How to have a brighter, lighter and more appealing home?
Adding more light not only makes a property look bigger, it makes the house more appealing and feel homey. Natural light is best but if you’re on a tight budget with limited time frame there are some simple solutions to create a lighter atmosphere. Start with the basics to see if these are enough and if not, you can work on the more complex ideas at the bottom of this article.
- Take down any curtains, raise blinds and open the doors to see how much natural light you have to work with and make an assessment.
- What colour and material is the flooring? Lighter coloured flooring in any material will make your property looks brighter. Lighter coloured wood or floating floorboards will reflect the most light.
- Are the ceilings dull and faded? Repaint with ceiling white for immediate brightness.
- Are the walls dull or dark coloured? Repaint them in a light neutral tone.
- Do you have skirting that is stained dark? Either replace with new or repaint with a white or off white colour.
- Check the colour of the doors and door frames. If dark, repaint white or off white for a clean, bright look.
- How about door knobs? If you have old dark brown colour knobs, change them to new brush aluminium knobs.
- Remove any dark coloured curtains because it makes room feel small and dark. If you really want curtains, select lighter or try sheer curtains, it give privacy but allow lights through.
- Remove dark coloured blinds and replace with white or off white – blinds give a more modern and clean look than curtains.
- Replace coloured light fittings with white or frosted glass.
You’ll find these tips make a great transformation and a huge difference.
Going a couple of steps further:
- Adding skylights. These range from the DIY variety to the ultra sophisticated. Do some research to see if the cost is worthwhile? You may need to install couple skylights to brighten up certain areas. They are great and they will make a huge difference to your property. Having said that, you may to work out in summer, it also bring heat to the house, there are some model on the market have remote shutter to block out the skylight in the hot summer time.
- Older houses tend to have small back doors and small windows. Replacing them with glass doors or bi-fold doors with big glass panel will bring additional lights to the house, it also bring the garden from the outside to the inside. This is the most expensive and it can have the most spectacular results. Check with your builder and your budget to see if it’s a viable option to open it up. This is a fantastic modern look and appealing as it brings the outside in with lots of natural light.
Choose some or all of the above strategies and you’ll find your property looks brighter, lighter, more appealing and with a lot more value added.
More other ideas? We’d love to hear from you, drop us a comment…….
How to remove wallpaper
Click photo to enlarge
Buying a “renovator’s delight” property could mean you may have some very unattractive wallpaper on the walls, and if you’re really lucky you may find two layers of wallpaper on the one wall!
Don’t let this turn you off because removing wallpaper in most cases is a fairly simple process, although it can be rather messy. Also, look at the value it will add to the property. Does that get you excited?
- As the underlying wall surface could be plasterboard (plaster sheets between paper), or not properly unsealed (eg horsehair plasterboard), you need to take care not to damage these surfaces when removing wallpaper.
- First have a look at the wallpaper and see if there are any corners peeling off. If so, try peeling it back and you may find all layers of wallpaper come off easily in which case, keep peeling and you’re on you’re way.
- Sometimes only the top layer of wallpaper will peel off (I’ve had this happen many times) and if this happens keep reading for the next step.
- Have a look at the wallpaper to determine whether the surface is porous or non-porous. Metallic, velvet like finishes tend to be non porous and water won’t absorb. If you’re not sure if it’s porous or not, carry out the following test.
- Make sure you have your floor covered with a heavy duty drop sheet. The process is damp and messy so be prepared. You can use plastic drop sheets but we find them quite flimsy and slippery. A thick and sturdy drop sheet is worth paying that bit extra for as it provides better protection for the floor and it will last you for years.
- Mix some warm water with fabric softener (this helps to soften the wallpaper) and use a paint brush or sponge to cover a small portion of the wall. Don’t use too much water as you don’t want to damage the underlying wall. Then, use your paint scraper (being careful to keep the edge straight to avoid damaging the underlying wall), try to scrape some wallpaper off. If you’re surface is porous the water will soak in, if non-porous, the water will run straight off.
- If the wallpaper comes off easily you can continue to damp down small portions of the wall and keep scraping till you’re done.
- If the surface is non-porous the water will run straight off. This means you’ll have to roughen the wallpaper surface to allow the water to penetrate. The easiest way which avoids damage to the underlying wall is to use a sanding block with coarse sandpaper and sand the wallpaper surface. Then, sponge/paint a small portion of the surface and try scraping as above.
- Now, if you’ve found the wallpaper is difficult to scrape off and you’re worried about damaging the underlying wall, next step is to hire a wallpaper steamer (available from your local hardware store or hire shop and are quite inexpensive). It’s basically a container that you fill with water which heats up, runs through a hose connected to a metal plate that you place on the wall. Work on the basis of needing the wallpaper steamer for a longer period rather than a shorter period as the wallpaper removal process can take some time.
- Follow the instructions for setting up the wallpaper steamer and start steaming – this will soften the wallpaper and allow you to gently scrape it off. Again, be gentle so as not to damage the underlying wall. You’ll find that some of the steam softens the area around the plate on the steamer. Just keep placing the steamer plate on the wall and then scrape the softened wallpaper off. It’s a good idea to wear rubber gloves to protect yourself from the steam and always use a ladder to reach places you can’t reach otherwise some hot water may fall on you.
