A Mid Century Modern Dilemma

My interest in mid century modern design really started when I began looking for a our new house. I was drawn to low roofed ranches with avocado green kitchens, and if I had an unlimited supply of money to sink into one,  I am sure that I would the proud owner of a 1969 North Hills ranch. Instead I am the proud owner of a five year old West Cary faux craftsman track home.

One of the great things about our newish house is the complete lack of decoration. There are no built-ins, no crown moldings, no chair railings. The most decorative thing is the mantel, and Yankee has promised to rip that thing out for me (a story for another day, I'm sure). Most people would find this a negative, but for me it just makes it easier to get that MCM feel I'm looking for.

Another way to achieve the look I want has been to load up on some nice pieces of furniture. One thing I have been searching for is a make up vanity for my bathroom.  I found a really fabulous piece at Gremlina Vintage in Fuquay-Varina, but while I debated buying it, someone else snatched that baby up. So I was again on the search until I found a desk on Craigslist that I thought might do, and the best part was the price - $30.

Yankee and I drove to North Raleigh to pick it up. The seller was absolutely the most hipsterish dude I have ever had the good fortune to meet. He lived in a tiny little hundred year old cottage that he had been renovating for several years. In true hipster fashion, he did not appear to be making much headway, but I digress.  We paid the guy $30 bucks and drove off with this:

In the  Craigslist photo I could not see what made this piece the true treasure it is. What I saw in the photo was a desk with nice MCM lines and drawers on the right side like I wanted but which were surprisingly difficult to find. I figured I'd bring it home, paint it and have a great little vanity.  When I saw it in person though, this is what I saw:

It has charcoal and rose Boomerang Formica! This was a really popular pattern in the 1950's. It is really cool and in pretty good condition too. The yellow top and edging are not it great shape though.

My dilemma is - do I paint it? On the one had I absolutely hate when people Pinterst-up MCM furniture. I see it all the time on Etsy and Craigslist. They will have a beautiful Lane Acclaim piece painted with gray chalkboard paint advertised as "Shabby Chic." It is really painful to think that beautiful piece of furniture painted and called shabby. On the other hand, the piece is the perfect size and style for my bathroom, but not the perfect color.

My bathroom is painted a light blueish gray and there is a lot of white in it. There is absolutely no pink. The pink in the laminate is very pale though, so not too noticeable. The yellow part is pretty rough with some holes in the top and gouges in the trim.

Last night I decided I was definitely painting it, so I took the whole thing apart to prep it, but I did not do any painting. It just feels wrong. I am considering just painting the yellow parts and leaving the boomerang. Any thoughts and/or advice from my readers?

On the inside, they used left over laminate. Now this color would be perfect in my bathroom.

This leftover piece is exactly like the counter top in my parents bathroom when I was growing up. 

Could the shape of this support get more 50's? I think not!

The two legs on the right side are wood painted black with metal caps.

It's ADOREable

I was meeting a friend at La Farm -  a tasty local bakery and restaurant - for lunch the other day. A few doors down from the restaurant is the Cary location of ADORE Designer Resale Boutique. I  always planned to check it out, but usually I am either running late for lunch or late for whatever I have going on after lunch or (and this is the most likely scenario) late for both, so I have never had the chance, but on this day I was a whopping 30 minutes early so check it out I did.

ADORE Resale Boutique

Now I have talked about my thrifting addiction before. Rarely does a week go by that I am not in a thrift store somewhere in the Triangle, looking for the perfect pair of old lady shoes or mid-century modern something, but shopping at ADORE should in NO WAY be confused with shopping at Goodwill. It is more on par with a high-end designer boutique. The biggest differences are there is way more stock than in a true boutique; much, but not all, of that stock has been worn before; and the prices are slightly less jaw-droppingly high. Slightly.

The shop itself is really attractive with nice displays through-out, and the equally attractive saleswomen was very friendly and helpful. And oh, the beautiful things they had. Jimmy Choo, Channel, Michael Kors. About the lowest end items I saw were a few pairs of Talbot shoes and an Ann Taylor skirt. Like I said before, not everything was used. I'd say maybe as much as 20% of the items still had the original tags on them.

Yankee swears that I can walk into any store and instantly hone in on the most expensive item there. I say it has more to do with good taste than actual dollar amount. It was either naturally inherited or nurtured into me by my parents. Either way, it happened in the form of a St. John red coat with faux fur trim dyed to match, except one touch  let me know the fur was not faux at all. The sales lady said it was beaver. I did not even bother to price it, since I knew it would be way out of my range and even if I could afford it, I would have to keep it hidden from Daughter and her vegetarian ways.

My fabulously fashionable gloves

Instead, I settled for a beautiful double breasted red wool gabardine coat and the most fabulous gloves ever. They are vintage black kid leather with white kid trim hand stitched inside. You can wear them up for a classic black glove look or  you can fold them over to show the white part if you are in a super-cool mood. The leather is so soft, just touching them is a joy. Though they are probably at least twenty years old, they had never been worn and still had the little hand written price tag and size tag on the inside.  My guess is no one could fit into them. I have surprisingly tiny hands and there were snug on me, but I bought them anyway, figuring they'll stretch a little over time.

Adorable red coat.

Overall, I rate ADORE fabulous, and I'll try to plan a little extra time to stop by whenever I have a La Farm lunch date. It will never take the place of my first love of digging around in the shelves and racks of a true thrift store though.

These Floors Score

In the latest edition of my newsletter* there is an article about two trendy flooring options - stained concrete and cork. I have never seen cork floors, and it is a little difficult for me to imagine flooring made out of such a soft material.  It seems like a bold ( or crazy) decorating choice - similar to putting white carpet into a house in Georgia's red clay country. Stained concrete on the other hand, seems like a brilliantly practical choice.

Concrete floors can go with any decorating style.

