Monday, October 31, 2011

WE MOVED!

We just wanted to let everyone know that our new blog location is now established and running. We will no longer be posting to the “Blogger” site and all of our post will come from the main Coach House Accents website. Click the link below to be direct to the new blog location:
Thank you for being part of our community.

Sincerely,
The Coach House Accents Team

Monday, October 17, 2011

When Selling Your Home: Put the Best Photo Forward

We've concentrated our curb appeal message to this point on what to do to your house to improve its curb appeal. Today's post is about how to best show your house to make it standout against others on the market.  Understanding that we live in a digital world where a buyer can sit at a computer all day looking at homes online how can you make your house the house he or she tours?  We learn one idea from Melissa Dittmann Tracey in an article she wrote for REALTOR® Magazine titled Put the Best Photo Forward: Rethinking That Winter MLS Photo.  Considering winter is fast approaching this topic seems very timely.

Is this really putting your best photo forward?
That main photo you post of your listing on the Internet–you know, the one that always pops up first and often depends if a buyer will click on it to see more–needs to make a great first impression. But in winter, will that exterior property photo really look inviting under gray skies and snowy mounds?
Some experts will argue that you want your main MLS photo to be seasonally appropriate. If it’s fall, you want the exterior photo of the home to reflect fall. If it’s winter, you don’t want a summer photo because buyers will know it’s a stale listing that has been sitting on the market.
But at a time when more properties are sitting on the market for longer periods of time, will buyers overlook the seasonal disconnect?
I decided to break the “rule” when I sold my row home last year. It was January in Chicago–cold, snowy, gray, and bare trees. When my real estate agent said she wanted to take a photo of the exterior, I was hesitant because the home as covered in snow. So I asked her to reconsider using a photo I had taken from the summer, showing the exterior of the home with flowers and landscaping, all cast under a bright blue summer sky.
Other row homes on my block that were also for sale had a seasonally appropriate wintery photo on the MLS. Ours stood out in the mix. We were flooded with showings, and the home sold in a month.
While I hardly credit that main MLS summer photo for selling the home so quickly in winter, I do believe that photo–along with others–helped to generate a more competitive first impression on the Internet that got more buyers in the door. (My real estate agent also used a professional photographer to capture the interior, and we mixed in more exterior photos taken from the summer of the home’s backyard and the neighborhood’s courtyard to have several photos available for viewing online.)
Designer Michelle Molinari, founder of Curb Appeal Concepts and co-owner of Feature This.., a design and staging company, says you want to put your best shot forward on that main MLS photo and if that means using a spring or summer photo during the winter months, do it. After all, she says, when buyers show up on the doorstep, they’ll see the home in the winter–so show them what it looks like during the spring and when the landscaping is in full bloom.
“I really think it does a great injustice using a photo from the winter when buyers can’t see what you’re selling,” Molinari says. “Every shot they see on the MLS may be a snowy photo, and it all starts to look the same. Then if there’s a house that actually shows the house in spring conditions–which one do you think looks better?” Many home owners likely have photos of the exterior of their home or the neighborhood taken from better days, if the listing is a new one.
(You can read some of Molinari’s ideas for generating curb appeal at anytime of year in this month’s REALTOR® Magazine or online: 3 Ways to Get Instant No-Cost Curb Appeal.)

Friday, October 14, 2011

Show off your DIY Projects!

As I was looking for new and creative DIY projects I came across a great website that is focused on the home owner and DIY projects. It is a source for ideas, directions and a gallery of completed projects by Do- it- Your- Self minded people.

The site is from True Value Hardware so many of the items you may need for your projects can be purchased from the local hardware store close by. I wanted to pass along the site information to all of you.

 Let us know next week what projects you may have been inspired to kick off.
 Enjoy and have a great weekend!


Just go to the link below to get started!


