Don?t Waste Money Buying Furniture To Stage Your House To Sell
It sounds a bit ridiculous but I actually purchased most of the upholstered chairs in my house for .99 or less.
Most of them were purchased either at garage sales or junk stores. I would stop by the bank on Friday and get 30 .00 bills and go shopping LATE on Saturday afternoon when all the stuff got cheaper.
And I wouldn’t just buy any old piece of furniture. I would look for classic styles that were not too trendy.
When you need to stage your house, furniture that is 10 years out of date makes people think your house needs redecorating. People don’t want to buy your house just because your furniture is “dated”.
It’s just so ridiculous because antique reproductions can work just fine when upholstered in a nice solid color fabric.
The other thing I do is the upholstery. I can do a professional looking job and paying someone else to do it will often cost more than buying a new chair.
If you don’t want to reupholster, just look for things that are in acceptable fabrics.
Try to avoid garish or flower prints. There are some 1980s vintage sofas and chairs that are really awful and DEATH to resale.
The other thing you need to do is try to keep the scale of the furniture smaller.
Rooms that are too crowded with furniture and collectibles will hurt resale even when all the items in the room are beautiful. People get blinded by the stuff and can’t see the house.
So what do you buy? Look for classic styles like wing chairs, antique reproductions, or great club chairs. I always sneak in a bit of modern if I like something.
Look for hardwood frames. They will feel heavier than cheaper furniture. They will also stand up to the wear and tear of daily life.
1940s to 1960s reproductions are nice because they are usually constructed of hardwood, but not old enough to be antiques yet. I never wanted to pay for antiques because my stuff was always going into a moving van.
In the 1960’s furniture companies started to use a lot of particleboard (MDF) in furniture. It feels heavy, but it falls to pieces if it gets damp or wet. In fact pieces made of it regularly fall apart. Lots of kitchens are constructed of it in spec houses and they fall apart, too.
And then think about how you can stage your rooms. A pair of chairs and a love seat or sofa can make a nice living room or den grouping. The styles can be different as long as the arms all line up close to the same height.
Buy pairs but not sets of furniture. A matched pair of chairs can work great, but a 3 or 4 or 10 piece “set” just looks unsophisticated.
A pair of club chairs can look great, too, placed around a round coffee table or ottoman.
A pair of chairs can make a quiet corner attractive for conversation. And that’s your goal.
If a prospective buyer sits down in your house, they are thinking of buying it.
But don’t buy sets of furniture and make payments until it wears out. Buy good used furniture for 10 cents on the dollar.
Then you can move to your next place and remix it all and see it in a new light. It’s SO much fun and it can make selling a house quick and inexpensive.
Paula and her husband Ron have several real estate businesses including a real estate selling and buying information business. Get real home selling and buying advice (not theory) from someone who has done it successfully many times. Their websites include, Sell House Quick and Sell House Yourself
Filed under News by on Sep 23rd, 2010. Comment. 
Epoxy Floor Paint Projects: Tips and Tricks That Save Time and Money
Here are useful tips learned during more than 40 years of installing epoxy urethane floor seals and coatings on Fortune 500 company concrete floors, as well as in basements, garages, and decks. These tips can help you avoid mistakes that can limit the life of your floor.
There are three broad steps to doing your floor project: planning and preparation, repairing, and applying the coating. This article is the first in a three part series, and deals with planning and preparation.
General guidelines for applying an epoxy coating to your floor:
Do no harm.
Investing in prep produces the best value, (cost divided by years of service).
Let the chemicals and equipment do the work.
What can go wrong, will go wrong, unless you think ahead.
Technique is what separates mortals from Rembrandts.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Now let's get started with tips on how to plan your job and prepare your floor.
Plan the job.
Stick your coating to something that is not going to move
The better the tools, the less work you have to do.
Removing loose concrete is as important as removing dirt
Different types of dirt require different cleaners
"Shocking" the floor can help free dirt and contaminants.
