Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
Copy Link
Fear of Commitment? Choosing the Right Colors for Your Home
One of the most frequent questions interior designers hear is how to choose colors for a home. We all love color, but some people are afraid of using color in their home. Many find they fear committing to a certain color scheme or making a mistake after it is all done. Here are some ideas to help to get you started.
To try to determine just what colors to use in your home, look in your closet! You’ll see the basic wardrobe classics in there: black, brown, navy, beige/khaki. Those colors are neutrals and very applicable in your home color scheme. Now, check out the colors hanging there, too. Unless you are a serious fashionista, a certain color or two will emerge as a standard in your color preference repertoire. Even prints will feature similar colors. These colors are a great place to start to help you decide what colors to use in your home. If you love wearing certain colors and feel good wearing them, you will enjoy seeing them throughout your décor.
Lest you feel the need to paint an entire room tomato red (or whatever color you find that you prefer), just paint the walls a nice warm taupe or other neutral that you like and use the tomato red as an accent color with some of your accessories such as throw pillows, lamp bases, art on the walls or throw rugs. You can even practice with some inexpensive items you might find at a tag sale or discount store before you commit with higher priced items. Give it a try and don’t be afraid to keep working at it. For more information on Windermere Evergreen, please contact us here.
Three Projects, Three Ways: Valentine’s Gifts for Your Loved Ones
The ladies at “A Beautiful Mess” have amazing craft ideas, so we decided to try out their flower collage. The results are so fun!
Supply list:
A favorite family picture- blown up to 5*7 or larger
Fabric flowers; you can find these at a local craft store. For a fun touch, pick up some fabric butterflies too
Hot glue gun and glue sticks
A shadow box or a picture frame with the glass popped out
Directions:
Let inspiration be your guide; mock up your design before breaking out the glue gun
Glue flowers around the frame
Let the glue dry and then display your work of art!
Difficulty level: 1
A heart shaped picture collage:
Do you have so many favorite photos that you can’t pick just one? Are you an Instagram addict? Then this fun project is for you. You can use as many pictures as your frame will fit.
Supply list:
A picture frame
A piece of cardstock or paper cut to fit your frame
Cardstock cut into a stencil heart shape
A pile of your favorite photos
Scissors
Craft glue or scrapbooking adhesive
Fancy accent paper (optional)
Directions:
Decide the quantity of photographs you want to display
Arrange your photos on your blank sheet to determine the best placement
Cut each photo into the same size heart (use a stencil heart or heart shaped paper punch for this)
Arrange your pictures on the card stock
If you want to add some dimension, cut out hearts from the fancy accent paper to display behind your photos
Once everything is exactly how you like it, glue it all down
Let everything dry and finish by adding your frame!
Difficulty level: 2
The writing’s on the wall
Do you have a favorite quote about love? Make a modern wall hanging with some simple tools and your favorite words!
Supply list:
A wood frame for stretching canvas (can be found online or your local craft store)
Dark denim (enough to fit over canvas with a couple of extra inches all around)
A white fabric pencil
White fabric paint
Small acrylic paint brushes (with stiff bristles)
Masking tape
A staple gun and staples
A printed template of your favorite quote, as you would like to see it displayed
A window with natural light
Directions:
Tape your printed quote to a window with natural light shining through
Tape your fabric swatch over your template, and position the image/text in the middle of your fabric swatch (dark side facing you)
Using the white pencil, trace the quote and/or image clearly on your dark fabric
Once done, remove your fabric from the window and tape to a flat surface like a desk or table
Use the paint brush and white fabric paint to trace over your white sketches to make your text and/or image visible
Let your masterpiece dry for a few hours (amount of time varies based on the thickness of the applied paint)
Position your fabric over your wooded canvas frame. Make sure the placement is straight and where you want it
Hold your fabric in place over the frame and staple the sides to the back of the wooden frame, checking to make sure your image on the front is straight and the fabric is taught on the frame
If the fabric on the back of your frame is too long, you may want to consider trimming so it doesn’t peek out when the frame is hung on the wall
Find the perfect spot to hang your masterpiece or the perfect person to gift it to!
Difficultly level: 3
Happy Valentine’s Day! From all of us at Windermere Evergreen.
Seven Phases of Home Renovations
The 7 Phases of Home Renovations:
Phase 1: Get super pumped about an idea. Pin, pin, pin on Pinterest until you’re bursting with excitement. Tell everyone about your amazing project.
Phase 2: Collect materials. Realize things cost a lot. Begin project fueled by coffee, nervous anticipation and adrenaline.
Phase 3: Get halfway through the project. It doesn’t look exactly like your Pinterest board but it’s still cool. Realize you haven’t showered or shaved in +/- 3 days. But it’s all good because you’re 50% there!
Phase 4: There’s visible progress but it’s not totally done. It looks done on the Instagram photo though! But in reality, the project is about 85% complete and it bugs you every time you see that one grout line that needs a little attention or that one corner that needs a little touch up paint. It’s okay though, you’ll get to it this weekend.