Check out this Garage Door Project before and after! WOW











Wednesday, October 12, 2011

National Breast Cancer Awareness Month - Take it Seriously

I mentioned previously that we will sometimes go off topic and today’s All Things Women post is off topic.  October is National Breast Cancer Awareness month dedicated to increasing awareness of the importance of early breast cancer detection.  Unless you live in a cave you are already aware of this and have participated in or are planning to participate in some type of activity supporting this cause.  Thank you.
I wanted to take just a moment of your time to provide a brief glimpse into the family impact resulting from breast cancer.  I do this in memory of my mother and in honor of my wife. 
My wife Rita was diagnosed with breast cancer when our daughter was very
young.  We did all that we could to keep her shielded yet informed of what was happening to her mom.  We thought she was too young to fully understand what was truly taking place.  As we told the kids what was to come our daughter immediately asked “Mommy, since you have the cancer will I get it too?”  What a shock those words were to us.  We will never forget the destroyed expression on her little face.  We had no idea all the information that she had absorbed.  We also were not prepared to answer a question that is “yes.”  Over the next several days and weeks my wife worked out how to best tell our daughter about cancer, what it is, how it grows and how a person comes to have cancer. And that yes, she has a greater possibility of having this disease as a result of her family history.  To this day, as a result of those conversations my wife and daughter share an uncommonly close communication about nearly everything but especially health issues.
Take the time to educate yourself about your own breast health and how to help and serve others who are working through it.  The following are several resources you can reach out to for more information:
National Breast Cancer Awareness Month:          www.nbcam.org
Susan G. Komen for the Cure:                               www.komen.org
West Michigan Affiliate of Susan G. Komen:        www.komenwestmichigan.org
Gilda’s Club:                                                          www.gildasclub.org
American Cancer Society:                                      www.cancer.org
Breast Cancer Support and Community:                www.breastcancer.org
The Breast Cancer Resource Center:                     www.bcrc.org
National cancer Institute:                                      www.cancer.gov
Breast Cancer Support:                                          www.bcsupport.org
                                               

Monday, October 10, 2011

What side of your house are you paying more attention to?

As my wife and I are in the market to purchase our first house, we have taken into account the curb appeal and how we would want to dress up the outside of a potential home for future resale value. We both enjoy being outside and have always wanted some sort of water feature in our backyard that we can relax by, however I realize the most important aspect when looking should be on the other side of the house. An article I found from curbappeals.com basically talked directly to us about what we wanted to do with our new home versus what we should actually do not only for better curb appeal but also for resale value down the road.
Project 1: Curb Appeal
FIRST IMPRESSIONS, AS anyone in the dating game will tell you, are key. So before you start designing that luxurious backyard koi pond, get the front of your house in order: mowing, weeding, trimming shrubs, putting in fresh sod if you need to. If you have a budget, it’s important to focus your landscaping around key areas. Something that’s going to be viewed a lot — like the front of the house.
When the no-brainers are done, you can start getting serious. The hot trend at the moment: beautiful pathways, made of brick or concrete pavers, winding from the street to the front door. You have to eliminate the ‘garage walk,’ or that 3-foot-wide path that routes visitors from the garage to the front door. Make the path slightly staggered or curved to give it some character. Place a wooden “pergola,” or archway, over the path to define an entranceway; one can be purchased at a home-improvement store for a few hundred dollars. Flank the path with Mediterranean-style pots featuring flowering container plants.
Next, add some light. Low-wattage ground lighting to sandwich the path is fairly easy to install and will boost the effect immeasurably in the evening hours (do-it-yourself kits are available from around $100). For showstopper trees, add one higher-wattage lamp beneath. It gives the whole front yard a soft glow.
Redoing the front of your home can have spectacular effects. But for landscaping to be a real asset to your house it has to have enough time to grow into something special.
Low-maintenance plant material is best. Buyers want the yard to look great, but they don’t want it to be labor-intensive. Otherwise, you may turn off buyers — particularly downsizers. Also keep in mind that trees and shrubs are going to grow by leaps and bounds, so you want to give them the space to do it. The biggest single mistake people make is overplanting, crowding two majestic oaks within 10 feet of each other. Plants grow. If you want instant impact, be prepared to have maintenance problems in a few years.


Since it is our first home we are in the market for, we are looking for some sort of fixer upper that we can improve the value and potentially make money on the house down the road. In going several open houses we have now switched gears from looking at what we could do to the back of the house to how we could improve the curb appeal for a nicer look. Depending on which house we end up purchasing this article will be something that we will look back on as a refresher on what we could do and also to help us stay focus with our goal of generating more curb appeal and enhancing the value of our home.
Source:

Friday, October 7, 2011

Lawn Thatching and Life's Little Lessons

DIY Friday is probably an odd spot to do our first product review; however, considering the emphasis on lawn appearance and maintenance from our previous curb appeal post it seems appropriate. 


The fall season brings colorful leaves, pumpkin carving, pruning plants back for the winter and lawn thatching.  I don’t know about you but I hate this back breaking, time consuming, immensely tedious job so I’m always looking for ways to make this easier.  Granted I typically hire this out but considering we are promoting DIY I decided to do this myself this year.  Big mistake.

I visited my local big box hardware store looking for mechanical solutions that I could afford of which there were several.  I settled on a product that replaces the blade on your lawn mower called the Arnold Power Rake™.  In fact I went with Deluxe Universal Fit Dethatching Blade which claims to dethatch and bag.  My God, this was the answer to my prayers.  An all-in-one tool to make my life simpler, save me some money and keep the lawn looking great what more could I ask.  If only.

