A few months ago, my husband and I spent a Sunday looking at new construction homes in a neighboring town. We were unsure where our oldest son would be attending high school in the fall and were exploring all of our options. The area of the country that I live in has some of the highest housing prices in the country – Massachusetts is consistently ranked in the top five of most expensive states to live in according to the Council for Community and Economic Research’s Cost of Living Index. We live outside of Boston but still within commuting distance (if you consider 30+ miles commutable) and the towns we were interested in had strong school districts, so we knew our housing dollar wasn’t going to go too far. But even I was surprised at just how little nearly $1M gets you these days.
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After covering exterior fall home maintenance tips (here), we turn to interior fall home maintenance. Early fall is great time to check off some of these annual and semi-annual maintenance tasks before the hectic holiday season is upon us. Performing these tasks will help keep your home safe and comfortable and will extend the life of some of your home’s major systems as well. (more…)
As the days become shorter and cooler, there are some basic home maintenance tasks to take care to prepare your home for the colder, harsher days to come. Below is our list of exterior fall home maintenance must-dos to keep your house in tip-top shape.
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Have you seen Citibank’s hilarious advertising campaign featuring a contractor chatting with his homeowner clients in their kitchen? (If not you can check it out here.) I chuckle every time I see it, not just because it is so funny, but because it confirms everything homeowners (and contractors!) fear about the home improvement process.
But the reality is, if those scenarios played out in your life, you wouldn’t be laughing. Because for most of us, our home is not just where we spend the majority of our lives, it also represents our single biggest investment. So, it makes sense to make sure the folks you have working on that investment are reputable and the right fit for you.
Here are our top five recommendations of things to ask when choosing a contractor for your kitchen remodel or any home improvement job: (more…)
This post is in response to a reader who wrote in asking for tips on what to do with the low ceilings in her home without having to undertake a major remodel. Frustrated by the beauty shots on home & garden sites and shows where the rooms all have impossibly high ceilings, she wondered how she could update the look in her 1970’s Colonial. So we turned to the real estate listings to suss out real homes of the same vintage that effectively used some design tricks to create envy inducing spaces despite being vertically challenged.
If you live in a home built in New England between 1940 and 1990-ish you may be dealing with one of the more unfortunate building practices of the time: the low ceiling. But fear not, we’ve got some tips that will have you raising the roof – figuratively, if not literally. (more…)