Phase 5: Weeks have gone by. The blisters on your hands have healed. You stop noticing the grout line that needs filling or the wall that needs paint. You’re busy enjoying the house and admiring your clean fingernails.
Phase 6: Write a blog about how you’re still not done with that one bathroom you started two months ago.
Phase 7: Complete project, details included. Toast to celebrate. Post more photos to Instagram. Start dreaming of a new project. Pin, pin, pin…
Some people may say the hardest part of a renovation is starting the project. We say it’s that last pesky 5%. We’ll get it done . . . eventually.
For more information on Windermere Evergreen and our team, please contact us here.
New Home Construction Trends to Watch Out For
So what’s in?
- Bringing the outdoors inside. Do this with larger glass windows or folding glass doors.
- Minerals as hardware.
- Large geometric tiles on floors.
- Mixing metals, such as brass and gold.
Interior paint color – Grey still has a heavy influence, but it is warming up a bit and getting softened with a stone color. Of course, the Pantone colors of the year are playing a big part with light blues and soft pinks.
Wallpaper – Always a great place to get a little crazy. Textural, geometric patterns are so in.
Carpet – 2016 is about modernizing the traditional themes. People are doing geometric shapes and soft grays. However, hardwood floors continue to be on trend. It’s not uncommon for someone to do hardwood floors throughout the whole home, others are even putting wood on the walls. Fun fact: When the economy is good, floor color tends to lighten up, and when economy is bad, floors tend to darken.
Tile– Geometry, 3D textures, and extra extra extra-large tiles. Marble counter tops are still big and concrete is becoming more common in custom homes.
Cabinets – Many are painting them white with muted tones or contrasting wood tones. Mix and match. Get venturesome, but not reckless.
Lighting – Gold has come back in (don’t worry, not the gold of the 80’s). These are different from the pendants of last year; they’re brass and gold statement pieces. Remember: lighting is the jewelry of the home.
Plumbing – Plumbing is functional art. Brass, soft gold, and black (faucet) statement pieces are where it’s at.
We also learned that home owners are going bonkers for statement dining rooms. They love having a bold, fun place to entertain their guests. These are tying into a theme, which is: Nature luxe. Like we said earlier, it’s all about bringing the outside in. Yes, we’re seeing a lot of brave ideas and statement pieces going on, but it’s important to be subtle and do it in a tasteful way.
Gelotte Hommas Architecture kept the trend going with outdoor living. Seattleites think our climate is not the greatest for outdoor spaces, but according to Gelotte, with our mild winters and not-too-hot summers, we actually have the ideal climate for outdoor living… who knew! The most important thing to know about outdoor living is that it needs to flow from the inside to the outside. The space doesn’t need to be huge; a good rule of thumb is having your outdoor space roughly the size of your kitchen.
What’s being built? Modern, contemporary homes are still very much in demand. However, contextualizing a home into a neighborhood is really important so it doesn’t stand out too much. It’s about appropriate scale and size.
Multi-gen living is on the rise. Homes are being built to accommodate extended family which usually involves having an in-law suite. Also, bonus rooms are being made into living spaces.
When it comes to thinking green, most custom home clients are concerned with energy consumption, so they opt to get solar panels or geothermal heating.
That’s a wrap for the latest trends! How are you going to incorporate them in your home?
For more information on Windermere Evergreen and our team, please contact us here.
The Reality of Home Improvement: HGTV installment
On any given weekend in my house, at least a couple of hours will be spent watching the designers, craftspeople and entertainers on HGTV or its spunky sister station, the DIY Network. The premise of these home-centered television networks is that somewhere, sandwiched between long commercial breaks for paint, faucets, flooring warehouses and something called “Slab Jacking”, you’ll find programming about real people making real decisions about their homes. Sometimes those decisions are about buying a home, while other times they may be about selling or remodeling a home. In all of the situations, experts are brought in to help and a camera crew just happens to tag along, so the rest of us can enjoy the unfolding drama from the comfort of our couches.
Home improvement programming has been around for a long time and is generally considered reality TV, but a lot of the real life is lost between cuts. Here’s a quick guide of some of the more popular programs.
House Hunters – The formula is simple but always entertaining. Each episode begins with someone unhappy with their living situation, so they call an agent and look at 3 properties. After weighing the options, a home is chosen. Of course, this show is over-simplified and leaves out the long weekends the buyer spends in their agent’s car driving from listing to listing. What you do get is a sense of home values and styles in different regions, the humor of buyers’ reactions to homes, and the excitement new home owners feel as they take the keys to their dream home. You rarely get the type of tension home shopping can bring. The big climax of the show is when an offer is made: the narrator might say something like, “Though their offer was rejected the first time around, the other buyer ultimately backed out and they ended up getting the house for X amount.” But I don’t think they usually talk about it at all. For that kind of tension, you need to check out Property Virgins. The best part of the half hour happens in the last 30 seconds when you see how the new owner redecorates the home in their own style.
