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Six Top Bathroom Remodeling Ideas with Good ROI

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It is no secret that making bathroom improvements is one of the most effective ways to raise your home’s resale value and yield high ROIs. Whether you are preparing to put your house on the real estate market or planning to renovate the bathroom for a change of aesthetic, it will consequently impact the long-term value of your home. Remodeling this space can provide a better bang for your buck immediately and in the future. 

When buying a home, potential buyers are more inclined to a house that doesn’t require spending on additional maintenance costs or upgrading the fixtures themselves. A dull, dreary bathroom can drive potential buyers away. However, a modern-renovated functional space can yield a return on investment (ROI) of about 60%.

If you’re considering a bathroom renovation and want a good return on investment (ROI), this article is your ultimate guide. We will explore a range of top bathroom remodeling ideas that bring aesthetic appeal and offer excellent financial value. From cost-effective updates to luxurious upgrades, we’ve got you covered.

  1. Upgrade to Accessible Bath Tubs

Installing and designing walk-in bathtubs can be an accessible option for seniors with low mobility. Since it has a quick entry and exit point, the walk-in tubs can be useful in states like Washington, where 63% of the population is 65 years of age and older. Even if you reside in a relatively younger city like Seattle, with a 29% rate of age 50 or above, and 12.1% of age 65 or above, you should still consider getting a tub replacement.

There are many trustworthy Seattle bathroom remodeling companies that provide accessible bathtubs with ergonomic seating, hydrotherapeutic jets, and other relaxing features to maximize your comfort and independence. 

  1. Focus on Functional Fixtures and Faucets

To kick-start your bathroom renovation, prioritize functional fixtures over contemporary upgrades. Outdated plumbing fixtures can increase energy consumption bills, so installing water-efficient toilets, modern faucets, and water-saving showerheads makes your space look new, reduces water consumption, and lowers utility bills.

For example, an old toilet consumes 7 gallons of water per flush, but a modern, water-conserving toilet uses 1.6 gallons of water. Updating the conventional toilet to an eco-friendly toilet can give you a competitive edge, as homeowners can easily upgrade toilets without breaking the bank.

You can install more sustainable bathroom features by installing WaterSense-certified products, as they are more efficient than conventional models. This certification assures that your showerheads, faucets, and lavatories meet the quality standards, prevent leakage, and are 30% more efficient than regular fixtures. 

  1. Revamp your Vanity 

Having the right kind of vanity can make or break the whole look of your newly renovated bathroom. The most appropriate one to yield higher ROIs is the one with maximum storage and counter space. It should be a perfect blend of visual aesthetics and functionality.

If you are a couple who often leaves the house together and uses the bathroom at the same time, then installing a dual sink will make it convenient and time-efficient to get ready. You can also place double mirrors above the vanity when installing a sink. Consider which would suit your style, as round mirrors can give an elegant look, while rectangular mirrors can be space-consuming eye-catchers. This will save future jostling on who would be shaving or putting on makeup first.

Also, choose a vanity that doesn’t involve installing a new bathroom floor to be cost-efficient.

  1. Replace the Flooring 

Flooring and tile upgrades can significantly impact the overall look and feel of your bathroom. High-quality flooring can drive up your ROIs over 100% if done correctly.  

Consider budget-friendly options, such as vinyl plank flooring, as it is easy, quick to install, and costs around $1 and $4 per square foot. Installing tiles can also be a good idea because of their durability and wide range of options in types, sizes, colors, and patterns.

Durable options, such as ceramic or porcelain tiles, can also be one of the choices that offer longevity and a timeless appeal. These options are stain-resistant and water-proof. Make sure to choose a flooring option that is resistant to water and stains, ensuring that it withstands the moisture-prone environment of a bathroom.

Moreover, elevate your bathroom by installing heated bathroom flooring. Not only will it attract potential buyers, but it will reduce your energy consumption bills in the long run due to less usage of heating systems. It will keep your bathroom warm and cozy, especially on a chilly morning or a cold night.

  1. Apply a Fresh Coat of Paint

One of the most cost-efficient bathroom remodeling ideas is applying a fresh coat of paint on your peeling walls. But if your bathroom walls are luminous orange, shocking pink, and lime green, we have some bad news for you! 

With changing times, minimalistic and muted pastels are becoming the most-preferred color scheme, especially if you plan on selling the house later. Homeowners can expect an ROI of over 105% for interior painting if they stick to whites, creams, blacks, and deep blues with wooden paneling. 

