The Shaker of Salt

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Sure, we all know that a poor diet can make you feel drained of energy and kind of sluggish, so it makes sense that eating the right kind of food is able to give you more joy in life. It sounds unrealistic at best but, it’s true; as biological creatures, we’re nothing but slaves to our hormones, and as soon as we realize this, we’re also able to take back control.

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Although we don’t have the full story, yet, on how exactly food is able to affect our mood, we do know is that it works. This summer is perfect for committing to a few changes and discovering a new and vibrant you, so read up on the facts for more motivation.

Keep eating carbs

A lot of people are on low-carb diets. While their intentions are pure, and the low-carb dieters only want to shed a bit of weight, there are mixed feelings on the effect of this diet on mood and general well-being.

Let’s have a look at what actually goes on when you eat carbs. Tryptophan is a non-essential amino acid that works really well with serotonin, a mood regulator. When tryptophan enters your brain, it will release serotonin – and carbs helps to eliminate the competition for tryptophan. Have a look at dr Wallach products for in-depth information on food and mood as well – it’s really worth a read.

You don’t have to shy away from calorie-dense food, in other words. You just need to eat the right kind of carbs, such as whole grains, fruits, and vegetables and you’ll feel more energized and a lot happier. It’s simple chemistry and worth taking seriously, so don’t rob yourself of the important energy carbohydrates actually provide.

A diet that lacks this tends to make you feel fatigued and unwilling to hit the gym, which is just what you don’t need after a long day. Eat your bananas, whole grain bread, and potatoes with a good feeling from now on.

Omega-3 Fatty Acids

Although I would be careful with saying that any type of food can cure depression, there is evidence that a diet rich in these fatty acids change the structure of your brain. Although it sounds radical it isn’t, really; omega-3 fats help to build cell membranes, promotes the production of new brain cells, as well as reduce brain inflammation.

With all this talk about fatty acids and heart health, it’s strange that we’re not focusing the conversation on something we actually know to be true: Omega-3 is extraordinarily good for your brain.

It’s no secret that everything is all in our heads, so it makes sense that a diet that’s good for your brain will also improve your mood significantly. Eating the right kinds of fat will not only boost the capacity of your memory, but it’s also able to ease your depression.

Eat up your walnuts and salmon, in other words, and prepare for a healthier body and mind with time.

Moving to a new house is always going to be a little stressful. But just how stressful your move turns out to be is down to the decisions you make along the way. If you make the wrong decisions and take the wrong steps, it’s not going to be a surprise when things turn out stressful and frustrating. So, you need to make your family move as simple and straightforward as it can be. Here’s how to do just that.

Write it Down

The first thing you should remember to do is write things down. When you write things down, you can remember them much more easily. Or, more accurately, you don’t have to remember them because you can refer to the notes and reminders that you have made for yourself. It’s something that you can make good use of and it will make your life so much easier as you go through the move.

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Choose Honest, Reliable People to Help You

The people you work with on the move will have a big impact on how it turns out. If you opt for big companies that don’t care about their clients so much, you could be left disappointed. It’s often better to choose local removal firms that are honest and can be relied on. Small Moving Inc is a company with that kind of reputation, so find one like that in your area. When you have people working for you that you can trust, everything is less stressful.

Think Ahead When Packing and Planning

Thinking a few steps ahead when you are packing everything up and going through the move often really pays off. You won’t have to spend so much time unpacking, and the process will be less stressful, it you pack things according to a method. You might want to pack in order or just coordinate your boxes sensibly. These things really do matter, and they do make a difference, so don’t forget about that if you can help it. The same applies to planning in general.

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Give the Kids to Someone Else for the Day

You love your kids, but that doesn’t mean that they won’t make this move more stressful for you. It’s not their fault, but trying to look after kids as you also try to get through the move is never easy. The wise thing to do is let a relative or friend look after them on the day of the move. That way, they won’t have to get involved, and it will be one less thing for you to get stressed out over.

Get the Utilities in Order

Finally, make sure that your get your utilities sorted out as soon as you can. If you can get things finalised and in place ahead of the move, you won’t have to worry about that on the day and the days following it. That will make your life a lot easier, and the transition into your new home will be a lot smoother too.

