Experts In Your Home Blog

When you live in a small house, every little space counts. No longer is a bare wall acceptable or can an overhead space be left for the cobwebs. Limited space usually means the need for more creative ideas about how to use that space to your advantage. 

If you've ever looked at the alcove under your stairs and wondered what to even use it for, we’ve got an idea for you! 

Spring is in the air, and the energy and inspiration that comes this time of year may have you thinking about all of the potential in remodeling parts of your home.

It can be exciting to think about improving your curb appeal with new paint or siding or adding a luxurious and modern touch to your bathroom. Or maybe your dream is to do a major kitchen remodel since that’s where you and your guests will spend a lot of time. It’s also possible you just dream of more space, and with real estate in tight supply in Northern California you’ve realized that remodeling is the best route for you to go.

With real estate in the greater Chico and surrounding areas in limited supply, you may be finding that you’ve outgrown your home – but you can’t find an available or affordable home to upgrade to. This is a common scenario for many due to certain factors affecting the local real estate market, particularly an already tight supply along with higher demand after the tragic Camp Fire.

You could certainly stay in the real estate market and hope for the ideal house to come along (at a reasonable price) or maybe wait a year or two and see how things look. Another option is to consider adding onto your existing home.

If you've ever ducked underneath someone's oversized umbrella during a driving rain storm, then you know: it provides the safety and security you need when you're caught by surprise.

It may help to think of Experts In Your Home in the same way – a home improvement umbrella company that many homeowners in the Chico area know for what's underneath it:  services such as building and remodeling, heating and air conditioning, plumbing, electrical, painting and cleaning services. 

But the Experts In Your Home umbrella is larger than some people may realize. It also covers commercial properties, and it's usually at this time of year when commercial landlords are preparing for the year ahead by making what are known as tenant improvements. If you, too, are considering making these types of improvements – either because you want to or a tenant has requested them – Experts In Your Home wants to ensure it saves room for you under its umbrella as our schedule fills up.

Savvy homeowners know that there are many sources of inspiration: magazines, websites and especially that enterprising neighbor (with a seemingly sky-is-the-limit budget).

The well of ideas can run deep, and Experts in Your Home has written about a favorite “well” before - Pinterest. But sometimes, the Experts turn to the experts, especially at this time of year, when people ask for ideas to invigorate their backyard. We know: making even one crucial change can transform a dull, lifeless backyard into a dynamic one that becomes a favorite congregating place – and not just on special occasions but every day of the week.

Even infrequent visitors to the Experts in Your Home blog know that we're huge supporters of DIY projects and especially do-it-yourselfers. In fact, most of the home tips our team members write about are crafted with the “weekend warrior” in mind.

With spring and the return of consistently warm weather on the minds of many of our readers, it's natural that a new concrete patio looms at the top of their wish list. But like advanced electrical, plumbing and heating and air conditioning projects, this is one project that should be shuffled from the DIY column to the Experts' column – unless, of course, you once installed concrete patios for a living.

You could probably divide the world into two groups: the people who generally like fences and the people who spot one in the backyard of a home they're considering purchasing and say, “That thing's gotta go.”

Every once in a while, Experts In Your Home encounters a third group: the homeowners who literally are on the fence about whether to have a fence installed in their backyard.

Before our fence builders take a simple measurement or show a single picture of the fences they have installed in the Chico area, they ask, “What is your objective?” In other words, they need to know what purpose the fence ought to serve. Along the way, homeowners often realize that fences offer more benefits than they realized. Some might resonate with you, too:

Consider the Benefits of Having a Fence Installed:

It's difficult to picture anything more enticing than enjoying an outdoor cookout, with good food sizzling on the grill, a cool drink in your hand and the soft texture of a patio under your bare feet.

Then again, this soothing picture might depend on which type of texture is rubbing against your feet. As much as choosing a patio material hinges on financial considerations, comfort counts, too.

Six Popular Patio Options for Your Home

When you turn to the patio installation experts at Experts In Your Home, they will explain the six most popular options – as well as the pros and cons of each one. Installing a new patio can increase your home's value – not to mention increase its recreational value to you. This is why it's important to carefully consider:

The neighbors knew something was up; they just didn't know why so many contractors were visiting Nancy and Jim's home and spending so much time surveying the backyard.

In this close-knit (some would say nosy) community, the neighbors wasted no time finding out: Nancy and Jim were interested in building a full-glass sunroom addition on the rear of their traditional saltbox colonial, complete with a six-seat hot tub.

The neighbors – on either side and to the rear of Nancy and Jim's house – were quick to render their opinion: Nancy and Jim would only waste their hard-earned money on such an extravagance. But with every well-intentioned objection Nancy and Jim heard, they became more convinced than ever that the many benefits outweighed the one issue they hadn't yet reconciled: the cost of the project.

If you're considering building a sunroom – either to your current home or as part of a new construction project – it might help to understand how Nancy and Jim weighed the benefits:

Over the years, the building team at Experts In Your Home have been invited to many customers' homes for a rather forlorn “introduction” to the backyard deck.

“Just look at it,” our team often hears. “What do you think I should do with that thing?”

The truth is, the problem usually isn't the structural integrity of the deck (although it could be).

Rather, often it's that the deck is vastly underused or is not conducive to outdoor entertainment, which is a shame because those are the precise reasons the deck probably was installed in the first place.