Home Improvement Archives - You Name It Creatives, LLC

What's a Home Improvement Consultation, & Why Do I Need One?

We say it all the time: “I don’t know what I don’t know.”
This is just as true in the home improvement industry as it is anywhere else.We were brought in by a client for a consultation on a plumbing project that they received an estimate for. The project was to move the tub and toilet a few feet over to make room for a larger vanity and more moveable space.

The estimate they received from the plumber was over 60k.

Big no.

Had our client not sought counsel, they’d be stuck with a larger loan than most of our vehicles just to move a tub.

When you book a Home Improvement Consultation with You Name It, you’ll get a comprehensive walkthrough and professional guidance to help you determine what does and doesn’t need to be repaired or replaced in and around your home.

3 Stages of Home Exterior Upkeep

1. Maintain

Maintenance is the least expensive, least invasive, and easiest type of home upkeep to plan for.
Maintaining your home is inevitable, and every homeowner should factor it into home buying costs and budgeting.
Examples include:

Painting the exterior (siding and trim)
Staining and/or sealing decks
Power-washing siding, decks, and patios
Cleaning gutters
Keeping moss off the roof
Inspecting the caulking and sealing around windows and doors

2. Repair

Repairing stops problems with the home before they multiply or become more severe.
Keeping up with regular maintenance can help you avoid the need to repair.
Examples include:

Performing small “fix-it” jobs on siding, roofing, trim, windows, and doors
Preventing more serious damage from occurring
Dealing with trouble spots the way they should have been dealt with to begin with – not relying on so-called “short-cuts”

3. Replace

Replacement is the most expensive and invasive type of home upkeep, with potentially many unforeseen consequences.
The need for replacements can be avoided by keeping up with repairs and regular maintenance. (Do you see a pattern?)
Examples include:

Replacing large amounts of siding, which can lead to…
Replacing multiple windows and/or doors at once, which can lead to…
Involving multiple systems of the home, such as framing, drywall, and insulation, which can lead to…
Potentially involving electrical and plumbing

Who Needs a Home Improvement Consultation?

Having a home improvement consultation, especially before starting to build or remodel, benefits every homeowner, whether you just bought your house or you’ve lived there for decades, or even if you’re looking to sell!

A home improvement consultation with the pros at You Name It is ideal for anyone who would like to add more liveable space to their home or safely alter their existing space and features. It’s ideal for anyone who knows that their house needs work, but doesn’t know where to begin!

Do I Have to Hire You After the Consultation?

With a Home Improvement Consultation, you pay for the consultation only and have no obligation to hire our company for carpentry, painting, power washing, gutter cleaning, or any other service we offer that your home needs. Our agenda is simple:

To advocate for homeowners
To educate on the process of maintaining, repairing, and replacing areas of your home
To create a safe place for you to ask the questions you need answered
To make sure you get the best quality and experience for dollars spent
To offer support and translation when working with home improvement companies
To make sure homes are being taken care of in the long term
To help make your home safe, happy, and a place you feel proud to show off

Painting Pro Tips: 3 of the many things I have learned about painting over the years

Let’s just bring this fact out to the open: you can paint.Most of the homeowners we encounter have painted at least one room in their homes. There’s something very important in those first two sentences: anybody can and many people have. Through your painting endeavors, you have either experienced far too many drips on the carpet, trim, and cats; or you realized that you actually hate it.

You know what I hate? Doing my laundry. That’s why for all eternity, my clothes will be in a giant heap on the folding table that we affectionately call the “junk table”. The point is that the household tasks I disagree with tend to get neglected a little longer than they should.

Are you smelling what I’m stepping in?
If you hate painting, that’s probably not what you are just leaping for joy over spending your weekends doing.

So let me help you.

Now… I don’t know if I actually love to paint, or if because I learned how to paint before I could ride a bike, it’s just that far engraved into my personality.
Either way, I know how to paint, and I know how to do it well. Also, I don’t paint cats… or carpets.

Let me tell you just 3 of the many things I have learned about painting over the years:

1. There's a Sheen for Everything

Rather than sharing all the different levels of sheens – a quickie Google search will bring up 12,100,000 results in half a second – I will just say that you have a lot of choices! Anything from flat to high-gloss enamel.

Did you know? Many paint brands offer scuff prevention paint for high-traffic areas. If you’re tired of getting your hallway repainted year after year, there is hope! Any easy-to-clean and highly durable glimmer of hope.

2. Cheaper is Not Always Cheaper

There are many different levels of paint quality. You may look at the dollar comparison with gallons of paint and determine: why go with an $80 gallon of paint when I can just go with a $25 gallon of paint? That $25 gallon of paint seems very appealing when you’re on a tight budget, but the reality is that in the painting industry, cheaper is far more expensive.

That $25 gallon of paint typically requires more coats, which means that as well as the obvious extra time spent painting multiple coats, you will also be waiting a couple of hours in between each additional coat to reach proper coverage for your wall, ceiling, or trim. That $80 gallon of paint is worth the extra cost – two-coat coverage = fewer hours spent painting.

If you’re hiring a company, that savings on buying the $25 gallon of paint could result in hundreds of extra dollars on the labor side of things.

3. You Can't Paint if Your Pets Love You

Sorry to break it to you. If your dog or cat loves you, you will probably end up painting them, too.

My first couple of projects painting professionally, I fell for my client’s animals. My clients would ask, “Do you want me to pen them up?”
My answer would be, “No. How dare you?” Jokingly, but still.
It only took once for my client’s fluffy, midnight black cat to have a bird-chasing party on the freshly painted white window sill for me to reverse my pet policy.

If you are painting your home, you have to be tough. You must be strong. You have to persevere through the whining behind the gate and the pawing at the crack at the bottom of a closed door.
If you fall for those cute little kitty paws or the dreadfully neglected puppy barks, you may end up spending the next hour scraping hair off your once beautiful masterpiece and repainting.

If this is not a feat you would like to attempt, call me. You can snuggle your fur babies in another room while I make your home spectacular.

If you have some painting projects you need help with, check out some of our past work!
We would be happy to answer any questions you have about the process.

We provide free estimates, and we price match our competitors’ estimates.

As always, have a beautiful day, and remember to smile at strangers!

Home Improvement, Home Maintenance, and Home Education

What’s a Home Improvement Consultation, & Why Do I Need One?

What's a Home Improvement Consultation, & Why Do I Need One?

3 Stages of Home Exterior Upkeep

Painting Pro Tips: 3 of the many things I have learned about painting over the years

Painting Pro Tips: 3 of the many things I have learned about painting over the years

Ready to start your project?

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Ready to start your project?

Get In Touch