- It’s also a good idea to remove a section of wallpaper then clean up otherwise you’ll end up with a huge mess that you’re walking on.
- Once you’ve finished removing the wallpaper, you’ll need to determine how to prepare the underlying wall for repainting depending on the type of surface.
- For plasterboard walls, wash down lightly with a solution of sugar soap and water, let dry then sand (you don’t have to be too fussy with the sanding) with some light sandpaper. Give a quick brush down to clear the dust and you’re set to prime.
- For unsealed surfaces like horsehair plasterboard, wash with sugar soap and hessian, then you will need special primer like sealer binder to prepare the surface.
PS: Budget version is to use sponge, it will cost you time. If time is premium, use a streamer.
If you’ve had any good or bad wallpaper removal stories, we’d love to hear from you!
Safety switches and Circuit breakers, what are they?
I asked my electrician about the difference between safety switches and circuit breakers. He said a circuit breaker is like the old fuses, it provides a short circuit and over current protection. Circuit breakers do not give any protection against electric shock. It only cuts power if you have too many appliances on a power board.
Safety Switch
On the other hand, safety switches come with a basic circuit breaker plus monitoring the earth. For example, you are using a circular saw and it cuts through the cable. The saw is made of metal and when you cut it, it shorts the circuit between neutral and earth. With less than 0.03 seconds, it cuts the power and you don’t get a shock.
Having said that, if you stick your finger in the light socket while it’s switched on, you will still get a shock because of two things:
- Your light circuit normally doesn’t have a safety switch installed
- Even if a safety switch is installed, most lights are NOT earthed
As a result, you will still get a shock.
What happens when my safety switch keeps tripping?
There is an electrical fault some where. You can unplug all appliances inside your house then turn the safety switch back on. Once it is on, plug in the appliances ONE BY ONE to isolate the fault. If there is no immediate fault with any appliance, but it trips later that day, you need to get an electrician to check it.
Some appliances like fridges and oil column heaters only run when it’s needed and this could be one of the contributing factors.
Always remember, safety switches and circuit breakers are not a substitute for common sense! Always take care with electrical appliances and fittings. If you have young child at home, buy those plastic covers to cover all unused power outlets etc, inspect power cords regularly for any defects such as damaged insulation or exposed conductors. Any burning smells and discolouring of the appliance, be careful as it’s cheaper to buy a new one than shock yourself causing serious injury. If you need to power off any suspected appliances, always turn off from the power outlet not the appliance itself especially when it has burning smells. It could be hot with melting plastic etc.
If you are unsure whether you have a safety switch installed, get an electrician to check your switch board and may need to upgrade.
Circuit Breaker
In our investment properties, we changed all the fuses to plug in circuit breakers as a minimum for around $15 each (DIY), this is a very cheap option to minimise power overloading the house. Overload = Potential fire. If we’re doing major work like replacing electrical cables, we definitely put in safety switches.
Drop me a comment if I missed anything, I think it is an important topic.
Review: Shur-line Pro Edger
Over the years I’ve had lots of trial and error painting and in particular painting edges. It can be tricky to get a straight edge especially around difficult or hard to reach areas like the top of a wall meeting the cornice.
One way to solve the problem is to use tape – eg on top of skirting, around door frames etc. There’s specialised tape easily available that sticks for different lengths of time which is good. Using regular masking tape can leave a sticky residue or peel paint from underneath if you’re not careful.
I’ve had lot of success with paint edgers and the Shur-line Pro Edger does a great job. Easy to use and gives an even finish. Great on smooth surfaces, a little more difficult to use if your edge surface is not smooth eg older cornices that a may be bumpy. It’s also great if you’re using darker colours next to a light colour. You really need to get the edge painted straight otherwise the finished look will be unprofessional and bumpy.
One thing to watch for is overloading the edger with paint. This can really make a mess on you, the edger and the surface you’re painting.
I do like the fact you can easily remove the pad and it washes out in water (assuming you’re using water based paints).
Here’s the video to show you how to use the edger.
Overall the Shur-line Pro Edger is a great product as long as you follow the instructions, and you’ll end up with a professional result.
Having said that, the area painted by the edger does not give you the dimple finish that a paint roller does. This may also create a framing effect, to minimise this, we found that two people work as a team, one using the edger to paint the edge and the other quickly follow to paint the wall as high as possible while the paint still wet.
If you have any questions, please drop us a comment and we will answer it ASAP.
Plasterboard Rebate Machine
Renovation is a bit like problem solving, sometimes we face issues that require a quick decision but other times we can do research. Bill Goss from www.rebatemate.com.au is a plasterer and he has spent most of his life in the plastering industry. He sees a unique problem when joining plasterboard – how to make a perfect join.
I watched this program one night from the ABC New Inventors and it is seems that Bill is a perfectionist who invented a machine to create a rebate on the plasterboard edge.
Normally, the rebate edge is on the long side but we still need to join the short edge, this is where Bill inventions comes in. ‘Plasterboard Rebate Machine‘.
I am a perfectionist and even I think it’s a bit overkill. Anyhow, it is good to know such a machine exists because you never know when you will need it. Watch this short program (90 seconds) and let me know your thoughts?
