh out of the box new entryways and drawers. With a crisp layer of paint over the entire set, your cupboards will look like new."

In case you're helpful, you can arrange your own particular substitution bureau entryways and entryway fronts from retailers like Lowe's Home Improvement or The Home Depot and introduce them yourself.

2. Give apparatuses a facelift. On the off chance that your kitchen apparatuses don't coordinate, arrange new entryways or face boards for them. At the point when Nicole Persley, a Realtor in Boca Raton, Fla., was sprucing up her own particular home to offer, her blend and-match kitchen irritated her. The room had a white dishwasher, microwave and divider broiler blended with different pieces that were treated steel with dark trim.

At the point when Persley called the dishwasher maker to see about requesting another, dark face board, the client benefit agent educated her concerning a major mystery: Many dishwasher boards are white on one side and dark on the other.

"All I needed to do was unscrew two screws, slide out the board and flip it around. Beyond any doubt enough — it was dark on the opposite side!"

Persley, who has redesigned various homes for resale, says that a more durable looking kitchen has a major effect in the purchaser's psyche — and in the home's resale cost.

3. Buff up the shower. By the kitchen, restrooms are frequently the most vital rooms to refresh. They, as well, can be enhanced without a great deal of money. "Indeed, even straightforward things like another latrine situate and a platform sink are quite simple for mortgage holders to introduce, and they have a major effect in the look of the shower," says Moran.

Moran likewise recommends supplanting an old, stained restroom floor with simple to-apply vinyl tiles or a little bit of sheet vinyl. "You may not have to take up the old floor. You can introduce the new floor directly finished the old one," she says.

In the event that your tub and shower are looking dirty, consider re-grouting the tile and supplanting any chipped tiles. A more entire conceal is a pre-assembled tub and shower encompass. These one-piece units may require proficient establishment yet can even now be less expensive than paying to re-tile dividers and restore a ragged tub.

4. Advance up your capacity. Old houses, especially, are infamous for their absence of storage room space. In the event that you have cramped capacity territories, Realtor Moe Viessi of Miami recommends including do-it-without anyone's help wire and overlay storage room frameworks to rooms, storerooms and section wardrobes.

Firms like ClosetMaid enable you to quantify and update your storage rooms on the web. You can likewise get configuration subtle elements and parts for these frameworks at numerous extensive home-change stores. Most storage rooms can be refreshed in an end of the week or less.

At last, your storage rooms will be more practical while you're living in the house and will make your home look more modified to potential purchasers when you're prepared to offer.

5. Include a room in a week or less. "In the event that you have a three-room house with a sanctum, the main reason the lair can't be viewed as a room might be on the grounds that it doesn't have a wardrobe," says Persley. "On the off chance that you add a storeroom to that room, you've now got a four-room house. That includes a great deal of significant worth."

Persley says it's normally conceivable to include a custom storage room framework and drywall it in for under $1,500.

6. Mind the mechanics. Finley Perry of F.H. Perry Builder in Hopkinton, Mass., advocates spending a couple of bucks on low down stuff. "It's frequently extremely beneficial to contract a circuit repairman and handyman for two or three hours to investigate your electrical administrations, wrap or fix free wires, settle any flawed outlets, and check for and settle any water spills," Perry says. "Those subtle elements tell a purchaser that somebody has extremely dealt with the home and can truly impact its cost."

7. Look underneath. Covering is another detail that can rapidly refresh a home and influence it to look more clean. An expert cover cleaning is an economical venture, particularly if your floor coverings are fit as a fiddle and are nonpartisan hues.

On the off chance that your cover is demonstrating genuine wear, cover it with reasonable, deliberately set territory carpets. Unless it is genuinely frightful, most land specialists don't propose supplanting one end to the other covering just before you offer your home. The new property holders might need to pick their own covering after they move in.

8. May there be light. On the off chance that you have exhausting recessed lights in your eating and lounges, consider supplanting one of the room's lights with an eye-getting crystal fixture. Home stores offer an extensive variety of reasonable, yet pleasant looking, roof installations nowadays. On the off chance that you have a roof fan and light, you can likewise purchase substitution fan edges (leaving the fan body set up) to refresh the apparatus' look.

9. Reframe your entrance. Do you have a wobbly little handle on your fundamental section entryway? Assuming this is the case, spring for a generous looking handle-and-bolt set. "A decent, huge bit of equipment on the front entryway signs to newcomers this is a strong home," says Viessi.

