Ever wonder if your home how your home could be better for your needs? Is it costing you a lot to keep your house running the way you want it to? Or do you just want your home to have more comfort features? You may love your home, but when the New Year hits, you probably start wondering what you should be doing to improve your home. But it can be hard to decide what exactly you should work on. So we came up with five goals for your home in 2020 to help you out: Goal 1: Include Smart Features These days, it doesn’t take much to set up a smart home. All you need is a few devices set up around your home, and you’re in business. Holmes Homes offers smart home packages to help you achieve this goal. The packages include: Nest Cameras that give your home extra security inside and out. These cameras plug-in so you don’t have to worry about the battery running out and your camera cutting out. The cameras link into an app on your phone so you can check security anywhere. Nest Thermostats that help regulate your home’s temperature and learns your habits. It will adjust the temperature throughout the day based on your habits without you having to track it. Google Home is a virtual home assistant that helps you schedule your calendar, send messages, play music, make Google searches, and run other smart features in your home, like your TV or Nest devices. While these devices are the most common ones we offer in our smart home packages, there are other options that can make your home life easier as well. Goal 2: Replace Your Air Filter This might not seem like the most exciting goal for your home, but it can be an important one. The air quality in Utah tends to be really bad in the winter, which means that the air quality in your home might get worse as well. Replacing your air filter will help you keep the air in your home clean. Another way to keep your air systems ideal for Utah winters is to add a humidifier. Sometimes in the winter, it’s hard to remember that Utah is technically a desert, but the climate is really dry, even if snow is covering the ground. To combat the dry air, you can install humidifiers in your air system. This is a good thing to do at the same time you replace your air filter because humidifiers and filters are part of the same air system. Whether you hire a professional or learn to care for your air system on your own, taking care of your air system this winter will not only be good for your house – it will make your house safer and more comfortable for your family. Goal 3: Aim for Utility Efficiency Utilities can be a brutal bill to pay, especially in the extreme cold or extreme heat of the year. So try making some changes to your utilities to make your utility bill less painful to pay. One way is by installing the Nest Thermostat. We already mentioned this device, but something we didn’t tell you yet is that the Nest Thermostat can make your home more energy-efficient. Because it learns your temperature habits, it knows if you are away from home and drops the temperature to an eco-friendly level while you’re gone. Which means that you don’t waste energy on an empty house, and you save money by not running the heat or air conditioning unnecessarily. Another way you could be more efficient with your utilities is by changing your water habits. For example, you could replace the showerheads in your bathroom with high efficiency, low flow showerheads. These minimize the amount of water you use in your shower but still give you a comfortable and pressurized shower. Finally, you can also make sure all of your light fixtures are upgraded to LED lightbulbs. These lightbulbs save you money in two ways. First, LED light bulbs live longer than other lightbulbs, so you won’t have to buy lightbulbs as often. And second, LEDs are more energy-efficient and ost you less money every time you leave a light on. Goal 4: Set Up Your Man Cave or She Shed Now for a fun goal. Think about your hobbies, your work, the things you wish you could do if you had the space. Well, in the New Year, see if you can make the space. Pick a room in your house that isn’t used much and get to work setting it up for your hobbies. There are a lot of ways to DIY your space into a man cave or she shed. Here are some ways to get started: Build shelves – these can be great for displaying models and storing books or crafting supplies Repaint – make your room fit your personality DIY a hanging wall desk Frame homemade art pieces Repurpose an old chair These are just a few ways to start setting up your man cave or she shed. But don’t forget the most important part of your new room – it’s your space. Make it unapologetically yours so you can enjoy every minute you spend in the room. You can make it a craft room, a reading nook, an art studio, or a trophy room. However you want to repurpose your personal space into a retreat for creativity and mental wellness. Goal 5: Embellish the Outdoors You might not think that January is the time to think about your landscaping, but it’s actually the perfect time to get started. Landscaping takes a lot of time to plan and prepare for, so don’t put it off until June. The biggest reason you shouldn’t wait until later is if you are hiring a professional landscaper to design and build your yard. Landscapers’ schedules fill up quickly, so reaching out to the landscaper early in the year ensures that you are on their schedule when you want to be. But even if you plan to DIY, there’s a lot of planning that goes into designing a yard. You need to start early so you can: Set up a budget. Plants cost a lot more money than you might expect. So do some research into what plants you want and what you can afford. Especially pay attention to the cost of sod versus the cost of grass seed. That one choice can make a big difference to your budget. Create your design. It might seem easy to figure out how you’re going to set up your yard, but there’s a lot more that goes into it than buying plants and sticking them in the ground. You need to know how many plants to buy, where to put them, and how to make everything in the yard look beautiful and cohesive together. Gather materials. Take some time to look for the best plants, seeds, and decorations for your landscaping. This will likely take more than one shopping trip, so it’s good to work in phases. Gather what you need for one section of the yard, do the work on that section, and then move on to the next section. Include a sprinkler system. Sprinkler systems not only help your yard look amazing, but they also actually help you conserve water. With a sprinkler system, you have more control over how much water is used in your yard, how often the water runs, and for how long. The timers and other controls really help with water conservation. Holmes Homes Holmes Homes builds new homes in Utah for master-planned communities. These houses are a great goal to reach for in the New Year, and if you already have a Holmes Homes house, we hope you enjoy reaching new goals in your home this coming year. Contact us today if you’d like to know more about our communities near you.
