Ten Great Reasons to Remodel

Are you bored with your house?

We all get a little bored of the house sometimes, and while some people like to sell up and move on, others like to get on and make some changes. When you have a shell of a house, you can do whatever you like to improve the inside of the home and change everything to suit your tastes. If there is one thing that's true, it's that our tastes change over time and we don't always buy a new property every single time.

There are plenty of reasons to do something new and change up your home, and we've got the ten top reasons for remodelling your home this year!

Image source: Pexels

1. Selling Up.

You got THAT bored of the house, then? Sometimes, adding and removing features of the home will work to sell the house faster than if you had left it alone. Remodelling the house is an investment, and yes it means you're investing in your house only for someone else to benefit from it. The outside appearance of your home is going to raise the value and enhance its curb appeal. People will want to buy a house with fresh paint and new shutters, so add that lick of paint and make it worthy of a great sale.

2. You Need To Move On.

When the kids grow up and you want to move into retirement, your home needs some adjustments to match your new time of life. You might consider remodelling the bathrooms to have handles and railings installed, and you could get the bath ripped out and replace it with a standing shower and a seat to relax on while you're washing. You could even have a new ramp installed. Some people choose that now is the time for an extension to have an added bedroom at the side of the house instead of using the upper floor.

3. You're Spending Too Much.

If you're trying to cut down your costs at home, renovation may seem like a ridiculous idea. After all, you're trying to save money not spend more of it! Spending far too much money trying to heat the home is a pain, but with a swap to custom windows, you can ensure that you go a little greener and stop spending so much money on your house. Energy-efficient windows are always a better idea and you can save a ton of money for your bills.

4. Built-In Appliances.

Look at your current kitchen: have you ever considered ripping out the whole thing? If you need a reason to remodel, a kitchen update can be exactly what you need. Ripping out your old appliances and replacing them with built-in options such as a dishwasher, new stove and even a new refrigerator built into cupboards can change the way your kitchen looks completely.

5. It's All Going Wrong.

The plumbing is old. The wiring is faulty. There's mould in the walls. Any of these reasons is a great reason to make some changes. Sure, things may function absolutely fine, but you need to worry about overloading the generator and pipes cracking in the cold. When things are going wrong in the house, it's absolutely the right time to renovate and make some changes. It's time to make it right and you have to consider these issues before you choose NOT to renovate!

Image Source: Pexels

6. Future-Proof.

The kids aren't going to be moving out any time soon, so waiting for a rainy day to get your house looking exactly the way that you plan it to look is a waste of time. You should be excited to look at your home now and remodel it for the future. Yes, the kids are going to grow up at some point, so that games room you dream of having? Why not enjoy it with them now and renovate the house the way that you choose? A lot can change in ten years, so make your home the way you want it to be now.

7. You're Ashamed.

When was the last time that you were able to afford a remodel? You don't need to waste your life apologizing for the way that the house looks. Instead, you should consider telling people you're proud of your home and it's up to you to make that happen. If you're embarrassed about your kitchen, you should take a moment and make your kitchen look the way that you want it to look!

8. Things Feel Stale.

Boredom strikes once again, right? Your home should feel stable and secure, and when the house feels stale, you need a fresh clean sheet! Paint the walls and the baseboards, replace the flooring, feel happy with the new look you give your home and do it to the budget that suits you. If your house is feeling boring, then it's the best time to make a change.

9. Finally Using The Basement.

Do you use your basement? If yours is empty right now, make the changes you want to make and make it feel like a space you are actually going to use. You deserve to spend money on your whole living space, and you deserve to have a whole house you can use, too! Your home could be absolutely perfect, but if you're missing out on using some of the rooms, you're going to feel like something is missing. Now is as good a time as ever to remodel, especially if it means that you can use every single area of the house at long last!

10. You Won't Need To Buy.

If you spend some money renovating your house, you're going to save yourself the cost and time of buying a new one, moving out of the area and searching for a brand new house. You can spend time going room to room rather than area to area and looking for the perfect house.

Renovations could be the solution that you didn't know that you needed for your home to feel fresh again. Take your time to remodel and you're going to come out with a house that really works for you and your family.

QuietOn Sleep Earbuds - A Review

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 The quieter you become, the more you can hear.

It can be said that silence is the rarest commodity.   It is a luxury that many cannot afford and most would trade almost anything to gain.

