Kitchen remodeling is a difficult task that can take a while to complete. Inexperienced people fear they might waste money on a professional, so they try to remodel it themselves. This isn’t a good idea. It’s essential to seek guidance from professionals who can help tailor a suitable layout of proper steps to follow when remodeling your kitchen. These steps can range from getting inspiration to finishing the project.

Get Inspiration and Plan

The first step in a revamp project is finding your inspiration and building your dream kitchen based on the design you want. Planning a layout is key to finding what areas need replacing and what you can fix later. As you develop your design layout, make any necessary changes when required.

Plan a Door and Window Replacement

Map which windows or doors you want to replace. Maybe you want to knock down a section so you can add more windows to access natural light. Or perhaps you want to replace your ordinary aluminum steel door with a glass-paneled French door so the kitchen will feel bigger. When you’re looking at windows and doors, write down the correct measurements, so you don’t accidentally get any that are too small or big.

Plan Replacement Countertops and Sink

Figure out what you’re replacing your countertops and sink with. Countertops create strains in a budget, especially if you’re open to spending a lot. If you want to avoid paying a lot on countertops, consider inexpensive options such as laminate countertops until you can afford something a little more expensive.

Secondly, your sink doesn’t need replacing right away; in fact, it can be considered the last step to follow after completing the countertops and flooring. If you aren’t sure how else to plan your replacement countertops and sink, reach out to Bear Mountain Custom Painting, one of the leading home improvement companies in Atlanta. At Bear Mountain Custom Painting, we pair you with one of our many talented contractors who can help plan out your next countertop replacement.

Replace the Flooring

The biggest mistake to make while renovating is prematurely replacing the floor by yourself. If you aren’t confident in replacing or installing new flooring, one of our contractors at Bear Mountain Custom Painting can help you with all the questions you have. Before you lay the tiles down, draw out measurements and tile or wood types you’d like to have.

Remodeling your kitchen takes time, but we’re here to help you in every way and answer every question you have. At Bear Mountain Custom Painting, we take every floorplan seriously. We look forward to helping you with yours as you learn the proper steps to follow when renovating your kitchen.

Fall is upon us, and unlike spring cleaning, we’re going to do some autumn renovating. To us, fall is more than leaves changing color; it’s about trendy new home improvement projects to try this fall. On a side note, you can accomplish these projects in one afternoon or on the weekend. But, if you need extra help, hire a professional contractor to do the tasks for you so that you’re ready for winter.

Clear Out the Gutters

Hearing you need help with a home improvement task is music to our ears. We enjoy nothing more than helping someone out with gutter inspections and cleaning. If you want clean gutters and resistance against foundation damage and flooding, you should clean your drains of debris. Also, you must remove any nests that rodents or other small animals have made in them. You can clear out your gutters in one afternoon.

Care For Your Roof

If you clean your gutters, you might as well have your roof checked for damages and any possible fixes. When you hire a roofing company, its professionals come out to inspect every nook and cranny. They’ll also fix any damages that they notice. If a roofing service can’t do a task, they usually recommend other specialized businesses that can complete that work for you.

Insulate Your Attic

Attic insulation is vital for winter, so why wait until December to do it? Right after you fix your roof, the next part to fix is the attic. Cold air can slip through cracks, causing the entire house to freeze. Free up some time this week to get a crew down to help put insulation in your home. Insulation traps warm air and can lower your monthly financial expenditures on energy.

Paint Your Exterior Walls

Painting is a relaxing activity to complete at any time of day, making fall the right time to get this task done. While the temperatures are comfortable outside, the paint won’t cause your siding to warp or chip. While you’re making decisions on paint colors, consider hiring a professional house painting service in Cumming, GA to do the job quickly so that they can give you the space to focus on other tasks to do throughout the season.

Prepare Your Fireplace

If you have a hearth in your home, you should have a professional chimney sweep check and clean it once a year. Otherwise, you risk soot accumulating on the flue, which can cause an inability for smoke to rise. With that in mind, get your chimney clean to have a warm room to come home to after you get off work.

Organize the Garage

Even though a garage is the last thing you’d think about cleaning, it’s important to have room to store lawnmowers, bikes, and even cars. However, if you have trouble organizing everything in the garage, consider purchasing storage containers and ceiling hooks to keep things tidy. For starters, if you have tools lying around, install a cabinet or get a workbench to help manage them. For other things like bikes, ensure that the hooks you purchase are sufficient to hold their weight. As for your car, keep the entire area where it parks clear. This way, you won’t risk running anything over, and you won’t accidentally hit anything while backing in or out.

Install Smart Home Upgrades

Nothing says trendy new home improvement projects to try this fall more than some smart home upgrades. Your home will have many jaws dropping and take the breath away from many guests when it has devices ranging from a smart thermostat to a self-cleaning stove. Start small when getting new home upgrades. Begin with a smart home thermostat and a security system. Before installation, ensure that the products work with your home correctly.

