Raising the value of your home is easy. You can just hire contractors to do any number of projects and when they?re done your home will be worth more money. The not so easy thing to do is to raise the value of your home in a cost-effective manner. The amount of money your home has increased in value should not exceed the amount of money that it took to do the home improvement projects.
The general rule of thumb to raise the value of your home is to do the projects yourself. The following is a list of four things that really anyone who?s physically able to stand up, move around and hold a tool can do themselves to increase their home value.
Conduct a General Home Cleaning
It is best to start with a thorough cleaning of your home. This means that you have to clean your home from top to bottom. It may also require some professional cleaning tools to ensure that your home will be thoroughly cleaned.
A good place to start would be pressure washing your driveway and using a strong detergent to remove any oil stains that might be on it. Follow up by cleaning any concrete flat work, the walls of your home and the gutters. The next step after you?ve thoroughly cleaned every surface on the outside is to move to the inside of your home.
Use a cleaning solution to thoroughly clean your walls and light switches. Use industrial-strength cleaners to remove mineral buildup on sinks and tubs. Remember to strip, clean and wax all the floors. Don?t stop cleaning until virtually every surface in your home is spotless and that includes the carpets.
Treat Decks and Fencing With Wood Preservative
Few homeowners keep up on a regular schedule of treating wood decks and fencing with a waterproofing wood preservative. This should be done every few years. Take a look at your deck and wood fencing it may be showing its age and now ready for treatment using a quality wood preservative.
Wood preservatives come in varying prices and grades. The more expensive a wood spray preservative is the more choices and color tones you will have. High graded wood preservatives look better after it?s applied and last longer. Spend some money and buy the best that?s available.
Read the instructions carefully because wood preservatives are unforgiving if they?re applied under less than optimal conditions and not according to directions. The wood must be perfectly clean and dry before use and there is also an optimal temperature range that will be listed on the instructions on the back of the container.
Don?t make the mistake of thinking that over applying will somehow make the wood new again. Wood preservatives are formulated for surface treatment only and over applying it will leave you with a tacky surface that cracks and has an odd smell. The smell won?t go away especially if you will use it on decks. Always follow the instructions to the letter.
Learn Effective Landscape Maintenance Techniques
Ask any realtor and they will tell you that the only thing on your home that gets better with time is your landscaping. Everything else on your home is going to degrade over the years.
Landscaping can be quite hard because you may know what looks good but you don?t know how to get that look on your own. This particularly holds true when it comes to what?s going on below the ground. Things like fertilizers, soil chemistry and soil pH are a dark area for far too many homeowners.
The best way to start is to spend a weekend giving your landscaping a haircut with pruning shears and clippers. Do what it takes to find out the actual name of the various trees and plants that you have growing around your yard. Research online or at your local nursery to learn what their optimal growing conditions are so you can do what it takes to provide for these plants.
Almost Anyone Can Paint a Home
For an all-around appeal, you just can?t beat a complete paint job on a home. Painting is expensive to have done professionally so if you?re looking for affordable home improvement then do-it-yourself painting is your best bet.
Painting a home both inside and out is a huge job so consider doing the job in increments. You can do little things each weekend and it might take you a few months to have the interior done but when it?s done it will be a huge improvement and will definitely reflect on your home?s value.
It?s the same thing when you paint the exterior. You can do it in increments but when you paint outdoors you do have one option that you don?t have when you paint indoors. You can rent a high-pressure airless paint sprayer from your local rental yard. This can turn a job that would otherwise take weeks to do by hand into a couple of days of work.
A Few Final Words on Value:
When a potential buyer walks through your home, what they?re really looking at is for the most part are walls, floors, decks, and trim. Make it easy on yourself by sticking to surface issues when you go do home improvements. Learn which tasks and home improvement projects are easy to do and follow. In the end, you will have a much nicer looking and high valued home.
Written by Joseph Henderson. I love writing about home improvement articles and hope this article helped you with your next project.
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Source: http://olgerfallaspainting.com/raise-value-home/
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