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Adding Curb Appeal to Your Landscape Before Selling Your Home

Congratulations, you’ve found your long-awaited dream home! But before you can move in, you have to sell your current home. A cozy haven in which you’ve had many a family celebration or quiet evening, your home is, for a potential buyer, just a house. Therefore, enticing buyers to see your home as their own potential home is your goal.

Accomplishing this is a simple matter of making your home so appealing to buyers that they find it irresistible. And adding curb appeal to your landscape before selling your home is one sure way to attract potential buyers. In fact, an attractive landscape can make all the difference in whether a potential buyer becomes the buyer.

Now, before you give up in exasperation, certain that this is far too arduous a task for you to undertake, here’s a secret: creating best landscaping is not difficult. Indeed, the transformation of your front yard from lackluster to lush is a task you can complete in a weekend. Then, the rest is only maintenance.

Here are five suggestions for adding curb appeal to your landscape before selling your home.

Mow and Weed Your Lawn

Regardless of how beautifully decorated and well maintained your home may be inside, buyers will bypass it if is unkempt outside. Mow your lawn weekly and even more often, if your fertilizer is encouraging rapid growth. A neat and well-manicured lawn always looks inviting.

Any bare spots are easily filled with seeds. For sunny areas Bermuda grass is a winner and in shady areas fescues, zoysia and St. Augustine do well. Moreover, since an overgrown lawn filled with weeds is a definite deterrent to selling your home, be sure to pull weeds whenever you see them. Now your lawn is ready for show.

Prune Your Shrubs

Overgrown shrubs obscure your home from view and a home that buyers can’t see won’t sell. That’s where pruning comes in. The foundation of any garden, evergreen shrubs require virtually no effort other than pruning, which is actually quite simple. Just follow the basic shape of the plant and cut away extraneous branches. And contrary to what you still sometimes see, don’t shape your shrubs into balls or boxes. Your goal is to create a neat and pleasing presentation as you prune your shrubs.

Additionally, if you have shrubs directly in front of your home, be sure to prune each shrub individually. This prevents the shrubs from forming a hedge, which is an unattractive look against a home. And, finally, ensure that your home’s windows are visible by keeping the overall height of your shrubs low.

Plant Seasonal Annuals

Now that you’ve taken care of your foundation plants, it’s time to add flowers. Adding color and a bit of pizzazz, seasonal annuals – flowers that bloom continuously throughout the season – are much like jewelry added to your outfit. Planted in your garden, they provide the finishing touch.

Therefore, for low maintenance beauty, select two or three easy-care annuals for your garden. By varying the shapes – a fluffy geranium, a slim, slightly taller salvia and a lacy dusty miller, for example – you add interest and charm. And the added advantage is that these flowers require only sunshine and water. Plus, if you snip the dead blooms as they occur, you’ll be rewarded with even more blossoms.

Stick to one Color for all Flowers

Another hint to bear in mind is that although a colorful garden, abounding in flowers of every hue is a beautiful sight, it also entails a good deal of work. Instead, by selecting one color for all the flowers, you’ll create a cohesive garden of quiet beauty. Buyers love that!

Far from boring, a monochromatic color scheme actually adds depth to your garden, giving the impression of a greater abundance of flowers. Besides, the use of one color enables you to focus on the earlier suggestion of selecting flowers in various shapes.

Water Your Plants

Last, but perhaps most important, is the need to water your plants. An obvious necessity, watering your plants is easily forgotten amidst all the other essentials of preparing a home for sale. Yet, after all the effort you’ve put in, you wouldn’t want to lose that lovely yard to lack of water.

An easy remedy, of course, is rain on a regular basis, enabling you to forego watering the plants yourself. Absent rain, be sure to water three times a week. And a quick spritz before potential buyers arrive will leave your garden sparkling in the sunlight as they approach the front door.

Combined, these five tips are surefire methods for adding curb appeal to your landscape before selling your home.

Using Local Wood in Your Remodeling Project

Want a really unique look for your new house, remodel, or addition? Try using local wood! Wood from species that abound in your area can bring that new room to life, with a unique feel that can’t be matched by engineered material. And, it will connect your home with the natural world around you, in a way no other building material can.

In every area of the country, there are local sawmills, millwork shops, and custom milling businesses that can provide lumber for your new project that will bring new alternatives to your choices for floor coverings, paneling, trim, outdoor siding, beams, deck boards, fencing material, and more! Where ever you live, there are local trees with beautiful wood inside, that when milled properly, can become part of an heirloom space of your home. Many of these trees are removed from jobsites, new power line right of ways, subdivisions, etc. Some are trees that naturally die in the forest every year (3-8% mortality rates). Many trees that you can get milled locally are not of much use commercially, because they are not the desired specie for the big commercial market, but still have very desirable characteristics and beauty.

One website that can show you what kind of products can be made from these trees is processingwood.com. This company specializes is custom products from locally grown and recylced wood.