Upgrade Your Closet

Your closet becomes more cramped with all of those clothes piled in it. In this particular situation, you end up facing two options: declutter the space or upgrade it. We think you deserve a bigger closet. Knocking down a few walls can help make the closet feel expansive and more accommodating to your needs.

Replace Your Outdated Fixtures

Not many people like having outdated fixtures in their homes. A home can look aged if you don’t change its style now and then. To do this, consider switching out your light fixtures for new ones with refreshing designs. Go with a more neutral style and also think about eco-friendliness. However, if you’re looking to retain some of the home’s character, go with floor lamps while removing the ceiling lights.

Install an Elegant Wet Bar

You’ll need to add a special place for wine or other fancy drinks to incorporate more modernity into the home. A wet bar can be a perfect addition, especially if you want something sleek, easy to install, and chic. A simple installation in your closet can help make a dream of having a wet bar come true. Not only that, but you’ll have easy access to your favorite wine.

Increase Your Home’s Curb Appeal

You should update your porch often. Staying on top of this can help increase your property’s value if you’re looking to sell it. If you want to up your curb appeal game, consider painting your front door, replacing hardware, getting new street numbers, or changing your outdoor lighting fixtures. Additionally, don’t be afraid to dress your porch up a bit with fun fall decorations. Also, don’t forget to change your garage door if you’re looking for something new there.

Take Care of Your Lawn Maintenance

If the grass is tickling the back of your knees, it’s time to do some yard work. Upgrading your landscaping can help improve your curb appeal and make life more meaningful. To beautify the yard, consider adding plants and decorative rocks to bring visual variations to it and help it stand out. Also, make sure to rake up any leaves and throw them away correctly when taking care of your lawn.

Fall is the ideal time to carry out maintenance and improvements. Have your yard work and all of your home improvement projects completed through Bear Mountain Custom Painting. We can help make your dream home become a reality.

Dry rot is a type of dampness primarily found in aged homes and buildings. If left untreated, it can cause wooden structures to weaken and the building’s foundation will get disturbed. Normally, rotted wood is found in ignored areas and isn’t discovered until the damage from flooding or humidity makes it impossible to ignore. Here is more on what happens when you leave rotted wood unaddressed.

The Structure Gets Damaged

Many people ignore or dismiss rotted wood as nothing more than a sign of age. However, it shouldn’t be ignored. If rotted wood isn’t taken care of, permanent structural damage will happen. Your timber—or any other material in your home—will deteriorate and collapse. Buildings can fall apart if they have problems with rotten wood that don’t get taken care of immediately.

The Signs of Rotted Wood

Early signs that your wood has begun to rot include cracking, cotton-like fungus, and darkening and shrinking. The late signs that your wood is decayed—and it might be a sign the wood is unsalvageable— are continuous fungal growth, peeled wood pieces, and a musty smell. There is, however, a difference in rot. Rot can either be wet or dry. Read more about the two kinds below.

• Dry rot affects timber and can cause wood to crack along its grain, which gives the wood a spongy, soft texture. Think of dry rot as a virus; it can live in walls and travel between enclosures to spread itself elsewhere.
• Wet rot, on the other hand, doesn’t spread like a virus. Instead, the decay stays in one damp area, creates a pungent stench, and discolors the wood around it.

Both dry rot and wet rot can manifest in a home’s structure to the point of creating irreparable damage.

How To Fix Rotted Wood

Rotted wood can be taken care of (as long as the damage isn’t too extensive.)

Fix rotted wood by reaching out to a company with professional carpenters in Cumming, GA. The professionals will determine the best course of action. Bear Mountain Custom Painting can replace your rotted wood and even apply a protectant to help protect the wood from rotting. Don’t let your home’s structure suffer through moistened and weak foundations. Instead, get it replaced to help enhance the structure’s life.

In our guide on what happens when you leave rotted wood unaddressed, we reviewed how your structure gets damaged, the signs of rot, and what you can do to fix it. Bear Mountain Custom Painting provides outstanding services with mending your home’s structure by replacing rotted wood.

If you keep up with your wood siding, it can last for years to come. However, if you don’t take care of the siding, such as applying paint, you can risk the possibility of your home’s age showing and the material cracking. Help improve the looks of your wood siding with these tips for painting wooden exterior siding. If you would like a complimentary quote from our siding installation contractors in Alpharetta, please give us a call.

Powerwash the Siding

Before you can start painting the sides of your house, you need to clear excess dirt or debris that has accumulated over time. While clearing out dirt and debris with a power washer, use a stiff-bristled brush to wipe away any complicated areas. To help remove dirt and debris faster, you can increase the water pressure, but not so high that it begins to damage your wooden siding. Our house painting contractors in Alpharetta always clean your wood siding and professionally prep the surface for painting.

