Home Improvement

Black marks between the carpet and the skirting boards are just nasty. But they can be dealt with effectively with some sealant, some carpet cleaners and elbow grease.

Light coloured carpets make a room nice and cosy. Some people go for stark elegance in a room, so they choose a pristine white carpet to achieve this look. But no matter what kind of look you are trying to get into a room, you would not be successful if you end up having black marks between your carpet and the skirting boards of your room. These black marks under the skirting boards and on light-coloured carpet are just nasty.

What causes these black marks on carpets right under the skirting boards? The culprit that you are looking for is air. Air is everywhere; we all know that. And in houses, air under the flooring can escape through gaps and leave behind it a trail of dirt and dust. Thus, when black marks appear on the carpet directly under the boards, it means there are gaps on the flooring and the wall that is being used as an air vent.

The solution to this dilemma is clearly to fill the gaps that serve as the escape route for air. It is an easy enough solution and all the supplies that you need to buy are some flexible sealants, flexible tape, cedar paper and a carpet knife.

The first step to solving the problem is to pull back the carpet to expose the gaps. If you need to cut it with your carpet knife, go ahead and do it. Once you are done, just pull the carpet back. Afterwards, remove the layers of carpet underlay underneath the actual carpet, again to expose the gaps under the skirting boards.

Before you start working on sealing the gaps, clean first the area underneath the skirting boards so you would not have to deal with dirt trapped in your sealants. Sweep it, vacuum it, wipe it away, or just do anything you need to do in order to get the dirt out of there.

Once the gaps are clean and dry, apply the flexible sealant into the gaps. Let the sealant dry, and then slip the cedar paper into the space underneath the skirting boards. Tape the paper in place by using the flexible tape. In finishing this, you have just put a stopper on the escape route the dirty air is using.

This just leaves you to deal with the dirty stain on your carpet. Before you deal with that, you first replace all the carpet underlay that you removed prior to working on the gaps underneath the skirting boards. After you have replaced the carpet underlay, you may refit the carpet as you see fit. Then we get to the cleaning part. It is just collected dust, so all you need to do is to get a hardworking carpet cleaner to get the job done.

Light-coloured carpets are lovely in a room, but they can be nasty when there are black marks on the place where the carpet meets the skirting boards. Just stop the gap under the skirting boards, and your carpets will be fine.

Are you using your garage for little more than parking your car? You’re missing out on the perfect place for storing everything from sporting equipment to Christmas decorations. If you’re thinking that there’s no space for garage storage then maybe you need some shelving to increase your storage space. Here are some tips to buying storing shelves for your garage.
Shelving can be found at any home improvement or hardware store. There are two basic types of shelving which includes prefabricated shelves and ones that can be made in your garage. The prefabricated shelving is usually self enclosed where as shelving kits are designed for mounting on your garage wall.
Shelving kits for building your own shelving is usually a inch length of plywood, brackets and strips to attach the brackets. The piece of plywood varies depending on the length you need. They usually come in standard sizes or you can have them cut (or cut them yourself) to fit your needs. While you generally won’t care about the aesthetics, you can buy them pre-laminated so spills are easier to clean up. The strips for attaching the brackets have several slots so the shelving can be easily adjusted once mounted. If you’re not affixing the strips to a stud then you’ll need appropriate anchors as well.
Make sure you heed the weight requirements of all equipment. Brackets and anchors will clearly state their recommended maximum weight range. It’s always better to err on the side of safety and get equipment that can hold more than less. You never know what you’ll be storing on the shelves in the future.
The depth of your shelving depends on what your needs are but the standard is between 19 and 25 inches. A good idea is to set out everything you want to place on the shelves and then determine what you need. If you’re still unsure then just stick to the standard sizes.
There is also floor or ceiling mounted shelving which can also be a huge space saver. 2×4’s are attached to the flooring or ceiling in an “L” shape and then the shelving is attaches to the 2×4’s.
Prefabricated shelving comes in a variety of styles and materials. If you’ll be storing lightweight items such as boxes of Christmas decorations, then plastic shelving will do the trick. They come in various sizes and they’re stackable so you can buy as many shelves and supports as you need. There is also metal shelving for your heavier items. They are great for durability but usually can’t be altered or added to so customization may not be an option. Prefabricated metal shelving should be adjustable so it can accommodate items of different heights.
Now that you have a rundown of shelving you’re ready to use your garage for more than just a car.

