Consider Renovating Your Pickering Home Rather Than Moving

Before you decide to dive into an expensive move, you really should consider a renovation of your Pickering home instead. There are a few very solid reasons for this that you may not have thought about.

You may want to move out of your Pickering home simply because you desire more square footage. Although this is an understandable goal, you should first consider what could be done inside your current home to gain more usable square footage and space. Often times it is the illusion of more space that will satisfy our want, rather than any actual measurable gain. A Pickering home renovation could aid in contributing to this feeling of space. How many times have you walked into somebody else's house and remarked at how large and open it is compared to your own? Would you be surprised to find that the actual square footage of their home is similar to yours? If this is the case, you may simply want to think about what improvements you can make to your current home before losing equity in a sale to real estate fees, sales commissions, home inspections, and other costs associated with moving. If you stay in your home, you can instantly avoid all of these costs and instead increase value and utility for you and your family by simply renovating your home in Pickering.

1) De-Clutter and Clean Up

Before you remove any load bearing walls or go with a full paint job, you should try your best to go room by room and see what you truly do not need. Try to adapt to the motto "lean and clean". This means that any hulking pieces of old furniture that aren't used, old electronics and television sets, or couches that are ripped and never found their way out the door should be tossed. You'd be surprised at just how much space you gain by getting rid of your old stuff that you don't use any more. Try focusing on clearing entry areas of useless baskets and storage containers. If they really are needed, put them out of sight in closets or in the basement storage room. This step will be necessary anyways, as it is always easier to start a home renovation or remodel when you have a more clear space.

2) Re-paint in brighter colours

If you've cleaned up and are still yearning for more space, consider repainting your house in a brighter palette. Brighter colours open up spaces considerably, and chances are that your home might be due for a paint job anwyays. This is a good opportunity to address all those drywall nail pops, dents, dings, and scrapes. A good painter will include this in their price as necessary prep work. Also, ensure that ceilings are painted white. This will be a big improvement if your ceilings are currently painted the same colour as the walls. Painting is a great way to update and can be incorporated into your Pickering renovation project.

3) New Baseboards And Trim

You can contribute to a larger sense of scale in your home simply by replacing all of those builder grade baseboards and casings. Many times, these are the skimpiest pieces of trim that the builder can get away with installing. Consider going with a baseboard that gives you one inch of height per foot of your main floor ceilings. (As an example, if you have 9 foot ceilings on your main floor, you should select a baseboard with a height of roughly 9 inches). Door casings should have a depth greater than the baseboard so that the casing will be proud of the baseboard where they meet. This gives a more cohesive look overall. In cases where a very meaty baseboard meets up with a skimpy door casing, it just doesn't look right.

4) Remove Bulkheads And Knee Walls

In many cases, kitchens have bulk heads above the top cabinets. If practical, these bulkheads should be removed and new cabinets installed with full height uppers that approach the ceiling. Crown moulding can then cap off your new cabinets and meet the ceiling. This means that the top of your new cabinetry in effect will connect with the ceiling, making the space seem much larger. This also removes the problem of dust and debris accumulating above your kitchen cabinets. If you doubt this, check out newer kitchens and modern designs: they will most often omit anything that will be perceived to take up valuable space, such as bulkheads above cabinets. Although this will require a full scale kitchen renovation, it is an investment that will certainly raise the value of your home when done correctly. Remove bulkheads in bathrooms as well. If you own a Pickering home built in the 1980's or 1990's, chances are that there is a bulkhead in the tub area of your main bathroom that takes up valuable space. In many cases, this bulkhead is purely cosmetic and can be removed, giving you full ceiling height in the tub area and adding valuable space. This is a big value upgrade to consider in your Pickering bathroom or kitchen renovation.

5) New Tile Flooring

Large tiles (24x24) that carry through the main entrance way and into main floor principal rooms, such as your kitchen and living/dining room can contribute to a feeling of larger space. If you consider that most homes have a number of different flooring materials even on the main floor, such as carpet, laminate, and smaller floor tiles that were previously installed by the builder, you will find that these different materials break up the space and make it feel smaller. By switching to one type of flooring material you add a sense of flow which can significantly impact the feeling of having a larger space,

7) Removal of Unnecessary Doors

In many older homes, it is common to find many doors in areas where a newer home would simply omit them. As an example, you may have french doors in the main living area separating a main hall from the living room or dining room. You may also have french doors again separating the dining room from another room. French doors take up valuable space when open and when closed, the make the room feel smaller. Consider removing these bulky doors and replacing them with some type of MDF trim. This will allow you to create customized designs to trim out these large openings and add an ease of flow to your home, which will in turn make it feel much larger.