Before I go any further, let me state emphatically that I EVEN READ THE DIRECTIONS BEFORE PROCEEDING.  I didn’t feel less manly doing this but I did close the garage door so my neighbors wouldn’t see.

I replaced my lawn mower blade easy enough.  I adjusted the blade to the height recommended by the manufacturer “To dethatch, adjust the mower height so the nylon lines are approximately ¼ inch above the soil. (Use your mower’s bagging feature for easy cleanup as you work.)”  Then I went to work on the lawn.  I should have written, did a job on my lawn.  The first pass absolutely shredded my lawn with virtually nothing left but dirt.  And it didn’t bag.  So I did what any sane person would do I blamed myself and raised the height 1 notch roughly ½ an inch.  Started my second pass…same results including not bagging.  Still my fault I thought let’s try again…same result.  I was looking at my shaved lawn with huge clumps of shredded grass and thought to myself…this sucks! 


The next day I was out breaking my back while my wife laughed her butt off which I acknowledge was thoroughly deserved. 


Here are the simple lessons from my misadventure:

1.       Don’t use the Arnold Power Rake, it doesn’t work.
2.       You get what you pay for.
3.       There is no substitute for hard work.
4.       A penny saved is a penny earned.
5.       Eat your broccoli.

Yes Dad I was listening.

Enjoy your weekend.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

The Garage: Man Cave or not it needs a women’s touch!

The past week it was apparent that something in the garage had to give. With the recent move still a part of the garage and STUFF scattered throughout it was time for my wife and a detailed plan to be put into action; an action involving all the men in the house to clean and organize.
I found the following plan at www.doityourself.com  website which was a great guide to planning and attacking the garage. So I decided to share it.

Get Your Garage Organized

by Murray Anderson

Garages are like Rodney Dangerfield, they just don't get any respect. Got some old sports equipment – into the garage, leftover paint, into the garage, same for power tools , garden equipment and virtually everything else that doesn't have a defined space inside the house. Before you know it, your garage is a disorganized collection of 'stuff' and there is no place to park your vehicle or use a workbench. Getting your garage organized may seem like a monumental task, but in truth, if you approach the job in small steps getting it organized is an achievable goal.


Keep it or dump it
  • Probably the hardest thing to do when getting your garage organized is making deciding what to do with a lot of the 'stuff' in there. Many things end up in the garage, because there is no space for them in the house, but you might want to use them – sometime. You need to make some realistic decisions about things like those old golf clubs you haven't used for four years.
  • Organize the things in your garage into a couple of groups – things you will keep and things you can dump. However, before just throwing things away, think about whether they can be donated or perhaps you could have a garage sale and pick up a few dollars.
Categorize the things you're keeping
  • Once you know what you're keeping, sort it into categories that make sense to you such as power tools, sports equipment, yard tools and yard furniture.

Organize your things by season or function
  • Create a work space /work bench so you'll have space to work on your projects.
  • Allocate the storage space in your garage by season or function so you'll know where to find everything and won't need to hunt around the entire garage looking for the kid's basketball when the weather warms up, just don't forget to leave enough space so you can get your vehicle inside.

Decide how you are going to store your things
  • When it comes to garage storage options you have all kinds of choices. At minimal cost you can build open shelves from wood by yourself, and simply install nails or hangers into the garage framing to keep tools up off the ground. Alternatively, storage cabinets available from home stores do a great job of storing things out of sight while protecting them from moisture and dust or open wire shelving can help store your gear in plain sight and easy reach without creating a dirt collection area.   
  • It's best to use multipurpose storage solutions rather than single function solutions so your newly organized garage can evolve over the years as your storage requirements change. For example once the kids leave home will you really need that bike storage rack or would ceiling hooks be a good place to store bikes when needed, but also provide a way to hang a canoe or some skis later on?
Murray Anderson is a veteran freelancer whose work has been appeared in books, newspapers and newsletters as well as on numerous web sites in both the United States and Canada. He writes on a wide range of topics including home, consumer, and personal subjects as well as general business and Marketing specific topics.
  Read more: http://www.doityourself.com/stry/get-garage-organized#ixzz1Z57adPBX

Most of us guys know that the women in our lives are much more organized and efficient at projects such as organizing the garage and could have wrote an article just like the one reposted here. Take that quality and experience into any project that involves organization and better use of the space we have in our homes. The new wall shelves, shoe storage cubes and bench area made a huge difference and all had a women’ touch to them.