Guest Post:

No matter how much time and money you invest in redecorating your bedroom, getting a good night’s sleep is almost entirely dependent on the quality of your mattress. If you’re not sleeping as soundly as you should be, you may want to consider going for a mattress upgrade.

Here are a few tips to help you choose the right mattress to send you off to dreamland:

• Research the options. Do you know what the difference is between an innerspring mattress and a foam mattress? Do you know if memory foam is right for you? Before shopping, take some time to get familiar with different mattress styles and terms.
• The most expensive is not necessarily the best. Don’t give into advertising that tries to lure you into purchasing the most expensive mattress on the market. Just because a particular mattress doesn’t need a Government Loan Pro VA refinancing loan to purchase doesn’t mean it’s not a good one. If you fall in love with an expensive mattress, that’s great, but if you can’t feel a difference, then save your money.
• Look for a mattress that fits you. A good mattress should fit the natural alignment of the spine. Getting a mattress with plenty of back support may help you wake up with less muscle stiffness and help you toss and turn less.
• It’s not about the firmness. Most new mattresses are “firm” by virtue of their quality supporting materials. What you’re interested in is how much padding there is between you and the coils, and that’s really more of a matter of preference. Terms like “pillow top,” “foam,” and “plush” can give you a good indication of how much padding is on the mattress.
• Try them out. The ultimate test of which mattress is the best is how it makes you feel. While it may be hard to take a mattress home with you for a trial night’s sleep, get as comfortable with the mattresses as you can—lie on each one for at least a few minutes and get the one that makes you feel the best.

What are your tips for buying the right mattress?

Government Loan Pro VA streamline refinance loans help veterans finance their home improvement dreams by putting them in touch with the right lenders.

image by Bedroom Furniture Spot

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If you’ve thought about buying a house then you know exactly how competitive the real estate market is. Each home looks better than the next, and sellers try a range of different home-staging tricks to grab a buyer’s attention. That’s why, when selling your home, you have to be prepared to make your home look the best it possibly can to secure a quick sale. Home staging has been proven to increase the likelihood of a sale against a property that hasn’t been home staged, so what are you waiting for?

What is Home Staging?

Home staging is the practice of making a house for sale look the best it can by clearing up, cleaning up, and creating a positive sale environment with visual reinforcement. When it comes to getting the best price for your property for sale, home staging is a brilliant tool that will help you make your house look like it could be a buyer’s new home.

How to Home Stage Your Property

Have you ever heard the tip that yellow helps to sell a home? That’s because yellow is a positive, inviting color and can help a buyer to think positive thoughts. While this could be a bit far-fetched, it’s the basis of home staging and is a step in the right direction! If you want to stage your home for a sale then start off by packing away your belongings into boxes and putting them into self-storage. A clutter-free home is an appealing home, and will help make your house look bigger, brighter and more appealing for a buyer. Don’t try to make your home look good the way it is now: try making your home the best it possibly can look to show off its potential.

Get an Impartial Eye and a Second Opinion

While home staging is something you can do yourself, it’s definitely better to get an impartial, second opinion on how you plan to stage it. Often you might not see a positive aspect of your home because you’ve lived in it for so long, and you don’t always know where to begin. If you want to obtain a better price for your house for sale or you want a quick sale, invest a small amount of money into properly staging your home and you can reap the rewards.

image by Regal Custom Interiors

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Guest Post by Jeff Orloff:

Going green is an effective way to reduce your carbon footprint and help improve the planet. You can clean your house with green cleaning products, recycle and include energy-efficient appliances in your home. But why stop there? Being eco-friendly can impact every aspect of your life from the type of car that you drive to your furniture choices.

Green furniture for the home is becoming increasingly popular, with many people selecting furniture from recyclable, durable materials. The options are plentiful and the designs are amazing. If you’re in the market for new furniture, don’t go to just any retailer and buy any piece of furniture. Go green and do your part to help the planet.

Reclaimed Wood

The majority of furniture manufacturers use wood to craft their designs. This is true for beds, couches, tables, chairs, bookshelves and other furniture pieces. Forest trees are cut down to produce wood; and the more wood used by manufacturers and other companies, the less trees in our forests. This can greatly affect our eco-system. However, if you were to purchase furniture pieces from companies that use reclaimed or reused wood, you can help save our forests and preserve our trees. When shopping for furniture, don’t be afraid to ask questions. Ask the rep to direct you to furniture made from reclaimed materials.

Bamboo

Bamboo is constructed from a type of grass and is often used in the construction of green furniture. Various types of furniture include bamboo materials, such as beds, tables, chairs, mini-blinds and flooring. Because bamboo is a type of grass, buying furniture made from this material helps save trees and creates an environmentally-friendly home.

Rattan

Rather than select wood furniture for your house, you can decorate with wicker. Wicker is woven from a material called rattan, which is a type of palm. As a great alternative to wood, this material is extremely lightweight and durable. Wicker furniture is great for the indoors and outdoors. Ideal choices include a wicker patio set, a wicker couch, a wicker rocker and perhaps a wicker table.

