If your long term plan as a home owner is to eventually sell your property then, it’s a high time you started thinking of home improvement ideas that will help increase the value of your home. These ideas will often go beyond construction and may even involve just some subtle changes in your home’s exterior environment.
In this article we are going to share with you 3 simple tips on how to increase the value of your home.
1 Make the house more efficient
Today, home owners are looking for homes that will cut their cost of maintenance therefore part of the improvement you can do is the construction of amenities that help make the home more efficient and less costly to maintain. Some of these amenities can be solar heaters, underground water storage tanks, water filtration systems, and biogas systems amongst others. This will help in the reduction of utility bills thus increase the value of your home.
2 Adopt low maintenance landscaping
Any home owner who has a lawn will fully understand how expensive it is to maintain one. The time, money and energy required to keep it looking beautiful can be a lot. It’s therefore a good idea to adopt a low maintenance landscaping and this can include replacing your lawn with a flower garden that has plants that are originally from the region. These will require very low maintenance thereby bringing down costs and essentially raising the value of your home.
3 Do some tree planting on your compound
Trees not only increase curb appeal but will also have added benefits such as ensuring you have a good environment in your home and also some much needed shade. This essentially will bring some tranquility to your home and this is something home owners will be willing to pay extra for because it’s very rare to find.
These are very doable things and the beauty is the long term payout will be way higher than the investment cost.
One of the many home improvement projects that you could take on is switching your heating source. One kind of heater that you can get is a wood burning. These old-school stoves may seem like a thing of the past, but they actually see a rise in popularity in recent years. And if you are thinking about adding one to your home, then you definitely should! This is because there are a lot of practical benefits to be gained with the addition of a wood burning stove inside of your home. Here are all of the various benefits that you may gain from using a wood burning stove.
1. Multi-purpose
A stove is not just a heater; you can obviously use it to cook or heat things up too. You could place an old-fashioned metal kettle on top of the stove to heat up a pot of tea! And you can even have a pot of food on the stove to keep it warm for dinner. The multi-purpose use of these stoves makes them a practical addition to your home.
2. Efficient
A log burning stove is a very efficient heater. Depending on the size of the stove, you can keep a whole house, even a large one, warm. And even a small-sized log burning stove is pretty efficient at keeping a big room or several rooms, nice and warm.
3. Eco-friendly
Wood burning stoves have a lowered carbon footprint than gas or electric heaters. This is because they use up much less fuel and also have a smaller output of C02 when compared to those other heating sources. And wood is also a renewable source of energy, making it a way more eco-friendly option.
4. Comfort
The presence of a wood burning stove in your home can add to your overall comfort too. You would find that having an old-fashioned log burning stove can improve the ambiance around the house. Plus, burning certain types of wood produces a pleasant smell. All of these can contribute to having a much more relaxing environment around your home.
5. No Smoke
If you are worried that burning wood inside of your home can create a lot of smoke, then you should put your fears to rest. These kinds of stoves are designed not to release any smoke at all inside of your home. Their exhausts are cleverly designed to release any smoke outside of your home if there is any at all.
These are just some of the benefits that you can get if you installed a log burning stove in your own home. You can see why so many people have turned to using these kinds of stoves. Advancements in stove design have ensured that these sorts of stoves are efficient and also pleasing to have around in your home. A free standing wood stove is also rather easy and economical to install, as you would not have to sink a lot of money into a home renovation project, just to install a free standing stove.
If you do want to have one in your own home, be sure to find the best wood burning stove installers in Dundee. You need the right people for the job, especially if you want a high-quality log burning stove. By choosing the installers carefully, you can rest assured that you are getting the best price for your stove and that the process of actually getting one installed goes smoothly as well. If you are planning to hire someone else to install the wood burning stove, be sure to check the background of the installers thoroughly, so you know that they are the right people for the job.
In any construction site conflicts will be inevitable. There could be conflicts between you and your contractor or between the contractor and his/her team. It’s therefore a good idea for you to prep on conflict resolution to ensure that when such issues emerge they don’t end up disrupting the work and the timelines therefore causing a delay in the project delivery.
