Creating a comfy home begins with getting rid of what you do not use or want any longer and disposing of it properly. You then add to the home’s exterior and interior the décor you do want. To create a truly comfortable home, you may need to hire repair services to fix problems that spring up.
A comfy home offers more than overstuffed chairs and a vast kitchen table. In fact, for some people, that would not describe a comfortable home. Some individuals prefer a home in dark academia, light academia, ultra-modern, or Mid-Century modern. Your favorite decor provides comfort for you, so redecorate your home in the way you want. This guide offers a few tips on getting started and what creating a comfortable décor and cozy home might require.
Clean Out Unwanted Items
Begin your remodeling or renovating adventure with dumpster rental services. If a dumpster doesn’t sound like it would contribute to a comfy home, allow us to explain. Creating a cozy home starts with cutting the clutter. Go through everything you own and determine which items you love and which you want to keep.
Create a donation pile, so you can help others while you pair down your belongings. Place everything else into the dumpster, so you quickly rid of it. Most dumpster rental services also provide a weekly pickup, so if your sorting takes a few weeks, the company you contract with will help you keep the dumpster empty. That provides you with more room to sort and create space for your new comfy décor.
Creating a Cozy Interior
Depending on how much you donated and threw out, you may have most of your home emptied to start over with a new, comfy home interior. Perhaps you’ve had your dream furniture picked out for many years or you have no idea what you want. Start by perusing decorating magazines and websites to learn what styles of decor attract you.
Finding furniture that you find comfortable provides the foundation for your comfy home décor. Whether you adore tweed wingback chairs or leather sofas, identifying your favorites and finding a local seller of them starts you on your way. Consult home improvement websites, such as Home Depot and Lowe’s, and retail platforms like Amazon and Temu, for ideas for décor and the furnishings to create them. Home improvement stores sell much more than lumber and tools; they also carry appliances, carpets, wallpaper, and furniture.
Decorate Your Exterior
Once you’ve created a comfy home interior, move onto your home’s exterior. Local landscaping companies can help you transform your yard into an oasis of enjoyment. A landscape architect can design a yard for you in a similar way that an interior designer creates a uniform interior decor for your home. This exterior design may include trees, bushes, grass or other ground cover, hardscapes, and yard structures.
The landscaper handles every aspect of fulfilling the landscape architect’s design. They shop local plant nurseries for flowers, bushes, shrubs, and small trees. These home improvement professionals also provide the mulch and garden bed edging for the design.
Create a Backyard Oasis
Some landscaping projects require mason or concrete services, such as putting in a patio or an inground hot tub. Called hardscapes, this category of exterior design creates stone, cement, or wood areas for recreational use or transit. Sidewalks, walking paths, foundations for pergolas and gazebos, and walls also count as hardscapes.
When you set out to create a comfy home, include your local masonry contracting services. These companies can help you create an outdoor living area or outdoor kitchen for backyard gatherings, picnics, and much more. These masonry professionals can also design retaining walls or stone privacy fences that improve your home’s safety.
Keep It Protected from the Elements
An outdoor retaining wall that prevents erosion and floor isn’t the only way to protect your house from the elements to create a comfy home. If your house has an attic with access to the interior walls, consider adding spray insulation. Otherwise, add insulation batting in the attic to reduce airflow into the home. Drafts cost money on energy bills, but insulation can stop these air leaks.
Where you find air leaks in an attic or a roof, you may also find water leaks. If you spot cracks or leaks in the ceiling or roof, phone a local roofing service for an inspection and estimate. Have a professional roofing service repair the problems as soon as possible, so your home remains safe, cozy, and comfy.
Finish Your Basement
In the process of creating a comfy home, add to its available space in the easiest way. Finish your home’s unfinished basement. Although basement construction can prove costly, homeowners with a house featuring an existing basement can turn it into usable living or recreational space rather easily.
Consult with a building contractor who specializes in basement remodeling. Consider how you want to use the space, so you get the most out of your initial consultation, typically a no-cost meeting. Common projects include a laundry room, recreational room, or guest bedroom and bathroom. The contractor typically suggests a design that places the laundry or bathroom beneath an existing area of plumbing, such as the kitchen or another bathroom, to use the existing plumbing lines and save you money.
Modernize Your Kitchen and Bathrooms
Create a comfy home that features a kitchen in which you want to gather family and friends. This may require kitchen remodeling if your home includes older appliances, wallpaper, and paint. Redoing the kitchen takes more than a new paint job. A professional contractor can help you design an updated kitchen that uses the chef’s triangle to make meal preparation easier.
A remodeled kitchen also features updated cabinets and countertops. Consider getting rid of your outdated Formica counters and replacing them with quartz or marble. If that seems a bit pricey, consider other tough options that look great, such as ceramic tile or cement with a design combed into it.
