Making Your Living Room a Cozy Escape During the Cold Months

The New Year is upon us and winter is in full swing, so it’s the perfect time to create an inviting living room that your guests will love in the wake of the holiday season. Even though it’s cold outside, you can transform your indoor space into a comfortable hideaway your friends and family can cuddle up in until spring.

Here are four ways to make your living room a cozy escape during the cold months, and how to optimize this area for houseguests.
 

Cover up with Stylish Curtains

 

Covering your windows with stylish curtains is one way to make your living room cozier. Choose a soft fabric with a fun pattern to keep the cold out. Mask the windows or an entire wall with fabric and draping to fashion an intimate living space that will keep everyone coming back for more.
 

Snuggle up with a Fluffy Throw

Lay a fleecy blanket across your couch or arm chair to help shield family members and visitors from the cold. Provide matching silk cushions to create a restful place anyone can curl up in to read a book or catch some zzz's.

Warm up with a Fuzzy Rug

Invest in a rug with long, loose fur to make sure you and your guests stay nice and toasty. Cover cold spots on the floor with one or more faux fur rug to design a tranquil sanctuary your loved ones will cherish.
    

Brighten up with Delicate Light

 

Hang string lights around the room or place a few candles in the area to create a peaceful glow. Opt for white or colored lights and seasonal scents to establish a winter haven in the comfort of your home. 
 

Curl up with Loved Ones in Your Retreat

If you plan on having visitors for the holidays and through the New Year, try implementing some of these tips to make your guests feel more comfortable. For more decorating tips and how-to's, contact me today.

3 Creative Ways to Hide Power Outlets in Your Home

Most building codes require outlets to be spaced out along each wall of your home. While this means that you will always have a convenient place to charge your phone, it also means that you might end up with unsightly outlets located in inconvenient spots. Fortunately, there are a few creative ways to hide your home’s power outlets. This way, you will not have to sacrifice functionality for aesthetic reasons.

1. Underneath Your Kitchen Cabinets

 
At first glance, you will see a smooth, unbroken backsplash. This is undoubtedly an attractive way to design a kitchen, but you will still need a convenient place to plug in all of your kitchen appliances. This issue is solved by mounting the outlets on the underside of your upper kitchen cabinets. This keeps the outlets out of sight but still easily accessible when needed.
You can purchase cabinets with outlets built in or design your own for a fraction of the cost. Adding an electrical box to the underside of your existing cabinets can provide you with a place to tuck away all the wires and an extra-long cabinet door can make this addition appear as though it is a part of the existing cabinetry.

2. Put Them In a Secret Compartment

You can hide an outlet behind a little trap door.  When you need the plug, just open the door and plug in the appliance.  This is especially handy on an island.

3. Outlet Covers That Blend Into the Wall

One of the main reasons your outlets stand out from their background is because they are usually a different color than the wall, cabinet or backsplash that they're mounted on. Choosing an outlet cover that blends in with the background can be a quick and affordable way to make your outlets less noticeable.
Many tile manufacturers sell matching outlet covers that can be included in your backsplash rather than being placed on top of it. Having the outlet lay flush with the rest of the tile can make it nearly invisible at first glance.
Another similar idea is to choose outlets that lay flush with your wall. These outlet covers can be painted over or covered with wallpaper, making the outlet cover appear to be a continuous part of your wall rather than an obtrusive eyesore.

Think about the space you are designing and choose one of these clever solutions to help camouflage your outlets and make your space appear sleek and uncluttered.

Must-Have Technology for a Smart Home

Buying a new home is an exciting time. From browsing through options and upgrades to choosing design elements, it’s totally common to have the desire to make your home the best it can be. Enter smart home technology.

Whether you’re a tech genius or a little behind the times when it comes to gadgets and gizmos, creating the ultimate smart home might require more planning than you’d think. There are so many brands to consider, so many elements in the home that could be outfitted and even more devices on the market. Where on Earth do you begin in deciding what’s right for your smart home?

“The beauty of the smart home is that you don’t have to buy a certain number of products to enjoy the benefits,” says Matt McGovren, vice president of marketing and business development at Wink, a smart home platform that brings hundreds of connected products from numerous brands together into a free mobile app. “We encourage people to pick and choose the products that best complement their lifestyle.”

McGovren and a few other smart home experts gave us their favorite must-have technology for a smart home and the categories you’ll most likely want to consider:

Smart-Home Lighting

“The starting point for most smart homes today is with connected lighting and there are some fantastic solutions available today,” says Mike Yurochko, co-founder and CEO of Stringify, a smart home solutions app. He suggests brands like Insteon, Sengled, Lutron and Philips Hue for colored lighting.