With a talented contractor, you can make your floors look like just about anything you want. I have seen them look like wood, flagstone and tile. They can look traditional or ultra modern, and your color choices seem infinite. My brother and sister-in-law just bought a new house and one of the main deciding features were  concrete floors  in the entire house - even the bedrooms. Even with their three big, rambunctious dogs, they can have beautiful, but easy to maintain floors.

                                             Modern Flooring by Passaic Artists & Artisans Concrete Shop

My sister was far in front of the concrete floor trend when she had them done in the house she built nine years ago. I asked what her opinion on them was after having lived with them for so long, and she said for her family of  a husband, three kids, a cat and multiple dogs, it was a great choice. Her recommendation was to hire an experienced contractor to do the work, so that the finish will last for years to come. One thing I can say is that after almost a decade, her floors look as good to me as they did in the beginning, and they have held up style-wise too.

*My newsletter is really interesting with a few short articles (written by professionals who are not me) and other features like demographic information and local events for whatever part of the country you are in. If you would like to receive it, just send me your email address.

My Thrift Store/Craigslist Problem

When I look at something - particularly something that falls into the category of houses or furniture - I rarely see what is actually there. Instead I see what it could be. I definitely inherited this curse talent from my parents.

One of my earliest memories was looking at a house that my parents bought when I was about four. It stuck with me because the upstairs was still charred from a house fire. It takes some real vision to buy a burned house, but they did it. They restored the unburned downstairs to it's 1910 Georgian splendor, and created a fabulous mid-century mod kids space (complete with yellow paneling and green carpet) out of the burned carcass of the upstairs.

My parent's biggest project - other than raising five kids that is!

 My projects are on a much less ambitious scale than that, but I almost always have something in the garage that needs sanding or painting. I must admit that I spend way more time finding pieces to work on than I do actually working on them. I am a regular visitor of the Triangle's many thrift stores, and every night I'm cruising Craigslist looking for cheap mid-century pieces that just needs a little love.

I thought I might share some of my latest acquisitions/projects over the next few weeks. I will start with the bamboo etagere* I found on Craigslist for $20.

Clearly my new shelf had been used to store paint cans at one point in it's life

Bunches of other projects in the background. Sigh.

I should have taken a video of how wobbly it was when I got it. Quite a bit of wood glue and some small nails helped me sturdy it up. I wanted to keep the antiqued yellow finish, but there was so much discoloration that I had to paint it, trying to get as close to the original color as possible, then I took a paint brush with some stain on it and flicked it to give it those random spots it originally had. The little corner pieces were in good shape, so I left them as is. After everything dried, I sealed the whole piece with an oil based, satin finished polyurethane.

Now the holder of many things including some Daughter made art.

It's sitting in front of my kitchen window with my colored glass bottles and the mint-condition early '70's green goblets I got at the Durham Rescue Mission Thrift Shop. It brings back memories of that yellow paneled and green carpeted playroom I spent my childhood in.

Green and yellow. A perfect color combo.

*Fancy new word I learned from endless hours of shopping for open shelves on Craigslist.

Historical Housing Prices Put in Perspective

Realtor.com has compared the change in the price of housing to the change of prices of other necessary items* over the past thirty years in this snappy little graphic.




*Okay, Radio Shack Stock is not really a necessity. 

Fall is a Buyer's Season

Autumn. The days are cooler. The kids are back in school. It is a great time to walk through a corn maze,  to enjoy a pumpkin spice latte, and to buy a house. According to Jonathan Smoke, chief economist at realtor.com, buyers who are willing to close in the off-peak months of fall and winter may very well have the upper hand in negotiations.

As usual with economists, it all comes down to supply and demand.  He says that normally inventory peaks in August and begins to slow as the nights grow longer. But this year the typical seasonal decline will start a bit later. There will be more choices in September than any other month in 2015. On the demand side, now that school has started, fewer people are interested in moving, so the number of contracts decreases. This means the sellers have fewer offers, so buyers may be able to negotiate a better deal for themselves.

I can attest to this with the real life example of selling my house last year. Yankee and I had big plans of putting the house on the market in June. Quickly June turned into July and then August, and still we did not have to house ready to sell. We finally had a firm marketing date in the beginning of September, but the day before it was to go live on MLS, Yankee went under the house and found water dripping. Our dishwasher was leaking. It took another six weeks to get everything fixed, so it was October before the house was on the market.

By this time, the type of buyers looking for a 3500 square foot, five bedroom home had either bought already or were waiting until spring because the school year was well underway. When an offer finally came in after six weeks on the market, we had to take it seriously even though it was way off our target price. We needed to sell and with no other offers, we accepted a deal we would have scoffed at in July.  Our loss was the buyers' gain. They got a beautiful home (with a brand new dishwasher and kitchen floor as a bonus) for an excellent price.

So if you are on the fence about buying, right now may be the best time to climb off that fence and buy your new home. If that buying is going to be in the Triangle, I am more than happy to help find the perfect house for you and negotiate a great deal on it.

The Royal Shower

In the two weeks since I last posted, we have done more unpacking, but sadly there are still so many boxes left to go. The good news though is our first major project in the house is done.

This house has many really great features such as a very good floor plan, large bedrooms and ginormous closets. It also has some pretty bad design choices such as putting granite counter tops in the kitchen with vinyl flooring. Seriously?!

Another questionable decision was in the master bath. It is very large with lots of natural light, an eight foot long vanity and a large linen closet - all good. Now for the bad - a two foot by two foot prefab shower. And when I say it is four square feet, that is the outside dimension. The space where you actually do your showering was even tinier. There was also a small garden tub that had a bad case of the uglies and that vinyl floor I mentioned in the kitchen? It was in the bathroom too. Yay!

 

I took videos of the house for Yankee when I looked at it the first time. I just watched the one from the bathroom, and the first comments I made was "that shower has got to go." I am happy to say it is gone and has been been replaced by a beautiful, roomy tile shower.

Because I have not taken a bath since I was nine years old (sitting in bathwater grosses me out), I see a bathtub as a floor space hog that must be kept clean, so I had my contractor, Jack Misnick, rip that baby out and make us a nice big shower. He and his people build me the most fabulous shower I have ever set foot in. Okay, I may be a little biased, but it is pretty great.