Recyclable Metals and Plastic

Metal is commonplace in many houses. Kitchen tables, coffee tables, other types of tables and mirrors typically feature a section of metal or plastic. Both materials are recyclable, and when shopping for new furniture, you can ask the source of either material. Not all retailers carry recyclable furniture, and you may have to shop at an eco-friendly or green furniture store. It takes less time to process recyclables and these materials use fewer resources.

Buy Used or Vintage

New furniture can have finishes that negatively affect the air quality in your house. Substances released into the air include toxic chemicals that have been linked to cancer and birth defects. Buying untreated furniture or furniture treated with natural finishes is one way to create an eco-friendly environment and protect your family. In addition, you can check local thrift stores or secondhand shops for used home furniture. The toxicity of chemicals decrease with time, therefore, older, used furniture releases less harmful gases into the air.

Jeff writes about green living topics, especially how renters can incorporate eco-friendly trends into their homes for the renter’s insurance blog.

image by Boston.com

 

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There are three distinct stages to selling your home. First you must entice prospective buyers into your property. Next you need them to like your house enough so that they make an offer. The third stage is the conveyancing stage where property lawyers take the reins through to completion.

In a buyer’s market, selling a house can be a tough gig, so it is advantageous to have a small amount of understanding of the psychology of selling a house to help you through stage one and stage two before your property lawyers look after stage three.

First, as soon as you make the decision to sell your home, stop thinking of it as ‘home.’ This can be tricky, especially if you have lived there for a number of years, but once your house hits the market it becomes a product, one that is literally in the shop window of the real estate agents or on the internet.

Thinking about the house as a product rather than a home will let you cast an objective eye over the property. You will start to notice how the wall of family photos make a room look small, how the vase passed down through generations makes the hallway look dated and how the lines on the wall you used to measure little Billy’s height as he grew make the kitchen look grubby.

You will feel a little tug around your heart as you do this – it’s only natural – but remember, you need to see your house how potential buyers will see it.

Once you have presented the house for sale and viewers are flocking through your door, it is time to turn the psychology on them. Although you have trained yourself to see the house as a product, you need to convince them that the product could be a home – their home.

Simple suggestions as to how to conjure a ‘homely’ feeling, such as the smell of coffee or baking bread are tried and tested methods, but you should also try planting memories in each room. Point out the spot where you always ate Christmas dinner, or the bedroom that once was a nursery. Even if these points aren’t strictly true, they could have happened and your job is to convince the buyer that these memories could be their memories.

If you do this, they will feel a little tug around their heart when they think about your house, and the offers should roll in.

image by Flickr/Creative Commons

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Guest Post:

As the world continually shifts toward more eco-friendly innovations, the construction industry has adapted many new trends to suit consumer’s wants and needs. It’s no longer enough to use energy efficient appliances. In addition to these, homeowners that are building from the ground up are inventing new ways to make their homes even more energy-efficient. Here are five green construction trends to consider if you’re in the market or building a new home.

1. Open space – Before, homes were squared off and the more rooms you could create, the better. Now, though, this trend has shifted and people are leaning more toward open spaces that allow for greater light penetration. This can effectively cut your heating bill by allowing the sun to heat the home naturally. Aesthetically, it opens the home up considerably by merging many rooms together into one larger one which is ideal for families.
2. Energy efficient windows and appliances – Energy star rated appliances have been around for quite awhile but now that green initiatives have caught the attention of the federal government, you can receive substantial tax breaks for building a more energy efficient home. In addition to major alliances, you can also install windows that are ‘green certified’ which allows for the best in energy efficiency.
3. Increased use of natural resources and recycling – One of the most interesting green construction trends is the use of leftover building material in other areas of the house. Recycling materials like leftover stone to create a patio or mosaic backsplash tile is much easier and more efficient than tossing out the leftover material and purchasing new stuff. Using recycled stone to construct a pathway also gives your home a more natural look which is trending strong right now.
4. Smaller homes – This is the most obvious trend and it makes the most sense. As the housing market collapsed around homeowners it became clear that purchasing smaller homes made more sense financially. This has an unintended green consequence as smaller homes are more energy-efficient than bigger ones.
5. Better education – The first step of any new project is education. Just because the ability to ‘green your space’ is out there doesn’t mean that everyone understands it or knows how to take full advantage. By better educating tenants everyone can make effective and positive choices that allow for more efficient-energy consumption. Better education and awareness is needed to help facilitate the kind of green initiative that will ultimately make a difference.

No matter what you attempt with a new home there is most likely a ‘green alternative’ that will facilitate better energy consumption and a cut in your power bill. Just because the home is getting bigger doesn’t mean you have to pay all that much more for energy. With smart decisions and careful planning, you can make the most of your home’s energy usage.

Enviro-Systems is national concrete solutions company that offers cutting-edge, environmentally-friendly products like concrete washout bags and concrete pump primers.

image by Greenhabbing 101

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