Living Through the Home Improvements
In the housing development that I live in, everything gets old and fast. Neighbors only last as long as a person’s new shoes or microwave, and when one is a long time homeowner like my family is, one has to move with the times.
My family has owned our home for over twenty years, and it has been a wild twenty at that. People and pets have moved in and out of our house, and everything and anything that could break around our house, has broken right before our eyes.
When choosing contractors, a company, or people to replace items in your home, here is what you should look for, and this is curcial:
1. Prices: Make sure the contractors, company, or people doing the repairs on your house are reasonable. If you are paying $3,000 for a new carpet in three small rooms of your house, you are paying too much. My family choose Impire Today Carpeting for our carpet and they charged us $2,600 for two bedrooms and the living room of my house. That was a bargain and the carpeting the we bought is considered the best there is, Shaw Carpeting. Appilances are no different. My family and I went to Pacific Sales to buy our clothes washer, refrigerator, and stove. We paid less for our appliances at Pacific Sales than we would have paid at Sears for our appilances. Our appliances came with the same 5 year warranty as those other people, but we did not pay an arm and a leg for our appliances.
2. Word-Of-Mouth (WOM): If your friends or family are having similar jobs done on their houses, or they are buying the same appliances, learn from their triumphs or their mistakes. Here is my mother’s experience with buying a new carpet: My mother’s friend at work had Empire Today Carpet put in her apartment and she loved what they did for her, so she told all of her friends about them. My mother heard her story and she had Empire Today’s Carpet put into her house as well. My mother’s sister, on-the-other-hand, also had carpet put into her house, she had Carpet One put into her Montana home, and she hated the job they did on her carpet. My aunt told my mother and I that they (Carpet One) did not install her carpeting properly. Some of the carpeting was coming loose around the corners and when she told them about it, they simply ignored her and said that it was her problem, when in fact it was the men who installed it that did not do a proper job. She had to get new carpeting and this time she choose another company. Hearing people’s experiences with their carpets gave my mother an idea of what to do and what not to do when buying a carpet and looking for people to do a great job on it.
3. Legitimacy: Make sure that this company has a great reputation and that they are known by the Better Business Bureau. Make sure that these people are not out to scam you and that they do legal business, the last thing you want on you mind is a lawsuit or fraud. You will have enough on your plate with what you want done and all that goes with it, you do not want a court battle or the police getting involved.
4. Ask for a thirty-day money back guaranty: If you are not offered a thirty-day money back guaranty, there is a problem with that company. You should be able to change your mind if the job did not go well or the product was not what you were looking for. If the company does not offer this, do not buy.
5. Remember that you are in control: Your house is a reflection of you and who you are, you make the choices and the decisions and you have the final say on everything that goes on in your house. If something is not right, or it is not going well, you have the right to say so. My aunt could have said that this is not what I want when the contractors were doing a bad job on her carpet, but she did not know that she had a voice. Your are the buyer, and they are they sellers, you control the money, so that means you control the sellers. America is a Capitialist country and that means that the sellers have to cater to the buyers. The buyers hold the money that the sellers want. They have to sell their product to the buyers. If they are not honest businessmen, then you can put them out of business.
When making home improvements, you have to remember your goal and that means that your house is your goal. You have to care for your house and love your house as you would care and love your children. You have to give your children what they need in order to grow and become outstanding adults, well, your house is similar to that, you have to give your house the treatment it needs in order for it to stay around a long time. Some of the best structures in the world have stayed around a long time because people took care of them. Think about Sistine Chapel, people preseved it as much as possible because it was beautiful and people wanted it around. Your house is that same way, so take care of it.
I know that a lot of stress is involved in home improvement, but again, keep your goal in mind. When all is said and done, that house will be what you wanted it to be.