Some things must be abraded off.
Don’t blow bubbles through your finish
There is only one way to remove gum
Asphalt bleeds
If you coat over things that move, your floor may move
Vacuum out those holes
Gravity is unforgiving
. Once you prep your floor, anything in the air will eventually end up as dirt on your floor. So don’t wait too long to do your coatings. Bugs, leaves, dust, and lint can eventually compromise the quality of the job you end up with.. Water settles in floor cracks and holes. If you vacuum them out or blot them with a rag, you will not have the problem of unexpected delays due to finding water still in your floor after the surface has dried.
. Adhesives are often a problem to remove on floors. But if you leave the adhesive, your coating is like an eggshell. A hard exterior with a soft interior will often let the shell crack and peal away.
. If you use a solvent-based floor coating and coat over any asphalt spots, the solvents will make the asphalt bleed into your finish spoiling the color. Use a scraper to remove any asphalt. Then follow with some degreaser or mineral spirits.
. Modern gum is actually synthetic rubber and is not affected by cleaners or most solvents. Scraping is the most common method of removing gum but a 190-degree hot water jet works fast if you have one.
. Gases often come up through your porous concrete floor. Methane and radon gas are very common under concrete slabs and move their way through the concrete causing some bubbles in the finish. But most often bubbles are caused by the chemical reaction still going on between your cleaners and the floor. One or two good scrub rinses are needed to help avoid generating gas bubbles in your floor.
Gum, adhesive, asphalt, some paints, concrete splatters, silicone sprays from Rain X, and Tire Shine are just some of the blemishes that you may need to scrape or grind off by hand when preparing a floor.
When you do your laundry you put your shirt in the wash and it is probably at a pH of 6.5 or 7. Then you add your detergent, which may bring the pH up to 8 or 8.5. That pH change is part of what make the dirt particles want to let go of the fabric. When we do floors, we shock the floor by bringing the pH up to 12 and then hitting it with the acidic cleaner dropping the pH to 5.5 or so. That really helps make concrete particles that are about to let to, let go.
. If one cleaner worked for everything there would only be one cleaner sold. But some dirt and contaminants, like fats and oils, respond to alkaline-type cleaners and some dirt and contaminants, like minerals, rust and concrete respond, to acidic-type cleaners. If alkaline and acidic are mixed they cancel each other out to neutral, so two separate cleanings are needed for your concrete floor, one alkaline cleaning and one acidic, followed by a good scrub rinse to stop the chemical action.
. If you walk over concrete with your socks on, you will usually see that they get all dusty. That’s because the concrete is constantly deteriorating and breaking away. Your preparation should leave only concrete that is well attached, so aggressive scrubbing is a must.
Renting power scrubbers, walk-behind vacuums, double-bladed squeegees, and long-handled scrapers are all multipliers that reduce your work and increase your performance. You can try to do without lots of fancy tools, but you might have to ask yourself, will you stop your work earlier than you should because it's just too much work.
. Remember that a floor that has 3000 lb. or more going over it every day needs much better adhesion than a wall that may get brushed by an elbow occasionally. Stick your coating to something that is not going to move.
Save trips to the store and costly delays by getting everything you need ready before the job starts. One quick step would be to go to a website like www.concrete-floor-coatings.com for a free cost analysis which will list everything you need to do your job, including step by step instructions.
Remember, "Life imitates Star Trek." You may begin to notice in the future that virtually every floor in the galaxy seems to have a flow-coated, two-part coating on it. I am seeing fewer and fewer new wood floors, linoleum, or oriental rugs. How about you?
Follow the rules and your job will turn out with the great look you want.
For more information, contact Harvey Chichester at harvey@concrete-floor-coatings.com or phone 1-800-466-8910 or 952-888-1488 (24/7).