Companies like CGI, LLC that operates processingwood.com, know their local species and visiting them can open your eyes to what is available in your area. You can find them by asking your contractor about shops that mill local wood, checking the yellow pages, or going online. Some wood processing equipment dealers will have listings of owners of their equipment that can lead you to someone in your area that processes this material. Logosol, a company that makes equipment for these local shops has a listing on their website of owners across the United States. Check here to see if anyone near you might be available.

What kinds of wood are out there? Here are few examples: Hickory, Ash, Maple, Sycamore, Beech, Cedars – Red or White, Alder(popple), Oaks, Juniper, Cypress, Eucalyptis, Pine(white or yellow), Fir, Redwood, Spruce – those are some of the major species. Your local shop will have the most knowledge about what is available in your area. When you visit, ask for examples and samples of the material so you can get a feel for what the material will look like in place.

Here is a good example of a local shop where you can get some beautiful local lumber: Woods of Mission Timber in Sanger Texas. Bob Pugh has built a business around the local woods of that area. He is an hour north of Dallas just off the interstate and has a beautiful showroom which shows off the wood from his area of the country. Bob mills logs from construction sites around Dallas, TX whenever possible. In this huge metropolitan area, trees are being taken down every day and many of them go straight to the landfill. Bob brings as many as he can into his facility and takes them from log to beautiful flooring, paneling, moulding, or mantles on site.

A more in-depth example of the use of local wood can be found at TimberGreen Farms. These folks mill wood off their own property into flooring, stairs, moulding, cabinets and more. They have some beautiful examples of the results of their work on their website. Jim Birkemeier, owner of TimberGreen Farms, of Wisconsin is a Forester with a new outlook on managing his forests. “We take the least commercially desirable trees in our woodlots, and turn them into beautiful products for local homes,” he says. “Over time, our forests are improving because we are leaving the best and making room for the strongest trees to grow,” he adds.

There are shops like Woods of Mission Timber and TimberGreen Farms all over the country. One website where these shops congregate is WoodWeb. A little looking in your area can bring you some beautiful results.

Local shops can also mill your wood. If you have trees that have to come down to make room for your new home or addition, find out if someone in your area can mill the logs to your specifications for you. You save money, and you end up with a truly unique home when you utilize some of this wood in your design.

The amount of trees removed yearly to new construction is staggering. One developer in North Carolina, got so upset at all the trees that were being taken down on a 700 acre mountain subdivision for roads and lot clearing, that he hired a local sawyer full time to turn the logs into lumber. He later bought other woodworking and milling equipment to make that material into flooring to be used in his exclusive homes. These homes will have a unique flavor that will connect them to the local environment in a powerful way.

Besides the natural beauty of the wood, what are some of the advantages of using local lumber? Think Green. If you are looking for ways to save energy as recommended by the U.S. Green Building Council you can do your part by using local wood. A big savings is the amount of energy used to transport the material to a central commercial sawmill is reduced. No glues are used in the making of the material or excessive chemical treatments that can pollute your inside air. And, you are helping save space in your local landfill when these logs are diverted for use in local building.

Everyone wins when you use local wood – you rescue some trees from a local landfill, the local economy is enhanced, energy is saved in the process, and you end up with a beautiful, unique home!

Next Post : Learn why quartz kitchen tops are getting so popular.

Remodeling a small bathroom is a big design challenge. Whether it is a half or a full bath, everyone wants to make the most of the space they have. No matter how hopeless it seems, it is possible to create a roomy and functional small bathroom. Here are a few basic small bathroom remodel ideas that will work with just about any size space and budget. All links are at the end of the article.

The easiest thing to do is to hire a designer or contractor that has experience remodeling a small bathroom. Typically, this would be someone familiar with Victorian houses or other style homes that have small rooms. This Old House regularly features bathroom remodels that illustrate the challenges of bathroom remodeling, and their solutions are often innovate and beautiful. Not all of us can afford Norman, but you can find your own contracting help either by checking with your local permit office for a list of licensed contractors, or snoop through local publications and call the ones that appeal to your tastes.

If your budget does not include a designer and you’re handy enough to want to tackle the job yourself, look into remodeling bathroom with smaller fixtures. Again, distributors that deal mainly with Victorian houses will probably be the most likely places to find small sinks, small toilets, and small vanities. For a full bath, you may find that a traditional style Japanese bath will work for your space. It’s a small soaking tub that is about half the size of a US Standard tub, with a shower hose for daily use. Other ideas include a wall-hung toilet and sink, and if you’re excellent with plumbing and electric you may want to consider changing the plumbing arrangement entirely to make maximum use of room space – maybe tuck a corner shower stall into the space opposite your doorway rather than the usual sink. These ideas are sweat-intensive, but are the best way to correct design that makes poor use of space.

Finally, for the lowest budget small bathroom remodel, opt for space-saving storage arrangements. Much can be done to maximize the look and feel of a small bathroom without any kind of major fixture change. First up are two fresh coats of waterproof bathroom paint. You may enjoy bold colors, but it’s believed that whites and light colors give the impression of a larger space. Skip the wallpaper and borders, as those actually make a space feel smaller and will contribute to mold, anyway. You can install shower shelving or an over-toilet towel and toiletry unit without taking away from floor space at all.

