Once you realise there’s not enough room in your home for the family, pets, and home business to fit comfortably without everyone and everything being on top of one another. Homeowners have two options: to sell up and move to a bigger home. Or to stay and make use of the house and land they have. This post covers the latter.
But, before diving in and knocking through walls, two questions need answering.
First, Do You Have the Means to Upsize?
Home renovations and extensions can cost a lot of money. Thus making sure you have enough funds, be it savings, or a loan, to cover expenses and potential setbacks is essential to ensure your plan to upsize can be seen through to completion.
Secondly, What’s The Purpose of Upsizing Your Home?
Think about the reasons why you would need to, for example, more storage space, an office, or an additional bathroom. From here, you can gauge what upsizing options are best from the selection below.
Options For Upsizing Your Home
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Install a Shed or Garage
Suppose you have room on your plot of land to add a garage/shed, in that case, this could be a great cost-effective solution to store gardening equipment, garden toys, cars, tools, holiday decorations etc.
In turn, you can compartmentalise and organise a lot of stuff from inside the house into your new shed or garage space. Thus, creating more living and storage room indoors and less clutter in the garden.
The loft is often a forgotten section of the home that could, with the right vision, design plans, and contractors, become another valuable area in the house. Such as a bedroom or a multi-functional room containing storage, office space, and a guest bed. As such, consider whether the loft area could have the untapped potential in your home, to add space.
Refurbish The Basement
If the loft is inaccessible, but there’s room in the cellar, here is where you might want to divert your sights.
Cellars are often viewed as dreary and sometimes damp spaces, with little to no natural light.
But if you look at basement renovations online, it’s easy to see the possibilities of using the room underground. For instance, you could create a home gym or a cinema room!
Upgrading the basement could be what your home setup needs to provide more useful room for living at home.
Add A Conservatory
Conservatories are much more budget-friendly than single story extensions. Plus, they allow nature lovers to be immersed in the beauty of the outdoors without stepping foot in the garden.
Conservatories were often used as an additional seating area. But they’re increasingly becoming popular to use for so much more, such as dining areas and home offices. Not to mention adding another room onto the home adds value to the property too.
The garden is usually used most during the summer months. But throughout the winter, homeowners are likely to stay indoors. However, by making some alterations to the garden, an outdoor living space can easily be created.
For instance, homeowners could add a patio or decking, an outdoor heater, comfy chairs, and throws for when the outdoors gets chilly. Plus, by planting an array of evergreen plants and shrubs, the garden shall be pleasant to sit in all year round.
You can see, there’s plenty of cost-effective options you can use to upsize your home without moving. Plus, any of the above additions made will only increase the value of your home too.
As an additional tip, for helping you create the feeling of more space at home, strategically placing large mirrors around the house to reflect light. Moreover, using light paint colours, intelligent storage solutions and decluttering will also assist in your bid for more room.
For a lot of people, owning and buying a home is a huge investment and gives you a great sense of pride that you do not get from renting. Whether you’ve bought before or it’s your first time, there’s a lot to consider and think about when buying a new home.
Here are three key areas that you need to give thought to before signing on the dotted line.
Do your research
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Doing research before buying a house is very important. There are a lot of factors to consider, such as what area you want to live in, what local facilities you need, public transport links, what school catchment the house is in, what sort of house you want, and the commission and fees that estate agents charge. If it’s a brand new properly, look into who develops the homes, the warranty you’ll get and check their reputation as builders. Ideally it’s good to choose a respected developer like Coral Homes, as this way you know you are getting a good quality home. Don’t skimp on your research, as a house is a big investment and you want to make sure you buy a property that suits your needs the best.
Make sure you know what you can afford
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Knowing what you can and cannot afford is very important – just because you can get a large mortgage does not mean that you have to use it. It may be great to get a big expensive home and it could be easily affordable now. But what would you do if you then lose some income down the line or have a blip where you are struggling? The last thing you want is a massive mortgage you cannot afford, if you go for something more reasonable you may well be able to keep up payments easily even in a slump. You also need to make sure you can afford the deposit and any extra fees that would need paying when buying the house. Make sure you have everything you need finance-wise, so there are no nasty surprises when it comes to buying your home.
Think about the overall cost not just the purchase price
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When it comes down to choosing your home you need to not only focus on the asking price for the home but you need to look at the bigger picture. Does the house need redecorating, does it need working on or maybe you want to rip out the kitchen and bathroom and redesign them from scratch? All of these factors needs to be considered in the cost of the home not just the purchasing of it. By doing this you can make sure you can afford everything when you have purchased it, so you do not have a half finished house when you’re done.
