Homeowner Tips Archives - Kimberly Howell Properties

DIY Landscaping Projects for Spring

March 22, 2019 by khproperties Leave a Comment

As the colder temperatures fade and green begins to pop up all around us, it’s time to think about some springtime DIY landscaping projects to spruce up your home. While there are plenty of huge projects you can spend lots of money on, there are many simple weekend projects that you can do yourself that will give you great bang for your buck and help create a beautiful place that you’ll love to spend time in. Whether it’s as simple as installing some lighting or a little more time-consuming like re-plotting plants, a fresh look for the lawn always gives your home a fresh look as well. Here are some of our favorite DIY landscaping projects that you can do this spring.

Create a Pathway

To guide you and visitors through your yard and link different areas together, try installing a pathway. You can use materials from a variety of sources, including reclaimed pallet wood, flagstones, gravel, and more to add texture and color. Combine this project with some of the others below for bigger effect.

Add a Wall or Border

Installing a flagstone, rock, or brick wall around flower beds or trees adds a sleek, clean look to your landscaping and helps separate different sections of your yard. Add depth to your design by using walls of different height and materials.

Install a Water Feature

Nothing says “zen” quite like the sound of trickling water as you relax in your backyard. You can start simple by purchasing and installing a small water feature powered by a solar panel or create a larger focal point in your yard by installing a waterfall wall or small pond.

Light Your Way

An easy way to transform your yard is the strategic use of lighting. Place cool-colored lights high in trees to create a moonlight-like feel, use pathway lights to naturally guide the eye, or highlight objects or plants with stronger more focused lighting.

Plant Upwards

Expand your yard space by drawing the eye to the sky with a trellis, fence, or screen made of wood or metal. Once you install your trellis, select your climbing plants and vines and get those planted now so that you can watch them grow.

No matter what your budget is, there are always some great landscaping projects that you can take on to help make your backyard your own private oasis. Plan big and then break your landscaping projects down into smaller pieces that you can take on one at a time. By the time summer hits, you’ll be the envy of the neighborhood with all the work you’ve put into your yard.

image courtesy of hans s

That Color is Too Dark

December 20, 2018 by khproperties Leave a Comment

Your eyes are incredibly complex human machines. If you don’t believe me, google any one of the thousands of optical illusions that get passed around the internet – like what color is the dress or are the plates upside down or right side up. The eye can play tricks on you and when it comes to painting and choosing paint colors, you often have to try and outthink your eyes. We sat with a designer recently and discussed how choosing paint colors can be difficult but with the right mindset, you can overcome some of the common things that come up.

Darker isn’t always darker. One of the first things people think about a particular color is that it’s too dark. While it can be, it’s not always the truth. Dark colors can actually draw in more light and make rooms seem brighter. Painting an entire room black probably isn’t going to work to make it look sunny, but you’d be surprised how dark colors can actually lighten a room.

Test in large areas. Most people will paint small swatches on their wall when trying to make a decision. The designer suggests painting large patches – think feet, not inches to truly get a good idea.

Let the paint dry. Paint colors change as they dry (and they dry differently on different walls and surfaces).

Don’t always count on a color that looks good in your friend’s house. Paints are affected by a lot of factors and what looks one way in your friend’s house may not look anything like that in yours. Everything from the surface to the natural lighting to the objects in the room can make the color look completely different.

If you just don’t feel you have an eye for it, don’t be afraid to ask the experts in the store or to hire a designer or professional painter to assist. Not everyone has the natural ability to bring color and design together to make those picture perfect rooms that we all dream of having.

image courtesy of acme

Do You Have A Green Thumb?

December 17, 2018 by khproperties Leave a Comment

They say having plants in your home will make you happier and healthier. A burst of green along with the fresh, clean smell of flowers are welcoming and comforting and can take a house to a place you’ll call home. So what do you choose? How do you keep your plants thriving? Do you have a green thumb?