Durall Industial Flooring, has over 40 years of flow coated flooring experience. With over 500 specialty chemical products Durall Industial Flooring, provides 24/7 service hand help. Free cost analysis for each flooring project is available at www.concrete-floor-coatings.com
www.houseplansandmore.com – An sensational Country Home virtual tour featuring an amazing array of country home plans and log cabin styles with everything from sweeping wrap-around porches and great outdoor areas to cozy and comforting interior spaces.Make one of these dream homes a reality and view the floor plans. HDA, Inc. and HousePlansAndMore is a premier home plan provider with more than 17000 home designs to view and purchase at www.houseplansandmore.com. View more Country Home plan videos on the House Plans and More You Tube Channel www.youtube.com/user/houseplansandmore or find your dream home plan at www.facebook.com/HousePlansandMore
Video Rating: 4 / 5
Filed under News by on Sep 22nd, 2010. Comment.
Doing an Online Home Insurance Rate Comparison Can Save You Money
We all like to save money and when it comes to home insurance the best way to do this is with an online rate comparison. Just like with making any purchase comparison shopping is a great way to find a homeowners insurance policy that provides the coverage you need at a price you can afford.
All the major insurance companies have an online presence with interactive websites that allow their existing and potential customers the opportunity to request price quotes depending on their individual needs. This is important when you consider that your may well be the most expensive one time investment you ever make. Properly protecting it from all manner of damage and destruction makes sound financial sense.
So what can you expect when doing an online home insurance rate comparison? The first thing you need to do before you ever hit the internet is make sure you have the information the insurance companies will need to give you an accurate quote. If you currently have a homeowners policy get it out of your files because it will have much of the needed info already on it.
You will need to know the square footage of your home, the year it was built, and the type of construction materials used to build it. You will also need to determine the amount you need to insure your home for. Do not make the mistake of insuring it for its appraised resale value as this will unnecessarily raise your premiums. You need to insure your home for the cost of rebuilding it in the case it is damaged or destroyed.
Deciding on the amount of your deductible is also important and keep in mind that the higher the deductible the lower the monthly premiums. This is also the perfect time to do a complete home inventory to get an estimate on the value of all your personal property so that you can get the right amount of coverage for it.
Insurance companies also like to now how close the nearest fire station is in relation to your home and most also want to know the proximity of the nearest fire hydrant. You will also find savings on your monthly premium if you have a security/fire alarm system installed in your home.
Once you have all this information at hand you can go online and start filling out quote forms to get your home insurance rate comparison. To speed up the process find a quote generation site that gets multiple quotes from multiple companies while only needing to fill out one set of forms. Most of these sites return at a minimum 4 quotes but in many cases they will return more, giving you a better chance of finding the policy you need at the price you want.
To get started obtaining a free home insurance quote online visit the web site Home Insurance Quotes.
Filed under News by on Sep 20th, 2010. Comment.
Campaign money raises questions over Santa Ana vote
SANTA ANA – Developers and real-estate brokers poured thousands of dollars into the campaigns of City Council members who awarded them key roles in a pivotal redevelopment project, records show. City law appears to flatly prohibit some of those…
Read more on Orange County Register
Filed under News by on Sep 15th, 2010. Comment.
Save Money With Floor Plans
In almost every major real estate market in the country, prices for new homes have increased by double-digit amounts for the past few years. This has sent the price of new and used homes through the roof. Millions upon millions remain stuck in the dead-end rut of the rental game due to these skyrocketing home prices. But one way that you can possibly end the rental nightmare or perhaps even upgrade to a larger home is to use floor plans and start from scratch!
There was a time when a person had to hire an architect to have a set of floor plans drawn up for a new home. Not only was this a costly expense, but it was time consuming as well. Nowadays, of course, a person has any number of outlets where finding floor plans are concerned.
The Internet is prime territory for finding floor plans for almost any kind of home design. Builders often post floor plans of homes they have already built as a way of showcasing their work. There are also specialty sites who specifically sell floor plans. The cost of these plans will vary according to site and house type, but it is entirely possible to secure a set for less than 0. That is a fraction of what it would cost you to have an architect firm create floor plans from scratch.