When renovating your home in retirement there are a few things that you should think about, such as accessibility and usability of space. Here are some tips to designing your dream home during retirement.
Why renovate?
Many retired people choose to use some of this time to renovate their home and make amendments to rooms that have needed it for a while. With more free time during retirement, you can take it steady and work on your home bit by bit instead of having to rush to get things done.
You’ll also have more funds available that you can spend on hiring professionals to do the job for you, or maybe treating yourself to that garden furniture set you’ve been interested in for years. You can either use the money you’ve saved up through your retirement funds, or those over 50 can opt for an equity release from their homes, freeing up for funds to use at your leisure as and when you need it.
Typically, as we get older, we require more amendments to make our daily lives easier. Our mobility becomes affected and we’re less able to do the things we once did with ease, such as climbing stairs, reaching the top cupboards in the kitchen, and getting in and out of the bath.
Your renovation should consider these points and accommodate where possible. Try investing in a walk-in bath, remodelling your kitchen so that cupboards are at a more attainable reaching level, and maybe investing in a stairlift for days when getting upstairs could be difficult.
Add subtle colours
Changing up your home’s colour palette for more subtle, calming colours will give a sense of class and elegance and will also require much less upkeep than bright walls and carpets which may fade over time.
Your home should be your sanctuary in your later years, so be sure to keep plenty of personality and homely touches such as photographs of your grandchildren or ornaments that provide memories.
Likewise, you’ll want furniture that is comfortable, supports your body, and is easy to get in and out of. Consider a sofa suite or armchair that uses a footrest and can be posed into different positions with the help of a remote so that you can get up much easier without straining yourself.
If you enjoy being out in the garden and reading a book, be sure to have a comfortable space where you can sit and enjoy the fresh air.
Make space for family
If you regularly have your grandchildren over, or Christmas dinner is always held at your household, you’ll want to consider making more space in these areas so that your family can get together and spend much valued time with you. You might also want a space for your grandchildren to play and enjoy themselves without the worry of knocking over any ornaments.
For this, consider getting an extension on your house and adding in a conservatory or extending your dining room so that everyone can fit nicely together.
Depending on the types of renovations you want to make, some of them could add value to your home if you were to sell or pass it onto your children.
Look around the home and see where needs the most work. Simple things like replacing cupboard doors where the hinges are worn and weak or ditching the carpet for some laminate flooring can modernise your home and add value if it was to go back on the market.
Have you got a property in the UK or abroad that you want to let out? If so, one of the most critical things that you need to do is make sure that you market your property effectively. There is a lot to consider in this regard, from the photographs you use to the descriptions that accompany them.
Advertise property space for rent online in the right way, and you can expect to get lots of interest in your vacant commercial property. However, if you do not advertise in the correct manner, you will keep frustratingly refreshing your inbox only to see that there are is no interest. Where are you going wrong? How do you drive more traffic?
There are a number of reasons why you may not be getting enough responses in regards to your property for rent. This could be because you have not been actively promoting your listing, or perhaps you have not been focusing heavily enough on the benefits of your office space. So, just how do you increase interest in order to rent a room out? We have a few tips to help you out.
Firstly, get referrals from existing or past tenants. You should also take advantage of social media. Social media is a great platform for getting the word out about the rental you have available. You shouldn’t rely on Twitter and Facebook entirely, but when you combine this with posting your property space on a professional advertising website, you have the full package.
You also need to include relevant keywords in the ad headline and body to give yourself a greater chance of moving up the search engine result pages. Highlight the benefits of your property space near the beginning of your ad copy. Examples of benefits you may want to include range from easy and convenient parking to 24-hour access. Finally, make sure to use short adjectives to highlight benefits.
You then may want to go into further detail within your property description. This is a great way to reveal more about what your property has to offer and why it is a good choice. It is also beneficial in terms of SEO and getting your listing as high up the Google search engine rankings as possible. For example, you may want to dedicate part of your description to talking about your outdoor area, from the size of the garden, if you have a pool, and what outdoor furniture is available, to the greenhouse polycarbonate glazing you have had installed. Talk about all of the features that your property has so that people can get a true feel for what it is like.
Aside from the tips that we have mentioned so far, it is a good idea to consider both professional photography and professional home staging. Home staging is important because it makes sure that your property is displayed in a manner that allows people to envision themselves living in it. When you combine this with professional photography, you can make sure that images capture the true essence of your home so that your advertising looks great.