Additionally, in case you're screwed over thanks to an essential steel front entryway, Persley recommends painting or false completing it for more eye advance. "It's turning into a pattern in Florida to add wood-grain ways to a home's entrance or carport. The uplifting news, however, is that you can without much of a stretch paint existing metal entryways with stain and paint," she says.

In the wake of utilizing a decent metal groundwork, Persley gives the entryway a base layer of paint (once more, make certain to utilize one affirmed for use over metal). For a cherry wood look, Persley utilizes a burgundy base paint. After it dries, she brushes over the base coat with a cherry wood recolor. "It truly looks astonishing, and it just takes a couple of hours," she says.

10. Consider control request. In spite of the fact that it sounds self-evident, a pleasantly cut yard, a couple of all around put bushes and a cleared walkway establishes an incredible first connection. "What purchasers see when they first drive by your house is immensely critical," says Viessi.

On the off chance that you don't have a green thumb, consider procuring a gardener to introduce some new turf, plant a couple of evergreen bushes and give your front yard a decent cleanup. "These sorts of changes can in a flash change individuals' view of your home and, in this way, increment its esteem," says Viessi. What's more, hello, your neighbors will love you for it, as well.

As a property holder, there are likely things you adore about your home and things you could remain to change.

As a property holder, there are likely things you adore about your home and things you could remain to change. Things being what they are, how would you approach organizing each venture so you wind up with incredible outcomes without getting stuck between a rock and a hard place? There are presumably numerous spaces that you'd get a kick out of the chance to offer consideration regarding, yet the restroom might be one that is higher on the rundown than others. Be that as it may, when would it be advisable for you to make it your main undertaking or spare it until some other time?

Poor Layout – The format in a washroom can have a significant effect in the way you use the space. Is your can the main thing you see when you look in the entryway? Does your sink block your capacity to enter and leave the shower? Things like this can make washroom renovating an essential undertaking to handle.

Pipes Problems – Any time you have significant pipes issues, there is a chance to make washroom renovating a need. On the off chance that your handyman as of now prescribes supplanting the funnels, for what reason not pick the vanity, latrine, and shower that will make your washroom its best?

Non-Functional – If you have a restroom in your home that never gets utilized on the grounds that it's non-utilitarian, it's a great opportunity to improve utilization of this room! Your visitors and your family will like seeing this essential space meet up once more.

At Precision Decorating, we can help with both the renovating and the inside plan of your restroom rebuilding venture. Get in touch with us today to take in more about how we can help you

How to make your home look years younger!

Blog time! Today I am going to be going over how to make your home look years younger. Want to know how? Pressure Washing! 

Living in Houston, Texas can be hard on your home. The climate it tough! Lots of times our homes will turn dark and look old and tired. The common problems are black driveways, stained roofs, and mold on our homes. This can all be fixed by pressure washing.

When your driveway is black and stained with dirt and mold it can cause many problems. The first of many is that looks bad! You can have HOA barking up your tree.  HOA will send you a notice and you will have to fix it! Another big issue is the cracking of our driveway. Mold will get into the cracks and separate the concrete as it expands. This will destroy your driveway over time! That is a costly fix! The solutions! Get your driveway professionally pressure washed. Make sure the company uses detergents to kill the mold and help prevent it from coming back! I would recommend south coast pressure washing. They are great!



Stained roofs look bad to let's face it. If your roof has dark streaks on it it's a big issue. HOA loves pointing this out and slapping us with fines. The mold separates the shingles and causes leaks! This is so pricey to fix! Thousands of dollars. The solution! Get your roof soft washed. Soft washing is safe for your roof and will clean it quickly and efficiently.

Whats that green stuff on your home? That's mold and its bad for you! Mold can cause serious medical problems and hurts the exterior of your home. Like roof washing, this can be taken care of by using the soft wash process. Low pressure with detergent will get the mold of safely without damaging the home.

Who would I recommend for this work? Like I said before I would recommend South Coast PResure Washing. They are the best pressure washing company in Houston, Texas. I have used others but I don't think anyone else compares! They are experts in the industry and do a great job. They have a full blog that teaches you about their process and other extra benefits. Here are some of their services:

Driveway pressure washing
Pressure washing
House Washing

Check them out!

If you are looking for more home improvement tips check out my other blog posts! They will be informative and help you get your home in shape! Thanks for stopping by and will see you next time.