However, if you want to experiment, you can always add vibrant colors to your space with plants, vibrant towels, and bath mats to liven up your room. But we suggest sticking to neutral shades when it comes to painting the wall. 

  1. Enhance Storage Solutions

Ample storage is a key factor for a functional and organized bathroom. Incorporate smart storage solutions such as wall-mounted cabinets, floating shelves, or built-in niches. This can avoid decluttering on countertops. 

You can also opt to install a large mirror, as it creates the illusion of more space, and a sliding door to prevent toiletries from getting wet or misplaced. With proper storage solutions, you can navigate the decluttered bathroom and maximize storage capacity without compromising aesthetics.

Conclusion 

By implementing these bathroom remodeling ideas, you can create a modern bathroom space while ensuring a good return on investment. Remember to carefully plan your renovation, consider the potential costs, consult a professional contractor, and value the preferences of current consumers in the real estate market. With the right choices, your bathroom can play a huge role in driving the resale value of your home.

3 Easy Ways to Maintain Your Appearance

Everyone wants to look nice, so they naturally wouldn’t want their appearance to get worse over time. Unfortunately, that happens to most people who don’t put much effort into looking after themselves. You’ll need to maintain your appearance if you want to look great for as long as possible.

Thankfully, that’s far from as complicated as you could’ve thought, and you shouldn’t have to put too much time or effort into it. It’s worth diving into three quick and easy strategies that are sure to help with it.

Maintain Your Appearance: 3 Easy Strategies

1. Take Care Of Your Hair

Your hair naturally makes a significant impact on your appearance, and it’s something you’ll need to put a decent bit of time and effort into. That doesn’t just mean getting a haircut every once in a while. You’ll have to put some effort into actually maintaining it.

That means washing it regularly and using the right products for your hair. Shampoos and conditioners are the most obvious of these, but you could also consider various oils and other treatments. It’s worth putting the effort into it to make sure your hair looks and feels as healthy as possible.

2. Maintain Your Teeth

When you’re trying to improve and maintain your appearance, your teeth can be easily overlooked, but you’ll still need to put effort into looking after them. If you don’t, they’ll start yellowing, and you’ll even risk them falling out or breaking in time. That’s not going to look nice.

It could even be worth visiting a dental clinic every once in a while to get your teeth checked out. If you need to get any work done, it’s worth considering it. Not only will this make your teeth look nicer, but it’ll make your oral health better.

3. Have A Skincare Routine

A high-quality skincare routine is one of the more notable ways to maintain your appearance, and it’s worth investing in this. It’ll make much more of a difference in how you look than you could’ve thought. While a daily skincare routine is recommended, this doesn’t take up much time most days.

Instead, it could just take a few minutes every morning, and it’ll have quite an impact. You’ll even end up looking after your skin more than you’d think, and it could prevent wrinkles and other signs of aging. There’s no reason not to have a great skincare routine.

Maintain Your Appearance: Wrapping Up

If you want to look after and maintain your appearance, you might think it’d take a lot of time and effort. That doesn’t have to be the case. It could end up being much easier than you could’ve thought, as well as relatively straightforward. You’ll just need to focus on the right areas when you’re doing it.

Having a high-quality skincare routine, taking care of your hair, and even looking after your teeth are some of the more notable of these. With a minimum of effort, you’ll look after your appearance better than you’d think.

Have An Amazing Vacation: 3 Top Tips

Almost everyone’s been on vacation, but that doesn’t mean it’s been a great time every time you’ve been on one. While it could’ve been nice, you might’ve felt it could’ve been better. You’ll want to make sure you have an amazing vacation the next time you go on out, but you mightn’t know how to figure that out.

Where you go plays a large role in this, but there are more than a few other things to keep in mind. By using a few specific tips, you shouldn’t have a problem planning and having an amazing vacation. If you’ll be going on a trip soon, it’s worth diving into three travel tips to follow.

1. Don’t Overpack

Nobody wants to lug around a heavy bag when they’re going on vacation. While you won’t have this with you constantly on the trip, you’ll need to worry about it when you’re going there and back. Avoid having something heavy to carry around during this time.

Not only will it make getting to and from the airport more difficult, but you could even have extra charges on the plane because of it. Avoid overpacking and only bring the essentials with a few spare bits and pieces with you.

It’ll make the entire process much easier, and you’ll even save some time packing and unpacking.

2. Have A Positive Mindset

Packing up and going on vacation can often be stressful. Between planning things out and getting through the airport, it’s easy to see why that’s the case. The key to this is having a positive mindset as much as possible. It puts you in the right frame of mind for when you go on vacation.