One of my favorite parts of the shower - the floor - almost did not happen. Well of course there was always going to be a floor since I have not mastered the art of showering whilst floating, but the floor was not going to look like it does now. I was determined to have marble tile on the floor, and I am sure that would have been beautiful, but it was soooo expensive.  Thankfully Krysta at Florida Tile came to the rescue and picked out the tile I have now. There is some marble in there along with blue, green and grey glass. It was a third of the cost, and I believe way more interesting than a plan marble floor would be. 

I had a pretty great shower in my Georgia house. It was one of those things about that house that I did not realize how nice it was until I moved to the rental. The rental shower had nice tile work, but it had a prefab pan for the floor that I really hated and the worse part was that it had no shaving ledge. I used one of those little plastic step stools which I was really happy to toss when we moved out. My new shower has a marble ledge that fits my entire foot, so I can shave away. 

Stepping into this tile and glass masterpiece is like stepping out of my real life and into some luxurious world that I am normally not part of. Sure I may have just come in from pulling weeds or scrubbing toilets, but while I am in this shower I feel like I am the Queen of Northwest Cary.

Cary's Newest Movie Theater

I hate going to movies. It is extremely rare that I go to any movie that does not have the words Harry Potter in the name. It's not that I don't like movies, because I love me some celluloid entertainment. It is the theater part I hate, in particular it is that one person in every movie who talks constantly or plays games on his phone or  eats candy covered in crinkly wrappers. For some reason those people always choose to sit right next to me or behind me. I guess it is the downside of my magnetic personality.

The reason I was willing to go to a movie in the first place.

Yesterday, though, I was so desperate to get away from our box filled home, that I suggested we go to the  Frank Theater's Cinebowl and Grill that recently opened at Parkside Town Commons in West Cary.  After Yankee got over his shock, he jumped at the chance (he is just as sick of boxes as I am).

Let me just tell you, Frank's is not your typical movie going experience. The difference started when I went online to buy tickets. They have assigned seating. The front to rows are the Rockers and the rest of the theater are Dine & Recline. We went for Dine & Recline not because we particularly wanted to dine or recline, but because we did not want to sit in the front two rows. It was a matinee, so Dine & Recline was $10 as opposed to the Rockers which were $8. At night they are $10 & $12 and on the weekend the Dine & Recline shoots up to a stunning $15. If you order your tickets online, there is a $1.25 service charge per ticket, so then you are looking at $16.25 for a movie (a bug-eyed smiley face emoji would be perfect here). Once you get to the theater, you go to machine and swipe your credit card to get your tickets.

Just a word about the building itself. As the name implies, it is not just a movie theater. There is a bar and grill, a bowling alley and an arcade. We did not use any of those options, but they looked nice.  There is a traditional box office where you can buy tickets and concessions. The theater is not huge. The two rows of rockers look like a typical theater, but that is where typical stops. the rest of the theater is made up of sections of big, cushy chairs that almost fully recline. The way the theater is designed you have tons of personal space so talkers/texters just are not an issue. Each chair has a little table that swings into place in front of it with a menu sitting on it. A server comes by to see if you want any food. We ordered sliders, and OMG they were delicious.

So once we scarfed down the sliders, we settled down to watch Straight Out of Compton.  It was a great movie. There was one thing that that was driving me crazy during the whole movie though, and it was not talking or texting. It was the fact that the actor playing Ice Cube looked exactly like Ice Cube. I don't mean he resembled him a little, I mean it was like they went back in time and plucked a young Ice Cube out of the late '80's and brought him back to play himself. It was freaky. I commented on this to Yankee after the movie, and he told me it was because the actor is his son.

I think it would be really weird to play your dad in a movie about his life. First of all, that actress you are snuggling up with is playing your mom. Awkward.  Thank goodness, she was one of the few women in the movie who was not topless. And the scene where there are two little kids playing in the back ground? One of those kids is you and the other is your sibling. Weird.

Anyway, I have to say this was the best movie going experience I have ever had. I think now that I know how fabulous Franks is, I will probably see more than two movies a year. 

Who's Your Agent? Part III

I forgot that I had already written a Buyer's Agent Post, so you should go there to find out all about buyer's agents.

Today, in my final chapter of Who's Your Agent? we will forge ahead to Dual Agency.  Dual occurs when the real estate agent represents both the buyer and the seller. This is different than a seller's agent selling the house to someone she does not represent. That scenario is like my example in Buyer's Agent: Don't Buy a Home Without One.

In Dual Agency, both the seller and buyer agree to be represented by the same agent, and the agent's job changes. She is supposed to become an unbiased facilitator.  She is not supposed to advocate for one side over the other. She does not negotiate but instead basically only communicates the parties' demands without offering an opinion on them. This is why I am not a fan of dual agency. I believe the reason you have a real estate agent is so you have your own personal advocate in the process.

Most sellers agree to dual agency in their listing contract because it increases the chance of the house's being sold.  Remember that every agent in the listing agency represents the seller, not just the listing agent, so for example, if any agent employed by Fonville Morisey were to sell my listing, they would be a dual agent in the deal. Since we have over 700 agents, the seller would greatly decrease the chance of selling the property if he does not agree to to dual agency.

In order to help solve this problem, there is one more type of agency called Designated Agency. Designated Agency is actually a form of dual agency in which agents from the same agency are assigned to solely represent the buyer or the seller in a particular deal. For example, if I have a buyer who wants to make an offer on a house listed by another Fonville Morisey agent, I can represent him as his designated agent. In this scenario I will represent him just like I would Buyer Client.

I believe this is a fair way to deal with the problem of dual agency. Designated agency is taken very seriously. The designated agent should have no prior confidential knowledge about the property. At our agency we talk about square footage and updates; we do not talk about seller's motivation, in case we get into a designated agency situation.

In North Carolin,a dual agency  must be disclosed to all parties involved. It is mentioned in the Working with Real Estate Agents Brochure, and your agent should discuss it with you.

