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Renovate Your Vancouver Dream Home

January 25, 2012 By

Renovating Your Vancouver BC Dream Home can be an exciting and educational experience to say the least.  Many prospective dream home remodelers don’t really understand the scope of a major home remodeling project.  If you are in a position to be building or remodeling your dream home you are a very lucky person.  Many people have waited and saved for years to earn enough money to start building their dream home.

How Will You Handle The Stress?

Once the building or home renovation process begins the stress may at times be overwhelming.  Building your dream home takes the coordination of a lot of people and making sure all those people are doing what you want them to do can be a difficult task.  Hiring a well known, and efficient building contractor will help make the process less stressful.

To help manage the stress that comes with this time you can follow these simple steps.

1. Be Prepared – Meet with your builder several times if you have too.  Ask LOTS of questions.  You can never have enough info.

2. Budget – Have a realistic budget and stick to it! One of the biggest mistakes people make in new real estate is not properly planning their budget. Create a thorough list of all your costs and leave a big cushion. You don’t want to get halfway done your dream home and run out of money.

3. Get Professional Help – If you are not an experienced contractor then don’t try to act as your own general contractor. It will be worth your money to hire someone else that is trained and knows what they are doing.  You’ll get quality people working on your project and most licensed contractors can provide you with a warranty on the work completed, or in the case of a new home, your new home warranty coverage.

Sticking To The Timeline

When designing your timeline make sure and leave plenty of cushion for rainy days and other weather related issues that may arise.  There might be mistake with materials that could cause a delay, the idea is to just be prepared.

Ask questions if you are unsure of anything. Discussing the subject openly with your contractors before the building begins will make it easier to develop your timeline. Most contractors are very good at predicting real timelines, but they choose to bid shorter ones to get your work.

For more Great home builder tips contact M. Southin and Sons Contracting today!

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Adding Laminate Flooring To Your Home?

January 25, 2012 By

There are just so many choices you have when renovating your vancouver BC home that you can find it difficult to keep up with the decisions that have to be made. Flooring is one aspect of home improvement you need to put some thought into.

If you love the look and feel of wood, you should consider laminate flooring, which is cheaper than real wood flooring, and will withstand many problems in the home, while withstanding a lot of traffic in the home at the same time. Laminate flooring is easy to install or you can have a contractor  like M. Southin and Sons Contracting who has more time and experience than you to install the laminate flooring.  The benefit to having a pro install the laminate is you’ll get a warranty, and the manufacturers warranty will be honored.

Laminate flooring can be matched to just about anything in your home. If you have a great wood trim through out your home, you can find laminate flooring that is going to match that color. The laminate flooring colors can be used to match the cupboards in your bathroom, in the kitchen or the end tables in your living room. Laminate flooring colors and shades of colors are going to vary from store to store, and from brand to brand.

Laminate flooring can be installed where you previously had carpeting before. If you are thinking about getting rid of carpeting in your home, you will find that by ripping out the carpeting, and putting down a new sub floor you are going to be ready to install a new laminate flooring in your home. Often times a laminate flooring is going to be a light color, one that is going to make the rooms of your home, where you are installing laminate flooring, seem so much bigger. The laminate flooring installed in your home will be a great change, one that you will enjoy for years to come. Laminate flooring is often times going to last longer than vinyl sheet goods and even be warmer feeling than vct tile or ceramic tile in your home.

Laminate flooring can be installed over radiant heating adding that much more warmth to your flooring. If you are remodeling your home, and you are worried about heat in the floor or the flooring feeling cold, consider installing radiant heating below the flooring, you are putting down. Radiant heating below laminate flooring is going to give your feet a treat, even in the coldest weather.

M. Southin and Sons Contracting can help you choose and install the right flooring for your newly remodeled space.

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Choosing Your Kitchen Countertops

April 24, 2011 By

Have you recently made the decision to renovate your kitchen? If so, what would you like to have remodeled? There are some homeowners who only choose to have a specific part of their kitchen remodeled, but then there are others who want everything changed. Whether you want to only improve a small part of your kitchen or if you want a completely different kitchen, there is a good chance that you may be looking for a new kitchen countertop. If so, have you decided on which type of countertop you would like?

When it comes to choosing new kitchen countertops, for your kitchen remodeling project, there are a number of factors that need to be taken into consideration. One of the most important things to keep in mind is your kitchen cabinets. Kitchen countertops are almost always placed on top of kitchen cabinets or cupboards. If you are looking to remodel your cabinets as well, it may be a good idea to pick out all of your supplies and materials at the same time. This will help to ensure that your new kitchen countertop not only looks nice, but that it also compliments the kitchen cabinets that you will have installed.

Perhaps, the most important thing to keep in mind, when choosing your new kitchen countertops is the cost. Laminate countertops are often considered the most affordable of all countertops. Despite being the most affordable, they are often considered plain. If you are looking to not only change your kitchen around, but improve the appearance of it, you may be looking for something better. A large number of homeowners choose to make their new kitchen countertops out of wood materials or marble.

Although it is important to focus on the beauty and overall appearance of a countertop, it is also important to make sure that you can afford it. If you are remodeling your entire kitchen, it may be a good idea to make a list of materials that you will need or wish to have, in addition to a budget. If you mistakenly spend too much money on kitchen countertop materials, you may find it difficult to afford to remodel the rest of your kitchen.

While there is a chance that you may already know what type of new kitchen countertop you would like to have installed, there is also a chance that you may not. If this is the case, you are advised to start shopping. Whether you look for kitchen countertop materials online or in one of your local home improvement stores, there is a good chance that you will come across a wide selection of materials, all with different designs and styles. Shopping or at least browsing is one of the best ways to get ideas.

Once you have decided which type of materials you would like to use for your kitchen countertops, whether they be a traditional green laminate color or a beautiful marble color, you will need to decide how your kitchen countertop will be installed. Seek assistance from a professional kitchen remodeling expert or a general contractor and you’ll end up with fantastic looking new countertops.

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