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Site Contents
Interior Design Basics:
- Homepage
- Interior Design Basics
- The Basics of Color
- Wall Treatments
- Fabrics
- Furniture
- Window Treatments
- Flooring Treatments
- Securing Your Home
- Green Home Basics
Free Pics and Vids:
Recommended Advanced Reading:
- Easy Home Decorating
- DIY Handyman Guide
- Drywall Installation
- Kitchen Design
- Bathroom Design
- Home Theater Design
- Furniture Selection
- Feng Shui Better Living
- Guide to Home Security
- Big $ Fixing Up Houses
- Build New Home Save $
- Landscaping Plans
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Don't Risk Losing Your Home!
In most parts of the world today, housing is becoming less affordable. The average costs of mortgages are crippling people. Many folks may never be able to afford a home of their own. Those who can are often in danger of losing their homes to the banks if housing values drop and their debt to equity ratio is altered.
If you can afford to buy, you don't have to grind yourself and your family into the ground trying to pay off a brand new, massive, expensive house. If you currently have a mortgage on a house in a falling market you CAN raise the value of your home to protect your debt to equity ratio by renovating and re–valuing. If you rent, you don't have to live in an uncomfortable, aesthetically challenged house.
A comfortable lifestyle does not require a mansion. Small cozy houses can be made luxurious and more valuable for a small amount of money through clever interior design. On this web site a qualified Interior Designer, Renovator and Butler will introduce you to the basic knowledge you need about interior design that you can use to transform any house into a home.
That is what we are about, providing you with the knowledge you need to inexpensively make the best out of what you have. We provide this knowledge for free and try to make money out of our advertisers. Please visit our sponsors to help keep us in cyber space.
Visit the Interior Design Message Board to ask your questions on this topic and receive personalized advice.
Before we start let's have a look at some basic design renovation tips. This web site is focused on interior design and will explore this topic at length over the following pages but I wanted to include these renovation tips as they are related to interior design and can add tens of thousands of dollars to the value of your home for a fraction of this amount.
Renovation Tips
Warning! renovating your landlords' house without permission can lead to unseemly arguments. It's funny to watch, but not a recommended strategy. This chapter is of most use to property owners.
Remember to keep in mind this web site is mostly about interior design not building or landscaping. The tips on this page are just that, tips. These tips will definitely add value and style to your home. How exactly you paint, build or landscape is a topic for other web sites. I recommend you get qualified trades people to do any actual renovation work. You can save money by doing the interior design and unskilled labour yourself.
The key to a successful renovation is to make cosmetic improvements, not structural changes, to a house. Building new rooms, adding another level to a structure or moving walls around is very expensive. Moving walls or adding windows and doors especially can weaken the structure. Expensive renovation jobs rarely add enough value to a building to pay for themselves.
The best way to improve a houses WOW factor, to make an impression and to add value is to spend a little on superficial changes.
Painting the Interior
A new paint job will do more to improve the look of your home than anything. It is a relatively simple job too, so you can save yourself a fortune by doing it yourself.
Give the surfaces to be painted a good clean up with sugar soap and scrape off any loose stuff. Bog up any cracks or any depressions to make the surface smooth, and then paint.
Whether you use an undercoat or not depends on what paint you use. Get advice from a hardware store.
The underlying principle for all renovations including painting is KISS, Keep It Simple Stupid. Keep your color schemes simple and use neutral colors; they reflect the light better making rooms look bigger and cleaner. Be consistent throughout the house.
Kitchens
Don't go crazy, these can eat heaps of cash if you are not careful. If your kitchen is falling apart then you have no choice but to get a new one. If you can avoid it though, don't get a new one just cosmetically touch up the one you have.
New bench tops, tile splash backs, door handles, cupboard handles, tap handles, a paint job and floor job will make a huge difference and won't cost the earth.
Bathrooms
Another potential money pit. Light and bright is the secret here. Just like the kitchen if it's falling apart, you have no choice but to spend the big bucks and replace things.
If you can get away with it though, change your bench tops, door handles, cupboard handles, tap handles and floor tiles (wall tiles can be a huge expensive job, avoid changing if possible and just patch up the grout if necessary). Get a new paint job, and matching toilet seat, toilet roll holder and towel racks. This will transform the room and won't cost much.
Flooring, Wall and Window Treatments
Makes a huge difference. I have devoted three whole web pages to this. Walls, floors and windows make up most of the space and combined with furniture have the most impact in any interior home design
Doors
Change the door knobs throughout the home for a classier style and make sure you stay consistent throughout.
Landscaping
Can cost you a fortune. All you really need to do (unless your yard is a write off) is to rip out all the plants except for the larger established ones.
Install some edging, re lay some turf where necessary (if you have dead spots where grass won't grow, you can pave that area which is expensive or extend the garden over this area and plant shade resistant plants), replant the garden with colorful plants and add mulch to your garden beds.
Plant tall shrubs at the back of perimeter gardens or the middle of central gardens and have smaller plants in front. Try to get a few different shades of green in the leaves of different plants. Also try to plant a range of flowers so you have something blooming at most times of the year. Flowers can give your garden a pleasant smell as well and attracting birds. If you plant seedlings instead of older, larger plants you will save a fortune and they are less likely to die on you. A few months later your garden will look fantastic.
River pebbles or concrete treads are also an inexpensive alternative to paths.
Painting the Exterior
This makes a huge difference to the WOW factor. Probably best to get a professional to do it though, they own scaffolding, let them risk their necks. If you wish to do it yourself, follow the same advice for painting the interior. Use an accenting color for gutters, window sills and stairs. Use the accent color for horizontal surfaces; this makes the house look bigger.
Decking and Verandas
Cheaper than adding rooms to your house but adds square footage to your living space. If you live above the snow line this may not appeal, but for warmer climates outdoor living spaces are wonderful for entertaining.
Tile over concrete porches with non slip tiles to freshen up the area and increase the perceived size.
Fences
If you have an existing fence, give it a new paint job. If you don't have a front fence put in a white picket fence. Add an attractive letterbox.
Get a New Front Door
These really add or detract from the WOW factor of your home.
The bottom line is, you don't need to change where you live necessarily, just how it looks. Spend your money on luxurious home wares not on expensive structural changes. Read our next page, Interior Design Basics now to learn how to layout your home for the best effect.
Also take a look at our design tube network video sharing site where you can watch interior design and renovation videos or even upload your own. Just be careful with the DIY renovations, some of the videos included on these topics show renovations that can cost you a bundle. Really think about cheaper cosmetic options before you start going crazy with full remodeling. Having said that....great videos.
Oh, and don't forget to come back and read the rest of this website. We have only just started to explore what can be done with simple interior design.
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Interior Design Basics:
Home (What we are About) . Interior Design Basics . The Basics of Color . Wall Treatments . Fabrics . Furniture . Window Treatments . Flooring Treatments . Securing Your Home . Green Home Basics
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Recommended Advanced Reading:
Easy Home Decorating . DIY Handyman Guide . Drywall Installation . Kitchen Design . Bathroom Design . Home Theater Design . Furniture Selection . Feng Shui Better Living . Guide to Home Security. Big $ Fixing Up Houses . Build New Home Save $ . Landscaping Plans
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