Home Renovations - Time To Get Creative

Where to begin? With the outside of your home! Take a look at your front entrance and back porch; do they need an upgrade? Do you want to revitalize the front of your home, maybe change that common entrance into a gateway to your home that you're proud to display? How about transforming a plain back yard by adding a wood deck? You could even make your existing deck into a truly functional extension of your house, complete with screened-in walls and roof. If you lay a concrete porch, you can add an outdoor fireplace and grill.

Even the garage offers endless possibilities. You can turn it into a functional studio or workshop by painting or staining the cement floor or lay down a new floor. Your renovation could be as simple as fixing the garage door, repairing the frame, or giving the entire garage area a complete make-over. Dramatic changes alter the space because it's no longer fit for the family car, yet it has become another functional home space, or even a separate apartment.

Ah, the master bedroom! One of our favorite places to renovate! Medical science tells us that we spend about two-thirds of our lives sleeping, so why not go for a beautiful and functional space where you can relax and sleep soundly? If you're the ruler of your home, then the master bedroom is your throne room! Change the paint, add a border, try some new carpet or throw rugs, try some different shades of bedding. You'll be amazed at the results!

Renovating the living room or family room can make this space more "user friendly." Try the basics: change paint to panel or wallpaper, replace that old carpet, install wood or tile floors, try specialized lighting. You can even put in a media or computer system that's accessible to the entire family.

An unused basement offers homeowners the chance to create a fully-functional portion of the home that's often over-looked; an entire floor at your disposal with the right renovations! Tiling or carpeting the floor, altering the lighting, fortifying the basement with a wooden frame, and adding drywall structures can really alter the layout of your basement. Creating a fitness room, a playroom, or media center adds value to your home and turns empty space into a completely functional new room.

The area of your home that may need the most attention is your kitchen. This high-traffic area is the hub of family meals, dinner time discussions, doing chores, feeding pets and even homework spread out on the kitchen table. Your kitchen should be warm and inviting; try adding a skylight, some colorful plants, silk flower baskets, a new coat of paint and some bright tile to replace that old dingy tile. You'll be amazed at the difference a renovated kitchen can bring to your entire family.

Author Steven Gaines takes us from New York's most expensive condominiums and co-ops to the offices of its most powerful real estate brokers to reveal the outlandish displays of ego, bad behavior, and status hunger that come into play when the best addresses in the city are on the line.

With his signature elan, Gaines weaves a gossipy tapestry of brokers, buyers, co-op boards, and eccentric landlords and tells of the apartment hunting and renovating adventures of many celebrities - from Tommy Hilfiger to Donna Karan, from Jerry Seinfeld to Steven Spielberg, from Barbra Streisand to Madonna.

Here, too, is a fascinating chronicle of the changes in Manhattan's residential skyline, from the slums of the nineteenth century to the advent of the luxury building. Gaines describes how living in boxes stacked on boxes came to be seen as the ultimate in status, and how the co-operative apartment, originally conceived as a form of housing for the poor, came to be used as a legal means of blackballing undesirable neighbors.

A social history told through brick and mortar, The Sky's the Limit is the ultimate look inside one of the most exclusive and expensive enclaves in the world, and at the lengths to which people will go to get in.

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