25 House hacks that will make you say, "Cool!"

Have you ever heard of "life hacks?"  They're short cuts that creatively solve problems in your everyday life.  Well now we have house hacks, ways to alter your home or creatively use every day items to uniquely enhance your living spaces.  Some are simple and will only take you a few minutes to set up, others would require a million dollar budget, but all of them are...how else can we describe these house hacks?  For lack of a better word, they are just COOL!  

Check them out and don't be afraid to try some of them around your house!  

1. Attach a wooden CD rack horizontally above your bathroom sink for a great organizer.

 2. If your closet doesn't have enough light, add a string of Christmas lights to the door frame.

3. String a bunch of aloe branches and leaves to your shower head - the steam will release the fragrance for your own aloe spa treatment.

4. Antique door knobs make fun, funky towel pegs in the bathroom.

5. Growing a vertical herb garden in your kitchen is easy, looks great, and smells wonderful! 

6. Ok, so this one may take a bigger budget, but install a glass bathroom floor with a stone shaft underneath.  Ok, it's nearly impossible to do - but it sure looks cool! 

7. Instead of an ugly white board, use a dry erase marker to write your grocery list on a nice picture frame with only glass.

8. Women always want more closet space and places to put their shoe collection so this will be appreciated - install painted crown moulding against the wall and use it to hang all of your high heeled shoes!  

9.  Put together a false front of book spines to hide your router or other unsightly electronics. 

10. You can hide your thermostat, alarm, or any other wall gadget with a painting affixed to hinges.

11. Attach bolts to the studs in your ceiling and use chains to hang a hammock bed.  You can also set up a cool indoor swing or bench like this with old rope.

12. Glue a magnetic strip under your kitchen cabinet and you'll be able to hang your spice jars by their metal lids.

13.  Get locked out of the house a lot?  (I do that all the time!)  Put your spare key in a pill container and then superglue the top of a pine cone to the top.  You can then bury the pill box and only the pine cone will show.

14. Painting in bathrooms and other small spaces is never fun because you have to tape off everything.  A faster, easier way to do that is to use plastic wrap to cover surfaces, and then take it off and throw it out in a jiff when you're done.

15. This one may take a lot more construction, but it's COOL!!!!  An indoor/outdoor pool that flows right into your house!  

16. If you can't easily bolt into the rafters in your ceiling you can build a frame to hang a table and chairs for your own personal swinging dining space!

17. City dwellers and those who work at home will LOVE this: put your work desk in a big box with soft beach sand so you can get the feel of a tropical beach while you're working! 

18. Do you call the kids for dinner over and over but they don't want to come downstairs? That won't be an issue when you have a slide attached to your spiral staircase!

19. Speaking of stairs, you can set up a system of drawers and storage closets in the empty, unused space under your staircase.

20. Or, make a staircase lined by book cases instead of walls.  Look closely - this one even has books in the hollowed-out steps!

21. What child wouldn't want a tree house right in their room?  

22.  Replacing a boring door in a dark space with a glass door covered by color swatches or glass tiles.

23. There's always so much blank space above stairwells, so bolt in to the studs and hang a strong gymnastics net - it will make the perfect hammock lounging area.

24. Coming back to earth, how about plastic shoe holders hung on the back of a pantry or kitchen closet door for better organization?

 25. Wine racks hung on the bathroom wall make great decorative towel holders.  

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Do you have any cool home hacks that you use or know of?  Let us know and we'll post them next time!

Does it make dollars (and sense) to fix up your house before selling?

As the real estate market gains momentum and people start thinking about selling in the spring, a common question is: "What’s the payoff on fixing things around the house before we put it on the market?" 

The last thing you want to do is undergo extensive repairs that cost you money – and valuable time, only to find you don’t recoup that cost once the house sells.  Then again, leaving obvious fixes left undone can turn buyers off, and drastically reduce the price of any offers that come in.  So what’s the happy medium?  Here is our expert opinion on what fixes will add bang for the buck once you sell – and what to leave off your To Do list. 

The reality is that a declining market in the period between 2007 and 2012 drove all housing prices down.  As a function of increased inventory – including plenty of foreclosures and short sales – people got less money back from remodels and repairs they put into their homes, too.  The good news is that remodeling costs have dropped 10-15% in the last 5 years, too, even as the cost of building materials has risen 17%. 

