We all want a home that makes us feel at ease, but we often give little thought as to the logistics behind that idea. The truth is that without some appropriate planning and execution, your home might do you more harm than good, or at least not promote great quality of life. Here’s how to ensure your home is a place enhancing your health and happiness, and not hindering it.
Trouble Where You Least Expect It
You might think you would be well aware if your home contained mold, but as Bob Vila explains, in-home mold isn’t always so straightforward. In fact, it can be hiding in some surprising places.
Mold might be lingering in your old paper files, your children’s plastic toys, and your toothbrush holder. Even your carpet could contain tiny, unhealthy spores. Any mold could trigger allergies, irritation, and illnesses. Mold lingering around ductwork and pipes can even damage your home, growing in the walls and diminishing structural integrity.
Some of those things are easy to manage. You can go paperless simply enough, which is also a nice, eco-friendly move, and you can toss those plastic toys and toothbrush holder into the dishwasher to sterilize them. You can even have your carpet removed and replace it with laminate flooring for $1 to $5 per square foot.
Beyond that, things can get complicated. If someone in your home has symptoms or if you see grime, smell a musty odor, or notice chronically damp areas around your home, you might have a serious mold problem. To address deep-down mold issues, an inspection and test may be in order. If you need to hire mold remediation services, this will likely cost you between $2,000 and $3,495 in San Francisco.
Lighten Up Your Landscaping
Even with a healthy interior at home, getting into the great outdoors is good for your well-being, boosting your mood, helping you stay more fit, and encouraging quicker healing. With so many benefits, why not give yourself opportunities to enjoy your home’s outdoor areas more? If you don’t have a great yard to spend time in, contemplate what an easy-care landscape could mean for you and yours.
Even if you already love to spend time in your yard and garden, it’s never the wrong answer to find ways to do more with less. That’s particularly true with landscaping. With the right choices in your yard, you can not only save yourself a lot of work, you can save how much water you use keeping that yard and garden thriving.
Have Fun in the Sun
In your backyard, you can reduce your work further and raise your options for healthy fun all the more with some hardscaping. What’s more, a beautiful patio for entertaining friends or lounging in the sun means less greenery to keep watered and thriving. And that time you spend socializing? That’s good for you too, lowering stress levels, boosting happiness, and increasing your personal sense of worth.
Contemplate what that will include, such as furniture, a grill, and firepit, and measure out how much space you think you’ll want for your project. The more thought you give any installation, the better equipped you’ll be for hiring a contractor.
Installing a patio will run you between $2,000 and $4,000, and a professional landscaper will probably cost between 5 and 10 percent of your home’s value. Consider it an investment in your fun and in your future.
Your humble abode should be a place that makes you feel good. Check for hidden health concerns like mold, and ensure your yard is a place that isn’t all work and no play. With a little bit of tweaking, your home sweet home can make you happier and healthier, inside and out.
