1. Convert your attic
Pressed for space but stuck for budget? Then the only way is up. A quick look at the pitch of your roof will tell you if there's an opportunity to create extra living space in your attic. If you have a high roof with the right kind of trusses you'll have extra bedrooms in jig time.
But even if you've a relatively low roof and the wrong sort of trusses – the ones that look like the letter W - with a bit of work you can still have what might technically have to be called "storage space" but which could easily give you a nice new home office or kids' den. An attic conversion with Velux-type roof windows to the rear keeps planners happy and doesn't impinge on the 40sqm exemption limit for domestic extensions, so you can expand some more later.
2. Make it warm
Just like wearing a hat on a cold day, trapping all the heat going through the roof will go a long way towards keeping you warm. Invest in some attic insulation roll – it costs around €6 per square metre – and install it yourself. Or call the experts and do a more thermally efficient job using foam roof insulation sprayed in between the rafters of your roof, on top of a breathable surface, that expands to fill them. Expect to pay approximately €1,500 for an average three-bed semi-D for this method but it lasts for decades and provides top notch heat savings.
3. Upgrade the bathroom
Bathroom refurbishments were the most popular renovation job submitted by home owners to Irish website Onlinetradesmen.ie last year. If you're not sure what's possible visit one of the many industrial parks around the country with bathroom showrooms cheek by jowl, such as Dublin's Sandyford, which has BTW and Tubs & Tiles.
The main costs will be labour, tiles (or vinyl flooring) and fittings. Remember, while the cost of sanitary ware varies greatly by brand, professionals will tell you there isn’t actually a huge difference in the quality between high-end and mid range units, so be canny about the can. To be extra cost effective, buy your tiles and fittings from the shop and then hire in a bathroom specialist and tiler to install it.
4. Smarten up your heating
Lower your heating bills and never come home to a cold house again by installing a smart heating system. The latest systems from Hive and Nest link up to Amazon Echo and Google Home devices allowing you to control your heating with voice commands. The smart thermostats also link to your mobile phone allowing you to control the temperature and timers wherever you are – including driving back from the airport after a sun holiday. Both Electric Ireland and Bord Gáis Energy have special offers which include installation running at the moment.
5. Go solar
You can shave up to €600 off your annual electricity bill by installing solar panels with a battery to store the electricity generated during the day for use when the sun isn't shining. The latest panels also add a futuristic and stylish effect to a tired looking roof. Prices start at around €5,000 for a standard six panel installation. The battery will cost around €6,000 but it accounts for two-thirds of the electricity savings. The good news is that grants of up to €1,674 for the panels and €600 for the battery are available from the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI).
6. Carve out some 'me' space
If you crave a space to call your own but live in a crowded house, you can always create a room within a room. Take a little used corner of a living room and turn it into a mini-den with clever use of lighting and a few other tricks. Start by picking a nice comfy armchair where you can read, listen to music or just chill. Change the colour of the wall by painting the area in soft blues or purples. A rug will also set the area apart and add to the sense of luxury. Put up a few shelves for your books and favourite ornaments – make sure to keep one free at chair arm height for a reading light, a glass and a bottle of whatever you fancy. Think about a scented candle as well. Finally, add a pot plant – it will improve the air quality and add some colour and life.
7. Invest in a self-watering planter
And to make sure you keep that health-giving houseplant healthy, why not invest in a self-watering planter? These clever pots ensure the plants get just enough water when they need it and protect them from death by drowning at the hands of over-enthusiastic home gardeners. The basic versions start at around a tenner and use natural capillary action to feed water to the plant from a built-in tank. Lazier plant owners spend over €100 or more on electronic products which will keep your plant watered and fed for up to a month at a time. Finish designshop.com
8. Stay in for the movies
Trade in your old TV for a home cinema experience – the latest blockbusters just don't look the same on the small screen. Get yourself a smart home cinema TV and you can show works of art or other calming scenes with a Google Chromecast when you're not catching up on the latest movies. You can add a soundbar and a sub-woofer to get the full cinema audio experience. You can get quite high quality wireless versions for between €500 and €1,000. This means you can place them wherever you like with no trailing wires. Many of them are also compatible with Amazon Echo and Google Home devices allowing you to control them with voice commands.
9. Take your music with you
Multi-room hi-fi systems used to be for the very rich and the very musical. And they required a lot of drilling, messy wires, and big obtrusive speakers. Everyone can enjoy them now with no wires, no clunky speakers and the ability to listen to the same thing everywhere or control each device separately. Wifi based systems from Bose, Sonos and other manufacturers allow you to listen to radio stations from around the world, your own music library, Spotify and other services throughout your home. And you can even incorporate your own systems by adding adapters from Bose at around €159 a pop giving you a six-room system for less than €1,000.
10. Switch on to enlightened lighting
You can do your bit in the battle against climate change by switching over to stylish LED light bulbs. They may cost a little bit more, but their advantages far outweigh any price considerations. According to Electric Ireland, LED light bulbs use up to 85 per cent less electricity than traditional light bulbs and 95 per cent of that energy is converted to light with only 5 per cent wasted as heat. For most of us, lighting accounts for around 11 per cent of electricity bills and switching over can cut the electricity bill by up to 80 per cent. Indeed, the estimated saving per bulb is about €7 a year, so the savings can add up very fast.