When you’re going through airport security, for example, think of how much fun and relaxation awaits you on the other end. It’ll avoid you getting stressed, which could end up preventing you from enjoying yourself.

3. Pick The Right Hotel

One of the largest decisions you’ll have to make when planning your vacation is where you’ll stay. The accommodation plays a vital role in how comfortable you are and whether you’ll enjoy everything. Spend some time researching your options and picking the right one for you.

Customer reviews and similar factors should all play a role in this. If you’re heading to the USA, then the ROOST Detroit luxury hotel can be worth considering. With the right option, you’ll be relaxing and having an amazing vacation before you know it.

Have An Amazing Vacation: Wrapping Up

Everyone wants to have an amazing vacation, but it’s often not as simple as just picking somewhere and going. You’ll need to put some thought and effort into it to make sure it’s something you’ll actually enjoy. By following a few travel tips, you’ll make sure that’s the case.

Picking the right hotel, not overpacking, and having a positive mindset are all parts of this. With a little effort, you’ll be having an amazing vacation before you know it.

Ways To Make Your Body Feel Better: 3 Easy Options

It’s not uncommon to experience aches and pains around your body sometimes. In many cases, these aren’t anything serious, but they can still be something you want to take care of. Using a few ways to make your body feel better is a great way of doing this.

That begs the question of what exactly you should do to look after your body. It shouldn’t be complicated. Simply putting the effort into a few specific areas can be more than enough for this, as they’ll be quick and easy to do. Despite that, they’ll have more of an impact than you’d think.

It’s worth trying three of these.

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1. Sleep Enough

Your body needs time to look after itself and recover, with when you’re asleep being when it does this the most. You’ll have to make sure you actually get enough sleep to accomplish this. Between seven and eight hours a night should be enough for most people, so get it every night.If you have trouble getting to sleep, try to develop a relaxing night-time routine to relax you and help you drift off. It’ll end up helping you make your body feel better than you’d think, especially if you’re getting this sleep consistently.

2. See A Chiropractor

Sometimes, it’s worth getting the help of a professional to help make your body feel better, and chiropractors can be a great way of doing this. They help relax the muscles, which benefits your body in the long term, making it worth trying.

While you could need several sessions to see this, it’s more than worth it. Looking into various chiropractors that help with aches and pains, such as Desert Shadows Chiropractic, will be more than enough for this.

With a little bit of time, you’ll see more of an effect than you would’ve thought.

3. Stretch

Everyone’s heard that exercising is a great way to look after your body, but quite a few people overlook stretching. As minor as it seems, it helps you make your body feel better than you’d think. You wouldn’t even need to start exercising to take advantage of this, and it only takes a few minutes to do.

It takes care of your muscles better than you’d think and makes sure your blood flows properly. That’s especially true if you have to sit down constantly for work. Getting up and having a quick stretch could be more than enough to help. With how little effort it takes, there’s no reason not to do it.

Ways To Make Your Body Feel Better: Wrapping Up

You can try countless ways to make your body feel better, some of which will be more effective than you’d think. Despite that, they don’t need to take as much effort as you could’ve thought, making them worth trying.

Seeing a chiropractor, getting enough sleep, and even stretching can all be large parts of this. Despite how small they seem, they’ll make more of an impact than you’d think.

Please Join Me for A Fashion Show… A Night of Chic-Cycling

GALLERY NITE OUT presents A Night of Chic-Cycling by Andrew Yu

Are you free on June 23rd? Let’s go to a Chic-Cycling Fashion Show by my good friend Andrew Yu. I promise you will have a fun night filled with Talent, Fashion, and Fun Surprises.

The tickets are going fast…so to reserve yours, click HERE!!!

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High fashion and eco-consciousness come together for a night of “chic-cycling” at ArtsWestchester. Andrew Yu and The Community Center of Northern Westchester are leveraging the art of fashion to raise awareness around waste reduction and build connections across media and culture. This special evening will feature the run-way-ready creations of 10 talented rising designers who won in a competitive face-off in the Upcycling Fashion Show at Katonah Art Museum in May. Local designer Andrew Yu is mentoring all the designers, helping them create show-stopping works of wearable art created from recycled materials and discarded clothing.

Fashion is a language of expression that transcends culture, gender, race, and economic diversity. Proceeds from ticket sales will benefit ArtsWestchester and the Community Center of Northern Westchester.

Light refreshments will be provided.

