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Remodeling your house is a viable alternativeto purchasing a new home and then packing up your stuff. However, remodeling is not always cheaper; simple planning mistakes or poor contractor selection can lead to disastrous emotional and financial results. Organization and thorough research are your two biggest weapons against the common pitfalls of home remodeling. Use them wisely.

Your garage, your bathroom, your kitchen are three great places to consider for your home remodeling project.  However, before you begin work, you must ask yourself many questions. The most important of these questions requires an honest answer: how much can you really afford to spend? When performing a remodel, you need to be financially realistic. Unless you take great care when accepting bids from contractors, your home remodel will most likely run 20% to 30% more than expected. While you have many possibilities for remodeling, this article will only focus on three different rooms: the kitchen, the garage, and the bathroom.

While there are limitless possibilities for remodeling your home, this particular article is going to discuss three different rooms: your bathroom, kitchen and your garage. For most everyone, the bathroom is a private sanctuary. Where else can you shut out the world and enjoy a hot shower or a soothing bubble bath? When you are planning your bathroom remodel, you need to consider where you naturally spend most of your time: looking in the mirror or soaking up the suds. How you answer that question reveals where you should indulge in your bathroom design. Do you know there are options such as heated flooring and even towel warming racks? And it is always recommended that you spend a little extra when it comes to bathroom fixtures. By investing more cash on the extra bells and whistles can easily transform your bathroom into a mini at-home spa.

It has been said that well over 50% of home owners do not park their vehicle in their garage. Instead of a place to park a vehicle, their garage is nothing but a big storage unit. Have you become one of those people? If so, you might want to remodel your garage. A remodeled garage can actually increase your storage space, expand the “usable” square footage of your home, or even allow you to park your car inside it.

In addition to gaining extra storage space, a garage can be transformed into a home gym, a laundry room, an elaborate work room, or even into extra living space such as a spare bedroom or play room for the kids. If you want to transform your garage into extra living space, you need to factor in the additional construction costs for heating, electrical, and cooling. And if you would like to add a bathroom or some other form of water supply, you will also need to add in plumbing costs which can be expensive.

A kitchen remodel is the most complicated (and usually the most costly) home remodel project you can start. It is a big undertaking; don’t take it lightly. It is highly recommended that you hire a qualified contractor than to try to perform your own kitchen remodel. If you request bids from several contractors – which would be a good idea, your scope of work needs to be extremely specific regarding the materials that are to be used for your new kitchen (detailed proposals allow for a more accurate comparison). Not too mention, if you aren’t specific in regards to materials, there is a strong chance you will get materials either inferior or too expensive than what you originally had in mind.

Designing the layout of your kitchen is the most important part of your kitchen’s remodel. Every aspect of the design should meet with your enthusiastic approval before you begin construction You also need to consider the down time; how long can you handle not having a kitchen? The more severe your remodel, the longer you can expect to be without a working kitchen.

Buy kitchen window treatments to finish the look of your new kitchen remodel. A new set of  kitchen window treatments can help finish any kitchen, large or small. Of course if you are handy with the sewing machine try making kitchen curtains.

Outside of hiring an experienced, licensed contractor for your project, it is probably a good idea to hire an independent consultant that can oversee your chosen contractor’s work progress and overall quality of work. Most people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between black steel piping and ductile iron piping, but an independent consultant that specializes in home remodels can. He or she will notice if your contractor or subcontractors attempt to take shortcuts.

Your family’s happiness and livelihood are closely tied to your home. Take care in your overall preparation for and planning for your project and you will have a successful remodeling experience.

Artist Jack Vettriano (birth name Jack Hoggan) was born in Fife, Scotland in 1951. But unlike many gifted artists who start painting while very young, Vettriano only began teaching himself to paint after a girlfriend gave him a set of watercolor paints for his 21st birthday.

In 1989, at the age of 38, he felt ready to show his paintings in public and submitted two works to the Royal Scottish Academy’s annual exhibition. Both were accepted and sold immediately, after which the artist was approached by several galleries wanting to sell his work..

In 2004 The Singing Butler, Vettriano’s best known painting, was sold at Sotheby’s for close to £750,000. In the same year he was awarded an OBE for Services to the Visual Arts.

Although his work is often dismissed by art critics as devoid of imagination, Vettriano is one of the most commercially successful living artists. While his original works regularly fetch six figure prices, it is believed he makes more from the sale of reproductions.

And that’s lucky for non-art critics who appreciate his work as prints by Jack Vettriano are now readily available and affordable for those who can’t fork out large sums of cash for originals.

Thanks to modern technology and advances in digital printing, it’s now feasible to produce art reproductions at budget prices. The quality of fine art prints has simultaneously improved. Advanced inkjet printers using a broad array of inks can produce vivid, pure colors, exceptional detail and subtle tones previously only achievable with the most expensive of equipment.

This means the average person now has access to Vettriano posters and fine art prints reproduced from his original artwork. Reproductions are made on archival quality materials and often include stretched canvas prints, providing an even more authentic look.

When looking for quality reproductions, it’s worth checking if the work is available as a Giclée print. Giclée prints (pronounced “zhee-clay”) are fine art reproductions using special inkjet machines that print on a variety of paper surfaces or substrates, including textures such as watercolor paper, canvas, or artist textured vinyl.

When choosing a fine art print, one has various framing alternatives available that allow one to stamp the artwork with personal preferences, ensuring a degree of originality.

Selecting a frame that complements not only the print but also the room’s interior will add hugely to one’s enjoyment of the artwork. Unless you’re very daring, it’s safest to keep it simple – contemporary frames with contemporary art, and so forth.

Using established interior design concepts allied with tasteful selection of the artist’s framed prints, it’s now quite easy to decorate your home or corporate walls to look like a personalized art gallery – without breaking your budget.