New Home Communities | Cool Tricks to Keep Your Attic From Going to Waste

 

New Home Communities | If you’re currently using your attic as a catchall for everything from your old Beanie Baby collection to those torrid letters from your sixth-grade pen pal (what were you guys thinking, anyway?), you’re missing out. Homeowners craving some extra space can pass on a pricey addition and invest in a top-floor renovation in the rafters instead. Whether you’re on the prowl for a kid’s playroom, the walk-in closet of your wildest (and weirdest) fantasies, or a man cave with a view, the attic might just be that special ticket. Here’s how to turn this long-forgotten space into the fave new spot in your home.

New Home Communities | 9 Telltale Signs Your Home is Outdated

New Home Communities | Despite its many flaws, you love your home—outdated wooden baseboards, disco-era living room set, purple exteriors, and all. But does anyone else love it?

If you’re considering putting your place on the market soon, it’s high time to take a step back and take a good, hard look at your decor. Dated touches might seem charming to you (wall-to-wall shag will totally be back in style soon, right?). Or maybe you don’t want to go to the trouble and expense of overhauling your decor if the new owners are going to change it anyway.

New Home Communities | The Financial Benefit of Having Trees

 

New Home Communities | Trees don’t ask for much—dirt, water, sunlight. Yet they provide a wealth of benefits: They improve the air you breathe, cut your energy bills, provide a home to wildlife, and add beauty and value to your home in the form of curb appeal.

The financial benefit of trees

The most tangible bang from your bark comes from energy savings. Trees properly placed around your home can reduce your air-conditioning needs by 30% and save 20% to 50% in heating costs, according to the USDA Forest Service. The U.S. Department of Energy says three properly placed trees could save you $100 to $250 a year.

New Home Communities | Are We No Longer Mad for Mid-Century Modern?

 

New Home Communities | The medicine cabinet seemed to be precisely what my friend Gretchen Siemers was looking for at the Long Beach Antique Market. The lighted, chrome-mirrored piece was priced around $75, a true bargain for a mid-century piece in near-mint condition. When I pointed it out to her, thinking it would look great in her new home in the slowly gentrifying neighborhood of East Hollywood, her response was visceral: “Ew, no.”

“I hate Mid-Century Modern,” she declared. “It’s so lame to like it at this point.”

When I pressed her, I quickly got to the root of her hostility: “That stuff is everywhere and everyone loves it. But I don’t want my home to look like everyone else’s.”

New Home Communities | Learning the Lingo: Doors, Windows, and More!

New Home Communities | Few features of your home are as crucial to potential buyers—or, heck, to your mom, your former college roomie, and any random houseguest—as your doors and windows. They’re the first thing people see, long before they even set foot inside your place. They’re the last thing that they interact with. And there’s way more to them than you might think.

So, as unlikely as it might have once seemed, it’s high time to become a door and window expert! To get up to speed on all the variations, features,  and terminology, look no further than our Learning the Lingo series.

Read on to know your casements from your transoms, your grilles from your speak-easies, and to find door and window styles that fit your home like, well, perfectly fitting doors and windows.

New Home Communities | Bringing Beach Style Into Your Home

 

New Home Communities | Summer is drawing to an end—in some parts of the country, kids are heading back to school. Maybe you’re already getting nostalgic for your summer vacation at a beach house (or wish you had one). There’s no reason that beach style has to be a seasonal thing—you can bring the natural colors and textures of the coast into your home year-round, no matter where you are.

Inspiration from the source

Great coastal design should start with organic inspiration from the very place you’re using as a visual reference.

“Inspiration has to come from the source. By simply looking at editorial shots in magazines and imitating the decor, all we wind up with is a diluted version,” says Tim Neve. Neve notes that some of the homes whose ocean-inspired style he profiles in the book are actually many miles from the water.

New Home Communities | What is a Renovation Coach and Do You Need One?

New Home Communities | Cher Lewis was living in Paris when she found out that the rear wall of her historic New York City carriage house was in danger of collapsing.

In order to fix it, she’d have to file the appropriate paperwork with the local historic preservation board and then hire managing engineers, architects, and other contractors—from another continent. Then, of course, she’d have to oversee them.

So she turned to a renovation coach, Alex Bandon of North River Renovation Management in New York City, to get the job done.

