Quick Comfort Fixes for Your New Home

Moving into a new home is the kind of thrilling experience that we should all go through at least once in our lives. The purchase of a home can be scary, but it presents an exciting challenge. Homes can be an excellent investment, and something is empowering about being able to add your own touches to make a house into a home.

Our first home requires a little work for many of us to make it comfortable and ready for ourselves and visitors. Don’t panic. This is easier than it might initially seem. Thankfully, there are a few tips and tricks that can help you to settle in to even a fixer upper home more easily.

Make Rooms Warm and Cozy

One of the biggest challenges when moving into a first home is to make the house feel welcoming. A lack of furniture and other accessories can make a room feel cold. The house might actually feel cold, too, if there are issues with the warm air being circulated evenly.

Often the problem is not the overall heating of the home but simply areas that receive inadequate warmth. Before you consider installing a new central heating system, consider using portable indoor heaters. By using indoor electric heaters (like proven best indoor heaters), you can add additional heat exactly where and when you need it. That could include providing a heater for the guest room when you have visitors or in a room that receives little sunlight during the day.

Moisture & Humidity

It is a horrible feeling when you discover a problem like excess moisture in your new home. Realizing your home has a moisture problem could be terrifying, but it might actually be a relatively minor issue.

First, you’ll need to determine the cause of the problem. A leaking roof is the obvious, worst-case scenario. Check to see if there are structural issue to make sure a damaged roof won’t cause additional problems. Leaking pipes are another possibility that will need to be investigated.

Less expensive (and easier to fix) possible causes of excess moisture include overflowing rain gutters. Check to ensure clogged rain gutters or blocked downspouts aren’t causing water to accumulate and flow into your house. Another likely cause is poor sealing around windows. This can often be fixed with a bit of caulk around the window frame, although older windows might need to be replaced to resolve the problem truly.

In some cases, there is no specific cause for the excess moisture in the home. Some locations naturally have higher humidity which can lead to an accumulation of moisture in the home. In other cases, excess moisture continues to remain inside the house long after the underlying problem has been corrected. A dehumidifier can correct this problem in those cases, and a portable dehumidifier can easily be placed in the needed location. Excess humidity in the home can create more problems, so it is important to control it before getting out of hand.

Reduce Heating Costs

Settling into a new home and facing a new mortgage payment, other costs may be a big concern. It is hard to predict the costs involved with owning a new home fully. That’s why the first month’s utility bill may come as an unpleasant surprise, particularly if you move in during the winter. One way to minimize those costs is to moderate the cost of heating.

As mentioned above, using space heaters may reduce the need to run your central heating. Eliminating excess moisture in the home can help, as well. That’s because the home will seem colder and less comfortable when the humidity levels are too high.

Once you address that problem, it will be easier to maintain a comfortable temperature without increasing the home’s heating. If your home tends to have hot and cold spots, portable fans and/or ceiling fans can be used to redistribute the air to keep the rooms more comfortable.

There can be a tendency to increasing the heat in the house to stay warm. However, the first place to start should probably be accessories.

If your home is under furnished, it might seem cold, even if the heat is adequate. Fluffy pillows and cozy upholstered chairs can make the room seem more inviting. Add area rugs to help keep your feet warm. Make the most of the sunlight that comes into your home but opening the curtains and blinds to let the sunshine in during the day.

Make It Home

If you’ve moved in and your home doesn’t seem warm and inviting, the home might not be the problem. Typically, when we move into a new place, we start by unpacking the essentials. Plates, cups, and toiletries are placed in cabinets. The coffee maker is set up, and the refrigerator is filled with food. Less urgent items may remain in boxes, waiting to be unpacked. This can leave you with a house that looks more like a hotel room or rental than a home.

Make it a priority to hang pictures on the wall, put up pictures of your family, and display collectables you’ve accumulated over the years. This will help transform a collection of otherwise boring rooms into your dream house.