But there are smart ways to “spit shine” the look of your house, focusing on signature and most-viewed areas that will yield you the most money back when offers come in. 

Try to understand it from a buyer’s eye; when they first walk in, their eye takes it all in as their mind categorizes each detail into positive, neutral, and negative features.  If you have a woefully outdated bathroom, for instance, that may trigger the thought that it needs to be updated – causing them work, and taking money off their offer price.  If they walk in and that same bathroom is newly remodeled with high-end tile, fixtures, and decorations, that would be a positive factor that might put you ahead of the competition, and if it was clean and new but with nothing fancy, a neutral factor.

At the very least, you want to eliminate the negative factors that will ding your asking price.  Those include health and safety items – like a leaky roof, overburdened electrical panel, or bad smoke detectors, which will all be flagged in a home inspection, anyway. 

So what repairs will yield you the best return on investment?

That’s easy -  focus on the kitchen and bathrooms as your remodeling priority.

Kitchen: 

-Fix any broken doors or tracks on cabinets and drawers.  If they are outdated but functional, consider having them painted.  Lay down new wax paper in the bottoms. 

-Modernizing lighting by installing a cool new fixture over the sink doesn’t cost much.

-Replace old tile or cheap linoleum countertops, possibly with granite (ask your realtor if that surface is recommended.)

-Add a nice new sink faucet and fixtures.

-A hanging pot rack or wine rack is a great signature piece.

-Retile the floor with nice, big, earth tone tiles to get rid of old 6” tiles or linoleum.  Laying them down in a diamond formation – instead of square – looks great, too.

-Paint the walls a neutral color with satin or eggshell paint.

Bathrooms:

-If the toilet works fine, just put a new seat and lid on it.

-Replace your shower curtain with a nice new one.

-Install a new mirror and medicine cabinet and also replace your sink with a new, modern sink and vanity set.  The sink area is where people look first and spend the most time in the bathroom, and they have great deals on sets that come with a nice faucet and fixtures as well.

-Install new earth tone large tiles on the floor.  This is especially easy since the bathroom floor doesn’t cover a lot of surface area. 

-While you’re at it, take down your towel racks and TP holders and replace them with nice new ones.

-Pop in a cool signature lighting fixture over the sink.

-Paint the walls in a soft, neutral color with satin or semi-gloss, and your bathroom is ready!

Here are a few ideas for other areas of the house that won’t cost much:

-Add new high wattage light bulbs to illuminate the house well, especially dim areas.

-Take down old wallpaper, that’s always a no-no.

-Take down paintings or decorations (except for a mirror or two) and fill the nail holes with spackle, sand to smooth, and paint over them.

-You don’t need to paint the whole inside of the house, but do cover any brightly-colored rooms or high-traffic areas with a new coat of paint in a light, neutral color.

-If the outside doesn’t need new paint, a good power washing is a great way to make it look better.

-Paint your front door with a shiny, traditional color – like red or black – and remove any screen doors over it. 

-The garage door also looks better with a coat of paint, and if it needs it, think about painting the trim only (if you can get away with it) just on the front of the house.

-Clean your windows well, inside and out.  This is a great alternative to replacing them, which can be very expensive.

-Hire a stager if your realtor recommends.  Usually this pays off the best with high-end listings.

-Sprucing up the landscaping is one of the best and cost-efficient ways to improve the curb appeal of your home.  Make sure to weed, prune, lay down some fresh stone or mulch in beds, and plant nice flowers in the front yard, especially on the way to the front door.

-Pools, hot tubs, decks, garage additions, or trying to enclose and winterize patios and sunrooms never pays off when selling a home.

- Get your carpets professionally steam cleaned unless they are really bad and in need to replacement.

-Same thing, you can have someone refinish real hardwood floors, which will make them sparkle.

The repairs that give you the best % payback:

-Exterior siding – adding nice fiber-cement siding to the exterior of a home instead of repainting pays back 78% of the cost.  However, this may differ depending on what part of the country you live in and you never want to stick out in the neighborhood (have siding when everyone else has stucco, etc.)

-Replacing an old or shabby front door pays by 73% of the cost.

-A reasonable kitchen remodel yields a 72.1% return on investment.

-Putting in a new garage door will pay back around 71.9% of the cost. 

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We hope the information helps!  Remember to call us if you have any questions about selling your home or what to fix up before it goes on the market.