Making Room: Building A Nursery

When you’re expecting a new baby in a home that doesn’t have enough bedrooms, you need to get creative. Not everyone has the luxury of a larger house, but the idea of selling the home you’ve worked so hard to decorate can be a step too far. The decisions that come with having a baby feel endless most of the time, but finding a space to fit the baby? That’s a decision that is also a necessity!

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Designing your nursery space isn’t just about finding the right color scheme and giving your baby a beautiful set of cot bedding to sleep on. It’s about deciding whether to utilize a small closet space, like the ideas you find here, or whether you want to add to your home with the help of Siding & Windows Group and tack on a bedroom extension. Regardless of how you choose to do it, you don’t have too much time to make the big decision before your tiny baby comes screaming into the world. The real question is how you plan to design your nursery scheme! Knocking through a wall and building one onto the side of the house and your bedroom is a great way to start afresh and is a practical solution when you don’t want to sell your home. We’ve put together some tips below, so you can have the most beautiful nursery set up right on time.

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Practicality. When you build your extension to your bedroom, make sure you add a lot of light. You need to ensure that the heating is adequate, you also need to apply the right blinds and curtains for night time and you need to ensure that the nursery isn’t too far from your own bed. Be practical with your design here so that when the baby is older, you can shut or slide the door over and keep it private.

Consistency. If you have a traditionally built home, you need to make sure that the décor in the nursery and the layout is in-keeping with the house. You want to be able to sell it one day and an ultra-modern nursery attached to an old-style home really won’t match!

Simplicity. The décor of the actual nursery is going to be individual to your taste, but you need to think about making it a child-friendly space rather than one that is complicated by design. Stay neutral with your colour scheme and jazz it up with accessories instead to make the nursery the place you want to spend time in.

Beauty. A nursery should be a beautiful and part of that beauty comes in the colour scheme you decide to use. Colours should be tranquil, nurturing and not too busy for the baby in the room. Lots of solid colours and soothing tones creates an environment that is peaceful.

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Your nursery addition should match the rest of the house, and it should be a space that you want to spend time in. Make it beautiful and take your time planning it.

Buy or Build: What's The Best Option For Your New Home?

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Buying or building a house, which is the best option for you? If you’re thinking about moving into a new home, then you might be at this crossroads. Well, I’ve got a few arguments in favor of both sides for you to take a look at down below. 

Buy

Buying a house is easily the most obvious choice out of the two. The main reason is that it’s just more convenient for most people. You haven’t got to organize everything from architects to builders, and so on, there’s less work on your behalf. 

Furthermore, it can take a couple of months to find a house, buy it, and move in. When you build, it could take up to a year, maybe longer. Some complications can occur, bad weather might prevent building from taking place on some days; a lot can go wrong. But, if you’re lucky, you could end up with a new house in a few weeks when you buy. 

Also, buying a house gives you the chance to improve on an existing property. You can make a few changes here and there, meaning you increase the market value. As a consequence, you can sell the house for way more than you bought it. 

Build

I think most families don’t even consider this as an option, which is a little strange seeing as it does have many benefits. However, there is one obvious issue that probably explains why so few build rather than buy; planning permission. Some people might not get the planning permission they need to build their new house, and they may not even have a location to build it, to begin with!

But, if you move past that, you will see some excellent positives in choosing this option. The first of which is that you get to completely design your house. You’ll work alongside some home builders and architects to come up with a plan for your ultimate dream home. Everything is built to your desires, it should mean you have a home that’s 100% your cup of tea, and you can’t fault anything. 

Building off this point, you also have a brand new house. It’s hard to find brand new homes these days, and the ones you do find are often overly expensive. Here, you get a new home that’s properly new and comes with no existing faults that need to be fixed. 

Lastly, don’t you hate it when you buy a house and then have to re-decorate it before you can properly settle in. You move, like, half your stuff in, and have to work around your boxes getting the interior design sorted, it’s a heck of a mess. But, when you build, you build your home and design it so you can move in and everything is already sorted!

Should you buy, should you build? In an ideal world, everyone could build their home from scratch. I love the idea of creating something designed specifically for you and your family. However, in a lot of cases, buying is more convenient. It’s a tough one, my advice is to look at both sides of the coin before you flip it!

Stay At Home Moms - How You Can Actually Get Your Work Done With Kids Around

You will have no doubt heard lots of success stories about mompreneurs - these are women who work for themselves from home while also looking after their kids. And on the surface, it definitely sounds amazing - after all, you can drastically cut down on your childcare costs and work from the comfort of your own home! 

Unfortunately, though, trying to work from home while also looking after the kids isn’t quite as idyllic as some mompreneurs might like to make it sound. It can actually end up quite stressful, especially those times you are working on a deadline and the kids are screaming!

Wondering how stay at home moms actually get anything done during the day? Here are some of their tips!

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Work While They Nap

If your kids are still relatively young and take daily naps, it is worth trying to do some of your hardest work during these naptimes. That way, you will be able to work in complete peace and quiet, so it’s a good idea to do some work that requires your complete concentration. Working in quick spurts like this can help you get your work done at other times when your kids don’t require your attention, such as when they are playing or doing their homework.

Automate Your Processes

One of the main things that take up a lot of a stay at home mom’s time is all the admin that comes with working for yourself. This includes admin things like arranging your tax payments and following up on unpaid invoices. Thankfully, there are ways you can speed up the time it takes to carry out these processes - you just need to use software and computer programs that can automate them for you. For instance, you can get accounting software and a check stub maker that speeds up taking care of all your finances. Once you’ve automated everything, your working time will be drastically cut!

Structure Your Day

Throughout your day, it’s important that you have blocks of time that you can dedicate to your work and some blocks that you can dedicate to your kids. The best way to think about how you should structure your work is to take a look at your calendar and add a couple of family activities through the day. This might be things like baking cookies together. That way, your kids won’t feel like they aren’t coming second to your work.

Always Ask For Help When You Need It

There will be times when working from home and looking after your kids gets too much for you. And it’s perfectly fine to reach out for help when all the stress gets too much. You might want to get in touch with a local nanny who can look after the kids for you for a couple of hours so that you can focus on all your work. If your parents or your partner’s parents are free, they might be able to take the kids out for the day so that you can get on with all your business things.

So, that’s how you do it!