The sub-tropical climate, wide open vistas, miles and miles of beaches and nature trails makes Naples an ideal place for those who love the outdoors. Most properties have outdoor space, decks, pools, lanais or just big gardens and a lot is made of them.

Some homeowners make this outside space and climate work a little more for them. In Naples kitchens don’t have to be just inside the home. They can be outside too. An outside kitchen adorns many a garden in our little county and with good reason!

If you’re planning on building an outdoor kitchen there are a few things you need to consider. A lot depends on what space you have available. You don’t want to take up too much outdoor space that you lose the use of it, neither do you want the kitchen too small to enjoy. After the space, comes the money. The budget can make or break any project around the home and this is no exception. An outside kitchen can be anything from a portable barbeque and some cheap patio furniture to a complete brick or wood built kitchen with all the amenities of any other kitchen. What you will end up with depends on how much you have to spend.

The placement needs to be near existing entrances to your home, ideally straight into the existing kitchen. This will make moving things around much easier, especially food. The last thing you want to be doing is weaving through guests with plates of uncooked food.

A cheaper option can be a square made up of cinder blocks and piled up with a few planks of wood to make a useable surface with space for a barbeque and some chairs. A higher end version might have integrated cooking stations, electricity and refrigerators and bars. There is no right and wrong way to doing this, just design something that fulfils both your needs and budget.

Sketch it out on paper first using scaled drawings. This will help when it comes to building it, or aid the contractor when they do it for you. Don’t forget to add notes about where utilities will be fitted, pipes and socket points etc.

Depending on your level of expertise it may be quicker and cheaper to hire a professional to design and do the job. While it can be tackled by a skilled enthusiast, a lot of time and dedication is needed to see the project through.

There is undoubtedly going to be changes to the landscaping of your garden when making changes like this. Unless you are lucky enough to have unused space right outside your kitchen, you will need to landscape the remaining garden to allow the kitchen to fit. Again, something an enthusiast can do quite easily, but it may pay to employ a professional landscaper to take care of for you.

How much you do yourself depends on how much you have to spend and your skills. Don’t be put off by a seemingly extensive piece of work. It can be broken down into little ones just like any other.

Homeowners who need to make changes to their homes can take advantage of a Federal Home Improvement Loan as long as they fulfil certain conditions. It is also referred to as a 203(k) loan, and must be applied for through a private lender. This can make life a lot easier. In Naples, renovations are a large part of any contractors workload, and that may increase if people take up this loan offer.

The loan is offered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development to help householders pay for home improvements. The loans are administered by private banks and other organizations but are underwritten by the government. In the large part these loans are for critical structural improvements or repairs, but can be used to improve or renovate a home if for example a family was outgrowing it and couldn’t afford to move.

The main three qualifications for the loan are; the home must be a family home of up to four families, needs to be older than one year old, and the loan can’t be for over 100% of the increase in value the improvement would provide. This means if the loan was for $10,000, the improvements will need to add at least that $10,000 to the market value of your home. If these three criteria are fulfilled then it is likely that you could get one of these loans in order to complete work on your house.

No matter how much the loan is for, the Department of Urban Development underwrites it for $25,000 in case you have problems paying it back. The amount you borrow can vary but needs to be a minimum of $5000 and be for something more serious than a makeover.

In the majority of cases the loan will pay for repairs to structural damage, the removal of health hazards like lead pipes or asbestos, energy conservation, disable access and major landscape works. The main caveat with this loan is that whatever work it pays for will need to be started within 30 days of the loan being paid. The work must be as continuous as possible, not break for longer than 30 days and be completed within six months.

The idea behind it is to allow homeowners to continue or improve their way of life while not having to turn to expensive lenders, or be put in the position of not being able to borrow the money normally because of the economic situation. Although the loans are acquired through lenders, they are controlled and underwritten by the government and the interest rates are fixed. The lenders are amenable to this though as they get a fee from the government for each loan of this type they approve.

As long as you fulfil the requirements already listed you should have no problem being approved for one of these loans. I would encourage everyone who wants one and can afford to pay for it to get one. Commercial interest rates are much higher at the moment so there is little point getting a home loan any other way.