For affordability, McGovren suggests Cree’s Connected LED Bulb and Sylvania’s Lightify RGBW Bulb, which lets you choose from thousands of colors to set the right mood.

With the right system in place, smart lighting can allow you to create scenes, save energy, act as motion alerts or even automatically adjust according to the time of day.

Smart Home Security and Safety

When it comes to home security and safety, smart locks, security cameras and dual carbon monoxide/smoke detectors are a given.

“Schlage and Kwikset both make excellent connected locks that you can operate from afar and use to create unique access codes for guests,” says McGovren.

Popular brands to search for within this category include Nest, Kidde, Ring, iSmart Alarm, SimpliSafe and Vivint.

Smart Home Thermostats and Energy

In regard to saving energy in your smart home, heating and air conditioning are key.

“A smart thermostat for basic energy management is an obvious need,” adds Yurochko. “Honeywell, Nest and ecobee have delivered products across a variety of price points.”

Smart Home Appliances

With appliances, it may seem like the leading brands are putting out smart versions of your favorite appliances every week. Need help keeping up? Here are just a few features that are already on the market:

• Refrigerators that send alerts when left open, doors that become see-through when touched and that can even monitor foods for spoilage.
• A Whirlpool washing machine that can automatically donate to charity or keep tumbling wet clothes you’ve left overnight to keep them fresh.
• A dishwasher that keeps track of areas it has already cleaned, which reduces water usage and water spots.
• A stove that listens to what you’re cooking and alerts you when it’s done.

Long story short: If you can think of an appliance, there’s probably a smart-tech version of it somewhere on the market.

Smart Home Entertainment and Sound

“For entertainment, smart TVs are a must,” says Pete Pedone, owner of New York-based Interactive Home, a full home automation company. “Using the smart hub feature on most new TVs allows the user to access many different streaming media services for movies, TV and music. And for the user without a smart TV, there are streaming media devices such as Apple TV, Roku and Amazon Fire that give you that smart ability to stream.” 

And in regards to sound, our experts recommend Sonos, Yamaha and Bose sound systems.

Smart Home Convenience and Assistance

A key player in any smart home system are the up-and-coming home assistants like Amazon Echo and Google Home. These devices can link up with most smart home gadgets for easy, voice-activated controls. A bonus benefit, you can also ask it to browse the Web for you, play music and accomplish many everyday tasks.

“For larger homes, a Crestron system is recommended,” says Pedone. “Entertainment, security, shades and drapes are all accessible from a single app using Crestron. If offers a Cloud-based control, which can be paired with Amazon’s Echo to control the interior house.”

Getting It All Connected
Once you’ve had the time to browse through the devices that would suit your needs, it’s time to consider getting them all connected into a central hub.

Wink, for example, allows you to connect hundreds of products from many different brands together through it mobile app and Wink Hub 2. Thus, all your products can connect through the hub that transmits signals to and from your smartphone, allowing you to accomplish tasks like adjusting the lighting or locking doors.

Stringify is a similar smartphone app system that has pre-made experiences it calls “Flows,” which a user can add with a tap of the finger. These experiences cover everything from automatically arming your cameras or enhancing your movie night experiences through voice and lights. Additionally, it also serves as a universal remote to accomplish tasks like turning on the lights or adjusting the temperature through a single interface.

To close, Yurochko of Stringify says that as long as your home has these points covered, your home can hold the “Holy Grail” of smart home technology:

1.)The ability to communicate with every product you have purchased or will purchase in the future. The user has peace of mind knowing they can add new products to their smart home system without fear of compatibility issues.

2.)Your products are integrated well and deliver value to the household. Users should be able to customize their experiences based on their own needs and, over time, the system will learn these tendencies and apply these learnings to your home.

3.) It’s all packaged in an easy-to-use experience. If your system is difficult to understand, nobody is likely to use it. This hurdle takes on added complexity when you need to tie a wide variety of products and brands into a seamless experience.

These are exactly the issues smart home brands like Stringify, Wink and Interactive Home are trying to tackle.
“There is still a bit of a learning curve for the end consumer,” adds Yurochko, “but the future is very bright as end solutions become ever more powerful, flexible and easy to use.”

article by: ByDrew Knight

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How To Test A Property's Condition

Although putting a professional inspection contingency in the contract will help protect you from surprises, doing your own inspection before making an offer could save you considerable time and money.

How can you tell if a property is worth buying? Here's how to look at the big picture—for structural concerns, major repairs that are needed, appliances that have to be replaced.

Crawl the Walls

Start out by going to the right when you enter the house, and keep following the wall. You will check each wall that way. Do the same on every floor. Look for settlement cracks, separating joints, defective plaster or other signs of stress or damage. Check wallpapered areas for crinkling or gathering, which may mean walls are settling or shifting.