So, get going and make sure that your move is plain and simple. That’s what all the best home moves are, but many people fail in that ambition. Don’t let that happen to you.

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We’ve all heard the expression… Waste is a thief. Over a period of weeks, months and years, it steals money directly out of your pocket and you don’t even notice it. Or, worse still, we do but we think that it’s more hassle than it’s worth to combat this conniving pickpocket. The fact is, preventing waste and making your home greener isn’t just easy… It can be fun and stylish too. The consumer technology industry is finally realizing that there’s a huge demand for products that will make homes greener and less wasteful while also optimizing style and user convenience.

Let’s face it, we rely so heavily on technology to allow us to deliver high definition movies to our home over optic fibres, we rely on it to wash our clothes, cook our food and help us keep warm and safe on cold dark nights. Why not allow it to help us save money too? Who knows, if enough people get on board, we could end up seriously reducing our carbon footprint as a society.

Surely, it’s worth a look, no?

Many people are under the impression that they have to carry out huge renovations on their homes in order to cut energy waste, but thankfully we live in an era where reducing energy waste is simply a matter of installing some clever gadgets without the need to install solar panels or more energy efficient windows. Here we’ll check out some of the most energy efficient, easy to use it and downright awesome gadgets to put some of that wasted money back into your pocket.

Smart Plugs

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You could be forgiven for thinking that the humble wall plug is limited in its function, but the new generation of smart plugs do more than just sit there waiting to syphon electricity to your chosen device. If you’re sick of wondering how much energy you’re using and considering the energy efficiency of your devices a mystery then worry, no longer!

The miracle of digital technology now enables us to view our energy use and associated costs in plain, easy-to-read terms through our smartphones with smart plugs. Smart plugs have been on the market for a while now and The Smart Future has a great breakdown on the types available and their prices. While smart plugs are a great way to see and manage your energy expenditure, it’s not even the coolest thing about them. They are controlled remotely through an associated app so you don’t even need to walk over to the socket anymore to switch your appliances on or off.

LED lights

Energy efficiency should be about saving money, not forking it out. With this in mind, energy saving LED light bulbs are one of the cheapest and simplest solutions on the market when it comes to fighting the good fight against energy waste. If you’re still clinging to the use of  incandescent bulbs there’s a good chance you’d be astonished at the amount of energy you’re wasting. The old fashioned incandescent light bulbs worked by super heating a filament inside to produce heat and light. The trouble is that 90% of the energy produced is in the form of heat, and only 10% on light. Now that’s pretty inefficient!

Fortunately, the market is now chock full of LED (light emitting diode) and CFL (Compact Fluorescent Lamp) bulbs that save money and help the environment while even looking stylish too!

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If you’re only familiar with the original generation’s corkscrew design you’ll be impressed at how much energy efficient bulbs have changed. Pretty Handy Girl laid out their top 12 energy saving bulbs which will give you a great idea of the style and diversity on offer.

LED bulbs in particular are hugely versatile and their small size and light weight allow for a much greater range of designs. Some of them even incorporate bluetooth speakers… How’s that for futuristic?

Shower with the “Green Warrior”

The shower can be a great place to get clean while giving the neighbors a soulful rendition of Barry Manilow’s back catalog. However much you like pina coladas, though, you don’t want to be “caught in the rain” for more than four minutes with the Green Warrior shower curtain. A long shower can be relaxing but it’s also wasteful with the average American family using 40 gallons of water per day in the shower. To prevent the excessive waste of heated, energy rich water, experts recommend you shower for no more than 4 minutes which is why this unassuming plastic shower curtain is bedecked with ‘spikes’ that will inflate to their full length after that time, making the shower virtually impossible to share.

Combine this with fitting your shower with a smart shower head and you’ve got the coolest and most eco-friendly bathroom in your neighborhood.  

SmartZone

What’s the point of heating or cooling your whole house if you and your family are only using one room? You wouldn’t have a house with just one light switch yet most of us seem perfectly content with a house that only has one thermostat. You’ll be delighted to know that you no longer have to live with the inherent wastefulness of having your homes entire heating system managed by one central thermostat. SmartZone allows you to prevent this by zoning your home with the use of up to four additional thermostats allows you to micro-manage your home’s temperature so that you can get the right temperature when and where you need it without wasting it in rooms where you’re not present. Having multiple thermostats also allows you to avoid the inherent discrepancy between reported temperature and actual temperature (which can be up to 10 degrees) which is unavoidable with a single thermostat. Check out ZoningSupply.com and you’ll see that the zoning system’s thermostats are easy to use and install. They’re also sleekly designed and unobtrusive with a simple digital interface.