In this article we will share with you 4 tips on how to resolve conflicts with your contractor.
Tip 1: Ensure the issue is clearly defined
The very first part of resolving a conflict is being able to clearly define what the issue is. In many occasions, conflicts will usually escalate due to miscommunication between the parties involved in the conflict as they don’t take time to clearly understand what the issue is. It’s therefore very important to for the conflicting parties to lay down the facts so that the matter can be addressed.
Tip 2: Let a neutral party mediate
The only way conflicting parties can be willing to openly resolve their issues, is if the person mediating is neutral and there is no indication that they are likely to take sides. That why it’s very important to bring in a person who is perceived to be neutral by both parties to play the role of mediator. It’s only such a person who will be able to create a conducive environment for the resolution of the conflict because both parties will be willing to open up to them.
Tip 3: Only focus on the facts
During conflict resolution, you must ensure that people’s opinions are kept out of the discussion and it’s only the facts about the conflict that are discussed. This is because in many cases, conflicts tend to escalate because the conflicting parties put more focus on airing out their opinions as opposed to focusing on the facts.
Tip 4: Listen listen listen
During conflict resolution, the best way to ensure a win-win solution is by ensuring that the parties involved in the conflict feel as though they are being listened to. If they get the feeling that the mediator or the other party is not listening then they are likely to shut down and this is a sure guarantee that the conflict will not be resolved. The beauty about listening is that the parties may even discover that there’s no real reason why they should have been in conflict in the first place.
If you put the above tips into your own context anytime you find yourself in a conflict situation with your contractor, you will realize that any emerging issues will always get sorted out very quickly.
Today, home owners are looking for homes that will cut their cost of maintenance therefore part of the improvement you can do is the construction of amenities that help make the home more efficient and less costly to maintain. Some of these amenities can be solar heaters, underground water storage tanks, water filtration systems, and biogas systems amongst others. This will help in the reduction of utility bills thus increase the value of your home.
Any home owner who has a lawn will fully understand how expensive it is to maintain one. The time, money and energy required to keep it looking beautiful can be a lot. It’s therefore a good idea to adopt a low maintenance landscaping and this can include replacing your lawn with a flower garden that has plants that are originally from the region. These will require very low maintenance thereby bringing down costs and essentially raising the value of your home.
Trees not only increase curb appeal but will also have added benefits such as ensuring you have a good environment in your home and also some much needed shade. This essentially will bring some tranquility to your home and this is something home owners will be willing to pay extra for because it’s very rare to find.
These are very doable things and the beauty is the long term payout will be way higher than the investment cost. 
The very first part of resolving a conflict is being able to clearly define what the issue is. In many occasions, conflicts will usually escalate due to miscommunication between the parties involved in the conflict as they don’t take time to clearly understand what the issue is. It’s therefore very important to for the conflicting parties to lay down the facts so that the matter can be addressed.
The only way conflicting parties can be willing to openly resolve their issues, is if the person mediating is neutral and there is no indication that they are likely to take sides. That why it’s very important to bring in a person who is perceived to be neutral by both parties to play the role of mediator. It’s only such a person who will be able to create a conducive environment for the resolution of the conflict because both parties will be willing to open up to them.
During conflict resolution, you must ensure that people’s opinions are kept out of the discussion and it’s only the facts about the conflict that are discussed. This is because in many cases, conflicts tend to escalate because the conflicting parties put more focus on airing out their opinions as opposed to focusing on the facts.
During conflict resolution, the best way to ensure a win-win solution is by ensuring that the parties involved in the conflict feel as though they are being listened to. If they get the feeling that the mediator or the other party is not listening then they are likely to shut down and this is a sure guarantee that the conflict will not be resolved. The beauty about listening is that the parties may even discover that there’s no real reason why they should have been in conflict in the first place.
If you put the above tips into your own context anytime you find yourself in a conflict situation with your contractor, you will realize that any emerging issues will always get sorted out very quickly.