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Every homeowner knows that owning a home takes work and can be expensive. Statistically, homeowners spend about 1 to 3% of their home’s value each year on home repairs. It is critical to consider and manage the costs of home improvements. The money-saving tips for home improvements contained in this article should help you afford the maintenance required for your home.

Put in a light outside that includes a motion detector, so you can cut down on the cost of your electric bills. You can still turn it on manually if need be, and you can also adjust sensitivity on some models.

It is possible to expand storage capacity by using old shoe boxes. Use scraps of attractive fabric or wallpaper to cover the shoe boxes. It can really add a sense of playful drama to your room, and it is a cheap and effective storage solution!

Oftentimes smaller rooms seem more gloomy, but this doesn’t have to be the case. Just let a little sunshine in! Make sure to keep your windows clean and your blinds open. Natural lighting can add so much to a room; even seeming to increase the size. Along with adding more light, you should lighten up the wall colors to add to the illusion. Your room will feel much less crammed as a result.

When you are doing home improvements, think about your surroundings. A Victorian home on a block of saltbox cottages is going to stand out like a sore thumb. Remodeling that goes with your neighborhood will help you sell your home.

Adding a textured finish to your walls with drywall mud can create a new look and disguise any blemishes. Adding texture to your walls can be so simple. Just trowel the drywall mud in place and use something like a stiff bristled brush, a sponge, or even a wadded up plastic bag to dab at the drywall mud and add texture.

When you are considering home improvement, be creative and decide what you want to accomplish before you start. Once you have started, you will be able to focus on what you are doing, and not the details of design. To get ideas look through magazines, watch DIY TV shows and pay attention to the homes of friends and family members.

For storing materials, try placing them between floor joists or ceiling rafters. You can put up your big pieces of molding or wood in these areas. You can easily hammer in furring strips across a couple of exposed rafters or floor joists and put in the material that needs to be stored.

A homeowner should always hire a licensed contractor to do any home improvement work. States require certification for both contractors and sub-contractors. Although having these requirements does not mean they are very skilled, they’re still required by law. You also want to be sure that they carry adequate insurance so that you are not at risk of a huge loss if they happen to cause damage to …