Clear Out Loose Paint or Debris

There’s likely more debris on the siding, so to help remove that and any loose paint chips, use an electric sander or sanding block to help remove the pieces and debris. If you plan to use an electric sander, ensure you use firm pressure on the siding, so you don’t harm the surface of the wood. The electric sander and sanding stone can help smooth out edges that seem a tiny bit rough. By using either sander, you can eliminate splintered areas and remove loose wooden pieces that stick out.

Apply Primer Paint

Before the actual coat of paint can go on, you need to add a coat of primer to help prep and protect the wood sidings by keeping them saturated while you paint. While applying your primer, you might need to use it twice if the wood absorbs the paint too quickly. Our house painters in Woodstock recommend that you watch out for bare areas – you don’t want to leave any behind.

Fill Seams and Cracks With Caulk

It’s tricky to know what kind of caulk is appropriate to use for sealing gaps. When applying new exterior siding installations in Cumming, GA, it’s essential to contact a professional who can help give suitable recommendations on the type of caulk you need to fill in the cracks and seams of your wooden siding. The best type to get is an acrylic-based caulk that can line and shape and easily wipes away with a damp rag to even out the lines. Before painting, let the caulk rest for a few hours.

Our tips for painting wooden exterior siding are only part of our process to get you the correct information to know ahead of painting your exterior. Through Bear Mount Custom Painting, you’ll find a qualified painter who can guide you through the process of painting your exterior and the rest of your home, if you choose. From house painting in Westfield, GA to concrete coatings in Alpharetta, give us a call.

If you have gutters, you should check that they aren’t clogged. If they are, that could lead to them potentially flooding your home and yard. When the drains become clogged, they won’t have the ability to dispense water away from your home. Instead of water draining correctly, it’ll pour from the sides, landing in areas that can cause foundation damage, structural issues, and even cause mold and mildew to grow in your basement. These issues cost a lot to fix, and homeowners end up having to pay thousands of dollars in damage. If you want to avoid these problems, read our guide on how to tell if your gutters are clogged.

There Are Birds or Pests by Your Roof

Birds and squirrels are adorable—but not if they’re nesting in your gutters. If you see any furry creatures scurrying down the drainpipes or bird nesting in the opening of your downpipes, you may have clogged troughs. It’s essential to remove the nests and pests from your gutters with the help of a certified professional. They’ll remove all animals and debris.

Water Spills Over the Sides

There might be a problem if water is splashing over the sides of your home. Any items that block water flow from drains can cause water to descend from the sides of your home. For instance, if your basement floods when it storms, that’s because of water spillage coming from your gutters. At Bear Mountain Custom Painting, we don’t want to see you do home gutter installation or inspections on your own. Cleaning gutters and installing new ones is a job that only professionals can take care of.

You Can’t Remember When You Last Cleaned

Remembering to clean your gutters can sometimes be a challenge. It often gets overlooked; homeowners assume gutter debris will fall away or drain out with the rain. That, unfortunately, is far from the truth. If you climb up a ladder now and see stockpiled rubbish from this past year, your gutters are severely clogged and need cleaning. Cleaning your gutters is something you should never overlook. Luckily, you can rely on Bear Mountain Custom Painting to do all of the wet and heavy work for you.

Gutters are extremely overlooked, and that’s because we believe nothing bad can happen to them. However, they’ll become clogged eventually—it’s inevitable. Before winter strikes, be sure clean out your gutters so you aren’t stuck fixing repairs in weather that’s below zero degrees. Instead of prolonging damage or improving gutter problems in the winter, call Bear Mountain Custom Painting. We’re happy to do all the work for you so your home—and its foundation—are protected.

Since the days when HGTV’s infamous house flipping shows first aired, the trend of flipping houses has seen a startling rise. What began in the 1980s as a trend influenced by celebrities soon grew to encourage many people to consider remodeling their home instead of demolishing it and building something new. When this house flipping trend first began, hardware stores began popping up in suburban areas, making it possible for families to build new homes and fix older ones. Learn how you can take part in this trend with this ultimate guide to flipping a historic home.

Start With a Plan

We all enjoy watching others flip homes on TV, especially when it involves renovating breathtaking historical homes to their former glory. However, the house flipping process is never as simple as it seems on TV. For instance, it often takes longer to get the approval to convert a historic home than it does to actually fix it. In many cases, before you can get approval for your project, you need to supply a clear plan that outlines your budget, examines the selected area for the home, and analyzes loans and other available resources.

