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Keeping It New While Keeping the Charm

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New. New technology. New styles. Mainstream society is all about new. In many cases, this is beneficial. With advances in technology, things are becoming faster, easier, and more efficient, but sometimes aesthetic is lost in the process. If you’re the person in your neighborhood who is known for having the gorgeous vintage or otherwise old-fashioned home and you want to add some modern updates, here are some tips on how to accomplish this without losing the historic charm.

Preserve

Go through your home and decide what you want to keep and what you want to update. You might decide it would be a crime to touch the cabinets and hand-carved molding even though everyone is telling you dark wood is out of date and you should paint it a different color. This isn’t about what friends and designers say. This is about you and the unique piece of history you call home. But you do think it’s time to install a new bathroom sink that will give you some counter space.

In addition to design updates, you may want to add some of this new technology you’ve heard about, but don’t sacrifice the features of your home you love in the name of technology. If while performing your home assessment you determined you cannot part with your beautiful antique doorbell, then installing a video doorbell probably isn’t the right thing for you. Instead, you could achieve a similar result by installing an exterior camera that monitors your porch. Some outdoor cameras will even allow for the two-way communication many video doorbells are capable of. If you are interested in getting smart locks but can’t give up your ornate doorknob, you may want to look into a deadbolt smart lock. Unlike lever smart locks, you don’t have to remove the original doorknob to install one.

Keep It Inconspicuous

It you want up-to-date technology but you don’t want it to show and ruin your look, there are things you can do to make it less noticeable. If you’re looking to get door and window sensors, you could look at the option of installing recessed sensors, more inconspicuous than the standard version and just as effective.

Changing out a light fixture would cause a drastic change in the design of your home, but changing the lightbulbs would be a far smaller and less noticeable change. Whether you’re looking to install more energy efficient bulbs or even smart lights, the most important thing to be aware of is the wattage of your light fixture. The wattage of the bulb has to be equal to or less than the maximum wattage of your fixture. Otherwise, you could possibly cause permanent damage to your light fixture, which would ruin your efforts of preserving your home’s historic charm. More urgently, having non-compatible lightbulbs is a fire hazard and should be avoided. If you are unsure how many watts your light fixture is, you will most likely be able to find it printed inside or on the socket of the fixture. If your fixture doesn’t have this or it’s so old that the text has faded and become illegible over time, you may need to manually determine the wattage with a multimeter or find someone who has one and would be willing to do it for you.

Add Style

As you are installing updates, you can incorporate more of your home’s charm by adding your style to the updates. While you’re choosing your dead bolt  smart lock, you can look for one that is close to the color of your doorknob. It you want to go a step further, you could look for ways to make your new tech part of the interior design. If your smart speaker is on a shelf, you could pair it with a candle and your favorite vintage vase to add aesthetic, and you could get a decorative wall plate for your Nest thermostat that matches the style of your home. Those are just a few ideas, but there are as many options available to you as there are possible Google searches.

Once everything is to your liking—you’ve added your updates while keeping your home’s charm—not only will you be known for having the gorgeous house, you’ll be known for having the tech house, too, but at the end of it all, the opinions of others don’t matter. This is your home. What are you going to do with it?

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Purr-fect Pet Protection

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If you have pets, you know they are far more than just animals. They are valued members of the family, and you want to make sure they are safe and loved like any other member of the family. A great way of keeping them safe is to install a home security system.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be back.”

You may find yourself saying this to your pet as you’re leaving the house, whether out of habit or because your pet always gets worked up when you leave. Maybe they’re worried they’ll never see you again or that something will happen while you’re gone. Maybe you’re worried, too, with the recent rise in pet abduction. By installing a home security system, you can ward off people who might try breaking into your home and hurting your pet if it gets in the way. When the would-be intruder sees the external cameras and the home security yard sign in your flowerbed, they may have second thoughts. If that doesn’t deter them, then the blaring alarm or the help dispatched by your home security company should.

With your indoor cameras, you can check on your pets throughout the day, whether it be to make sure your older cat is okay, to catch the culprit who keeps knocking over the plant, or to give yourself a pick-me-up during your lunch break because on a rough day, seeing your fur babies makes everything at least a little better.

“Honey, has the dog come in yet?”

It’s getting late, and you’re locking up for the night, but you want to make sure you don’t leave the dog outside. If you do, the entire neighborhood will hear when it announces it wants to come inside during the middle of the night with its cacophony of barks and scraping at the door. That grumpy neighbor of yours would inevitably call and complain in the morning, and your HOA would likely have a word or two to say as well. All-in-all, it would be an undesirable situation you’d rather avoid. Rather than searching the house for the dog or asking family members, you could install a tilt sensor on your doggy door. Whenever the sensor is tilted to 45°, you’ll receive a notification. This way, you’ll know whenever your dog goes in and out.

“Let me in, hooman!”

If your dog does accidentally get locked out and it’s not too old to learn new tricks, there’s a chance it could learn how to get your attention in a less noisy way using your Ring video doorbell like the dogs featured here. Then, when the notification wakes you up and you see your dog is at the door, you can hurry downstairs and let it in. As it bounds into the house, you apologize for leaving it outside, but dogs are regarded as forgiving animals, so it licks your face in forgiveness, any hard feelings already forgotten. Your dog follows you upstairs, its tail wagging, and you think to yourself how lucky you are to have such a loyal pet in your life.

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Life Is Easier with Ring

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The earliest doorbells utilized a bell installed into the house with a string or chain attached to it. A visitor would pull this to ring the bell—rudimentary, but it served its purpose. In the two-hundred or so years since then, technology evolved to give us electric doorbells, and in recent years, we have seen the video doorbell gain popularity, with Ring as one of the leading brands.

Life is busy, yet we find ways to make it busier. A Ring video doorbell adds elements of convenience and security to make things easier. Say you’re planning a party with friends, and you find yourself at the store buying what you need for the evening the day a package your expecting should be delivered. Your ring doorbell acts as a package thief deterrent since would-be thieves generally avoid stealing if they know they’ll be videoed and therefore more easily caught. It’s not a package panacea, though, so you’ve provided delivery instructions for the mail carrier. You’ve noticed that the drivers don’t always adhere to these, though. That’s where your Ring video doorbell comes in handy.

While you’re walking down the produce aisle, you get a notification that there’s someone at your door. Going into the app, you’re able to access the camera’s live-stream to see who it is. It’s the person delivering your package, and they either didn’t read or don’t care to follow the delivery instructions, but you’re able to utilize your Ring video doorbell’s two-way audio from your phone and politely tell the mail carrier where you would like them to hide your package.

When you get home with your groceries, you take the package—safe and sound—inside before continuing your preparations for the party. Part way through, someone rings the doorbell. You’re in the middle of a step, and you don’t want to stop unless it’s important. Thanks to your Ring video doorbell, you are able to check the app and see someone who looks like a solicitor at the door. Glad you saved yourself the time of sending away the solicitor, you resume your task.

The next time your doorbell rings, it’s dark outside, but the night vision camera allows you to see that, this time, the people outside are your friends here for the party. You let them in and spend an enjoyable evening.

The above scenario doesn’t necessarily apply to everyone, but the benefits can. Video porch monitoring, real- time conversations when you’re unavailable to answer the door, and in-app notifications in addition to a regular doorbell are only a few of the benefits. If you are interested in learning more about what a Ring doorbell can do for you, contact us at 844-904-9473 or request info online.

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