I hope this series has made agency a little less confusing. Below is a video published buy The North Carolina Real Estate Commission that explains the brochure.

Who's Your Agent? Part II

What is an agent anyway?

The Business Dictionary defines an agent as: Party that has express (oral or written) or implied authority to act for another (the principal) so as to bring the principal into contractual relationships with other parties.  If that cleared everything up for you, I will be back next week with some exciting photos of my new bathroom. If you are more confused than ever, read on.

 Seller's Agent
The most straight forward agency relationship in real estate is that of a seller who has a signed listing agreement with a real estate agent. If Sarah Seller signs a listing agreement with Anton Agent to sell her condo, Sarah is the principal and Anton is her agent. That is simple enough, but since nothing can be that easy, let's say Anton, like most agents, works for a real estate agency.  Even though only Sarah and Anton are sitting in her living room signing the papers, she has actually signed an agreement with Anton's entire agency. Every single agent that works for that company now represents Sarah. If Anton dies in a tragic rhinoplasty gone bad, Sarah is still in a listing agreement with his company, and his broker-in charge will send over a substitute named Gerald to take his place. 

Once you have signed a listing agreement, the listing firm and its agents must • promote your best interests • be loyal to you • follow your lawful instructions • provide you with all material facts that could influence your decisions • use reasonable skill, care and diligence, and • account for all monies they handle for you. The firm and its agents may not give any confidential information about you to prospective buyers or their agents without your permission so long as they represent you. 

Caution: Remember last time when we talked about Anything you say can and will be used against you? This comes into play here because until you have signed the listing agreement, you are not in an agency agreement and the loyalties in the above paragraph do not apply.  If you interview three agents before signing a listing agreement with one, the other two owe you no loyalty at all, so do not mention any confidential information in the interviewing process that can be used against you later. For example do not say I'd be willing to re-sod the entire yard, paint the outside purple and install a swimming pool to get the asking price, because you better believe if one of the agents you did not hire ends up representing a buyer, she will tell him to ask for all of that in the contract. 

It is late and I really need to get back to my binge watching of Fringe (Fauxlivia just found out she is got pregnant with Peter's baby while she was on assignment in our universe).  I will be back tomorrow to talk about buyer's agents.

Who's Your Agent? Part I

Who's your agent? That should be an easy question, right? Most people would answer with, "It's the guy driving me around showing me houses." Maybe. Maybe not.  The rules of agency make a seemingly easy question complicated. But never fear, I am here to clear it all up for you. This will be a multi part series because, well, it is a complicated subject, so those of you who are here to see what colors I'm painting my walls will just have to wait.

The North Carolina Real Estate Commission asks more questions about agency on the real estate exam than anything else, which means not understanding it is the downfall of many REALTOR wanna-be's .  It is ironic then, that they expect real estate agents to explain the rules of agency to any potential client in just a few minutes when only about 40% of the students who have a professional instructor in a 75 hour course can get it.

This brings us to the North Carolina Working with Real Estate Agents brochure.  This page turner must be presented and explained to any potential client at the first substantial meeting. What the heck does first substantial meeting mean? Basically this means that it should be presented before personal details concerning the buying or selling of real estate are discussed. Personal details include salary, motivations for buying or selling, the amount you are willing to pay for a property you want to buy or the amount you are willing to take for a property you are selling.

So it is okay to say, "I'd like to buy a house between $150,000 and $200,000." But you should not say to a real estate agent you do not have an agency agreement with,"OMG! This is the best house ever! I would pay $10,000 over asking price if that's what I have to do to get it."

Think of this brochure as your Miranda Rights. As we all know - hopefully from watching countless police shows and not personal experience - the first thing a police officer does after arresting a suspect is read him his Miranda Rights. The first of those rights is your right to remain silent, which you should do because anything you say can and will be used against you. The same holds true of any personal information you give to someone who is not your agent. When it comes to real estate, you should always assume anyone you are talking to is not your agent until you have made an agency agreement with him.

After an agent goes over the brochure with you, she will ask you to sign it. THIS IS NOT A CONTRACT! Your signature just shows the Real Estate Commission that the agent went over the brochure, so sign away.

In the next post we will start to talk about the forms of agency, but I want to say one other thing about the brochure. Personally, I think you can judge to quality of real estate agent by when she presents this brochure to you. She should go over it with you at the beginning of your relationship. I believe if she waits until you are about to sign a listing contract or an offer to purchase, she has not done her job correctly, and she may not have your best interests at heart.

A Cook's Paradise

I grew up in a small town in Mississippi. Some of my family and friends still live there and for the most part they love their home, but there is one complaint I hear over and over from them - the lack of a decent grocery store.

They have basically three choices: A poorly stocked Kroger; the Walmart Super Center; and a small grocery store called Sunflower. If you are lucky enough to be active duty or retired military you can also shop at the air force base commissary. And that's it. This is a really big issue for the fabulous cooks living there like my mom, Sister III,  Brother-in-Law, BFF and her her youngest child.

One day BFF was complaining she could not find shallots anywhere in Small Town Mississippi . In my continuing effort to get her to uproot her family and move up here, I pointed out that the only problem you would have in Cary is choosing between multitude of grocery stores from which to procure your shallots.

She could pick up her shallots at one of North Carolina's own Harris Teeter's. If she wanted organic shallots she could try Whole Foods, Trader Joe's or Earth Fare. For a friendly shallot, she could go to the brand new Publix. I have never been Lowe's Supermarkets or Food Lion, but I bet they have shallots too. I'm not sure if there are Indian, Asian or Hispanic shallots, but if there are, she can pick them up at one of our many specialty grocery stores.
 
So here I am in Cary with at least ten different shallot buying opportunities, and would like to know how many times I have actually bought shallots or anything more difficult to find than organic milk? None. Zip. Zero. Why? Well it is a two fold answer. First and most importantly, I hate to cook. Absolutely loath it. People tell me it's a shame because I am a pretty good cook (I learned from the best - my mom).