In the modern world, how often are you really left in silence, with your own thoughts?  Given the ability to read a book in peace, work without distraction; sleep without disturbance or even just sit in your own bubble, stepping away from the world and having a moment to yourself.

Silence is something that at some points during my day, I would give anything for.  The commute to work when I am readying myself for the day ahead and would give anything to mute the screaming child sat two rows down.  When I am working from home needing to concentrate, but can hear the sounds of the household, banging and crashing in the rooms around me.  When I want to sleep and the neighbours decide to play music at midnight on a Tuesday.

When I was looking for some earbuds to quieten my world when I chose, I wanted something that was portable, easy to use but also, I did not want complete silence.  If I use earbuds to enable a quiet and restful sleep for example, I also need to hear my alarm clock in the morning.  

I decided to try out the QuietOn sleep earbuds which are described as the world's smallest active noise cancelling earbuds.  

Rather than bulky headphones which are not easily transportable and do not fit into your handbag, no matter what the size (does anyone else find that the bigger the handbag, the more things you find to put in it?); the box is small and carries everything you need.

Along with the earbuds which come in their own charging case, there is a small charging cable which slots easily into your laptop for charging and three different sizes of buds so as to get the perfect fit in your ear.

Once charged, the earbuds last around twenty hours but with the compact packaging with everything inside, you do not have to play the game of "where did I put the charging cable" which I seem to do with every other chargeable item I own.

I have tested them in a variety of situations and honestly, for me they perfectly do the job that I wanted them to.

When I work from home, the sounds of the household are dimmed to a point where they become unobtrusive and I can concentrate on the task at hand.  In my commute, I can put them in, close my eyes and feel a bubble of calm around me.  When I want to sleep, outside noise and those pesky neighbours are muted and my sleep is uninterrupted.

The silence is not total, I would say that depending on the situation, sounds are muted to around 80%, but that is also welcome.   As I said earlier, uninterrupted sleep is perfect, but also, as much as I wish I did not need to hear it, that blaring alarm clock noise to wake me for work is essential; no matter how much I want to throw it against the wall.

Right now they are at a discounted price of £154 and honestly, I feel like I have got my money's worth.

I have been using them for a week now and they have made an active positive difference in my life.  Being able to turn down the volume of the world has given me calm when I needed it, peace where I craved it and a good night's sleep which is something that we all need more of.

I would not hesitate to recommend them.

The Battle of the Breasts

 This post was inspired by the Twitter account: Wild Woman Writing Club

Maybe it’s time for women to start telling stories about how we came to make friends with our female bodies, despite everything nature and society throw at us, to show girls that there is hope?

— Wild Woman Writing Club (@wwwritingclub) December 7, 2020

 I saw this tweet today and made my think about the tumultuous relationship I have had with my female body over the years.  I don't hate my body.  Now.  But I have wished that everything about it could be different.  I have cursed it.  I have hurt it.  I have never loved it.  But now, I feel that my body and I have finally become friends.

I don't think that I even thought for a second about my body, the size of it, the shape of it, or even what I looked like until I started primary school.  Before that I had been safe in the cocoon of my immediate family and the elderly neighbours that lived on our street. I knew, because I was told, that I looked like my mother; but other than that I did not have a care in the world in that respect.

Primary school taught me that I was "pudgy", the teacher called it.  My  mum told me that it was just baby fat (which it was) and to ignore the teasing and being picked on that had started after my teacher pointed my difference out.  (Thanks Mrs Ogden, two thumbs up).

A boy in another class was "pudgy" too.  He was not teased or picked on.  It wasn't the same apparently. That was the first time I learned that girls were held to a different standard than boys.  Even when they are five.

The baby fat disappeared but at around ten, my body threw me a curve I wasn't expecting.  Not yet.  Not so soon.  I wasn't ready.  I am not sure how you can be readied for it.

My body shape started to change and I started to grow breasts.  My child's clothing was now at odds with the shapes and curves that were appearing. 

Overnight it seemed grown men looked at me in a way that I was not used to and did not understand, other than to know it felt wrong.  I couldn't go on my own to the local park anymore because a group of older boys had noticed my blossoming breasts and cornered me on the roundabout; pointing my early development and asking if they could "cop a feel".  

I felt like my breasts had stolen the childhood that I was not ready to leave.  My growing female body set me apart from my female peers and I was jealous of them and their flat chests.  Some of the boys noticed and I learned to stay away from some.  The innocent "kiss chase" game I had once participated in without a thought, became something I knew to stay away from.