I’m not the best at keeping plants going. It’s a curse I was born with, but I continue to try. I’ll buy a plant, try and solve its riddle and usually succeed for awhile, but then somewhere along the line, the leaves start to turn brown and the plant starts to look a little rough. I google and try everything I can find, but in the end I tend to lose the battle. But I don’t like fake plants and refuse to use them in my home.

So how do you keep your plants alive?

Pick the right plants. Plants need sunlight to thrive and some need more than others. Pay attention to this when shopping – putting a sun thriving plant on a shady part of your living room is going to guarantee disaster. Also watch for drafts. You may have a bright sunny window, but if the cold air is creeping in through that window, all the sun in the world may not save the tropical plant you put it in.

Watch the water. One of the easiest things to do is to overwater a plant. Trust me. Making things worse, overwatered plants often have leaves that turn brown and start to curl up…which is also a good indication of underwatering. Watering is probably one of the hardest parts to master. If a plant seems to be dying and you’ve been watering, back off on the water and see if that helps.

Poor potting. Read about the plant and know how to set one up. Proper drainage is usually required on most plants. Leaving water stagnating at the bottom of the pot and close to the roots can cause all sorts of fungus and diseases in your plant that will kill it off slowly while you watch in horror and try in vain to stop the slow spread.

Feed me Seymour. Don’t forget to feed your plants with fertilizers. Check your plants’ specific needs. Since they are not living in soil whose nutrients are replenished in the natural cycle, you’ll need to replenish those nutrients through fertilizers.

Despite all that advice, I still admit to being really good at killing a plant. I’m currently nursing a bird of paradise and some orchids and while I refuse to give up, I have a larger plant that I think I need to admit defeat on. If you have some great tips, we’d love to hear them.

image courtesy of Amadeusz Leonardo Juskowiak

Rain, Rain Go Away: Your Roof, Rain, And Sudden Leaks

October 18, 2018 by khproperties Leave a Comment

It feels like it’s been raining for at least two months now. Opening up the weather app on your phone makes you think, “certainly this app must be broken.” An endless row of grey clouds with cartoon rain falling from them. The rain keeps coming and with it comes discoveries of leaks. Roofs all across San Antonio are being tested and some homeowners are discovering for the first time, they have a leak. In sunnier times, your roof sat there, doing it’s job and no one noticed, but as the skies darkened and the rains came, your roof was put through the ringer and you woke up to the “drip, drip, drip” of the water coming through a patch in your ceiling.

Many homeowners see these leaks and wonder how they didn’t get noticed or caught during inspections or before they bought the home. The trouble is, there is no test for leaks on a roof.
You can’t simply dump enough water on the roof to see what happens. You have to rely on some forensic investigation by your inspector, looking for signs of leaks – the water stains, issues on the roof like missing shingles or improperly sealed flashing – these signs can lead an inspector to think there could be leaks, but unless there is active rain, they often can’t say definitively.

Add in severe weather: strong winds, heavy rain (even the dreaded straightline winds that can physically lift shingles and force water under them) and suddenly you have a recipe for a new leak that no one knew about.

So what do you do? If it’s a newer roof, see if you can get a hold of the roofer. Many roofers warranty their work and know that these kinds of weather events can expose issues that no one could have seen previously. Even if they feel it’s past their warranty or not covered, they should be able to give you a good look at what’s going on and what needs done to fix it.
Sometimes, they’ll even tell you the best bet is to just leave it as is because any “fix” won’t do much unless the one in a million conditions line up once again to cause the exact same setup that caused what is an anomaly that you’ll probably never get again if you tried.

If the leak is a bigger issue, call your insurance company and get them out to take a look. You have insurance for exactly these kinds of events and it’s time to use it. Get the adjuster out there and see what they think.

Regardless of the final fix, leaks are annoying when they happen (and they never happen while you’re sitting around with nothing to do – they always come at the worst times). Remember to try and minimize the damage. Get a bucket to catch the water, turn off lights and electronics in the room, cover carpets, and remove wet items as quickly as possible so they don’t sit, especially since items full of water sitting stagnant can lead to mold.