Worldbeing: The ‘Fitbit’ of carbon footprint management

There was a time when digital technologies were bulky and fragile and virtually useless when taken outdoors (as anyone who ever owned a portable CD player will attest). But as it’s become smaller and hardier, it’s given rise to a huge boom in  wearable technology. Many health conscious people currently wear a fitbit; a small, stylish, unobtrusive device that helps us to monitor our calorie consumption, heart rate and the number of steps taken per-day. It also promotes healthy competition by allowing users to compare their results with their friends, families and neighbors.

It’s a great concept, but UK based design firm Layer think that they can go one better. That’s why they are currently working with The Carbon Trust to create Worldbeing; a similar device for measuring energy consumption and ascertaining the wearer’s carbon footprint. It looks amazing and could help us all to easily manage our energy consumption leading to massively reduced waste that will hopefully allow the planet to breathe a sigh of relief.

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The Freeloader

In this day and age many of us use a range of portable devices from laptops to tablets to smartphones and while we’re able to take them out and about wherever we go, it’s at home that we use the energy to charge them. But, what if you could power your mobile devices absolutely free of charge using solar power? That’s exactly what the Freeloader was devised for. Say hello to fully charged devices without using a joule of your own energy. Its integrated charging arms make it suitable for an enormous range of devices while its all-weather solar charger can power two devices at the same time.

It’s also sleek, lightweight, durable and unobtrusive making it perfect for travelling.

Radiator Boosters

Radiators (the clue’s in the name) radiate heat… or at least they should. The trouble is that not all radiators are created equal and some distribute their head sub-optimally, resulting in a lot of waste that you will ultimately end up paying for. Virtually all radiators are set up against a wall, and (unsurprisingly) much of the heat that comes off the back of them is just absorbed by those walls. In fact only 20% of the heat produced is actually radiated. Since the walls don’t seem to mind much what temperature they are then it’s pretty safe to say that this is wasteful.

Radiator Boosters sit on top of your radiator and work by drawing and redirecting the hot air that they produce. Essentially a temperature controlled fan, they kick in when the radiator’s temperature reaches around 86ºF / 30ºC. Upon reaching that temperature, the booster’s fans kick in and redirect the heat outward instead of upward, meaning that you any anyone else in the room gets to enjoy the added warmth rather than the wall.

It really works and can save you literally hundreds of dollars a year, but don’t take our word for it! A 2009 study conducted by the UK’s Energy Saving Trust, showed that users found they were able to turn down their thermostats by an average of 1- 3 degrees Celsius, resulting in energy cost savings of about GBP140 (US$220) per year.

Best of all, the device itself costs less than 50 cents a year to run. How’s that for efficiency?

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“A sleep-friendly bedroom?” I hear you say in a puzzled tone. It may indeed seem like a puzzling idea, at first. After all, aren’t bedroom inherently sleep-friendly? They have a bed in them, don’t they? Isn’t that pretty much all you need?

That seems to make sense if you don’t think about it too much. But if every bedroom was inherently sleep-friendly, how could we explain the fact that a ridiculous number of people out there don’t get the sleep they need? For most of us, we’re either waking up throughout the night, or we’re not falling asleep properly in the first place. So it seems possible for a bedroom to have a negative effect on sleep.

Your bedroom is one of the most important – if not the most important – room in your house. It’s where you relax and recharge your batteries. And when you know the importance of getting a good sleep, perhaps you’ll take these steps to making sure your bedroom is sleep-friendly.

Temperature

A bedroom that could double as a sauna, isn’t going to result in great sleep. The same could be said if your room could also double as a freezer, of course. But your body is going to warm up in your bed as you sleep, so heat can be a bigger concern. You need to cool your room down if you’re sweating and tossing and turning in the night.