Moving to high school, I was the only girl, in certainly the first two years, to have breasts.  It definately set me apart.  In a way I did not want, when I all I wanted was so desperately to fit in.  Attention from men also increased.  I hated it.

Coming into my third year and other girls started to develop too, making me more normal again.  Able to blend more into the crowd.  Yet mine were still bigger and were a figment of fun.  I gained a nickname which I won't repeat here, but it was related to the size and shape of my breasts.

I still hated my breasts and resented the boys that were allowed to grow up normally, without a body part being the thing that they were known for.  

For around six months when I was 15, I was attacked by three boys at the bus stop at the end of school, every, single, day.  Throwing me down to the small rise of grass next to the bus stop, grabbing my breasts.  I remember the fear.  The embarrassment.  The wondering of why, on a main road, no one ever stopped to help me.  I was invisible.  It felt like because of my adult, larger breasts, it was somehow allowed.  Accepted.

I remember telling a teacher and being told that "boys will be boys".  Something about male hormones and a suggestion to wear a larger shirt.  I didn't tell my parents.  I was too ashamed.  I felt that it was my fault.

It stopped eventually, because I paid them to stop.  A packet of cigarettes.  They and I acted like nothing had ever happened afterwards.  I think that was when I began to feel like my breasts were intrinsically linked with my self worth.  I had paid them to stop, my breasts had become a commodity to trade.

Now, I weep for my 15 year old self.  The question still rolls around in my head.  So many cars passed by each day.  The drivers, the passengers, so many must have seen.  Why did no one ever stop?  Did I matter so little?  Did they think I encouraged the assaults?  Back then, I could only conclude that I did.

Fast forward a few years and I was a larger girl, with the larger breasts.  My self worth had plummeted to a level that my breasts were the only commodity I could use to attract the attention of boys that I then desperately craved.   Their attention, no matter how depraved, how wrong, made me feel like, for that moment, I wasn't invisible.  I was, in that moment, worth just a tiny bit.

I think the thing I am most ashamed of is that in those years, I met again one of the boys who had accosted me so many times at school.  I slept with him.  Now I cannot believe that my self worth had sunk so low that I would allow that to happen.  To court it.  Jesus Christ.

The self harming I did back then I now realise was a punishment to myself for what I allowed, and encouraged to happen to me.  

This tale of mine doesn't sound great inspiration for girls to feel better about their female bodies and their worth.  But reader, my life got so much better.  I found hope again.  I found self worth.

I slowly began to realise that I was more than my breasts.  They did not define me.  I threw away those who objectified me for them.  I began to dress differently.  No longer the black to hide the larger body but with the breasts showing.  Instead pretty dresses.  Patterns.  Colours.  I started to write about being confident in yourself and growing yourself as a person, not seeing yourself as purely an object to try to attract the male sex.  The more I wrote, I more I became a real person.  

The proudest moment of my life appeared when a reader of my confidence blog emailed me, thanking me for encouraging her to find her own self worth.  Enabling her to think of herself as more than her shape.  Instead, a whole person. I still have that email.  It was a defining moment of my life.

Now, at an undisclosed age, I am finally at peace with my female body.  I have worked on my character, my thoughts, my beliefs.  Twitter, the cess pool that it is and can be, helped me to step out of my shell and find the person who, I was surprised to find, I had so many thoughts, so many opinions.  

I finally allowed myself to trust.  To have a relationship.  With a man who loves my body, my breasts, but just as much, my mind.  Someone who encourages me to constantly question, to learn.  Never telling me what to think.  

The battle with my breasts lasted decades and started in a time that is not now.  But girls face different challenges now. But they can, like I did, get through it.  My mental health didn't help throughout.  But I battled, and eventually, I won.

So what would I say to a girl who is battling against her female body, her shape, her form now?  You are more than the value that others place on you.  Work on your mind.  Your personality.  Your thoughts and beliefs.  They will grow, improve your mind and carry you straight through your life.  

I am at peace with my body now.  I can even now, once again, flash a hint of cleavage in a dress because I like the way it looks.  Not as a symbol of worth.  That belongs to my mind.

This body you have is the only one you will ever have.  Do not hate it.  Do not let others define it.  Tell you it should be different.  Don't modify it, change it, mutilate it, harm it.  Embrace it and love it.  It will carry you through the years of your life when those who would judge it are long gone.

Work on your heart and your mind.  You will find yourself and believe me, once you find the person who you are, happiness and peace will come.