New Home Communities | 5 Huge Mistakes People Make Furnishing Their New Home

New Home Communities | Hey, we know: Moving into a new home is exciting. Like, obsess over decor blogs and catalogs, binge-watch HGTV for eight-hour stretches, find ways to interject phrases like “open kitchen shelving” into everyday conversations exciting. So it’s understandable that you’re dying to start filling every corner with stuff as soon as you’ve unpacked your last box. Beware: Time and again, interior designers see overeager new homeowners make the same mistakes when furnishing their home. Big mistakes! Take heed and tread carefully into your new space.

Mistake No. 1: Buying everything at once

Of course, you want to make those empty rooms look like home, sweet home, pronto. So you whip out your laptop and go on a mad room-by-room shopping spree for every stick of furniture from coffee tables to your canopy bed. 

New Home Communities | Putting Color Back in the Kitchen

New Home Communities | Growing up, I watched every episode of “Grace Under Fire.” The show’s heroine, Grace Kelly, had a small robin’s-egg blue refrigerator in her kitchen. It was old and had a single door and rounded edges—I loved it. After every kitchen scene I thought, “I’m going to have a fridge just like that in my house.”

Later in the series, the refrigerator was painted white. Suddenly, the cheery blue appliance I’d been coveting for years looked just like any old fridge. I was devastated.

New Home Communities | 7 Upgrades That Will Make Your Home Feel Brand-New

New Home Communities | If your home has you down in the dumps but you lack the cash to fix it up, don’t despair! Not every upgrade has to take a big bite out of your bank account.

Here are seven foolproof ways to make your home feel like a totally different place through small changes—and small expenses.

1. New hardware

Swapping out the boring chrome hardware the previous owners installed can go a long way toward making your home look like yours—not to mention give the entire space an easy, inexpensive refresh. Depending on your style, new pulls or handles can cost mere dollars.

“The first thing I do to give the home more of the look and style that I like is swap out the hardware,” says Doug Mahoney. “All it takes is a screwdriver, and it’s surprising what a difference it can make.”

New Home Communities | Say Goodbye to These 10 Home Design Trends That Are So 2015

New Home Communities | It’s hard to think of today’s decor trends with anything other than a myopic view. We have finally perfected interior design! you might think, smugly ensconced within the enveloping folds of your velvet couch while staring at your gallery wall—complete with a faux taxidermy deer head, of course.

But never forget the ’70s—or the ’50s, or any decade you find garish. No one was plastering their homes with a veritable Crayola box of colors in the ’80s as an intentional effort to look ridiculous. It was cool!

New Home Communities | 6 Stellar Reasons to Buy a Home in 2016

New Home Communities | Is it really 2016 already?  For those of you who happen to be planning on buying a home in the new year—or even just trying to—there’s a whole lot to celebrate. Why? A variety of financial vectors have dovetailed to make this the perfect storm for home buyers to get out there and make an (winning) offer. Here are six home-buying reasons to be thankful while ringing in the new year:

Reason No. 1: Interest rates are still at record lows

Even though they may creep up at any moment, it’s nonetheless a fact that interest rates on home loans are at historic lows, with a 30-year fixed-rate home loan still hovering around 4%.

“Remember 18.5% in the ’80s?” asks Tom Postilio. “It is likely that we’ll never see interest rates this low again. So while prices are high in some markets, the savings in interest payments could easily amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars over the life of the mortgage.”

New Home Communities | Lighting Fixtures Explained

New Home Communities | Nothing lights up a home like, well, light! And whether you’re shopping listings or upgrading your current abode, you should know that there are a ton of options, and knowing your sconces from your pendants will help you mastermind the perfect lighting setup for every room in your home.

Running glossary of all the terms you need to know whether you’re buying, selling, or sprucing up your home.

This week, we’re tackling the burning topic of lighting. Check out these terms below to learn about the myriad ways you can shed light in your home. 