Sound

It shouldn’t surprise you that noise is going to interrupt your sleep. If you’ve got sound bleeding into your room, then you need to sort that out right away. Adding soundproof material doesn’t mean you have to take the walls apart, though. Try putting bookcases stuffed with books against the walls. Place sound-absorbing in the gap between the door and the floor.

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Comfort

A lot of people are trying to sleep on mattresses that are causing long-term damage to their backs. The mattresses are either cheaply produced or they’ve worn out their welcome. If you can feel the springs of your mattress digging into you, then it’s time to upgrade.

You should also consider other furniture in your bedroom. Luxury bedroom furniture can help you get comfortable throughout the late hours of the day. This can help you de-stress properly, allowing your brain a chance to wind down before your head hits the pillow.

Lighting

You may find yourself wondering what the problem is here. Once the lights are out, then your room is pitch black, right? After all, the lights are out. Lightning should no longer a problem. Right? Actually, the problem stems from the lights you’re using before you go to bed. Really bright lights in your room in the hours before you go to bed can affect your ability to fall asleep. Again, it’s because your mind (as well as your eyes) are being kept more alert than advisable. Get a soft-light lamp, or use dimmable lighting. In the hour before bed, use that dim lighting options instead of the main light”. It will help you get into ‘sleep mode’!

Your home is a huge investment. You spend a lot of money on it, and it should be somewhere you love to be. You can expect that there’s some wear and tear on it and everything in it, or else it wouldn’t look lived in. However, you don’t want it to be too worn down, or it could just look scruffy. You need your home to be durable and able to stand up to kids, pets, or just your daily activities. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to protect your home and all its contents. Here’s what you can do to make your home more durable, so less maintenance is needed (and it’s easier when it is).

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Choose the Right Flooring

Your home’s floors see a lot of traffic. From kids and pets running around to people simply walking in and out of each room, the floors are there to be used. When they get a lot of use, making sure they’re durable is essential. For example, if you have a dog, you probably don’t want flooring that can be easily scratched. There are some excellent options that will hold up for years and years. Carpet can be very durable, but it’s not for everyone. Other choices to consider are tile and hardwood, but only if they don’t scratch too easily.

Invest in Products That Last

Whether you’re decorating or furnishing your home, deciding what to buy can take time. You want everything to look good, but you also want it to last a long time. Being willing to put a bit more money into your purchases will help you ensure you don’t have to keep replacing things. There are plenty of items you want to keep going for as long as possible, from dishwashers to mattresses. If you’re looking for a durable mattress, you can look at the Choose Mattress website. Similarly, you can find excellent comparison and review sites for all kinds of products. It’s a great way to discover the things that could be with you for years.

 

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Use Durable Paint

Painting the interior walls of your home is something you might do every few years. You might be surprised by how often you need to do a few touch-ups, though. All kinds of things can happen, from flaking paint to stains. If you choose a more durable paint, you won’t have as many problems. You can find paints that have better staying power, as well as some that are easier to wipe clean.

Protect the Exterior

There’s also the exterior of your home. Protecting it from the elements is important if you want it to be durable. One thing that many people choose to do is have siding installed. This not only helps to protect your property but also makes it look great too. Vinyl siding is a popular choice. However, brick and plaster can be just as durable, so you don’t have to install siding if you don’t want to.

Create a more durable home by looking for products and methods that can help you. Greater durability should mean less maintenance in the future.

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When it comes to purchasing a new home, it can be difficult to figure out how best to proceed. Finding the perfect space for you and your family can be difficult enough, let alone staying within your budget doing so. In the hunt to find the perfect place, especially if you’re on a timeline (helping your kids attend the new year of school on time, or starting a new job to name a couple.)

Progressing with a sound mind, especially when seeing multiple properties, is easier said than done. This might not even be the end of your stressful duty. You might be planning to move somewhere new entirely, so visiting new properties could take you or your spouse having to stay at home while the other visits properties, thus one half of the relationship will not get the full picture of the property.

There are ways to overcome this however. Using a professional checklist to make sure that your home is filled with the features it must have, if you’re hoping to buy a home with no excess work that needs doing before the move-in day. Using a professional home inspector is usually a great way of confirming your ideas about the suitability of the property, and they are likely to find areas you’ve missed.

