How to Get More Value From Your Home

There's a simple mathematical formula that will help you calculate the hidden value in your home. Divide your mortgage or annual lease by the total square footage in your home and use that value to calculate the cost of your living room, dining room or other underutilized rooms.

''You may be spending thousands of dollars for space that you use only twice a year,'' says Standolyn Robertson, president of the National Association of Professional Organizers and owner/founder of Things In Place, an organizing consulting company in Massachusetts. You can increase the value of each room by finding new uses for the space.

Myscha Theriault, a personal finance and home-living blogger at http://www.wisebread.com/, knows the value of space. After relocating from Arizona, Theriault and her husband David -- a retired military man -- moved into a small New England cottage, a temporary home until their permanent house is built. Faced with limited space, Theriault developed several tricks for expanding her living quarters.

• Use the restaurant model. Vertical wire shelves and racks popular in industrial kitchens can serve several functions in homes. In her cottage, Theriault uses vertical shelves in the kitchen, entertainment area, bathroom and on a porch.

• Experiment with lofts. Medium-density fiberboard, plywood and other affordable materials can be used to build a platform, stage or bilevel lofts in an attic, bedroom or garage. Raised platforms can create a teen hangout, entertainment zone, craft work space or storage for sports equipment.

• Forget room titles. ''If you're stuck on labels, you're losing a lot of available space,'' Robertson says. A formal living room, for example, can double as a home library or rehearsal room for family musicians. Likewise, a buffet credenza in a dining room can serve as a work space for a home office during non-meal hours. When it's time to set the table, tuck office supplies into decorative baskets.

This is from my latest column in the home & design section of the Miami Herald.
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Previous Posts

Four Millionaire Moms Tell Their Secrets

Weekly Reading: My Favorite Links

My Teenage Son Paid Me 16 Cents To Clean His Room

Kiplinger’s: Tips for Retiring Rich: A Guest Post

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Sharon Harvey Rosenberg is the author of The Frugal Duchess of South Beach: How to Live Well and Save Money... Anywhere! , which will be published in the Spring of 2008 by DPL Press.

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Guest Post: "Don’t Invite the Plumber to Thanksgiving Dinner"

Here's a guest post about avoiding costly plumbing woes on Thanksgiving. It's from a news release I received with helpful tips about avoiding repair costs.

How to Avoid the Plumber on What Might Be a Day of
“Disasters”

Thanksgiving Day doesn’t often bring immediate thoughts of garbage disposals, plungers and plumbers. But for many, it quickly becomes the reality when a standard kitchen gets put into overdrive while a Thanksgiving feast is being prepared.

“Thanksgiving Day is a time for family, friends and lots of food. However, that’s a recipe that could end up with an unexpected guest – the plumber,” said David Lupberger, ServiceMagic.com’s Home Improvement Expert, repeating his annual warning. “Thanksgiving can be one of the busiest days of the year for plumbing
emergencies.”


Lupberger says the garbage disposal is the main source of most Thanksgiving and holiday plumbing problems.

“During hours and hours of cooking, either too much waste gets thrown down the disposal or items are discarded that can’t be broken down by the disposal,” Lupberger said.

Lupberger offers these tips to avoid holiday plumbing issues:

· Make sure that everyone helping in the kitchen knows what can go into the disposal and what should not. Corn husks, grease, bones, potato skins, egg shells and lettuce are all common Thanksgiving Dinner byproducts that may lead to problems. (Frugal Duchess comment: I have a friend who uses egg shells and other food by-products to fertilize her garden. Coffee grinds are also good on soil.)

· Don’t put too much down the disposal at once. Run your disposal several times to clear out smaller amounts of waste instead of trying to clear everything at once.

· Since a typical household of four people can swell to more than a dozen, make sure all the visiting children know what shouldn’t be flushed down the toilet. With that many people making trips to the bathroom, your plumbing may be distressed in general!

Not only are T-Day plumbing emergencies an enormous inconvenience, but they could also be pricey. Plumbers don’t typically come cheap on a holiday.

“They’re leaving their homes to come to your home to take care of a problem,” Lupberger said. “That means you might expect to pay a lot more for something that might have been avoided.”

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