Property Virgins– Similar premise to House Hunters, except these first-time homebuyers walk through the basics. The best part about the show is the excitement (and sometimes clumsiness) of the virgin house-hunters. The worst part of this show is when would be homebuyers have unrealistic expectations for their first home.
House Hunters International – Comparable to House Hunters but everyone has accents and the kitchens are shockingly small.
Designed to Sell – Did you know that your spare bedroom filled with Grandpa’s taxidermy and the vintage 1950’s kitchen can be a turn-off to potential buyers? Valuable lessons like these are a just a few of the gems I’ve picked up on Designed to Sell. Each episode features a home which has been racking up days on the market but no one is interested in buying. That’s where the army of carpenters and designers step in. When they’re done, the house that looked like Grandma’s musty basement now looks like the lobby of a hip hotel, and they only spent a few hundred dollars. I love this program for the inspiration but find it short on reality. The listed prices of these improvements don’t seem realistic, and I often wonder if the costs include the lifetime of carpentry skills, design training, garage filled with power tools and time required to do the job. If you are looking for design ideas and hope for a home that isn’t attracting buyers, you’ll find some great ideas here, but take the true cost of those improvements with a grain of salt.
Real Estate Intervention – Being a real estate agent takes a lot of diplomacy, and this is never more important than that moment they suggest a market-friendly price to a home seller. On Real Estate Intervention, that diplomacy generally fails, sellers are unrealistic, and a stern man with a menacing mustache steps in for an intervention. He dishes out tough love to the seller and paints a clear picture of market reality. In a half hour he is able to change minds and make the seller feel good about the decision they made.
This Old House – This PBS staple wrote the book on home improvement programming. With TOH you’ll trade commercials for pledge drives, but you’ll also get a more cerebral home improvement viewing experience. TOH does take patience, as it takes a full season to complete a home improvement project instead of 30 minutes on other programs. If you are looking for the same quality instruction in a more digestible format, you can check out the spin off, Ask This Old House.
Be warned that the home improvement bug often bites soon after watching any of these programs. After a long HGTV bender, I find myself wandering through the paint sample aisle and making trips to home improvement stores that aren’t on my way home from the office. Sometimes life does imitate art and the voice in the back of my head keeps saying, “They make it look so easy.”
What about you? Do you find home-improvement shows useful or do you think they set unrealistic expectations? What are your favorite home-improvement resources?
For more information on Windermere Evergreen please contact us here.
Home Staging Tips
DIY Home Staging Tips:
With a little time, effort and imagination, you can stage your home to showcase its best features, sell it faster and get top dollar.
Clean up, pare down, and toss out: By simply getting rid of excess furniture and clutter, you can make any room look larger and more inviting.
Make it professional, not personal: Remove family photos, mementos and other personal items from the space. This not only eliminates clutter, it helps potential homebuyers envision their lives in the space.
Repurpose rooms: Do you have a “junk” room? You can transform a liability into an asset by turning an underused space into a reading nook, a craft room, a yoga studio or a home gym. Just clean it up, add a coat of paint, some furniture and the right accessories.
Lighten up: Light, airy rooms look bigger and more welcoming. You can create a pleasing effect by using the right wattage bulbs and multiple light sources. The right window treatments can also have a big impact. Choose fabrics that are light and gauzy, rather than dark and heavy.
Try a little color: Paint is the cheapest, easiest way to update your home. Stick with warm, natural hues, but try darker colors for accent walls and to highlight special features. You can give old furniture new life with a coat of shiny black paint—and freshen up the front door with a bold, cheerful color.
Add some decorative touches: Art, accessories, plants and flowers breathe life into a home. Make rooms more inviting with accessories that are carefully grouped, especially in threes. Pay attention to scale, texture and color. Bring the outdoors in with plants and flowers.
Picture-Perfect Staging:
When it comes to looking for a home most people start on the internet. The photos in your property listing can make a powerful first impression. According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, professional photos can increase home views up to 61%. Make sure your home is “ready for its close-up” by following these simple guidelines before the photographer shows up.
For exterior photography:
· Make sure no cars are parked in front of your house or in your driveway.
· Sidewalks and streets should be cropped out
· There should be up-close and angled shots, as well as long shorts that emphasize space.
· Clear away or trim vegetation blocking the front door or path to the door.
· Make sure lawns are mowed, hedges clipped, etc.
· Remove evidence of pets.
· Put away children’s toys.
· If you are selling a condo or townhome, such amenities as tennis courts, a gym, a garden patio or clubhouse should be photographed.
For interior photography:
· Make sure your house is spotless, windows are clean and rooms are decluttered.
· Repair all visible damage, e.g., bad water stains, gouges, chipped paing.
· Drapes and blinds should be open and lights on.
· Remove trash cans, close toilet seats.
· Use floral arrangements in kitchens and dining rooms.
· Make sure that interesting details and attractive features—e.g., wood floors, a carved mantel, marble countertops and ornamental tile backslashes, etc. – are photographed.
For more information on Windermere Evergreen please contact us here.
