The family home: more than just an investment
As part of the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition team, host Ty
Pennington helps change the lives of families in need by taking them out of
less-than-stellar dwellings and building them dream homes from the ground
up.
Yet home ownership is proving to be a struggle for countless others in the
midst of the current economic downturn, from foreclosures in the U.S. to falling
house prices north and south of the border.
With the economy sagging, Pennington believes homeowners will likely be
staying put for the time being, and should seize on the opportunity to turn
their current space into dream digs.
"If you have a home and you're in it, I think you're going to be there for a
while, and I think you have to re-evaluate the way you looked at your home," he
said in a recent interview from Los Angeles. "Now it's about nesting, it's about
personalizing your home to the home you've always wanted.
"I think before … it was more about making it as clean and new as you could
make it so you could kind of sell it to somebody else. Well, now, it's about
making it work for you and your family."
Pennington suggests homeowners go room by room to figure out which space in
the house is used the most as a way to assess where best to invest their
resources.
"You can do things cheaply by simply a coat of paint, new wallpaper … or you
can really invest in the future and really redo your kitchen the way you really
want to make it work the way it never has," he said.
Another way to bring life and warmth into your home is by infusing colour and
personalizing dwellings, for instance by enlarging family photos documenting
memorable moments from vacations and other occasions, Pennington suggests.
Open walls
Individuals can also alter their surroundings by creating new space in the
home.
"If there's a wall that's not a load-bearing wall that is next to a kitchen,
maybe you can cut open a section of the drywall and actually have either an open
window that you can see through to the next room, or maybe you turn that into
kind of … a bar that goes into the next room," Pennington said. "Create more
space and it's going to make your house seem bigger."
While individuals can do a lot on their own, when it comes to removing walls,
redoing electrical or plumbing, that's when the time comes to bring in someone
with more expertise, he said.
"Just make sure you do have a professional come check it out so that you can
not only get ideas about what's feasible but you can also find out what's
affordable, and if you don't have to pay someone to do it, don't.
"Have them do the things that you absolutely don't want to do because you're
afraid and know you can't do it, but then you do the rest."
The 44-year-old Pennington is expanding the reach of his home design know-how
from the small screen to the masses.
Expanding resumé
The affable home improvement guru and megaphone-toting TV host — who also has
a bestselling book and recently-launched magazine to his credit — has tacked on
yet another title to his fast-growing resumé as spokesman of Marketplace
Events.
Billed as the largest organizer of consumer remodelling, home decor and
gardening shows targeting the home improvement market in North America,
Pennington has signed a three-year deal with Marketplace to help consult and
provide content for more than 30 shows, as well as the web. He will also serve
as the face of company ad campaigns.
Pennington said home shows help provide inspiration to tap into new home
improvement ideas, and that signing on as a spokesman was a "no-brainer."
"For me, it's where I hear the latest trends, it's where I see where the
houses and the rooms are going to look like in the future."
While he won't be in town for the event, Pennington's influence in his new
role will be seen at the National Home Show kicking off Friday in Toronto.
Marketplace also produces shows in Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal.
Author: The Canadian Press
http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2009/02/19/pennington-home.html