The property market is a buyers one and will be for the foreseeable future. Until the economy, and then house prices start increasing again, vendors are having to fight hard for every sale. Real estate agents and realtors are really having to earn their commissions at the moment!

When preparing your home for the market there are many considerations you must give thought to. The most important is the value of your home, and what else is available in the price bracket. It might even be worth your while posing as a purchaser and having a look around some of them, just to see what you’re up against.

If your home is old and needs some work, you have to weigh up the cost of having the work done versus the probability to making it back in the sale price. In Naples, remodelling is a popular choice for increasing the value of property. Much thought must be given to whether it is worth it in your particular case or not. A realtor may be able to offer valuable advice on what is worth money and what is not. As a rule of thumb, anything that improves the look and feel of a kitchen, bathroom or living room is likely to be worth the expense.

Ask a realtor about any work you plan on doing, how much it will improve kerb or visitor appeal, whether it will improve the overall saleability of the house, and of course the value. Compare this to the cost of doing the work, or having it done and make a decision based on that. Even a close call between the cost and the value may be worth proceeding with just to make the property more saleable. Vendors have to use every trick in the book to make a sale nowadays so make sure you do the same.

Don’t forget to factor in the cost of financing the money. If you have savings then it will be nil but if you’re borrowing the money to do the work, the cost should be added to the total build cost. This is something that can easily be overlooked when costing a project but can be quite expensive. Short term loans can be more costly as there is no longer term return for the lender. If you are considering borrowing the money then it may be worth looking into the 203(k) loan underwritten by the government.

This is a home improvement loan issued by commercial lenders but controlled and underwritten by the government.. If you meet the criteria for the loan, the lenders should give it to you, so may be something worth exploring further.

If you home is dated, worn out or just needs a tidy up, it is essential you get the work done before putting the house on the market. The saying “you have to speculate to accumulate” is relevant here. Spending a few hundred dollars on your home could mean the difference between getting a quick, near price offer and it languishing on the market for months.

With the property market pretty slow in Naples, home improvement is gaining popularity. If families can’t sell their homes, they are spending money on improving them, or making them fit changing circumstances. Home renovation can seem like an expensive undertaking, and it can be, but it doesn’t always have to be that way.

There are plenty of ways to renovate your home without breaking you or the bank.

Plan exactly what you want to do, and how you want it to look. Having a good idea of the end result will help you and any contractor immensely when it comes to doing the work. Anything from a computer model to a collage of magazine or brochure cutting that helps build a picture of what you want will help immensely in the long run.

Determine in advance what parts of the project you can handle on your own and ensure you have the skills, equipment and materials to see it through. It generally costs more to have a contractor fix botched work than to have them do it from scratch. Include basic preparation in this plan. You can remove tiles, cabinets, carpets, light fittings, wallpaper and the like. By doing these kind of prep jobs yourself you can save quite a bit of money on labor costs. It is simple things like doing the prep yourself that can make or break a project like this. The more money you can save here, the more you have to spend on what really matters, extra finishes or fittings to make the project something extra.

Search carefully for financing options. If you need to borrow money to do the work, shop around for it. There are many lenders out there now clamouring for customers, and there are good deals to be had if your credit score is good.

If you’re going to use a contractor, get at least three quotes from three different firms. Compare the quotes carefully, especially the items and materials that are or are not included. These can cost dearly if not considered properly.

When choosing your contractor, don’t just go on quotations. Ask for references and check them! Don’t read their portfolio and leave it at that. You must ensure that whomever you entrust your money and home to is going to do a good job and not make things painful for you. Also ensure that the contractor will take care of any permits necessary for the work. Consider using a contractor that will let you source your own materials and provide them to them. Not all will go with this, sometimes because they factor in a little extra profit in material costs, but also because they have discounts or assured quality from other suppliers. It isn’t always necessary and will vary from contractor to contractor, but it is something worth bearing in mind.

Whatever the scope of your home renovation, proper planning and careful consideration before doing anything else, and during the project is your biggest and best way of saving money on it.