The second answer is that I hate going to the grocery store even worse than cooking. No matter how spectacular they are, and let me tell you, we have the most fabulous grocery stores I have ever been in, I just hate going. Luckily for me, Yankee does not mind going at all. He says it reminds him of shopping with his dad when he was a kid, so he does pretty much all the food shopping (that's what he calls it) around here.

It is sad that I have an abundance of food choices and yet do not take advantage of them at all, while the great cooks from home have almost no choice at all. I guess they are just all move up to Cary AKA Cook's Paradise.

California Dreaming

Number One Son and me at the Santa Monica Pier

The last time I saw Number One Son was right before he moved to Los Angeles in April seeking fame and fortune or something like that. So when I had the chance to fly out for his birthday, I jumped on it.

I left early Sunday morning. My love for something or someone can be accurately judged by how early I am willing to get up for it. In this case it was 4:45am which equals much love. Because of the time change, I arrived early Sunday morning. In all of my travels, I have never been to LA, so I made Number One Son show me everything. We literally covered the entire city in one day.

We started in Santa Monica and drove through Malibu, some of the canyons outside of the city, back into the valley, through Beverly Hills and down Sunset Boulevard. I experienced the famous LA traffic first hand. A side note here - you know your child has become a Californian when he spends as much time discussing his planned route for his trip to Northern California as he does the vacation itself. 'I want to take the One all the way up but I'll probably take the Five to the 101 to the One so I can skip this traffic.'
 

What half a million bucks will buy you in LA

As a mom and a REALTOR, I needed to see his house. This boy grew up in a very affluent, very white suburb of Atlanta. He now lives in a working class neighborhood made up of primarily of  Hispanic families. Because it's LA, the house he lives in, which is a 2300 square foot, rather old, slightly rundown, craftsman cottage, sold for almost half a million dollars in January. That makes much pricier than the typical McMansion in the Atlanta suburb. You know what they say about real estate though. Location, location, location.

He shares this house with five other people, but at least he has his room. It is slightly larger than my walk in closet. With no A/C and one tiny window, I imagine it is similar to sleeping in an oven. The entire postage-stamp sized back yard is cemented over. One of the weirdnesses of living in Southern California is they keep their washer and dryer in the back yard. It is fine there since it never rains. I guess you can do some grilling and a load of whites at the same time.

The view of downtown LA from our hotel window

We met up with Yankee downtown. Noah wanted to have steak for his birthday so we went to this great place called Frank's. It's been in it's location since 1953. I am not sure what the neighborhood was like then, but now it is part of Korea Town. The clientele was a fabulous mix of people from the neighborhood and people who looked like they had been eating there since the '60's.

After dinner we were all pretty pooped, so Number One Son dropped us off at our hotel. Yankee and I flew back home on Monday. It was a whirlwind of a trip, but I was so happy to have made it. It was nice to see the boy settling down in his new, way different environment. I am still sad he is so far away, but I am happy that he is happy. 

Painter's Block

When we bought our first house, we were coming from living in those bastions of  builder's beige walls - apartments and military housing. I could hardly wait to put color onto my new walls. I had  the paint picked out before we even moved in. I painted our dining room midnight blue, the living room forest green, and our bedroom burgundy. Trust me, in the early nineties this was the palette.

We moved to our second house in 1999, and I took a break from all that partying to paint my foyer eggplant and my dining room chili pepper. The family room was spring green and the sunroom had yellow walls and a blue ceiling. There was not a wall in that house that I did not make colorful. I was very sad to paint everything the same color when we put it up for sale.

We closed on our new house last Monday. One of things I so looked forward to about moving out of the rental was getting away from the taupe that covers every single wall. The New House has off white walls which is a nice, blank canvas to work with.

Here is the surprising thing - I just cannot get started. I have taken a tree's worth of paint samples from Lowe's and Home Depot. They are taped all over the house, but I have not been able to make a decision. I have owned this house for a week now and have not bought a single gallon of paint.

I clearly have painter's block. As a writer, I know how hard writer's block is to overcome. The only real cure for it is to write which does not really make sense, but it does work. I just sit down and start typing out anything that comes to mind. I often have to resort to writing blah, blah, blah when I am really stuck. Then I come back to that part later and replace the blahs with real words.

I think this what I am going to have to do in the new house. I want to paint my sewing room first because I am very anxious to get it set up, but since I cannot choose between the multitude of color samples taped on the wall, I am going to pick out a nice creamy white and just paint. If you know me, you know how bizarre this is. I have never willingly painted a wall white in my life, but I am pretty sure it is the only way to get my color flow back. The white will be my painter's version of blah, blah, blah. Hopefully I will be able to come back later with a real color.

A Great Real Estate Day

One of the main reasons I decided to be a REALTOR is my love of houses and design. My guess is that the majority of people who make a career out of selling residential real estate feel the same way, but when we get into the business we quickly find out our business really has very little to do with houses and a whole lot to do with people.

The part that has to do with houses is mostly related to our clients, so we see the houses our clients see. According to The Triangle Business Journal, the current median sales price of a home in the Triangle is $231,00. This means most of the homes REALTORS are touring within a range of that price. These are good houses for people to make their homes in, but they are not the million dollar homes you find in magazines. Just like most people, we in the industry rarely have a reason to go inside one of those homes.

That is why when one of our agents had a broker's open house yesterday for her 1.8 million dollar listing, I was one of the first ones at the door. I expected spectacular, and I was not disappointed. This was absolutely one of those houses that could be in a magazine.

The overall look of the house was impressive, but as someone in the business, it was the details that blew me away. They are way to many to list, but I did take a picture of the home theater that I think really shows off the attention to details.

 It is designed to look like the inside of a theater, and the riser even have small lights in them just like in a movie theater. Of course the seats are way more comfy than any movie theater I've ever been to. And this is just a basement room, so you can just imagine how grand the rest of the house is.

