Buying a home can be a big commitment and a tough endeavour to follow through with. But, once you do and you have the house all signed and paid for, next is the hard part: decorating it. Because, despite what you may have been told, decorating to your personal tastes may actually be more difficult than you first thought. Especially considering the fact that you will likely have to re-do many aspects of the house from top to bottom. 

 

With that in mind, here are some of the best ways to actively decorate your first home successfully: 

 

Create a Budget 

 

First things first, you will need a budget for your decorating. As without one you may end up buying things which are way too expensive and spend way outside your means during the overall process. A budget keep your choices realistic, your overall theme cohesive and doesn’t impact you budget as much in your first year.

 

Paint First 

 

Once you have made some choices, it’s important to then address the basic style choices of each room: starting with the walls. Colour is important, so make sure it’s something you consider carefully.

 

For this, a cost-effective choice is to paint each individual room. You can choose to paint everything a neutral colour, which you can then change and modify as you move forward with more defined style choices. Or you can paint these rooms their own unique colours from day one. 

 

Consider Flooring 

 

So, you have the walls painted and everything from the bottom up looks good. Next step: choose new flooring. Almost undoubtedly the flooring of your new home will not be to your taste. Whether old carpets or strange stained flooring, you may want to re-carpet or put new flooring down in almost every room of your home. 

 

However, this can be quite an expensive venture. So it is important to go through your rooms and decide which ones are the most important to you. For example, you will likely want your living room flooring updated before your spare room, as this is where you spend more time. Make informed choices such as this and slowly change the flooring throughout the house.

 

Do One Room At a Time

 

The real trick to decorating your first home is to do it one room at a time. This helps to reduce the upfront costs, as well as giving you time to plan out each individual room and ensure there is a cohesive style throughout the house. 

 

Try to start with rooms that are well-traversed and you will get a lot of use out of. So, your living room, kitchen, bathroom and main bedroom will be the main focus of this decoration effort. This saves you money and gives you the chance to work through the house one room at a time.

 

Buy Big Things Last

 

This may be a surprising piece of advice, but one that works over and over again. Buy the big things last. The fact of the …

German electric radiators are some of the most commonly used heating appliances in the house. As the name suggests, these radiators use electricity to run, which again raises the question: are they expensive to run? While we’d want to put a number on the exact cost of running heating appliances, there are variables to be put into consideration before settling for a definite figure. Some of the variables/factors you should consider when calculating the running cost of an electric radiator include:

1. The size of the room/house: as a rule of thumb, a larger room will require more fuel to heat up as compared to a much smaller one.

2. How old the house is: older homes are less energy efficient, hence might take a lot longer to heat up. Taking on renovations and a few modifications here and there can however help improve its energy efficiency.

3. Individual heating requirements: we all have unique heating needs. That said, keeping a perfect balance or heat level where everyone in the house will be satisfied can be quite a challenge. This is because some will wish their rooms to be warmer than others. This, therefore, means the demand for electricity will change, or even increase, as everyone looks for the perfect spot.

4. Exposure to natural elements: exposure to weather elements such as cold storms, torrential downpours, and harsh winds can affect the radiator’s ability to keep the home warm and comfortable. Detached houses, for example, will require more energy to stay warm. This is because the home is exposed to all these elements on either side. Terraced homes, on the other hand, will be much cheaper to heat too. Residue heat from other homes will linger on for longer thus reducing strain on your radiators. Properties facing northwards are also more vulnerable to harsh winds hence harder to keep warm.

5. The time of the year: your radiator will use more electricity to keep the house warm in winter. It won’t, however, have to work as hard towards summer when the weather is warmer.

How To Calculate Your Electricity Bill

If you can take all variables and the factors outlined above into account, you might then be able to put a figure to the electric radiator’s energy consumption. A simple calculation should help you estimate the amount of electricity the heater will use. Simple multiply the radiator output (kW) with the number of hours it will be in use; multiply the result with the cost of a kW hour to get the daily cost.

E.g. Radiator output (kW) X (x)hours of use X pence per kWh = daily cost

These calculations do not factor in variables such as times when you’ll not be home, rapid weather changes, and how long you’ll be at home. There are times when you’ll be forced to turn the temperature higher or lower, use the heater more, and even be away from the house for several hours or days.

Take Control of Your Heating

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