Great Ideas other than Kitchens and Baths

Tax time is here. It is April! Ugh! I hate tax time! It seems papers are strewn around for weeks!

Have you ever walked into a room in your home and felt pinned down or anxious? Do you go into a room like an office to accomplish a task to find you have to put stuff away before you can start? How does that work for you? Me, well, I end up distracted and defeated often. I just decide to avoid the mess until later. Then the undone chore bugs me. As each day passes I feel more overwhelmed.

Maybe the rooms in your house are spacious with lots of storage. Many New Hampshire home owners remark they need more storage. Often the only solution they consider is buying furniture to add to a room. That can be a great solution. It can also create a feeling of more chaos if it is not planned well.

Wow, do we have lots of stuff! Most homes become cluttered simply because creating an organized place to store our favorite things never occurs to us. What do I mean? Let's talk about books. toys, shoes, boots, winter coats, craft and sewing supplies, pet supplies, laundry area storage.

Sometimes  stuffing stuff into desk trays, baskets, drawers, or closets can hide the clutter. At least it feels a little better. However, feeling truly peaceful seems to escape us with those solutions.

How can cabinetry bring peace of mind? Here are some examples:

A wall of base cabinets and book shelves is perfect. Adding the installation of these storage solutions in a family room or office space within view of the kitchen is perfect. A custom home look is the result when you choose to expand your kitchen project to include the wall of storage in the family room. Selecting the same cabinet door style and finish will add the wow factor and peace of mind.
Cabinets to store toys, books, videos, DVD's and music keeps it all hidden yet right at your finger tips. The impact of organized storage is priceless.

Two other spaces perfect to add storage cabinets in are your mudroom and laundry room.
Cabinets with drawers or pull out trays that can hide shoes, or winter gloves, hats, and scarves
is so much nicer to come home to than hooks piled high with too many items. The laundry room is the perfect room to add tall storage as well as more base and walls cabinets to keep everything hidden.

Offices with built in file drawers, cabinets, printers hidden behind doors on roll out trays are heaven!
In fact we can build you a custom desk especially designed with your particular purposes and needs in mind. It can really be the spot where "there is a space of everything and everything is in it's place."

Finally, isn't is marvelous to end your day walking into your peaceful comfortable clean bedroom for restful retreat and sleep. I love to read in bed. My nightstands are piled with books, reading glasses, pens and journals. It is not clean or peaceful. All that is needed is my project for this year. Borrowing the idea of a family room bank of cabinets and bookcases on one wall is the plan. My sleep and peaceful rest is going to be improved this year. One either side of our bed the walls will host 24" deep drawer base cabinets with bookshelves placed on top of shallow 12 deep drawers. I cannot wait.
I feel more peaceful just designing it.

I hope I am stirring up your imagination. There are so many possibilities to improve your life as well as remodel your home. We would love to be part of creating your personal retreat center!

Lessons in Cost versus Value

Have you ever learned the following lesson: sometimes the higher priced option and choice actually saves money?

 Please bare with me as I share a story about trying to save money. Most people who walk into our showroom ask about cost during the first visit. In that question is hidden a common mistake all of us tend to make, confusing cost versus value.

I covered the various options homeowners have in many blog posts in December and January. I suggest you check them out. Are you in Sales or own a small business committed to excellence?
If so, how often do you attempt to share "value" with potential clients who basically focus only on cost as their deciding factor? Frustrating, isn't it?

Let me diverge here for a moment.  Stick with me, there is a point to my rabbit trails. In 2013, I began to become aware that some extensive and expensive dental crowns I had done years ago, out of State might fail. After all they were nearly fifteen years old.

A trusted friend referred me to her dentist who had an excellent reputation. She raved about his talent, expertise, and superb skills.  Frankly, I chose to ignore her referral because I assumed he would be very high priced. Instead, I went to a  well known franchise dental center. I was thrilled when the price per filling was $120 less than a third dentist I went to for a while.  However, they popped out repeatedly and had to be redone.

I liked the staff and developed a good relationship with them and the manager of this name brand franchise dental center.Eventually, one of my older crowns broke off! To make it worse, it was one of my front teeth. Ugh!

I consider that an emergency. I did not know who to go to. I decided to trust the franchised Dental office with a root canal, post and new crown for $2500. Within days I was in excruciating pain from a fractured root caused due to a short temporary post being placed to support the new crown.
What does this story have to do with Kitchen and Bath remodeling? Please hold on, there is a connection.

What to do now? Probably the same thing homeowners do when the contractor they hired takes their deposit money and never shows up again or creates a nightmare in the remodeling process that must be corrected by someone else.  

In my dental fiasco, the latter has been my only solution. Three years later, I finally went to see the dentist my friend recommended in 2013. Yes, originally his expertise would have cost more than the dental center I went to. However, now I am out the money I spent at the less experienced and less professional dental center plus the money to correct the problem. The errors made created a need for expensive restoration of my mouth. If I had considered value over cost I would have paid more initially. However, the work would have been done excellently and all this angst, stress, and extra expense would have been avoided.

Here at Apple Wood we will not be the cheapest professional you may consider. We are competitive. We take great pride in our skill, professionalism, reputation and client satisfaction. We do everything the right way all the time. City inspectors and permit departments always have positive remarks to make concerning our excellence. Our clients love how we respect them, their time, homes, family, pets, and concerns. Most of our business is referral business. Most of our clients return for multiple projects.

Unfortunately, some of our customers have stories like my dental journey. Trying to save a few dollars ended up costing them considerably on every level. Please look at value for the dollar invested. Remodeling your home is an investment, after all. Come see us. We will do it the right way the first time. You will love the results!