There are a million little details that need to be covered when planning any kind of makeover or remodelling. Lets cover a few of them here. In Naples, kitchens can be either outside or inside, or even both. Our climate allows us the freedom to cook inside or outside for a large part of the year. Most residents will take full advantage of this, and for the sake of this post, we’ll talk about an internal kitchen.

When you are planning on spending a significant amount of money on a project for your home it is essential that you get it right first time. Everything from the concept to the finished product needs to be planned, costed and implemented in the best way possible.

When at the planning stage, make sure you make the best use of the space available. A kitchen can make or break a home, and it can be extremely expensive to put it right. Try and design a kitchen so it can serve as many purposes as possible without compromising the overall usefulness. Things like having wall built ovens instead of taking up a lot of cupboard space, or having cabinets go to the ceiling to maximize storage. Things like this will allow you to make the most of a space and the equipment within it. You need to assess how much storage space you need for your family, and build in a little contingency in case the family expands.

Ensure that any fitted units allow free access around the room and all the doors can open fully. Compromising space is something we want to avoid at all costs. Also ensure there is adequate light, both natural and artificial. A kitchen needs to be light and airy, otherwise all the furniture in there will look stuffy. Not a good look. You want to create a space where the whole family likes to be, because it is where most of you will spend your time.

Visit all the kitchen shops, DIY stores, open houses and any other inspirational places you can to get ideas. Take a camera with you to record it all as you’d be amazed at the different pictures people draw when they get home! Have photographic evidence will save a lot of arguing later!

If your kitchen is going to be completely gutted, get all the first fix plumbing and electrics out of the way as soon as the old kitchen has been removed. The new kitchen can then be built around them and appliances and amenities can be installed very easily. Planning the electric needs and socked placement in advance will allow for a much smoother build and far happier contractors.

It pays to plan and cost a “fantasy” kitchen before starting work as you may have to compromise on things to bring it in on budget. A good architect or contractor will be able to advise you more on this. They will be much better at costing the project too, as any homeowner doing it themselves always seem to underestimate how much work and time it takes to complete work like this to a high standard!

Letting someone loose on your home with a range of power tools isn’t always a good idea if you know nothing about them. There are a few ways to ensure the contractor you choose it the right one for the job, we are going to discuss them here.

It is always advisable when getting quotes for work to obtain at least three prices, from three different companies. There are plenty of choices, just Google Naples remodeling or something. You’ll be amazed how they will vary. Don’t always go for the cheapest quote either. Try to strike a balance between price and workmanship. If the cheapest also appears to be the best then you’re onto a winner! Ensure the cost of any permits is included in the quote and that the contractor will take care of them for you. They can be a burdensome process that may confuse, baffle and annoy anyone but a contractor.

When screening contractors, ensure they are licensed to do the work and that they have adequate insurance. That should be workers compensation and liability, just in case. You can either check this yourself at the state licensing board, or ask the contractor to provide proof of insurance at the initial quote meeting. If they don’t have insurance, don’t use them. Any mishaps that may occur while they are on your property will be down to you to put right.

Check the contractors record. Any contractor worth working with will have a collection of testimonials, references and records of old work. If they don’t have this information on them, that should start the alarms ringing right away. Don’t just look at the portfolio though. Call a couple of the references, especially any commercial ones and discuss the workmanship and general worthiness of the contractor. If your potential project is a large and expensive one, ask one if you can see the work. This may seem laborious and not worth the effort, but anyone can take pictures, and write fake testimonials. Cutting corners here could cost you a lot of money.

It is a good sign if the contractor wants to put things in writing. Many don’t seem to bother, but although this may be a good, casual way to do business it leaves you open if things go wrong, or not the way you want them to. Having everything in writing protects both sides, so it is essential to get this done straight away.

It is often suggested to pay by check. Some contractors don’t like this and prefer cash. This isn’t a bad sign as some contractors will have negative experiences with bad checks so may insist on cash. However you pay them, never pay in full at the beginning of the job. Some up-front payment may be necessary to enable the contractor to purchase materials, but never pay in full. Arrange a staggered payment structure of half up front half on completion arrangement. This is the safest method for you as it should ensure the work gets done on time and on budget.