When it comes to looking for ways to modernise your home, there are actually a range of different things you can do. Even homes that have been left along for five years can find themselves woefully outdated.
You should consider changing things up if you haven’t in a while. Start on a smaller scale, before moving up to work on bigger and more exciting projects.
Firstly – consider your budget
Before you begin work on any renovating within your home, you should plan ahead on how much you’re willing to spend. The last thing you want is to get halfway through a big project and run out of money, leaving you with a construction mess and potentially a big bill.
You can renovate on a budget, and you should speak to different contractors to find the best estimate you can. Sometimes, you will have to pay more for a better job and a quicker turnaround if you’re looking for a speedy renovation, but you can find deals or find the right time for the ideal business to work with.
Invest in smart devices
You can’t modernise a home without utilising the newest technology. One great way in which you can do this, is by investing in smart devices. These devices are designed to make living easier for you, they’re all voice controlled and have a range of applications.
For example, you can program them to activate your lights, in different colours and intensity to help match the mood of an evening. You could program the smart lights to be red and white when you ask your device for England colours, which is perfect for an evening watching the World Cup.
Smart devices can also be programmed to start making coffee at certain times in the morning, as well as tell you the local news and weather to get your day started. Essentially, these devices can be programmed to do anything, and are incredibly useful for hosting events and parties, as they work with music apps and can play music on request.
With certain smart devices, you’ll be able to use them as a security system, and use your phone to monitor them when activated, such as a sound sensor or camera.
Look into modern blinds
You’d be surprised at how much doing up your blinds can do for your home, both in terms of outdoor and inside. From an outside perspective, you can create a sense of privacy, but in a subtle way. Whereas with indoors, you can pick out a specific blind to match the attire of your room or house in general.
Not only that, but you can get blinds that help funnel in the right amount of light depending on what you want on that day. What some people have started doing, is introducing a wooden concept, as a way of modernising a look.
You can find out more about how to choose wooden window blinds here, as well as guides for measuring and installing, to help you avoid mistakes. Usually, installation is fairly easy to do, but some blinds will require extra effort in installing, and others will simply be done as soon as you screw it into the wall.
Wooden blinds have been dominating the renovation market in recent years, meaning that there is a lot of different models and styles that are available these days. This means that you’ll be able to shop around until you find exactly what you’re looking for.
Consider open-plan living
One way in which you can help modernise your home and bring it into the 21st century, is to adopt an open plan concept. It can change the entire shape of a room, as well as helping to make it look more contemporary. Of course, it does also allow you to have more space, making the room appear bigger than ever.
With most open plans, walls are removed to bring rooms into one bigger room. For example, a kitchen wall could be knocked down, bringing the kitchen, dining room and living room all into the same fold.
You can still create distinct separations between rooms with furniture, such as a kitchen bar, or a storage unit. These open plan rooms can be made very stylish, if you combine it with a unique hit of renovating to give the house an overall style.
Give the kitchen a makeover
The kitchen is one of the main rooms of any house, it is where you will spend a lot of time cooking and preparing meals, as well as sometimes becoming a social hub. For many homes, the dining room is also a part of the kitchen, so you can do a lot for both.
You should consider reorganising how your kitchen is set up, as an unorganised kitchen could put you off from cooking. When you know where everything is, then you’ll be able to relieve the stress of cooking, and start to enjoy the process of cooking more.
You can, however, decide to completely overhaul the whole thing, and renovate the kitchen from scratch. You have a lot of options, from adding new tiles or wallpaper, to flooring to the materials used on your cabinets. Of course, you can also play with colour and find something that suits you, this way, you may start to enjoy the room experience overall.
It’s fair to say that cabinets and side tops within a kitchen are integral to a functioning system. The materials used even can change the room entirely. For example, you could go for a stone feel on the side, a polished wood or something classic like granite laminated.
Lighting is everything
The lighting you decide to use within your home can be crucial to the dynamics too. For example, too harsh of a light can be off putting, whereas something more natural and calmer can help you settle in and not hurt your eyes.
It’s also important to think about the fixtures and placements of lights too. There are a range of options, such as floor lighting, under cabinet lights, spotlights and general lamps and what not.
You should consider utilising LED bulbs when putting together your lighting system, as they are proven to be more cost effective long-term. Not only do they save you money, but they can have more options for colour, with them traditional offering a softer yellow.
Make use of outdoor space
As much as the indoor of your home is important to get right, you should also consider what the outdoor space looks like. Most homes will have both a front and back garden, and there’s a lot you can do with them.
For front gardens, you can either make it more private by growing hedges, or you can make it more appealing to people visiting. For example, you could make a stone path and grow some seasonal flowers in specific areas.
For back gardens, you can pretty much do whatever you like. If you fancy doing something different, then you could grow some fruit and vegetables, either freely or with a greenhouse. A building in the garden is a great way to make use of space, as it’s almost like creating yourself a new room, like an extension of your home.