Whether you’re improving, organizing or repairing some aspect of your home, getting it done efficiently and at the most affordable cost is generally the goal. The seven tips below touch on several of these areas and provide food for thought for achieving this objective.
1. Invest in a toilet tank water saver. If you’re remodeling your bathroom and you have a perfectly good commode that matches the other fixtures, but you’d like it to be environmentally friendly, save the money involved in an extravagant low flow toilet and purchase a toilet tank water saver instead, installing it into your present toilet.
2. Seal drafty areas. When you want to stop paying money where you don’t have to, go over your home and seal all the little air gaps around windows and doors that can let out all of your heat and cool. Caulking, draft excluders when your windows are closed, weather stripping, and draft stoppers under doors can make a measurable difference.
3. Save used coffee and tea grounds for acid-loving plants. Plants like gardenias, blueberries, azaleas, camellias, and rhododendrons are plants that love high acidity in their soil. To ensure that they have what they need for optimal health, without spending extra money, save used coffee grounds and tea leaves and sprinkle about a quarter of an inch thickness of them onto the soil on a monthly basis. This will keep the soil adequately acidic.
4. Consider the long-term value of a kitchen counter before buying. Think very carefully about the material that you would like to use for your countertops. The actual price you pay is different than its genuine value. If a countertop cost less, but doesn’t last very long, then you’ll end up paying much more in the long run. Find a material that has a long life and a price within your budget to ensure the highest value overall.
5. Use a pegboard in your garage. To make sure that your most often used tools are easy to find and grab when you need them, hang them from a pegboard with screws set into them to fit the tools perfectly. Trace each item with a marker so that you can always see where to put it back at a brief glance.
6. Create a renovation schedule. Planning with a schedule will help you to keep motivated and on track. It doesn’t need to be set in stone; as elements take more or less time than thought, it can be altered to some extent. However, scheduling will make certain that the work will continue to move ahead instead of slowing, stagnating or being left partially completed.