If you are particularly computer savvy and love to be creative, you may want to design your own floor plans. Using a typical CAD (Computer Assisted Drafting) software program, you can create your own floor plans from scratch. Some of the better programs will be able to calculate load strengths and help you craft realistic plans. If you do not have one of the better CAD programs, then you may need to have your plans verified by a structural engineer or contractor to make sure that all of your designs are feasible and safe.
Of course, floor plans can also be found in a number of books available at any library or bookstore. These are tried and true plans that usually come with a picture of how the home will actually look when completed. The cost of a book with floor plans can run you from -75.
No matter where you get the floor plans, they are quite useless unless you have the land to build the home on along with the financing to have it built. A lot of time and money can generally be saved by buying your floor plans as part of a kit which includes most of the lumber and materials necessary to build the home. You are usually responsible for the plumbing, foundation, and electrical-but everything else is included to turn your floor plans and big dreams into an actual house of your very own. So consider floor plans and some property as a real economical solution to ending the rental nightmare.
To learn about gerbera care and gerbera jamesonii, visit the Gerbera Flower website.
More Floor Plans Articles
Filed under News by on Sep 9th, 2010. Comment.
Cheap House
Image by Sarah Oh
This is what 00 will buy you in Haskell, Oklahoma
SMART MONEY: Pay it off, don't pay it off, whatever
DEAR BRUCE: My wife and I, each in our late 60s, are retired. We live comfortably with my retirement income and Social Security. We have $ 7,500 left to pay on a mortgage at 4.75 percent with about five years left on it, and we have been advised that, because the dollar is going down in value, we should not pay the mortgage off with today's valuable dollars. My adviser is saying we should pay off …
Read more on The Oakland Press
Clooney's 'American' Wins Weekend With M
George Clooney's hitman tale "The American" has captured the top spot at the box office with a $ 16.4 million debut over the long Labor Day weekend.
Read more on Local 6 Orlando
Filed under News by on Sep 8th, 2010. Comment.
Disney Vacation Home Rentals: Get Luxury, Convenience and Save Money Too
Getting ready for a great time at Disney World? One of the most important parts of your preparation will be to reserve the right kind of accommodations. Before you start searching for hotels, you should consider renting a condo, home or villa. The Orlando area, and in the Disney World locality of Kissimmee, you will find a great selection of vacation home rentals. These rental homes combine luxury, convenience and price advantages which could make you change your mind about staying in a hotel.
What can you gain by staying in a rented vacation home as opposed to a hotel? Let's look at what a Disney vacation home rental can offer you. First of all, if you have a large family, or if you want to enjoy a vacation with friends or relatives, you can really save a lot of money by renting one of the larger vacation homes.
For example, you can rent a luxury five bedroom home for one week and pay around 00 and if you have two families with two or three kids each, then the per person rate will work out to be much less than a comparable hotel offering, and this doesn't even consider the saving that you can make on the meals.
But you don't need a large family or group to save money. Three bedroom homes start at only 5 per day which is what you might pay in a hotel, but the difference is that you get an entire home at your disposal. These homes are completely furnished and have amenities such as home entertainment systems (TV, DVD, etc), private swimming pools and in some cases games rooms and spas.
If you are thinking that you can only get this kind of deal in an inconvenient location, then you are dead wrong. You can get a spacious, comfortable and well equipped rental home located minutes from Disney World and other theme parks and attractions of the Orlando area.
Think about what this arrangement means in terms of flexibility and convenience. Your children will have their own bedroom and can sleep soundly just as they do at home. With a location minutes from Disney World you can come back to your home at midday or any other time you like and refresh yourself and get ready for the next outing. You will never have to worry about parking because all of the homes have their own private garages.
On top of the actual benefits you get from staying in the vacation homes, you can get some extras on top of this. For my rental agency offers the services of a discounted ticket agent who will deliver tickets directly to the home you are staying in for all major attractions in the area.