Set a Budget

Like any renovation project, you need to have a solid budget in place before you can begin flipping a historic home. This budget should account for the essential features you cannot live without in the new home and the features, furniture, materials, and maintenance fixes you are willing to compromise on.

Seek Out Loans or Have Cash Ready

After you find a home, figure out how you’re going to pay for it. If you have cash, ensure that all accounts are ready to go with the right amounts in each account. If financing is something you’re looking into instead, start researching your area for lenders and see which ones will offer pre-approval. A precautionary note for first-time home flippers is that having a loan might look safe, but it won’t help you if you’re in a bidding war for a property.

Analyze Local Real Estate

Every real estate market has potential, and doing your research on profitable areas can make or break your plan for flipping a house. For example, check if the area has good schools, substantial property values, and other factors that will impact the worth of the house post-flip.

Understand the Challenges

With every fixer-upper, there are problems that you won’t see coming. However, view things from a professional standpoint and mentally prepare for these challenges ahead of time. Below are several challenges you may encounter on your historic home flipping journey.

Finding a Good Property

There’s a lot to consider when searching for the perfect property. Unfortunately, we often spend more time daydreaming about finding the ideal house than we do actually making moves to secure that house. Start by scouting out potential areas and search newspapers and real estate websites that have current listings available. Additionally, be wary of viewing properties with rose-tinted glasses. When searching for a decent property, one of the biggest concerns you’ll have to contend with involves the repairs and renovations that come with each house. Consider these repairs realistically and factor their costs into your budget before closing on a sale.

Bumps in the Road

Unfortunately, flipping a house in real life is nothing like it is on TV. Most of the time, you’ll be dealing with bigger issues than standard plumbing or infrastructure problems. Certain unforeseen problems, such as weather and theft, are more common than you’d think. Before you purchase a property, make sure you plan procedures to deal with every worst-case scenario and create an emergency contact sheet to help you out in your time of need.

Make the Interior Historically Appropriate

Before renovating a historic home, it’s essential to understand the history behind the property and what’s appropriate to place inside the home. Begin by assessing the items and fixtures that are already in the house, such as the flooring. When conducting your renovations, try to find flooring (and other fixtures) that match the original pieces in the home. If the original hardwood floors in the home have since become damaged beyond repair, try to replace them with new hardwood floors that are similar in style. This will help retain the original beauty of the home.

It’s okay to bend and break some rules, but make sure you’re maintaining most of the historic home’s character by leaving some of its original flooring or walls untouched. When looking at areas of the house to refurbish, be reasonable and realistic about your approach, as some areas will contain obsolete and inoperable amenities. However, you can use these items as decorations or donate them to a historical society or museum.

Style the Historical Home Based on Type

Historical homes have charm and rich histories; if the walls could talk, they’d drone on for hours about the many faces and conversations they overheard. Historic homes are a blessing for every community. As such, the most important part of renovating a historic home, aside from retaining the history behind the property, is to refurbish the interior and make it as historically accurate as possible without losing the home’s original character. Here’s a quick breakdown of common historical home styles and how you can decorate them.

Victorian Homes

Popular between 1830 and 1910, this style was named for Queen Victoria. Budding architects from England brought the style over to the US to share their talents and help add diversity in housing styles. These styled homes boast features that resemble dollhouses. Victorian homes take on many different styles, two of which are Gothic Revival and Folk Victorian.

When painting the walls of a Victorian home, it’s good to go with deep hues such as red, amber, emerald, and dark brown. Victorian Homes are often dramatic, so consider painting each room in a way that gives off some level of drama.

Foursquare Homes

Foursquare homes were popular between 1895 and 1930. Their cube-like appearance was widespread in urban areas; they were small, but the lots they were on made them feel significant. The Foursquare home was also available as a reasonably priced home kit that you could order and build yourself.

When renovating a home like this, it’s important to note the natural light that pours in through the windows. Choosing paint in neutral or grey-toned pastel colors will help make the home’s interior feel more natural to visitors.

Colonial Revival Homes

This style was popularized from 1876 to 1955 and is found all over the country. Colonial revivals are easy to spot based on their seamless lines that dip down. Colonial revivals were first presented at the US Centennial Exposition in 1876 and quickly became a reflection of American patriotism.

Even though individual colonial revival homes change slightly in style, you can help restore the home’s beauty by adding classic neutrals, such as eggshell white, for finishes on walls. To help balance the neutral colors out in every room, you can also add warmer tones such as soft blush pink or yellow.

Flipping a historic home is a long process, but that shouldn’t stop you from taking it on as your next home rehab project. After you’ve completed every step that you’ve learned from the ultimate guide to flipping a historic home, start looking into the finishing touches, such as touching up the home’s paint. When searching for residential painters in Cumming, contact Bear Mountain Custom Painting. We can enhance the look of your historic home by giving a new coat of paint to every room.