Over the years that we've lived in our home we've made a lot of changes through home improvements. We spent a lot of time renovating to make our house feel like our home and make it so that it would practically work for us and our business space-wise. Over the years I've learnt a lot about what has worked and what hasn't and today I thought I would share five home improvements that I think can really make all the difference and that certainly feel like that have for us.
1. Doors
Front doors, back doors and internal doors. Who knew they could make such a difference to the feel of a house?! But they REALLY do. We changed our front door to a composite door when we added on our extension and porch and it's one of my favourite things. It sets the tone of the house being the entrance and being visible from the street it gives the house its kerb appeal. We changed our internal doors to oak doors nearly two years ago and again, it is something that has changed the whole feel of our house. I put it off for years thinking that we just didn't need to change them from the perfectly fine white doors we already had, but I'm SO glad we went ahead and changed them - they've made the whole house feel so much more modern and cosier. Our porch door is a glass black panelled Soho door and it took us ages to decide on it, but we absolutely love it!
BEFORE:
AFTER:
Talking of kerb appeal, the driveway / front garden can really make a huge difference to how your home feels even though it's technically not in your house. We had our driveway completely re-done during our renovations a few years ago and it was money very well spent! Not only was it practical for us to give us more room to park our cars, but again, the front of our house / driveway now fits with the overall aesthetic of our actual home. Something worth considering if you're having your driveway done soon is that resin driveways have become a lot more popular in the recent years due to the fact that are more durable than tarmac and will generally last longer, plus resin is more environmentally friendly so it's worth contacting resin suppliers if you are planning on getting your driveway done.
3. Skirting boards
I wish we'd considered our skirting boards more when initially doing our renovations, because we honestly just went for the cheapest option and it looked horrible and so cheap! It's just not something that we thought would make such a big difference at the time. But it's safe to say we have now had our skirting boards changed to much nicer, taller, ones and the extra money we paid for them has been totally worth it. Skirting boards can change the feel of a room and we have definitely learnt that!
4. The kitchen
I feel like this is more of an obvious one, but the kitchen for us really is the heart of our home and so getting the kitchen right and spending out on a new one was really worth saving and paying for for us! We spend most of our time in our kitchen and so creating a space we could all be in and not feel cramped was a big thing on our list. We added a really small extension to the side of our house and moved the front door from the side to the front, and even though the extension was very small, it just opened up our kitchen to the point where we could have so much more room around our dining table and even space for a piano and for a cat food area!
5. A loft conversion
Not everyone needs to convert their loft, but for us, we needed an extra room and instead of moving house and enduring all of the costs and stress involved in that, we instead converted our loft to create that extra room. And now our loft that would have just been a dark dumping ground for random things we would have probably forgotten about, is what we call, 'our sanctuary'. It's given us a really decent sized room on our own level of the house with Velux windows that bring in so much light and warmth. For us, a loft conversion has made such a HUGE difference!
Have you done any recent home improvements? If so, what would you add to this list?
Thank you for reading.
Alex xo
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