Good Reads
Love The Home You’re With
We’ve often been accused of loving our house more than some of our family members, but in today’s soft real estate market, many people who are less than enamored with their home and itching to sell are feeling the squeeze to stick it out until the market improves. And a recent article in Money magazine caught our attention by pointing out how futile it can be to loath your current home in this “spectacularly lousy time to put your place on the market.”
The article went on to encourage people to embrace their current home and make specific changes to create their dream home instead of attempting to sell their home with sale prices down nearly 18% over the past year. It also points out that a lot of people are tackling home improvement projects in hopes of selling their home anyway, so they might as well put the money and time into making the house work for them in the meantime instead of slapping something together in hopes of a sale. Quick fixes can be far less fruitful in the short term and the long term. So if you’re looking for more space, they supplied some pretty fantastic tips to make your current home feel bigger and more open:
Remove any unnecessary doors. Many older homes suffer from an overabundance of doors (between the kitchen and dining room for example), and by removing them you’ll allow for more light to bounce around and create a more spacious feel.
Go ahead, tear down a wall. The article points out that 40% of home-owners want only a half wall separating the kitchen from the family room and another 38% want no wall at all. If you wanted a more open floor plan in your next house, why not create one in your current home instead of packing up and moving? Here’s a progress shot from back in September when we dramatically widened two of our doorways (which was well worth the effort and minimal expense).
Convert wasted space into living space. There may be no need to add to your current floor plan, just finish your basement or another underused area. In our home we converted an unused formal dining room into a third bedroom and moved the dining table into our spacious living room for a layout that works much harder for the way we live.
Add an outdoor room. Experts say that in the past few years there’s been a surge of interest in creating outdoor living space. And it doesn’t take much to change your existing porches, patios, and decks into “outdoor rooms”. To provide a sense of enclosure, add a few hedges, a fence, or even a stone wall. And for shade you can consider a retractable awning or a vine covered pergola. Enclosing your porch and turning it into a sunroom may cost around 10 grand, but stealing more living space for your family could be just the thing that turns your current home into your dream home.
The lesson? If you can’t be with the one you love (that mansion down the road), then love the one you’re with. And if you have any more ideas to convert your ho-hum-home-for-now into your hubba-hubba-dream-home, feel free to chime in!
America At (Our) Home
Our post back in May about the IKEA-sponsored “America at Home” project ended up catching the attention of Will Allen and the Rick Smolan, who co-authored the project’s coffee table book. Next thing we knew, we had our very own copy of “America at Home” arriving at our door. We even got to design a custom cover using a photo from our own backyard wedding. Check it out…
And as excited as we were about our custom cover, we were also really excited to peruse all 200+ pages documenting the many ways that Americans live (from farmhouse to penthouse and everything in between). We eat that stuff up. After all, we are a couple that got married at home, works from home (well, Sherry does) and practically spends every waking moment improving our home. So you can imagine how much fun we had getting to peek inside other people’s home lives as well.
The book does a great job of capturing the incredible range of homes in America (from quiet cottages to urban rooftops) and the funny and touching ways that we use them (for celebration, prayer, relaxing, and everything else under the sun). And while I would’ve loved to see a few more Virginian homes, I was particularly proud to see our state represented by a one-armed man who completely restored a home he bought for $1 (page 122). He even put on the new roof!
To snag your own copy, you can create a custom cover here (it’s über easy to do) or you can just pick one up at your local Barnes & Noble. And if you’re ever in Richmond, we’ve got a copy proudly displayed in our guest bedroom for you can enjoy… you’ll just have to wait your turn behind Burger (who’s absolutely enthralled with our new reading material).
IKEA Tells It Like It Is
Newsflash: Home is the most important place in the world. At least, that’s what IKEA is telling me.
Apparently IKEA just completed a “landmark study” where they surveyed Americans to find out what our homes mean to us. The study is peppered with some interesting facts – like that the #1 bedroom activity for Americans is watching TV (not you-know-what) but has also revealed that 92% of Americans (including us) believe that home is the most important place in the world. You can still add your two cents to the survey here.
And to make some profit off the study, IKEA has adapted it into a coffee table book and documentary both named “America at Home.” The preview of the book online is pretty interesting, actually, and I’ll admit it’s kinda cool that you can customize the cover with a personal photo.
Not sure what’s up with the documentary, but they’ve posted some short clips of real people talking about their weird, I mean, real homes. I was particularly entertained by this clip and what I will generously call a “canine chic” decorating style. We love little Burger, but someone please stop me if this happens to us. (Oh, and for some reason the video plays two times in this YouTube version.)
Bracketeering
As March Madness follows us into April, we thought we’d offer up a way for all you non-basketball fans (like us) to get in on all this bracket business. It’s a little book called The Englightened Bracketologist: The Final Four of Everything. It’s fun. It’s yellow. And we find it’s a great little nugget of pop culture entertainment to have around the house (ours lives in the guest bedroom).
Here’s the gist: the editors have gathered 101 experts on 101 different topics to determine the winners in 101 different bracketed categories. From the epic battle between apples and peaches for the fruit championship, to (Sherry’s personal favorite) the ranking of the “Most Jersey” town in New Jersey, there are plenty of enlightening head-to-head battles to enjoy.
Here are a few more of our favorite final showdowns:
- Hairstyles – The Hillary vs. Cornrows
- Inventions – Paper vs. Sliced Bread
- Game Show Catchphrases – “Survey said…” vs. “Come on down!”
- Punctuation – The Space vs. The Semi-colon
- Bald Guys – Homer Simpson vs. Gandhi
- Emoticons – :-D vs. :-)
As you can see, The Englightend Bracketologist takes the bracket concept far beyond the NCAA and tackles topics that, personally, are far more interesting- although I have no clue why my favorite candy bar (PayDay) didn’t even make it past the first round.
You’ll just have to grab a copy for yourself to find out who claimed victory in all of these challenges. It’s definitely worth the $11 (in hardcover, no less) because whether it’s on your nightstand or your coffee table, it’s sure to spark an entertaining and colorful debate.
And I think you’ll take issue with the candy bar results too. Heck, I’d even bet on it…
Image courtesy of Amazon.com