If you want to enjoy the advantages of price, location, luxury, flexibility and convenience that Disney vacation home rentals offer, then you should reserve in advance. The peak season is at the holidays of Easter, Memorial Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year.
So, what are you waiting for? Choose your Disney vacation rental home online, reserve it and get ready for an unforgettable Florida vacation.
Janice McSherry writes frequently about Orlando tourism. She is the proprietor of www.homesneardisney.us . Visit her website for great deals on Orlando Vacation Homes
Filed under News by on Sep 7th, 2010. Comment.
The Beach House
Image by Mike Mertz
The Southport Beach House
There’s money in that thar lake
Copyright 2010 LARZ F. NEILSON WILMINGTON – It was “diving for dollars” at Silver Lake, 50 years ago last weekend. On Sunday, August 28, 1960, youngsters found cash totaling $ 231 in the water at Moxie Beach. The story was reported on the front page of the Town Crier.
Read more on Wilmington Town Crier
Clijsters, Two-Time Open Champion, Is ‘Part Jersey Girl’
There are weeks during the North American hardcourt summer when Kim Clijsters, who advanced to the Open quarterfinals Sunday, retreats to the house she owns in Wall, N.J., with her husband, Brian Lynch.
Read more on New York Times
THIS OLD HOUSE: Washaway endures test of time (PHOTOS)
Before the community now known as Grayton Beach existed, the Washaway house stood tall and proud on its beaches. The Washaway was built around 1890 as a hotel by McCaskill Land and Timber Company as a place for their crews to live, said long-time…
Read more on The Walton Sun
Filed under News by on Sep 7th, 2010. Comment.
LICHFL Home Loan Offer
Image by Ravi Karandeekar
Floating rate – 8.75 %
New Fix – o – floaty – 8.9%
Advantage 5 – 9.25 %
Afghans continue pulling money from troubled bank
(AP:KABUL, Afghanistan) Nervous Afghans pulled more deposits out of the nation's largest bank on Saturday, despite assurances from government leaders that their money was safe.
Read more on INO News
McCourt delves into marriage at divorce trial
Dodgers owner Frank McCourt described himself Friday as a devoted husband who tried to comply with his wife's exorbitant wishes but stopped when she sought $ 250 million for her personal use.
Read more on AP via Yahoo! Finance
National News More>>
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Former Dodger CEO Jamie McCourt was more concerned with protecting the couple's luxurious homes than dealing with baseball matters and didn't want to take the risk associated with buying one of baseball's most storied franchises six years ago, her estranged husband said.
Read more on CBS4 Quad Cities
Filed under News by on Sep 5th, 2010. Comment.
Fulfill Your Dream of Owning Property in Jersey City and Hoboken through Online property Search
When it comes to owning a property, you have specific criteria to aid your search. If these are location, proximity to transportation, available jobs or just getting the best value for your money then consider the Jersey City and Hoboken real estate market. Despite the current economic condition, the real estate market of Jersey City and Hoboken has been able to hold its value. The Jersey City and Hoboken real estate properties consist of a wide range of properties whether your looking for elegant design, outstanding quality, or affordable price.
If you wish to purchase a condo then, Jersey City and Hoboken would be a perfect choice. Whether or not you have a comprehensive knowledge of real estate market’s in Jersey City or Hoboken, if you wish to purchase a property in these areas you will be highly benefited by going through a local real estate property expert.
There are several organizations that deal with the properties of these areas. That’s the reason it becomes a daunting task for the buyers to choose one. Before availing service from an agent you need to properly verify the authentication of the organization. You should only go for those which are well known among the masses and have an excellent portfolio.
The most beneficial way to search to purchase or lease a Hoboken or Jersey City property is online. An online community offers you a comprehensive range of real estate properties at the most reasonable prices as well as a wealth of information to help serve as your guide.
For more information regarding Jersey City Real Estate and Hoboken Rentals please visit www.locallylocated.com
Filed under News by on Sep 5th, 2010. Comment.
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