But, by and large, these are the home features you should be looking for in a new property:

Security

Your new home needn’t be as secure as a fortress, with laser traps and thick steel walls to outride even the largest of societal disasters, but it does need to be safe. Assess the structural integrity of all of the door locks, window fittings and any other entrances to the property, such as basement entry points or garage doors.

Remember, this is where you’re hoping to move your family, and as such, you should make sure these priorities are well provided for. See what the local houses are like, and inquire as to whether there is a neighborhood watch scheme you can utilize. Smaller, less important safety features such as garden privacy fences or porches aren’t a deep requirement unless you absolutely need them, but they are nice to have.

Energy

Your energy tariffs should be ready to set up as soon as you enter the property (and preferably some days beforehand.) If there is an issue with your property being supplied, you might have to submit to a long and costly procedure to get them operational again, and if you have just moved in, you might find that you’re wasting expenditure on hotels until the time comes that the property is made ready.

Structural Integrity

This can include many things, from roofing security to prevent leaks, to the actual condition of the walls themselves. Do an exterior and interior check of the walls and roofing to understand exactly how safe, cracked or damaged the walls are. Sub-optimal conditions can leave your home structurally unsafe, and this will be much worse in comparison to having faulty locks.

Ensure that your family is safe before you step foot anywhere inside your home. These tips will do plenty to help you with this.

With the environment facing new challenges greater than ever seen before, now is the perfect time to start thinking ahead with regards to eco-planning. Your home doesn’t have to sacrifice style in order to become greener to the world. In fact, quite the contrary; you have a chance to forge a new path, go somewhere where many others dare to not even dream of. Everything you can think of in your home, can in one way or another be implemented in a safer more ecological way, without the encroachment of family living space. Not only are you choosing a decor and ambiance that’s becoming more and more popular by the day, but you’re also getting the benefits of saving money from energy conservation. Essentially the key is to use minimal materials that affect the environment, yet also engage in a positive atmosphere where heat, light and strength are reverberated and circulated throughout the home. By creating a managed green living space for your family, you’ll be passing on lessons and important values to those you love.

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Keeping warm

Insulation is one of the most important things that you need to consider while designing the interior of your home. You may already have insulation in the walls, but if your rooms are large, or you have thin walls, you’ll lose the warmth quickly or simply not catch enough of it, to begin with. Do away with metal chairs and items in the home. It takes a lot for metals to consolidate heat, yet take away almost as much. Clay plant pots, wooden-framed chairs and tables are much better at storing the sun’s heat as well as central heating. Rather than a leather sofa, you should get a fabric variant, so your body heat is better captured and given back.

Energy efficiency

If you have light bulbs of an older generation, they could cost you a small fortune of your lifetime. Currently, the technology the requires the least amount of power but shines brighter than any other sort, are LED bulbs. CFL bulbs are also more efficient than traditional incandescent bulbs and last longer with fault rates lower. The modern trend in kitchens and living rooms is to have wooden flooring. No doubt, the price of a home goes up noticeably. However, where you make money, you lose somewhere else due to poor planning. With designers that have a remarkable ability in eco friendly building, you can decide how best to keep your true style alive, while creating an even greater insulated home. Whether it’s a rug, carpet or selection and design of flooring, your living room and other large spaces can capture and store warmth for longer.

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Becoming independent

Solar panels can free you from the burden of having to rely on energy providers. Of course, the sun isn’t always going to be able to produce the entirety of the energy your household needs, but every little step towards a greener, self-reliant home helps the environment. By installing solar panels on your roof, you can utilize natural power. Truth be told, most modern homes in the future will come with solar panels as the technology is ready to be mass produced, but governments and contractor companies are figuring out the price to install in ready-made homes. However, some government grants and the incentive of lower bills and tax breaks are a huge bonus to those who want to rely on solar power in their home.

Owning a home really is a huge responsibility. Even if you manage to save up for a deposit and are lucky enough to snag a mortgage that’s just the beginning. You have a lifetime of home maintenance ahead of you and a million things that could go wrong! Of course, owning a home is completely worth it and there are few greater achievements as an adult than getting a foot on the property ladder, although you do have to be prepared to deal with everything that comes along with it. Here are just a few of the jobs you will have to contend with when you’ve signed your name on the dotted line for your mortgage.