Getting to see the inside of an incredible home like this made it a great real estate day for me. If you would like to see it, AND you are pre-qualified to purchase a 1.8 million dollar home send me an email, and I will set you up. 

Buyer's Agent: Don't Buy a Home Without One

When we bought our last house in Georgia, I did what many buyers do. I called the number of the agent on the sign in the yard and made an appointment to see the house. I did not really consider that the person showing me the house was the seller's agent, and I certainly did not know what that meant. I just knew I wanted to see the house and this person had the keys. We went on to buy that house without ever getting our own agent to represent us, and let me tell you, it was a very unpleasant experience. If I only knew then what I know now. Luckily for you I am here to share my knowledge with you.

The agent whose name is on the sign in front of the house is the listing or seller's agent which means she represents the seller and thus is concerned with the best interest of her client, the seller. You are not her client, you are merely a customer. Think of the listing agent as a car salesperson. His fiduciary responsibility is to his employer, the car dealership, and he is going to try to sell cars for the most money possible thus bringing in the greatest profit to his employer. 

If Ms. Listing Agent is showing you her client's home, and you mention that your wife told you she is going to divorce you if you don't buy this house, you better believe she is going to pass that information on to the seller. It is her responsibility to give her client, Mr. Seller, any information that will help him sell his house at the best terms possible.

On the other hand, Ms. Listing Agent is required by the rules of agency to keep important information about her client confidential. Any real estate agent in the state of North Carolina (and hopefully all other states as well) is bound by a code of ethics and must be truthful when it comes to material facts about the property no matter who she is representing, but she should not disclose her clients motivations. She is never going to tell you that he is willing to take 20% less than asking price and throw in the washer and dryer too. 

And here is another surprising fact - every single other real estate agent is working for the seller too - not just Ms. Listing Agent. All of the other agents are considered seller's sub agents, and it is their duty to work on behalf of the seller's best interest as well. It used to be this was the only way real estate agents worked until someone decided it might be nice for the buyer to have some representation in the biggest financial deal she is likely to make in her entire life.

That is how we got something in North Carolina called Exclusive Buyers Agency. With this agreement which can be written or even oral until an offer is made at which time it must be written, the buyer is getting an agent to represent her interests in the deal.  So if your buyer's agent finds out that the seller is willing to go 20% lower on the price, she is going to share that information with you her client.

Having a buyers agent is helpful in so many other ways. She can use the data available to her to come up with the best offer in terms of price and other considerations. She will negotiate with the sellers agent or the sellers directly if they do not have an agent. She will negotiate repairs and other due diligence issues, and in many other ways help you make it to closing as painlessly as possible.

Best of all, these services generally don't cost you a thing because the buyer's agent is paid out of the commission paid by the seller.  Some people worry that a buyer's agent who is paid by the seller will not be loyal to them, but because of the rules of agency and the code of ethics, this situation really does work.

So I recommend you get a good buyer's agent on your side before you start looking at real estate and avoid all of the unpleasantness of that purchase I made without one.

Froggy A Cappella

Our townhouse overlooks a retention swamp. My guess is it was originally meant to be a retention pond, but at some point the developer and/or HOA gave up on its being full of water. They have tried to make it look like it has a purpose by landscaping it  and putting a picnic table down in the middle of it, but the only use I have ever seen made of the picnic table is as a place for the neighborhood kids to put their jars full of tadpoles that they have fished out of the swampy water that surrounds it.* If I were a kid, I would be right down there with them. As an adult I wish it were a full pond maybe with a nice fountain in the middle.

The retention swamp in the day

It would be reasonable to assume that with a swamp a mere forty feet from my back door we would have a terrible mosquito problem, but due to the parents of the afore mentioned tadpoles, we are fairly free of those flying, buzzing, blood-sucking fiends. It really is amazing the frogs even have time to clear the skies of mosquitoes what with their constant ongoing choir practice.

In Georgia the sound of summer evenings is cicadas. Apparently in North Carolina, at least in my little corner of Cary, it is frogs. I have never heard such a cacophony. We can hear it in the house with the insulated windows closed. We can hear it over the TV. We can hear it from our third floor bedroom. It is especially loud when the bullfrogs join in with their baritone ribbits.

The retention swamp at night

There is no swamp behind the new house. There is thick tree barrier that I think will be nice to look at, but I doubt we will have our own froggy a cappella group serenading us on summer nights. I will definitely miss that.

*Don't worry, the tadpole catching is a catch and release program only.

She's Got That Sparkling Personality

The perfect house we are buying is, like all houses, not quite perfect. We did just what I advise my clients do when choosing a new home - separate things that cannot be changed  or would be prohibitively expensive to do so like location and major structural and/or renovation changes, from things that are easier and relatively inexpensive like minor updating such as painting and new flooring. Buy according to the first list not the second.

The perfect things about the house are its location, floor plan, and condition. The not so perfect thing is that some parts of this house were finished to builder's minimums. Although the kitchen has granite countertops the floor is vinyl. The master bath is huge with an eight foot vanity, a water closet with a window (goodbye claustrophobia), and even a large linen closet which is a great.  The not so great features are the same not-so-lovely vinyl floor, a 24" X 24" prefab shower and one of the ugliest prefab tubs I have ever seen.

To be fair, I am slightly prejudice against bathtubs. I have not used one since I was ten years old, so I  see them as space wasters and dust collectors. I want to pull both the shower and tub out and have a nice, big tile shower built plus replace the vinyl floor with tile. The hall bath has a plastic surround that College Girl hates, so we are going to have it tiled and have the kitchen floor tiled as well.

I am pretty good with design, but I needed to pick out about seven different tiles, so I made an appointment with Krysta at Florida Tile in Morrisville. She was a huge help - particularly with keeping me on budget. Yankee says whatever is the most expensive; that is what I'm going to pick out. I like to tell him - I only want the best Baby, that's why I picked you.

Anyway, Krysta and I got the bathrooms picked out but were having a really hard time finding something I liked for the kitchen floor until she pulled a piece out from the back. I liked it the minute she showed it to me, but as I studied it, I noticed something a little different about it that I did not notice at first.