New Home Communities | Tackiest Home Decor Trends to Avoid

 

New Home Communities | Home decor trends may come and go, but certain fads … well, let’s just say we’re really, really glad they’re gone. In fact, we can’t imagine how they ever became a thing in the first place. For a horrifying walk down memory lane, through some of the worst home-decor trends of all time, check out these bad fads:

1. Plastic furniture covers

Designed to prevent food, drink or dirt from adhering to fancy upholstery, those thick layers of clear vinyl instead adhered to you—or at least to any exposed skin (don’t even think about sitting on that plastic-wrapped arm chair on a hot day). Plus, let’s be frank: Saran-wrapping your furniture is not a great look. It screams that you’ve got neatnik issues—and that you care more about your furniture than making guests comfortable.

New Home Communities | 6 DIY Tiling Mistakes

New Home Communities | Tiling seems like a simple (and maybe even fun) project for the newbie homeowner. With the help of some grout, rented tile saw, mortar, and spacers, you can have a gorgeous backsplash or entirely new flooring.

Easy, right?

Well, yes and no.

The actual act of laying tile isn’t terribly complicated, as long as you plan out the process and pay attention to the basics. But truth be told, there are lots of ways you could screw up your work—from selecting the tile to ignoring critical steps while prepping.

New Home Communities | Making Room for Extra Guests Over the Holidays

New Home Communities | Happy holidays to you and you … and you and … hey, just how many people are expecting to stay at your home this winter, anyway?

All kidding aside, hosting guests can be one of the highlights of the holiday season. But it can also be a monumental hassle. Like, where do you put them all?

Don’t let the lack of an official guest room turn you into a Grinch. All you need is a bit of creativity and some planning to keep the (freeloading) hordes happy and well-rested and to keep you reasonably sane during the process. Let us help!

New Home Communities | 4 Steps to Styling Your New Home

New Home Communities | One of the most exciting aspects of moving into your new house is making it feel like a home. Styling your interior so that it feels both comfortable and personal is an important step in the transition from house to home, but not everyone is blessed with an innate sense of style, nor the designer’s eye to pull it all together.  Here are the most crucial design tips to help you maximize the style and ambiance of your new home:

Get inspired, make a plan, then execute

I often see people do these steps backwards when it comes to decorating and then end up with a bunch of random pieces that don’t really work together. Unless you have the uncanny knack of “throwing together” the perfect eclectic room, it’s best to have a plan. Start by compiling interiors for inspiration. Shelter magazines are an obvious resource, but also movie sets, restaurants, art and fashion can be good sources. Once you have a general room style direction, you can drill down to each piece and find options you like. It helps to arrange these all in one place, like a bulletin board or a PowerPoint. The next step is to make a floor plan so you know what will fit in your space.

New Home Communities | Keeping Your Home Safe During an Open House

New Home Communities | Letting complete strangers tour your home is a little unnerving. Along with dealing with lots of unknown visitors, you may also fear judgment for hoarding unfinished Pinterest projects in your laundry room. Most things that can cause social embarrassment are easy to hide, but it is worth putting some thought into keeping your home and belongings secure throughout the process of finding a buyer. Here are some safety and security tips that protect your home and your peace of mind.

Preparing for Your Open House

The moment you decide to put your home on the market is the moment that you prepare to host strangers. It’s a normal part of the selling process, and you can make yourself feel more comfortable by thinking through the following.

New Home Communities | How to Find an Affordable Vacation Home

New Home Communities | We’ve all heard the saying “bigger is better,” and that can certainly apply to real estate. Bigger homes are worth more, particularly if they come with large pieces of land. But the same old rules of real estate don’t necessarily apply when it comes to vacation homes. A vacation home is a place to relax and spend time with family, and it doesn’t have to be luxurious to be a good investment.

Have you always dreamed of having a vacation home, but think you can’t afford it? Well, it’s time to get creative and think outside the box (or beyond your local market). There are a number of affordable, unique options for vacation homes, as well as plenty of tricks to find more value for your money.

New Home Communities | Three Simple Home Security Fixes

New Home Communities | Easy checks around your home will do wonders for your peace of mind this winter. It only takes moments to make sure your locks are secure and your windows can be safely opened to let in that fresh breeze. Here are our top three tips for fitting home security into your schedule.

1. Check Your Door Locks

Your doors are the gateways to your home, so tightening them up should be your first step when you’re making sure your home is safe and secure. First, test the screws that secure the lock to your door, as well as the bolts running through the actual lock. You’ll notice anything loose pretty quickly, and there shouldn’t be anything a screwdriver or wrench can’t fix!