Pests

Pests are every homeowner’s nightmare. Don’t be naive enough to think you’re immune from getting them because you keep a clean home- while everything being clean and tidy makes them far easier to spot pests can (and do) move into clean and dirty homes alike. Rodents can squeeze through the tiniest of gaps, and cause havoc by chewing electrical wires, plaster, getting into your pantry and spreading disease over the home. According to rospa.com/leisure-safety/water/advice/weils-disease, rodents can spread diseases called Leptospirosis and Hantavirus which are incredibly dangerous to humans.  They’re also known to carry and spread antibiotic resistant strains of e-coli and salmonella which is extremely bad news. Then you also have pests like insects. If your home was unoccupied for a while before you moved in you could be dealing with nests of spiders, cockroaches, certain species of moth can even lay eggs in your carpet and feast on it for generations of life cycles causing damage. Termites are a particularly problematic pest since they can cause structural damage to the home. Outside you may get nests of wasps or bees, or pigeons nesting in the eaves of the roof. Because their droppings are corrosive, they can lead to damage which eventually causes leaks and other expensive repairs. While there are effective DIY solutions for pests, depending on the extent of the problem you may be better off calling in an exterminator. Since it can be difficult to completely kill the life cycle of some pests, you might think they’ve gone only for the problem to come back as a few eggs managed to survive. Have some money in your home maintenance account to be able to tackle problems like this as they come up.

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Home Security

As a homeowner, it’s your responsibility to keep your family and possessions safe. As long as you have anything valuable, there will be someone out there that’s happy to take it given the chance. Even if you live in a nice neighborhood, you’re not safe, if anything you’re more at risk as thieves will come from elsewhere knowing you more than likely have more valuable possessions. Your first port of call should be to get covered with a good home insurance policy. That way, at the very worst case scenario you will at least get the money back for the items stolen, and won’t end up out of pocket.

If you go to a site like oklahomainsurancequotes.net/home-insurance/ you can compare prices quickly and easy without the need to trawl all over the internet. Your next step would be to stop burglars in their tracks should you become a target. Both visible CCTV and a professionally installed burglar alarm will act as deterrents as well as be useful if a break-in attempt is made. Good quality windows and doors will prevent access being made through jimmying with a crowbar, and decent locks will physically keep your stuff in- and the bad guys out.

There are all kinds of other security measures you can take on top of this. Using smart home equipment allows you to monitor your CCTV through your phone as well as turn lights on and off from it. That way you can create the impression that someone is in, even if they’re not. You could use an automated curtain rail to open and close curtains- ideal if you work odd shifts or are away from home a lot. If you set up a tv or radio to a timer switch, this will go on and off periodically, again creating the illusion that someone is home. That way if a burglar is scoping out your home, it doesn’t look empty so prevents the chances of it being targeted. While dogs should be one of the family instead of purely seen as guard dogs, if you have space in your home for a furry friend then teach them to bark at the door. Burglars hate dogs, and should an attempt be made it’s likely to put them off if they can hear a dog causing a racket inside.

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Home Safety

As well as security, safety in the home is another issue. Our houses have the potential to be incredibly dangerous, so much so that more accidents happen in the home than anywhere else. Some of the home safety measures you should take are placing fire extinguishers and knowing what kind of fires each can be used on. For example, a foam extinguisher in the shed would be useful as it can be used for burning paint or petrol, but not on chip pan fires. A fire blanket is far more useful for this so something worth having in the kitchen. Water extinguishers are useful for things like wood and cloth, if a fire were to start in the bedroom or living room due to a candle being knocked over for example this would be useful. https://www.thespruce.com/best-fire-extinguishers-4119474 has more information on this if you’re planning on making a purchase.

Other home safety features you could add are a smoke alarm (one should be installed on every floor of the house) and a carbon monoxide alarm. You also have to be wary of things like nails sticking up in wood or loose carpet on stairs. They have the potential to cause a serious accident. If someone comes into your home and is injured on this, you might even end up with a lawsuit on your hands. If you have children in the home, childproofing is another important step. Remove cleaning chemicals from low down cupboards or buy cupboard locks. Make sure there are no choking hazards on the floor, and a lock on the outside of the bathroom can be useful too. Children have been known to turn on taps drown in shallow baths when adults backs have been turned for just a few minutes.