It can be frustrating to discover a new leak, but often there is no way anyone could have seen it coming. We spend a lot of time going through lengthy dry spells where water intrusion never has a chance to show itself. As well, those long, hot, dry spells cause shifts in materials (much like the ground around your foundation contracts when it is dry and swells when it is wet) and these shifts change how the pieces fit together, leaving gaps for water to work it’s way inside.

image courtesy of nan palmero

Don’t Get Stuck Without Water – Take Care of Your Foundation

October 8, 2018 by khproperties Leave a Comment

We’ve talked about foundations before. Caring for your foundation is a fact of life here in South Texas. While my particular problem isn’t the foundation, the root case is the same. Since we’ve had a lot of rain recently, the ground is nice and wet. As we begin to dry out, the ground begins to shrink and shift. In this case a main water supply broke. And after fixing it and releasing the water back into the system, another part broke. Then another. So it’s just an endless cycle. While the crews work on fixing it once again, it seemed like a good time to discuss what happens that causes these types of problems and how you can help prevent them. (Cross your fingers that this time they fix it and it stays fixed…)

Because of our wet/dry flip-flopping here in South Texas, we experience a lot of changes in the ground. If you remember your basic science classes, when things dry up, they tend to shrink and shrivel up. When they get wet and start soaking up water, they expand. It’s like those little foam toys they pack into pellets and when you add water they grow into dinosaurs or monsters or whatever is the new cool thing that kids love. It’s simple science at work. The ground is no different. As it dries it begins to shrink and compact. When it gets wet, it swells and expands. Ever noticed how the soil in your potted plant pulls away from the sides of the pot if you forget to water it? Exactly.

As the ground shifts, it can move a lot of weight. This includes your foundation. When it expands it creates forces against your foundation, literally pushing it into a new position. When the ground dries up and shrinks away, it can leave voids – and all that weight likes to be supported, so your foundation will shift to fill that space left behind by the retreating earth. In the case of my water mains, it’s the same principles – voids left as the ground began to try left the pipes unsupported and the weight of all the water they were carrying caused the pipes to sag to fill this void…until the pipe couldn’t take it any more and burst.

So how do you combat this issue? Follow good foundation care. Keep the area around your foundation moist when the summer heat cranks up and the ground begins to dry up. You don’t want standing water around your house (that can lead to the same problems), but you don’t want it so dry that you can see the ground pulling away from your foundation either. This article from Texas A&M is an excellent guide to watering your foundation.

Take care of your foundation and it will take care of you. And don’t forget, your foundation carries the pipes to your home, so you don’t want to wind up like me…sitting here wishing you had enough water to take a shower.

image courtesy of joshme17

Holiday Decorating? Time for Some Early Spring Cleaning

November 25, 2016 by khproperties Leave a Comment

It’s holiday decorating time and that can only mean one thing – trudging up to the attic, out to the garage, or perhaps even visiting the rented storage space to dig through the mountains of boxes full of years worth of holiday decorations to find what you need. In order to get to those boxes, you may find yourself wading through even more boxes and storage items. We all find ourselves doing it…saving items over time thinking we may use it again or perhaps holding onto it “just in case.” As we move from house to house, change our lives, watch our children grow up, we inevitably accumulate more and more and place it into storage. We know we had a reason for saving it, but are those reasons still there? It’s time to perform a bit of spring cleaning as we prepare for the holidays. Take a bit of extra time and sort through the boxes that you stacked up in front of or on top of all of your holiday decorations. Take stock of what you have and consider what you need…and what can be packed up, sold, given away, or donated. A little bit of spring cleaning, all thanks to holiday decorating time. It will lighten your load and clear out the clutter. If you’re considering selling your home in the coming year, you’ll already have a head start on reducing some of the items that you may have held on to, but no longer need.

Don’t forget to consider some of those items for charitable donations. You may be able to take deductions on your taxes and there are those out there in need who would truly appreciate some help, especially during the holiday season. Good luck and have a terrific holiday, we’d love to see some of your holiday decorating!

image courtesy of Me in ME