Home and Family > Home Improvement > Ten Convenience Built-Ins Thatll Save Your Busy Household Hundreds Of Hours Each Year
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Article rating : 0.00, 0 votes. Author : Carol Abrahamson
Planning to remodel, repair or build a new home? Looking for some
terrific features to include that can save you tons of time in shortcuts,
efficiencies and saved steps? We can help! We started collecting over
1,000 uncommon, affordable convenience built-ins in 1998, when we
first began writing books and consulting to help people have truly
extraordinary — but affordable — homes. Here are some of our favorite
ideas that’ll change your life via the time they save you. Add any of
these to your next project, and you’ll be on your way toward creating a
home that’s truly beyond the ordinary!
• A shallow closet or weatherproof cabinet at every outdoor hose faucet,
for storing a hose at an easy-to-reach height where it will stay relatively
clean, out of sight and out of the way. No more risk of tripping over a
hose left in a heap on the ground! (And even recoiling and flat hoses
can be awkward and dirty to move from faucet to faucet, especially if
they’re stored outdoors.) This makes gardening a snap, as well as
hosing down the deck, patio or outdoor furniture, or washing windows.
You’ll also want flooring inside that prevents the unavoidable drips from
encouraging mold.
• A non-porous, nonskid, self-leveling garage floor coating, so that soil
and oil can easily be hosed away. (If you have a drain in the floor and
flooring that slopes toward it, use a similar coating that’s not self-
leveling.)
• A sewing machine permanently plugged in and set up on a desk or
inside a well-lit closet or alcove. Be sure there’s space behind the
machine for the fabric from large projects to accumulate.
• Remote-controlled window shades, especially on hard-to-reach
windows or skylights. Choose among remote controls that can be
operated manually; via a timer or photocell; or through any on-site or off-
site computer, personal digital assistant or cell phone. Besides being
safer than attempting to reach out-of-the-way shades by hand, easy-to-
maneuver shades help control light and heat in a room, minimize fading
of a room’s or closet’s contents, and the automatic or off-site controls
can make an empty house appear occupied.
• Dedicated space for wrapping gifts that’s near where you store your
wrapping supplies and tools. No more hauling stuff around!
• A doorbell intercom outside the door that can be answered from every
telephone in the house (also via your cell phone while you’re out). No
more dropping everything to run to answer the door!
• Shallow shelves with only one row deep of canned or dry goods,
medicines, supplies, tools or equipment, for instant identification of and
access to whatever’s stored. These can often be tucked into a space
that’s otherwise unused.
• At least one full bathroom on every level of the house.
• A laundry chute from closets, cabinets or bathrooms to a laundry room
on a lower level. No more hauling dirty laundry down stairs when gravity
will do the job! And no more dropping items on the way to the laundry
room that you might trip over!
• A pot-filler faucet attached to a wall near your cooking burners, that
swivels into various positions as well as out of the way. No more moving
heavy pots of water from the sink to the stove!
Like this article? Then you’ll love our books chock-full of uncommon,
affordable convenience built-ins that increase your quality of life and
your home’s resale value! We also offer a free e-book at
www.extraordinaryhomes.com: The 34 ExtraOrdinary Home Principles:
Over 70 Fabulous, Affordable, Innovative Ideas That’ll Improve Your Life
and WOW You!
© Copyright 2005 by Carol Abrahamson/ExtraOrdinary Homes. All rights
reserved.
Carol Abrahamson consults, writes and makes presentations about
more than 1,000 of these fabulous features that can improve your life,
add value to your home and make you the talk of the town. She spent
years researching them via thousands of sources just so you can quickly
and easily use them to create your affordable, extraordinary Home of
Your Dreams™. Learn more about her work via http://
http://www.extraordinaryhomes.com or carol@extraordinaryhomes.com.
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