Kitchen remodeling may require pulling out the existing cabinets and replacing them with new custom cabinets that provide the storage options you need. This cabinet update could include a hidden trash can, a corner cabinet with a lazy Susan that makes it simpler to access the lids for pots and pans, or a pullout spice rack. Remodeling your kitchen to create a comfy home means making it your own.
Redoing the bathroom works the same way. Replace the bathroom that your home came with and make it the bathroom you want. Consider adding a walk in shower door or a tub on one side of the room and a shower on the other. This feature in an ensuite bathroom offers a couple the ideal way to share a bathroom, and both get ready at the same time in the morning.
If you’ve ever dreamed of having wood floors in your bathroom, today’s laminate wood flooring allows that. While hardwood performs poorly in moisture-rich locations like a bathroom or kitchen, laminate looks like hardwood, but performs beautifully. Choosing vinyl laminate provides all the benefits of a Linoleum floor without the 1970s styling.
Vinyl laminate or wood laminate offers a quicker installation than hardwood. A local flooring contractor can typically install this type of flooring in a room in one day. Choosing either type of laminate produces a quick turnaround revamp of your bathroom or kitchen, and can create a new, cozy atmosphere in a day.
Also, in the bathroom, update fixtures and faucets. Low-flow toilets, showerheads, and faucets can save you money on the water bill. Consider switching to an all-in-one composting toilet system to eliminate water use for toileting. This type of toilet costs between $800 to $2,000 for the hardware but results in no water use for toileting. Composting toilets can save a homeowner huge money on their monthly water bill, especially in areas like Los Angeles and Oklahoma City, where cities charge a premium cost for water.
Simple additions, such as heated towel bars or an updated bathroom vanity, can result in a comfy home. Updating the faucets and towel bars can also result in an upgraded appearance. Consider polished brass or rose gold-colored fixtures to create a more luxurious feel.
Shower curtains, shelving, and bathroom carpets also add to the comfy feel of a home. Consider a bathroom theme, such as the beach, nautical, cabin, or cottagecore, then use it throughout the room. Purchase a matching curtain and bath carpets, then add a matching toilet seat cover. This pulls together the room and makes it more homey.
Make a small bathroom feel larger by installing a large mirror over the vanity that spans at least the vanity’s width. If it’s longer than the bathroom counter, that’s even better. The mirror provides utility, so more than one person can get ready at a time, and it uses a visual trick that makes the room seem larger. Install shelving across from the mirror or hang a breathtaking painting or photograph to double the visual interest.
Little Things that Create a Comfy Home
Your ideal comfy home might mean a bed with deep mattresses and down comforters done in your favorite colors. Sometimes, painting the room, or installing wallpaper can revamp a room in one day. Choose your palette first, then work from there, so you can eliminate options that won’t work with what you want. A cohesive color palette creates the ideal starting point for shopping.
Once you choose your color theme and interior design aesthetic, you’re ready to shop. Make a list of what you need, noting what you kept from your de-cluttering step. A comfy home typically uses layers of color on windows and furniture to create depth and visual interest.
For example, most cozy houses feature window treatments of at least three layers. Some windows feature four layers:
- Shades or pull-down blinds
- Sheers in a neutral color or print
- Blackout curtains or drapes in a brighter solid color or muted print
- Shutters on the home’s exterior.
These layers of color offer the homeowner the ability to allow sunlight while reducing glare and blocking drafts.
Rescue Favorite Pieces of Furniture
Time can wear down the upholstery on a rocking chair or occasional chair. Don’t toss out your favorite piece of comfy furniture just because the upholstery became threadbare. Contact a local furniture maker to reupholster the item. This revamp can transform your outdated print upholstery into a luxurious leather furnishing that perfectly suits your newly updated home.
Similarly, your favorite coffee or kitchen table or end tables don’t have to go into the dumpster because of deep scratches. Have the furniture maker sand them down, then re-varnish them. Sanding an item offers a simple way to salvage it and enhance its coziness.
A local building contractor can also help you save favorite home features, such as a built-in bookcase or hutch that has seen its best days. A master carpenter can repair such home features, even if the wood carvings have worn away through time. Of course, sometimes, your home itself needs the rescue work.
Structural Repairs to Enhance Your Comfy House
The exterior of a home can undergo damage, such as torn-off siding or damage to the roof. If this happens to your house, repair the exterior first. Your comfy home won’t feel very comfortable if you don’t have the exterior repaired first. That’s because the leaks and drafts that can develop will make it feel cold and uninviting.
Exterior repairs don’t just improve the curb appeal of the home; they also make it safer. No house should go without needed roof or foundation repair because these two items more than others contribute to the home’s safety. If you think you need these repairs but can’t afford them, contact a non-profit like Rebuilding America, known in some areas as Christmas in April. In some locations, Habitat for Humanity repairs existing homes and builds new ones.
Make Your Home Comfy and Cozy
Get started on your comfy home project before the cold weather hits. Choose an aspect of your house that you want to change and start the project immediately. Wallpapering, tiling floors, and updating bathroom fixtures all offer winter projects you can find local contractors to handle.