11. Make space for gamers
Entertainment is as frequently a source of conflict as enjoyment in many modern homes. Not alone have we got streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime competing with gazillion channel satellite and digital TV for our viewing attention, but Xbox and PlayStation players want to commandeer the TV for their leisure pursuits. The answer is not just a second TV but a separate space for the gamers and others. You can turn a guest bedroom into a multimedia den by replacing the existing bed with a chair- or sofa-bed, installing a games console and hanging a smart TV on the wall. You can go the whole hog with Marvel superhero themed wallpaper and add a couple of gaming chairs complete with speakers, interactive vibration and cupholders at just €100 or so each.
12. Smarten up the kitchen
You can now combine connected ovens and fridges with Google Home or Amazon Echo to make your life easier and ensure you never again run out of milk or forget to put on the oven. Samsung's latest smart fridge does more than just keep your food fresh and make ice for your drinks. You can set best buy notifications so your food never goes off, plan a meal based on the ingredients in the fridge, and see its contents from anywhere on your smartphone. It's not cheap though and will set you back at least €4,500. Much more affordable is the June Life Oven which sits on a countertop and can automatically recognise more than 100 foods and figure out the best settings to cook them. It will cost about €1,000 including import charges from the US.
13. Add a sauna
Have you got a garden room, a large bathroom or a spare room with unused space? Why not get all the health benefits of a sauna without the plumbing, installation costs and other headaches involved. You can get an infra-red sauna that will seat two people comfortably and fit neatly into the corner of a room for around €2,000. Oh, and they look great as well.
14. Lay new flooring
Nothing beats carpet for comfort but the big step forward when it comes to floors has to be the rise in engineered or laminate flooring. Thanks to huge improvements in their quality and finish they are the increasingly preferred option over semi-solid and solid wood flooring, says Ted Laverty of Onlinetradesmen.ie. Don't rule out vinyl flooring either. This too has made great strides – nobody calls it lino for a start – and can come in a wood effect or tile-like design that copes well in wet areas.
15. Do it with colour
The quickest and most effective way to spruce up your home is to give it a paint job. Whether it's a quick touch up or a complete makeover it's the cheapest option too, all you need is a pot of paint, a brush and some elbow grease. Use the same colour throughout to create a sense of space, or give each room its own unique atmosphere and use your choice of colours – though always from the same palette. Go for colours you love but don't forget to give some thought to the finish too. The same colour can look different depending on its sheen level. Johnstone's Wall Emulsion paints are numbered one to 10 for sheen, for example. But if it's a wall that has taken a bit of a bashing over time, opt for a matt emulsion – it helps hide uneven surfaces.
16. Hang up your pictures
Great art is only the start. You've got to hang it well too. It's harder than you think, particularly if you've got a few and they come in all shapes and sizes. The Quality Framing Company in Kerry has a personal service that makes sure you get the most possible bang for your buck – and we're not talking Picassos. "Sometimes people have 30 family photos that they want to frame to put on a particular wall," says Nuala McCarthy, its interior design expert. The business has a special online service whereby you send them your wall dimensions, and your prints, and they'll send you back an exact plan-o-gram showing you precisely where each one should be. No more "up a bit to the left".
17. Rewild your garden
If your budget is such that professional landscaping is for the birds, do a DIY job for the bees instead. For an absolute knock out garden this summer, hire a rotavator to plough up your entire garden and simply scatter it with wildflower seeds. Mr Middleton has boxes from around a tenner each online, suitable for all sorts of sites, or check out the Seedbomb.ie. Sprinkle with abandon and spend every day marvelling at all the new flowers that come through all summer long – and all sorts of bees you never knew existed.
18. Clean up the kitchen
How often do we hear it said that the kitchen is the heart of the home? If yours is ailing, a little TLC can go a long way says Ted Laverty: "Since the last recession we have seen homeowners being pretty creative when it comes to updating their kitchens - from simply replacing cupboard doors with modern finishes or getting existing units resprayed – resulting in totally rejuvenated kitchens for a pretty low outlay." Pair clever carpentry with smaller jobs such as upgrading lighting, changing floors and painting internal walls and you can get a great result at a pretty low cost. Expect to pay around €250 a day for a carpenter in urban areas, falling to €175 in rural areas.
19. Replace leaky windows
Of all the building materials in your home, the one that is costing you most money in terms of heat loss is your windows. Replacing them entirely is a big job but if your existing frames are warped, new ones will pay for themselves in reduced heating bills over time. For maximum gains, take another look at the glass you're putting in too. Wexford company Energlaze specialises in heat retaining glass that it reckons is 70 per cent more thermally efficient than standard double glazing. If you're happy with the frames you already have, you can keep costs down by simply retrofitting it.
20. Upgrade the deck
Irish home builders reached peak deck in the early noughties. If you've got one of them, chances are every member of the family, and their friends, will have been upended on it at some stage. No matter how well you keep them, and most of us don't, Ireland's damp climate means they should pretty much all be approached with caution. Better still, in the age of litigation, replace it. New composite decking materials are low maintenance, weather resistant and non slip. They come in panels you simply click together and Woodies has them from around €13 each.
