Make your home cozy before snow flies

When temperatures start to dip, people often spend their free time being cozy indoors. But sometimes, aspects in a person’s home can stand in the way of their cozy dreams. So, we spoke with local experts on how best to make pretty much any room in your house as cozy as possible.

One of the biggest elements that can make a space feel cozy is warmth, especially when it’s cold outside. HSC Associates’ (hscassociates.com/index.html)

George Hines said that, these days, getting a good heating system often means getting a good cooling system, too.

“Cold weather heat pumps are currently one of the highest-requested sources of heating and air conditioning in one device,” he said in an email. “We sell Mitsubishi, the leading cold weather heat pump manufacturer.”

Hines also recommends smart thermostats like the Google Nest.

“You can sit comfortably on your couch and raise and lower the temperature as needed,” he said. “Nest also offers the ability to adjust your temp while you are away so you can come home to a warm home and not have to wait for the temp to rise. Some also use them to monitor the temp of their homes while on vacation.”

Hines understands that plenty of residents want to improve their homes without breaking the bank, adding that HSC offers plenty of high-efficiency heating to get a lot for relatively low cost. He also advised what to avoid to not waste money.

“We look at every project objectively to ensure that the proper sized equipment for the space,” he said. “All too often inexperienced installers use the wrong equipment costing the homeowner with higher install cost and higher fuel costs for years to come.”

Now, let’s take a more detailed look at some specific rooms to focus on. What can be especially cozy during the fall and winter is a nice, long soak in a warm bath, so we spoke with Builders Best Design Center to hear how folks can best live their soaking dreams. Builders Best’s Nate Buczek shared some general advice for making a bathroom feel as cozy as possible.

“It’s putting some thought into having a separate area to bathe so it’s not the quick shower in the morning, but it’s a spot to kind of relax,” he said. “Visually, you want it to be not cluttered and kind of cleaned up. So, you want to think about good lighting there. … Also good lighting around the mirror, that’s going to help things be functional and really make a cozy space. So, you have your morning routine, but this will be something different at the end of the day possibly to enjoy.”

Making sure you don’t have to get in and out of the tub often is also important, he said.

“It’s important to think about, when you’re soaking in a tub, that you have things within arm’s reach so that you have things that are accessible,” Buczek said. “You want to think about who’s going to be using the bathroom, … you want to have some counter space so they can spread their stuff out. And also, making sure that you have enough space between certain items. If things are too close or too jammed up, it just doesn’t work well to maneuver in that space.”

Builders Best’s Phylis Vrooman added that, even if you think you have too small of a space, there’s a lot you can do to make the most of it.

“You would be surprised some of the times that we find spaces that nobody else thought that they could use and like, ‘Hey, why don’t we get rid of this closet and add this to the bathroom?’” she said. “I get into windows a lot like, ‘Hey, can we make this window bigger’ … and have it a little bit lower where you can see out from the tub soaking from it. And we do lots of large ranges of tubs from just a standard tub to a very expensive one. And there’s nothing better than after a long, hard day, getting warm, soaking water up past your shoulders instead of the old, standard, 10-12-inch-high ones.”

Buczek said that free-standing soaker tubs are becoming far more common in recent years.

“Oftentimes, we’re finding a lot of people in this area have an outdoor hot tub with the jets, so they don’t necessarily need that within the home,” he said. “So, there’ll be just a nice bathing pool to soak in. You have to have a tub in the house for bathing kids and dogs, but it’s becoming more of a stylized private space.”

And for making these sorts of improvements while also keeping the price tag low, Vrooman provided some advice.

“Keep it simple,” she said. “You can still do the project but pick more cost-effective items. So, if you pick tile, you can get $50-a-square-foot tile or you can get $3-a-square-foot tile. You want to do that project, keep your budget in mind and pick more of those lower-cost items. But you can add a few accents with a little bit more. … Just kind of dial everything back so that it stays within your budget.”

The most important thing Vrooman and Buczek stressed was to not start renovations before buying — and, more importantly, receiving — new items like cabinets and tubs.

“The biggest mistake we see with bathroom renovation is people will have their bathroom ripped out, and then they start to make the selection,” Buczek said. “And that’s completely not the right way to go about it. Things are taking longer to come in. You need to put thought in way, way before any demolitions start because what that does is extend the length of the time that you’re without that space. It’s a real problem.”

Vrooman added that a consultation with Builders Best is free, so she encourages folks to reach out at (607) 266-0949.

Finally, another room that can be made cozy for homeowners is the basement, so Midstate Basement Authorities’ (midstatebasement.com) Don Sinn provided some guidance. First, making sure your basement is dry can make a big difference.

“The first one would be the whole-home humidifier, dehumidification system,” he said. “That obviously dries the air clean and makes you have clean air in your basement, which the air that you breathe in your house comes from your basement. So, that would be the first step. And then obviously, our waterproofing products to keep moisture out from even getting into the basement in the first place. So, if anybody’s ever thinking about finishing the basement, having it waterproof beforehand is the best option.”

If you’re looking to create a finished basement where you can spend plenty of time relaxing, Sinn said the moisture factor is especially important.

“Before anybody finishes any basement, I would recommend having an evaluation to check for moisture in the wall [and] check for moisture in the floor because even though you used a pressure-treated lumber on the slab, you’re not using pressure-treated lumber for the wall studs,” he said. “And that moisture will go from the wall to those studs and that’ll just rot them out and create mold.”

Sinn provided some common mistakes when renovating a basement.

“Some mistakes that are made is putting a drainage system in that’s not capturing the groundwater that’s underneath your basement floor,” he said. “So, underneath your slab, you may put a drainage system on top of the footer and don’t do anything next to the footer to take care of that hydrostatic pressure or the groundwater underneath that slab. So, our system, the only system we put in takes care of the water that comes in the walls and takes care of the hydrostatic pressure as well. So, that’s a common mistake in our industry.”

Also, don’t use spray foam for quick fixes, Sinn said.

“People fill cracks and gaps in their foundation with spray foam, which is a temporary fix,” he said. “And then, when we go to repair it properly, we have to dig that spray foam out of there, which adds a lot of time and effort on the project.”

And if you’re looking to do any of this on a budget, Sinn said vapor barriers are relatively inexpensive and can make a big difference.

“Put some sort of vapor barrier on the concrete walls in the foundation before you do any studs,” he said. “Before putting lumber in there, put some vapor barrier down to protect that wood as long as possible.”

For more information about the businesses included in this article, visit their respective websites or call during business hours. To view our last home improvement article, see tinyurl.com/2zgojyhf.

Jessica Wickham is the managing editor of Tompkins Weekly. Send story ideas to them at editorial@VizellaMedia.com.