Maintenance

Paying for home maintenance is never much fun. It’s often expensive, and you usually can’t even tell anything has been done. Whether it’s electrical safety or repairs, plumbing, roof repairs or having the gutters cleaned. However, these are important jobs and something you need to be on top of as a homeowner. It can be useful to save the dates and nature of any maintenance visits you’ve had done, just in case you need to refer back to it at a later date. Other maintenance repairs include decoration- peeling wallpaper, chipped paint and out of date tiling might not be the end of the world, but certainly, wont be allowing you to make the most of your home. And don’t forget the gardens and outside space too. If you don’t want to pay a gardener, it’s something you could get into yourself. It will keep you fit and give you something to keep you busy over the warmer months.

Eco-Friendly Features

Our homes can be huge energy drains, the average home using excessive amounts of fossil fuels to keep it powered. But as a homeowner, you have the opportunity to be a little kinder to the environment. Small changes like recycling your plastic and paper, or composting old foods and cardboard all reduce the amount of waste that goes to landfill. Either buy a composting bin or make one yourself, your reduce your carbon footprint and get free compost to use on your garden once it’s all broken down too. You could switch the bulbs in your home to energy saving bulbs, these use far more power, and as a bonus, they have a much longer life too. https://www.digitaltrends.com/home/crees-new-led-light-bulbs-last-27-years/ states that some can even last over twenty seven years! So as well as spending less money on bulbs (which can be expensive!) you also save money on your bills and help the environment by using less power.

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Cleanliness

As an adult and homeowner, you’re the one responsible for keeping things tidy. You don’t have parents or anyone else nagging you to keep it clean, it’s something you have to just get done yourself. Find a system that suits you and stick with it. If you’re busy in the week, you could do a big clean at the weekend instead. Otherwise, you could spend fifteen minutes each day doing jobs to keep on top of everything. Each household member could have a set number of chores that they’re responsible for each week, or you could create a rota. When you’ve spent all of this money on a home, it makes sense that you’d keep it nice which will allow you to enjoy the space.

 

For people who are thinking of selling their home, one of the biggest worries is pulling their hair out with stress. After all, selling a house can be ridiculously stressful. However, there are some steps you can take to ensure you sell your home without pulling any hair out at all.  Here are 6 things you can try!

Invite Your Neighbors Over To Your Open House

Having an open house can be a little daunting. What if nobody shows up? What if they don’t like what they see? A good tactic you can use is inviting your neighbors over. Not only will you have morale support, they can introduce themselves to people and help you to sell your property. If you know you have great neighbors, this is a great tactic that will help you to sell your home easily!

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Make Sure Your Agent Is Properly Marketing Your Home Online

Marketing your property online is just as important as marketing it offline. Having a compelling online listing is so important if you’re going to get viewings, so make sure you check this out. Listings with more than 6 pictures are twice as likely to get viewed, so you need great, high quality pictures of 6 or more.  

Sell To A Company

If you want minimal paperwork and you’re not too fussed about getting as much money as possible, you could always consider selling your home to a company. Companies will attempt to make things as easy and quick as possible for you while giving you a fair offer. You can look at pages like www.varealestatesolutions.com/areas-we-serve-hampton-roads/we-buy-houses-in-virginia-beach/ to give you an idea of what is to be expected. It’s not an option for everyone, but for others, it really works.

Try An Unusual Technique

There are a few unusual marketing techniques you could try if you want to get as much interest in your house as possible. Why not make a YouTube video? If you’re good with computers and fancy yourself as a bit of a videographer, you could create a video showing off your home, the street, and even your neighbors. It’s probably best to keep this video short and interesting, leaving people thinking about what a great life and lots of fun they could have in your neighborhood.

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Depersonalize And Neutralize

Depersonalizing and neutralizing your home is one of the first things you should do. Rent a storage facility so you have somewhere to put your belongings. You should take away all things from your home that mark it as yours, such as pictures of the family.

Learn About The Competition

Learning about your competition can tell you where you need to improve. Attend open houses in the area and see what they’re doing that you could be doing. This is what your viewers are going to be seeing, so make sure you take note.

Try these 6 methods for selling your home and you should be able to sell with minimal hassle!