Me - Are those tiny little sparkles?

Krysta - We call those flecks. It's meant to be like natural quartz.

Me - Flecks. Sparkles Whatever. I want it!

A few of my sparkliest items. I've worn the silver shoes maybe three times. I actually carry the purse almost daily because silver sparkles brighten any outfit. As for the gold shoes - what can I say? The caught my eye on the clearance rack at Target a few years ago. I have never worn them outside of the house, but every once in a while I do like to try them on.

I realized I had an obsession with sparkles when I first started working and was going through my wardrobe looking for appropriate work clothes. What I found were the things I wear all the time - jeans, cardigans and tee shirts - and an inordinate amount of sparkly clothing that I almost never wear, mostly because I have no place to wear sparkles. At this point, I had to admit to myself that I am much girlier than I ever thought. Until now, I have been able to hide this part of myself, but in a few short weeks my secret obsession with sparkles is going to be laid out on my kitchen floor for all to see.

It's Almost Here

Yankee and I had always planned to move away from Georgia when College Girl graduated from high school. We just were not quite sure where. All kinds of places were thrown around, but Yankee was seriously surprised when I suggested Kansas City. We know no one there, it's not near a place Yankee could work or a school for College girl, so why would I want to live there? Simply because of two wonderful words - Google Fiber.

Just the thought of being done with cable was enough to make me consider moving half way across the country. In the end, though, factors other than our internet provider won out, and we moved to The Triangle. As much as I love it here, we still had to deal with a cable company. This time it is Time Warner instead of Comcast, but really is there any difference? The only improvement was that being referred to as Kathy for twenty-two years by Comcast was over. I guess that is something.

Imagine my glee back in February when  it was announced that The Triangle was one of the expansion areas for Google Fiber. My perfect place to live made even perfecter by ultra fast internet. There was a rumor that they would move into the Cary/Morrisville area first, so I did a little happy dance for a while and then put it out of my mind. After all, if dealing with the cable company has shown me anything, these kinds of things take forever. 

It turns out Google is nothing like cable in many ways. Instead of years, this forever only took four months. They broke ground in Morrisville on Tuesday, and it looks like Cary will be next. Yay for us!

On Friday we got a letter from Time Warner letting us know faster internet is on its way. All we have to do is get a new modem from them, so we can be ready when this extra speedy internet is available in our area. They are not sure of the exact date, but they will let us know as soon as it happens. I am thinking that will actually be a real forever. No worries here, though, because I'll let them keep their new modem and wait (a very short while) for Google Fiber. And I did not even have to move to Kansas City.

Bravely Serving My 48 Hours

As a very pale person who has spent her entire life in the Sunny South, a close working relationship with a good dermatologist is a must. When my new dermatologist's receptionist apologized because it would be a three week wait before they could get me in, I almost laughed because in Atlanta it would have taken four months minimum to get an appointment. This is one of the best parts of living in the Triangle - fabulous medical care.

The Triangle is home to two of the country's top medical schools, Duke University and the University of North Carolina, so this area produces more than it's fair share of excellent doctors and nurses. Many of them never leave because it is such a great place to live. This gives us a plethora of doctors to choose from, fast appointment times and short waits in the office.

After examining me with a magnifying glass - literally - my new doctor's plan of attack was to treat my entire face at once to get rid of all the per-cancerous spots at once, which seemed way better than having pieces of my face scrapped off little by little.

The treatment involved a photo-sensitizing medicine and a very precise 16 minutes and 40 seconds in front of a blue light.  For me the actual treatment was a breeze,  but now I am suffering through the tough part - no sun for 48 hours.

Apparently the medicine's photo-sensitizing effects take a while to wear off, so I have to stay out of the sun completely in order to prevent post-treatment burns. And they mean it. Three different people said we are not kidding before I left the office with my wide brimmed hat shoved down low on my head.

All of the shades in the house are closed, but I still cannot sit close to the window. I cannot sit near a lamp either. Thank goodness computer light was not included in the list of no's. I could not survive without some link to the outside world.  I have gone all Orange is the New Black and am scratching out little hour marks on the wall. I'm halfway through my sentence. Tomorrow at noon I get sunshine and a ticket to drive.

The Not So New Girl

I am fairly new to the Triangle. It's been a long time since I was new anywhere. Before when I was new, all I had available to help me out was my good natural sense of direction and place. There were maps too, but I am very map challenged. Yankee can look at a map of the entire state of North Carolina and zone in on College Girl's dorm in a split second. I could search for hours and never find it, but I CAN  refold it perfectly which makes us a perfect pair.  A neatly folded map does not get you very far though, so luckily I now have Google Maps Lady to tell me where to go.

Even with her at my side, not being familiar with the area was sort of awkward, particularly since I'm in a business were knowing the area is very important.  For a while most of my conversations included 'where is that?' or 'I don't really know that area', and if I made plans to meet someone, I always let them choose the place because I didn't really know any places.

The other day, I think I crossed a big new resident milestone with one simple text. I was making plans with a friend, and I suggested we go to the new Starbucks next to the Verizon store. This was big not only in that I suggested the place, but also because the Starbucks and Verizon store are even newer than me. They were only a cleared lot when I moved here and now they are places to meet friends. I think that makes me if not an old timer, at least a not so new girl.

Bonnaroo Roundup

A view of Bonnaroo from What Stage

Yankee and I just returned from our second Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival.  We were part of the crowd that swells the population of Manchester, Tennessee from 10,000 to 90,000+ for four days every June.

Because of house buying and work, we didn't plan on going this year, but at the last minute decided we would. Sadly by that time the VIP  (AKA old folks) section was sold out. There was no way I was staying in general admission, and the VIP tickets on resale sites were way too expensive, so once again we were on the planning-to-not-go plan. Then Sunday night some reasonably priced Guest tickets came up on EBAY, and our trip was back on again.

