Home renovation costs: when to save, when to splurge
Undertaking a major home renovation and extension is a large investment in your family home, and in your family’s future. There is a myriad of decisions and selections that need to be made, and overarching it all is a budget that you are determined to work within. This advice will help you decide if you should spend or splurge.
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Bathroom ideas and trends
After kitchens, bathrooms are the most important room in the house and perhaps the next most expensive. There are no hard and fast rules to building a brand new bathroom or renovating an existing one, other than the importance of the highest standard of workmanship in waterproofing and plumbing.
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The Modern Day Butler’s Pantry
The traditional Butler’s Pantry has evolved over many years from what were a series of rooms such as the scullery, pantry and larder where each stage of food preparation and clean up was conducted. These rooms were eventually condensed into one room being what we would now call a kitchen.
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What you need to know about plasterers
A plasterer is an expert in the supply and installation of plasterboard (also known as dry wall plaster). The majority of homes and buildings in Australia will have a number of rooms, if not all, with plasterboard internal walls and ceilings.
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Enclosed elegance: 4 steps towards preparing your house for guests
With Christmas right around the corner, it won’t be long until you start making plans for the holiday and the most important meal of the year. In fact, you might already have begun. Some families like to get organised early and know exactly who is staying where and in which house to find the turkey.
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Underfloor Heating
Underfloor heating is a beautiful way to heat your home, obviously not from a visual sense as it is invisible, but because of the comfort and ambience it creates. It is unobtrusive, providing warmth for an entire room with no noise and no risk of being burnt by radiators or oil heaters. Perfect particularly for small children and the elderly.
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Tips for creating the ideal nursery
If you have a baby on the way there is a lot that you need to do, with one of the most important things being to set up a decent nursery.
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Bring your tired timber floors back to life
There is nothing like the natural beauty of a timber floor. For centuries all kinds of timbers have been used all over the world as a choice of flooring. If looked after properly, a timber floor will long outlast us and still look good.
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Help Your Pond Beat the Summer Heat
Record high temperatures across the nation create a number of challenges for people, pets, plants, and yes, even your water garden. You’ll want to keep a close eye on your pond, especially when the water temperature reaches 26 degrees or higher.
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Increasing the market value of your home
Increasing the value of your home is always a good idea, regardless of whether you are thinking about selling soon or not. Investing in a few upgrades for your place will significantly increase what it is worth, especially if you focus on the right elements.
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New Home Construction - Exterior and Interior Colours Finished
For interior paint, choose colours wisely so they blend harmoniously with your floors, cabinetry and furnishings, adding elegance to your living spaces like no other detail can. And floors should not be overlooked; quality tiles, plush carpet or timber floors complete every room ensuring practicality combined with attractive character.
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Renovating? Time to think about you outdoor additions
Australians traditionally love the outdoors. We love to take advantage of the abundant sunny days and warm evenings by entertaining outdoors. Outdoor rooms and outdoor kitchens along with verandahs, decks, pergolas, patios, cabanas and gazebos provide us with a space to extend our living into the outdoors. Relaxed, informal entertaining these days is a very popular way to catch up with family and friends. You would be hard pressed to find an Australian home that does not have some form of outdoor living space.
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Making the most of your water
Water is the world’s most precious commodity, therefore it just makes a whole lot of sense to harvest rainwater and recycle our grey (used) water as much as possible. Whether we live in a rural area or a house in the city we can all do our bit for the environment and reduce our water usage and costs.
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Warning signs of pest infestations to look out for while house hunting
Check open spaces for anthills, window frames for wasps nests, trees for termite nests, and sheds and trees for possum nests. Be on the lookout for other evidence that pests are living there such as droppings under trees and the skin being eaten off lemons on fruit trees. Secondly, observe greenery in the area. If there are damaged plants or patches of grass pests may be to blame.
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How to create kerb appeal
We have all admired other people’s homes. Regardless of the period, style, size and location there are many homes you look at and just say “wow”, “I could live there in a heartbeat” , “that’s my dream home” , “if I won Lotto that’s where I would want to live” and so on. We can be equally critical about the homes we don’t like. The ones we look at and say “what were they thinking?” “look how untidy that yard is”, “I don’t like the colour scheme” or “it looks very ramshackle”, “maybe its abandoned”.
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Blinds on the inside
Considering blinds for your windows? Well you will be bowled over by choice. Here is some information to get you started.
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ALARMING! Help to upgrade your home security
No matter what the size and value of our home is we want to protect it, just as we want to protect our family, and the best way to do that is with security.
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Colour Scheming Made Easy
if you have a sunroom, look at a complementary paint colour scheme where you use colours that are opposite each other on the colour wheel, such as blue and orange.
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Is polished concrete more expensive than tiling?
There are a number of things to consider when choosing between polished concrete and tiles, and it is important to think carefully before making a final decision. From how the flooring surface will be used to the relative costs involved, these considerations will help guide your project and allow you to make a sound decision.
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Five tips to spotlessly clean windows
Windows are generally quite a chore to clean - it's easy to take shortcuts and put ourselves in danger when we're just trying to rush through and get the job done. These tips will take some of the effort out and give you some helpful hints to keeping safe while you complete your spring cleaning chores.
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