Remember that you are remodeling with your own convenience in mind. A space should always work for your needs and no one else’s. Small bathroom design may be tricky, but a thoughtfully designed space should serve you well and be a pleasure to the eye. It can be done!

There I was, resplendent in my handyman outfit of jeans, t-shirt, and a “Carhartt” ball cap, carrying what looked suspiciously like a “part”. I had this piece of metal from the water heater of my house, which was broken (the water heater, not my house.) I had no idea what it was. It could have been a “transistor”, a “relay”, or even a “volt”. But at least I looked like a handyman.

Other men were in the hardware store and each of them looked like a handyman too. They were all holding mysterious gadgets and whatnots with puzzled expressions under their ball cap visors. I could see, in the far corner under a “Lawn and Garden” sign, three store attendants whispering and looking in our collective directions. I swear I saw one of them passing money to the others.

We handyman look-alikes would occasionally cross paths in the aisles. Sometimes we’d exchange parts in the off chance of better luck in the treasure hunt.

I have a neighbor that actually knows this stuff. He’s always outside working on something. It might be his classic 1956 Chevy sedan, or lawn mowers, or the occasional space shuttle. He built a water heater with only soda cans and paper clips. But he doesn’t look like a handyman. When I see him fidgeting with things he’s generally in shorts and sneakers. His name is Bob and I believe that’s the secret.

A true handyman will have a name like Bob, John, or Bruce. On the other hand people named “Darren” can’t tell a “hammer’ from a “duct tape.” You can find them by searching handyman near me in Google.

So he doesn’t have to look like a handyman because his parents had the foresight to give him a handyman name.

My wife has a hard time understanding this. The home she grew up in was equipped with a father who not only looked like a handyman, but is one bona fide. He built utility shelves for me out of old doors. I swear I’m not making that up. Those shelves are in our utility room now, stacked chock full of tools; tools that I couldn’t name even if my 401k depended on it.

And his name is Ed. See what I mean?

Chicago Spring Cleaning Services Guide

Cleaning your home is much easier if you work little by little all year long. Spring is traditionally the time of year when the big cleaning gets done: the weather is just getting warm enough to open windows and clear out the stuffy winter air and it’s not quite warm enough to where there’s bugs outside yet. If you’ve left all your cleaning up until now, then spring cleaning probably feels a little overwhelming at this point and you might need some professional help.

Chicago is a beautiful city in the spring when flowers bloom and the weather warms, so why not help the inside of your home match the outside world with some help from a professional spring cleaning service? Many Chicago area cleaning services offer deep cleaning and other extended services at an affordable price, even if you’re only paying for the service once a year and the results make you feel great about your home. Giving the gift of a spring cleaning in a gift card can also be a great idea for a busy family, an elderly friend, or a newlywed couple. Check out these local spring cleaning service providers that cover the Chicago metro area and get on your way to a clean and healthy home.

SJ Maid Service

Andreea’s Cleaning Services has a great deal for a spring cleaning service. They literally will do anything in your home, are available for same day service when scheduled before 10am, and are only $29.99 per hour of cleaning for one maid. Their employees will deep clean, do laundry, and will follow your list of priorities for your home instead of following a corporate list that’s not suited to your needs. Chicago Maid Service is available for cleaning 24 hours a day and they will even schedule for other tasks such as babysitting. Chicago Maid Service is fully bonded and insured and if you’re not satisfied by their service they offer a partial or complete refund.

Maid Brigade

Maid Brigade claims to be the only green clean certified cleaning service in the Chicago area. Their green cleaning supplies are eco-friendly and non-toxic for your pets and kids. They provide a number of services from polishing silver to vacuuming to cleaning out your fireplace, but they won’t steam clean your carpet or do laundry. Maid Brigade is available with 24-hour notice and they are fully bonded and insured. Two maids are available for $68 per hour to help you with your spring cleaning.

Molly Maid

Molly Maid is a nationally recognized company providing service to the Chicago area that can help with your spring cleaning. They offer all of the regular services and also have carpet steam cleaning in some locations. After a free in home consultation, they can be in your home cleaning with 72-hour notice. Molly Maid is typically only available Monday through Friday from 8am to 5pm, but they will sometimes make special arrangements for out side of those hours. They are also a fully insured and bonded company.

Merry Maids

Merry Maids is considered the number one cleaning company in the United States and an appointment can be made through a local office found on their website. They offer all the regular services and also packing, unpacking, wall washing, and furniture treatment. Merry Maids claim that if you use their service regularly that you’ll never need a spring cleaning again. For a one time cleaning, the minimum estimate is $180 for 2 people for 2 hours. They are available for cleaning service Monday through Saturday and they are fully bonded and insured. When making an appointment, they’ll come out the next day for a free estimate and be able to schedule your spring cleaning the following day. Find your local Chicago office on their website to make an appointment.