5 Shopping Tips for Your Home

shopping tips, home
Nothing is as exciting and tedious as shopping for one’s home. Buying a house maybe daunting, but making it a home is the (never ending) challenge. Realistically, it will always be a work in progress – filling bits and pieces of a house to make it feel more like home, more like yours – a place that speaks your personality and lets you feel at home.

Before you fill the little bits and pieces, you need to make your home livable first. You need to provide the basic furniture and appliances you need to be able to live comfortably at first – and this part usually makes a big dent on your pocket. However, it doesn’t have to be as stressful as it is. Here are some tips you have to keep in mind before buying anything else:

1. Decide what you need.
For you to know what you need, go from room to room and make a list of things you need. Once you have completed the list, you can opt to trim it down to basics until you have more budget to decorate it.

2. Choose what style you want your home or specific rooms to have.
You can refer to home shopping catalogs or Pinterest for this. Catalogs usually style their items in a way that you can easily envision how it looks in a room. This is also a more cost-effective way than hiring an interior designer to style your house.

As a tip, classic styles never go out of style. You might outgrow themed rooms in a while. Classic hues and simple lines are also easier to adapt to whatever change you might want to implement in the future. As an example, popular styles are contemporary, minimalistic, country, traditional, shabby chic and eclectic/modern.

3. Choose based on your lifestyle.
What will work on other families might not necessarily work yours. For example, an all white-couch isn’t a good idea for a family with children under 10, nor are rugs and thick carpets advisable for families that have allergies.

While it maybe easy to have a pretty home, don’t sacrifice aesthetics for functionality. Make it a livable, practical and efficient home – you don’t want to worry about maintaining it too much, so choose pieces that will work with the lifestyle you lead.

4. Look for durability and quality.
Don’t get too blinded on what just looks pretty. Go for those that will stand the test of time. Quality pieces that are a bit more expensive than the usual ones might be worth the extra money as they last longer and don’t wear and tear too much.

5. Map it out.
If you are like the rest of new homeowners, you are likely going to have some money frustrations about not being able to buy everything you need (or want) all at once. Accept that you won’t be able to complete everything all at once – but you can certainly finish it in time. So map it out. Plan your purchases, plot your budgets and prioritize.

It’s not going to be easy, making your house a home. But it’s definitely going to be worth it!

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