Look for Leaks

Loose or wrinkled wallpaper could indicate a water leak somewhere. Look for water stains on the ceiling and walls. You may have to look closely—bring a flashlight—in case they have been painted over or repaired.
Spend time in the bathrooms and in every area with pipes, checking for leaks and drips. Also, run the shower and basin, then flush the toilet to check water pressure. Look for cracked or loose tiles and missing grout or mildew stains on the walls or floor, which could indicate a behind-the-wall leak.

Plug Into the Electrical System

Check every electric socket or outlet. Use a plug-in night light and turn every switch on and off. Look for extension cords and multiple plugs in sockets, which could mean insufficient or poorly placed sockets. Also, check every appliance to be sure it works well.

Focus on Condition

Open and close every door and window. Look and listen for squeaking, sticking, or a tendency to close on their own. Check for evidence of shifting or settling around the front stoop, chimney and walks, and places where the driveway and the fence meet the house. Also, check the deck for sturdiness and look for rotted wood. Go into the garage and check the walls, floors and doors—inside and out.

Pay Attention to Pests

Look for termites and ants. Especially look along the foundation, around doors and entry points of wiring and pipes. Check the grading of the yard to be sure water runs away from the house.
You can and should insist on a written report detailing what the problems are with the house, how important each one is. You may have to consult a contractor to estimate repair costs on any problems found.
If everything looks good and you decide to purchase the house, be sure to require a home inspection by a professional inspector before settlement. You will want a professional who will get into the crawl space, climb onto the roof and poke around with a flashlight in the attic. Your professional should also carefully inspect the major systems—electrical, gas, plumbing and heating/air conditioning.

To make sure a home is in tip-top shape before making an offer, give us a call today for more information about how you can spot red flags.

August Northern VA Real Estate Market Statistics

 

 

 Which is better, a new house or an older one?

 

When choosing between purchasing a newly built home and an older one, know that there isn’t a “right” or “wrong” answer. Choosing new or old may be more about understanding what you want. Here are some points to consider.

Older homes tend to be closer to downtown amenities, like restaurants and entertainment. They’re usually in established neighborhoods with mature trees and large backyards. But older houses can be expensive to maintain, and may have small rooms with little storage space.

Newer homes typically offer larger rooms, trendy finishes and usually require less maintenance. But new builds are often farther away from the excitement of downtown living. Commuting may also take longer and cost more.

Your real estate agent can help, but it comes down to one thing: Old or new, the home that feels right for your family is the one to buy.

7 Home Maintenance Tasks Homeowners Should Master

Whether you're a first-time homeowner or a seasoned veteran in homeownership, there are a few home maintenance tasks that all homeowners should master in order to keep their home in tip-top shape. Use these seven tasks as a general guide:

 

Clean the garbage disposal in your kitchen sink.

It is widely agreed upon that the best way to keep your garbage disposal blades clean and sharp is to run vinegar ice cubes through it. This easy task can eliminate odors as well as maintain your garbage disposal unit, keeping your kitchen clean and functional.

Check fire safety equipment. 

Test the batteries in your smoke detector and carbon monoxide detectors every six months. If you ever need either one, you'll be glad you kept them both well-maintained. At the same time, you should check to make sure that your fire extinguisher is easily accessible and not nearing its expiration date.

Inspect/replace HVAC filters. 

Your furnace and air conditioner units play a vital role in keeping your home comfortable during all seasons. Keeping the filters clean and free of pet hair, dust and debris can go a long way toward prolonging the life of your HVAC units. This simple task can mean the difference between a quick fix and a costly repair down the road.

Vacuum the dust-collecting parts of your major appliances.

Vacuuming your dryer's exhaust duct each year can prolong the life of your dryer. Same for the coils underneath your refrigerator. Trapped dust can result in trapped heat, leading to energy inefficiency and decreased life expectancy.

Test your garage door sensors. 

If you have a garage door, it is important to make sure the auto-reverse feature is in working order. This feature can keep your garage door from being damaged — or damaging any of your personal property, family members or pets.

Clean the gutters around your home. 

If your home has gutters, it is important to keep them clean and free of debris, especially during the rainy season. Standing water can create all kinds of problems. It can damage your home as well as provide a breeding ground for insects. Keeping your gutters clean will ensure that they are draining properly at all times.

Keep up with landscaping. 

In addition to improving your home's curb appeal, clearing away dead plants or shrubs on a regular basis can help you notice any issues early on. Also, make sure to check for any dead or dying limbs that overhang power lines, parking spots or your roof. Clearing away dead limbs before they become a problem can minimize stress down the road.

Keeping up with a few simple tasks can mean the difference between a routine repair and a costly replacement. Taking these steps can maintain the value of your home.

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