For more about the Community Center of Northern Westchester and their work in the community: https://communitycenternw.org/

This special night at @artswestchester – part of its Gallery Nite Out series (#GalleryNiteOut) – is hosted by local designer Andrew Yu @49AndrewYu, who was recently featured in WWD Cover, New York Times and Sunday Styles, along with co-hosts Melissa Tomlin of @914PopUps and local Influencer Nicole Steinthal of @nslifestyleblog. Be sure to follow all on social media to stay updated on upcoming Westchester events.

What to Expect During the Au Pair Placement Process – A Step-By-Step Guide

Show that you’re excited and interested in learning about the family and their lifestyle. Au pairs and host families are looking for more than just a babysitter or nanny; they’re interested in a cultural exchange.

Make your guides more accessible and understandable by incorporating visuals, screenshots, and GIFs. This will help readers execute each step more easily.

Fill Out an Application.

If you’re considering hiring an au pair, finding the right agency for your needs is essential. Some agencies have more experience than others and are better suited to helping families find the perfect match. Au Pair in America, for example, has been placing au pairs since 1989. It offers a user-friendly database with a searchable filter that makes it easy to locate candidates by everything from childcare experience to personality traits. Another agency, Expert Au Pair, offers a three-prong approach to matching au pairs with families. Families can browse the database, get assistance from a placement representative, and “reserve” up to three au pairs for a 72-hour exclusive interview. This way, families don’t have to worry about competing with other families to secure their favorite candidates.

Once you’ve chosen an agency, it’s time to complete your application. Most agencies use extensive application forms, interviews, and psychometric tests to ensure that au pairs are prepared for their host family responsibilities and can contribute to the program’s success. Some even require that applicants have a valid driver’s license, depending on their country of origin and driving history. It’s essential to ask the right questions in your interview to ensure that you and your candidate are on the same page about the expectations of your relationship.

Meet with a Placement Coordinator.

During the interview, both parties will get to know each other better. You can ask questions about the au pair’s family, friends, hobbies, and career plans. You can also discuss important issues such as pocket money, holidays, and working hours. In addition, you can discuss your expectations in the home, and if your au pair drive, talk about the car insurance arrangements.

It is best to meet in person, but a video call also works if you can’t. It is essential to determine if the personalities click. If the interview goes well, it will be easy to get along, and you may even feel a connection. However, only string someone along if it is the right match. This will only cause you and them stress.

Au Pair International has been around for a long time and offers competitive pricing (program fees are about $10,000, including formal training, transportation, and car insurance services). Their experienced team knows how to match au pairs with families. Their local representatives are available for support at all times. They serve a limited number of families at a time, which allows them to get to know each family well. Their smaller size as a business also means that the staff is more accessible and friendly. They are dedicated to ensuring that both au pairs and host families are happy.

Meet your Au Pair

You will meet her on a live video call once you find the au pair that meets your family’s needs. This is usually the time to discuss household responsibilities, rules, and other details that must be agreed upon.

During this interview, showing interest and excitement for the position is essential. This will help put the au pair at ease and let her see you’re also excited about having her in your home!

Asking lots of questions is also very helpful. For example, ask about the children she will be caring for, their ages, and what activities they enjoy. You can also ask if the au pair has any experience in this field or if she’s ever worked with kids before.

You should also discuss your expectations, how long she wishes to stay with you, and her goals for the au pair year. A clear understanding of each other is the best way to make the partnership work!

This is also the time to discuss unforeseen situations and how they would be handled. For instance, what if the children become sick, and you need her to stay home? Or what if you move house and she doesn’t feel comfortable with the new location? Having this discussion with your au pair early on can prevent future problems from arising.

Sign a Contract

Setting up a live video chat or phone call is essential once you have narrowed your list of potential au pairs. This is the best way to check whether you and the family click. Make sure to ask the family questions and let them know what your expectations are. For example, clarify the exact working hours and how many holidays they can take. It would help if you also discussed what tasks you expect from the au pair and when they should perform them. Specifying how much pocket money the au pair will receive once room and board are considered is also essential. Finally, you should agree on who will organize and pay for the language course.

Most au pairs are nervous at the interview, but it is essential to put them at ease. Start the discussion by complimenting them on their profile and asking about their experience. It is a good idea to make the conversation as natural as possible and use simple English words, especially if your candidate’s English could be better.

Once the interview has been concluded, you should send your chosen candidate a contract that includes all the points discussed during the consultation (pocket money, duties, hours, etc.). This contract should be signed by both parties and kept in a safe place for future reference.