The Art of Placement
Posted On: 08/20/2008
Are you getting a little tired of the 15-year-old furniture arrangement in the living room? Perhaps you’d like to give your home a fresh look, but you can’t afford to buy even one new chair, much less bear the cost of a complete redecoration. Or you’ve just moved into a new...
How You Can Help Your Market?
Posted On: 08/13/2008
Hampton Lake, a 908-home subdivision in Bluffton, S.C., is a gated private community, but in recent months residents have seen outsiders strolling around as if they owned the place.
The visitors, usually couples with their children in tow, come and eat the food the residents have...
Making a Luxurious Living Room
Posted On: 08/06/2008
“When my guests come over they always walk right by my living room. No one ever wants to sit with me!” complained my client. Although there was plenty of seating and her arrangement honored the traditional focal point, her guests tended to shy away from the fireplace area. She...
Putting Home to Work
Posted On: 07/30/2008
Thomas Dolan thinks that it’s smart to work in the same building that they live in.
Paying twice as much as you need to in energy-related costs is just “silly and wasteful,” argues Dolan, an Oakland, Calif. architect who founded the nonprofit Live/Work...
A Real Sense of Community
Posted On: 07/23/2008
Françoise E. Paradis grew tired of living in a big house surrounded by people she barely knew in an area where the pace of life was too fast.
She wanted, instead, to live in a more serene place where she could be part of a real community. She wanted to know her neighbors well and to...
Decor Endgames
Posted On: 07/16/2008
Frugal decorators enjoy expressing their creativity using unusual objects in unusual places. Why buy decor when it's so fun to scrounge for it or make it from what you already have? In my never-ending search for places to display all my cool stuff I have recently focused on two...
Loan vs. Credit
Posted On: 07/09/2008
Life, as they say, is filled with difficult choices. Paper or plastic? Blonde or brunette? Chocolate or vanilla? Home-equity loan or home-equity line of credit?
Whether you’re looking for extra cash to remodel your house or need extra help purchasing a newer one, a home-equity line...
Giving a Room a Purpose
Posted On: 07/02/2008
“I have an unused room in my home and I don’t know what to do with it. Can you help me?” asked my empty-nester client. Her children were either off to college or well-established in their professional lives, and my homeowner found herself with new decorating frontiers. Now...
Home Warranties: Peace of Mind or Waste of Money?
Posted On: 06/25/2008
They emerged as an effort by California real-estate practitioners in the 1970s to protect themselves from buyers unhappy with home appliances and mechanical systems that conked out or needed repair shortly after they moved into their homes. Since then, home warranties have gained a greater...
Be Your Own Builder
Posted On: 06/18/2008
Consumers who hear the words “kit homes” likely think of a simple, cost-effective project that DIY enthusiasts can hammer out in a few weeks.
There’s some truth to that perception. An increasing number of manufacturers have developed kits that include design plans,...