My Home Improvement Project
I have been a part of many home improvement projects over the years and my most recent project was a four bedroom detached house located in Warrington. The idea started off as we would do the house up and sell it on for a profit. This is what my dad and I do in our spare time if you like. So we started work as we usually do and slowly the house took shape and I mean it really took shape. It truly did look spectacular when it was finished. However there were two problems;
1.We didnt want to sell it 2.We couldnt sell it if we wanted to
The house, although fantastic, would never fetch a fantastic price due to competition in the area. Our house is the biggest on the street and the only detached house as well but everyone seemed more interested in buying the house that is semi detached and slightly smaller and saving some money. So we decided to keep the house and truly turn it into a work of art.
How to personalize a house to make it a home
Well we where no longer selling the house so we could use a color scheme that we wanted. We had chocolate coloured furniture and the whole house including the kitchen and sofas followed this colour scheme so we decided that we could paint the walls a really dark crme colour which looked a lot better than boring white! Next we had to job of converting the garage into something of more value than a garage (the house was at the very end of the street so we had the whole road and the driveway to park in) as this seemed null and void to us.
This was a time consuming job but once it was done it truly did look amazing. The hardest part of this mini project if you like was changing the position of the door so you could go into the “mans den” from the hall rather than from the kitchen due to a long story and some unfortunate accidents along the way.
Now it was accessory time we bought a home entertainment system for the living room and mans den installed clapper lights in the bedrooms which where awesome and many more bits and bobs. Once this was done I was border line thinking about bumping off the old man just to have the house to myself (joking).
However we werent quite done. I looked at the French patio doors leading to the garden and a brainwave hit. My dad and I dont usually go for conservatories for a variety of reasons including price, profit margin and time. This meant the thought had never occurred to me, lets get a conservatory.
The conservatory project took four weeks and a lot of the work was outsourced. Once the piling was finished we thought the rest of the work would take no time at all but it turned out the opposite to be true. But once it was done I can honestly say that I was ready to buy my dad out and thats what I did (still paying him off!) and it was worth every penny.

Many homeowners don’t comprehend this, but there are many rules in place that keep your lender from taking advantage of you, while they are foreclosing on your home. Every day, I hear: My bank just wants to take my home because it’s worth more than the payoff. In some cases, this may be the case, but by law, your mortgage company must sell the home for its fair market value and pay you any proceeds over and above the amount owed. Lenders may try and take advantage of the fact that most borrowers don’t know the laws when it comes to foreclosure, but we’ll help you understand your rights and hopefully get some money back if you’ve lost your home.

The main issue we’ve seen is when lenders accept an offer on the home as quickly as possible, just to pay off the mortgage. After the foreclosure and eviction, mortgage companies seem to forget about following the laws. For example, lets assume your home is worth $300,000, but your total payoff is only $275,000. Your mortgage company has a legal responsibility to sell the home for it’s fair market value, which is $300,000. This would leave $25,000 for you. What usually ends up happening is the bank accepts the first offer they receive of, lets say, $250,000, then they sue the home owner for a $25,000 deficiency judgment.

In a case where the bank has a legal responsibility to pay $25,000 to the homeowner, instead they end up stealing the home and suing the homeowner for an additional $25,000. There is absolutely no reason the homeowner should have to pay for the the lenders neglect to sell the home at a fair price.

If you are in the process of having your home foreclosed on, or if you have already lost your home to foreclosure, then it’s urgent that you know the appraised value of your home. You may be owed thousands of dollars, in the event your home is, or was, sold for less than it was worth. There are many cases where previous homeowners have gotten settlements in excess of $50,000! Knowing your rights and the laws when it comes to facing foreclosure is likely one of the best ways of avoiding foreclosure altogether. If you didn’t understand your rights and you were taken advantage of, there is a chance you can get your home back, or at least sue the lender for their misconduct.

A great way to get the value of your home is to is to get a full appraisal from a local, qualified appraiser. However, this can be quite costly, since you are/were facing foreclosure. It’s also hard, after a hardship, to justify throwing good money after bad. My recommendation is to get a estimate from a Realtor or Property Valuation from another qualified source. Our website can provide you with a good local company if you need one. I strongly discourage using a website service that give value quotes, because they are rarely accurate and do not take the condition of the home, or improvements into consideration.

When it comes right down to it, if your lender acted illegally when foreclosing on your home, or sold the home afterwards for at a lower price than they should have, then you need to do something about it! We can not just sit back and let the lenders get away with such misconduct and taking advantage of helpless consumers. Take action immediately and we’ll help you force your lender to answer for their wrongdoings!