The Guest campground is populated with music industry people, friends and family of artists, non-profit people and even some of the very smallest artists themselves (small as in playing the tiniest stages, not small in stature), and it is very different then VIP which is almost exclusively people over 30.

The campground is shaded which is great, but very haphazard. Every day there was a new tent or car popping up closer to us. Yankee and I had to turn off our orderliness to deal with that. I also had to try to overcome my germophobia in order to deal with the very worst part of not being in VIP - Port-a-Potties. All I can say is ugh.

The best thing about Bonnaroo is there is so much different music in one place, and you get to enjoy it in the company of thousands of other music lovers. We saw everything from banjo playing (Bela Fleck & Abigail Washburn) to '70's soul (Earth, Wind and Fire). You can experience  performances you would never see otherwise. The best off beat performance we saw was Tanya Tanaq. She is an Inuit throat singer. It was absolutely amazing.

Recorded music is great but it will never replace live music. I never knew the lead singer of  Alabama Shakes was a fabulous guitar player before seeing them Friday night. If you listened to My Morning Jacket records, you would probably say they were a little folksy, but if you saw them at Bonnaroo Friday night you witnessed a '70's style rock opera (cape included). I knew Florence of Florence and the Machine had a great voice, but I didn't know how great until I watched her dance and sing for an hour and a half Sunday night.

So yes, Bonnaroo is miserably hot, dusty, crowded and stinky, but it is so worth it. I hope we get to go to many more times before we get too old and decrepit.

Sight Unseen

When our perfect house popped up on the MLS at 7pm, Yankee and I leashed up Tiny Terror and made the four minute trek to check it out. We gave as thorough a once over as we could without causing the neighbors to call 911 which means we basically admired it from the sidewalk. It looked good from there, and knowing it would go fast in this crazy Cary market, I made an appointment to see it first thing in the morning.  I toured it solo because Yankee had to go to work

It had our major criteria:

1. It was in our budget
2. Location, Location, Location
3. Two master closets - It actually does not have two closets, but the 12 x 6 is just begging to be divided in  half
4.  It was in good condition with very little cosmetic or repair work needed. 

While that was the good news,; the bad news was that it certainly fit the criteria of many other Triangle area house hunters. I dashed straight to the office, worked up the offer and submitted it that morning. 

But Cat, you forgot to tell us the part where you took Yankee to see it, he loved it too and then you made the offer.  It's not that I forgot to tell you about that step; it just did not happen.. That's right - Yankee agreed to by the most expensive thing he has ever purchased sight unseen. 

As confident as I was in this deal the listing agent was equally apprehensive. I understood her position, and if I were the listing agent in this deal I would be nervous too. But with the  combination of  Yankee's traveling schedule and the super competitive Triangle market, it was our only choice if we wanted a shot at the house. 

I am happy to say that ten days into the contract, Yankee has finally seen the inside of the house.  He agreed it's the perfect house for us. 

My Virtual Quirk

When I was in high school, my friends and I would drive by the houses of the boys we liked. I don't know what we were thinking. Maybe that the boy would see us drive by and come running out his house waving his hands in the air to get us to stop, so he could ask one of us out.

Luckily I graduated from high school, and dropped the stalking  - that is until we bought our second house. It was less than a mile from the house we lived in at the time, so it was quite convenient for house stalking. Before we had a contract on it, I would tell myself I was just driving by to see if it was still for sale. This was back in the dark ages of the late nineties. I guess houses for sale were available online then, but I do not ever remember looking at it on the good ole Packard Bell. Once we had a contract, I would still drive by every couple of days. I am not sure why.  I think seeing it made it feel more real to me - that it was soon to be our home.

The house we are buying now is so close I could use the excuse of taking The Tiny Terror on a walk to check it out, but I haven't. I have not driven past it either. It's not because I've been cured of my house stalking. It's because I can now cyber stalk, although I prefer the less felonious term, creeping.  It is even better than the old drive by because now I can see the inside of the house as well. I check the online listing at least once a day. I like to look at the pictures of the rooms and imagine what color I will paint them, how we will arrange the furniture, where we will put the Christmas tree, where the California Kid will stay when he comes to our new home to visit. Then I like to send the pictures to my family members, so they can give their approval.

At least 85% of all home buyers start their search online. I wonder if those buyers continue to check out their house online after they have signed the contract, or is that just my own special quirk.

121 Holly Thorn Trace

Not only am I buying a house, I am selling one too - for someone else because that's what realtors do. This  2788 square foot home was completely renovated last fall, but the homeowners are relocating.  They have done the hard work, now the new buyer can simply move in and enjoy. This wonderful home is in Holly Springs which is just a hop, skip and a jump from Cary via 540.

The house is on a large corner lot. The backyard slopes into the cul-de-sac, so the house lives like a cul-de-sac lot without the parking issues.

The large front porch is the perfect place to enjoy a glass of ice tea while staying cool under the ceiling fan.

The sunny family room has a cozy fireplace with gas logs. The gleaming floors were installed during the fall renovation and are in pristine condition.  The entire house was freshly painted at that time as well.  This home features smooth ceilings throughout.

The fabulous kitchen was the main focus of the the renovation. It features custom cabinetry, granite countertops and Kenmore Elite stainless steel appliances.

The generously sized master bedroom is on the main floor. There is plenty of natural light, a tray ceiling and ceiling fan.

The master bath has a beautiful vanity with a granite countertop and dual sinks.

The extra large custom tile shower has a rainfall shower head and a side jet as well. There is a separate tub.

 The back yard has a pergola that overlooks the cul-de-sac.

Enjoy summer cookouts on the built-in charcoal grill.

 Keep cool in the summer at the neighborhood pool which is included in the low quarterly HOA fee.

In addition to the master bedroom there is a second bedroom and full bath on the main floor plus an office with a closet. There are three additional bedrooms and a full bath upstairs along with a finished bonus space. All of the bedrooms have ceiling fans. The carpet was replaced during the renovation.  There is an outside storage shed, and the garage has built in cabinetry.  The hot water heater was replaced this year. All of this $289,900.