Does this Zipcode Make Me Look Smart?

Hubby and I made our annual trek to Bonnaroo Music and Arts festival in Manchester, Tennessee. If you are unfamiliar with this event, it is four days of music, 70,000 sweaty, stinky people and scorching heat. Doesn't that sound fabulous? Are you already making plans to attend next year?

Just in case you are undecided, let me sweeten the deal with camping. In a tent. I personally have been camping four times in my adult life. The first was when the kids were little, and I swore I would never do it again. Three years ago, I happily broke that promise to myself to go to Bonnaroo, and it was so worth it.

While we set up camp on Thursday (and by we, I mean mostly Hubby), I went around meeting our neighbors. Pretty much the first question asked is where are you from. We of course got very nice reactions when our answer was the Raleigh area.  Several people made comments about the education level of the Triangle. When one guy said there are a lot of very smart people in the Triangle, Hubby and I said in unison that an exception was made for us.  Several people asked if we were professors or worked at one of the universities.

We are no dummies, but around here, we are pretty much average joes. The Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area is always in the top ten rankings of most educated regions of the country, most PhD's per capita and most STEM workers. Living in the Triangle is like seeing yourself in a smart mirror which is similar to a skinny mirror except instead of reflecting a slimmer version of you, it reflects a more intelligent version of you.

Of course here in Cary, I am pretty quickly recognized for what I am which is a liberal arts major from a southern state school. When I tell people that I have a daughter who goes to Carolina, I'm often met with a look of skepticism.  I am sure they are thinking 'Really?! How could you possibly have produced a child smart enough to get into Carolina.' Oh well, I look smart to the rest of the world, so I am going with that.

Tiny House

Someone asked me today if there were any tiny houses for sale in the Cary/Raleigh area.  She did not mean a 1,000 square foot bungalow; she meant a tiny house.  As in the 250 square foot homes made popular by HGTV's Tiny House Hunters.  I was genuinely sorry to say I did not know of any in the area because I would love nothing more than to tour a bunch of houses with less square footage than the master bathroom of the houses I typically show.

Adorable Tiny House

The appeal of tiny houses is undeniable. They are just so darn cute with their cozy porches and pipe chimneys. They are filled with little cubbies and hidy-holes to store all of your stuff. And speaking of stuff, you would actually have to get rid of most of yours if you moved into one of these small abodes which is a dream of many people too.

I think one of the big reasons people like want a tiny house is they get all this fabulous cuteness for a tiny amount of money. But from what I hear, divorces are expensive, and I am pretty sure that is where Hubby and I would end up if we tried to co-habituating in a space barely larger than a king sized bed.

This is why instead of a tiny house, I want a tiny camper. I think we could survive a week together in a canned ham. After all we do five nights in a tent at Bonnaroo. Believe me, accommodations that include A/C, a toilet and a shower would be pure luxury compared to that.  Plus with a Camper, it is only temporary. A week in it and then I can spread out in my suburban palace with all my stuff again. Seems like the perfect compromise.

My Version of a Tiny House

Another Project

We have spoken a little about my Craigslist/thrift store addiction. I am on Craigslist at least once a day trying to find the perfect piece to satisfy my mid century modern obsession. To make the hunt more challenging, it has to be a huge bargain as well.

My very best find was this credenza. Incidentally, credenza is a word I do not believe I ever used before my MCM obsession started. Now I am all  'Oh, the martini glasses are in the credenza, Darling' this, and 'Isn't the credenza a fabulous place to display our mid-oughts flat screen?' that. I am very fancy like that. Anyway, back to the credenza. I spotted this about eleven minutes after it was posted on Craigslist for $90! So I jumped on it - not literally because 'one does not jump on a credenza.'  The woman selling it was the niece of the original owner. It was in near perfect condition. It just need a buff and shine and was ready to hold electronic equipment not even dreamed of when it was manufactured sixty years ago.

The only bad part of the credenza deal was that I was a little spoiled. I quickly found that pieces in ready to use condition at that price are few and far between, so I should not have been surprised at the poor condition of this $45 coffee table -

But the seller was so sweet, I couldn't not buy it. A lesson to all Craigslist sellers - get some very sweet old man to handle the deal. Buyers will be putty in his hands.  So that is how I ended up with a scruffy coffee table or in other words another project. Sigh.

Issue number one of this table was the overwhelming musty smell. I searched the interwebs for something that might get the smell out. I bought this mainly because it was dry since liquid and wood do not go together- and sprinkled it over the underside of the table and in the drawer then left it in the sun for the afternoon. I had to sprinkle, sun and repeat for three days, because it took a little while to get the stored-for-twenty-or-thirty-years-in-a-basement smell out, but it did eventually work.

Sprinkle, Sun, Repeat

        

When I first looked at the piece, I thought it had a Formica top, but upon further investigation was happy to see it was just a heavily lacquered veneer., so there was some sanding, then some more sanding.  Because it was veneer and even the thick veneer of fifties can only be sanded so much, I could not get the circle completely off the center of the table, but luckily my mom gave me this very cool pickle dish that smashingly covers the remnants of said circle.

This treasure was a wedding present of my mom and dad.

Voila!

A better look at the nice inlay on top

I like to paint the inside of drawers. It just makes me happy to see a splash of color when I open them.

So this project is done. Now for that $45 dollar Lane parson's table that I suspect was used as a craft work table. Ugh. Just the removal of the yellowed cellophane tape stuck all over it is a daunting task.

Final Four Baby!

My alma mater, The University of Southern Mississippi, had a very good basketball team my senior year. I loved it. Not because I was in any way interested in basketball - or any sport for that matter, but because my three roommates were.  When they went to the games to cheer on the Golden Eagles, I would have the apartment to myself for up to three glorious hours. It was my own little nirvana.

Time goes on. Some things change and some things stay the same.

This year, Daughter's school, The University of North Carolina, has a very good basketball team. I love it.  This time it is not for the peace and quiet of an empty home - frankly, I get a little too much of that these days - but because I am actually interested in the sport.

I cannot really say how that change occurred. Honestly, with my natural competitiveness, it is weird that it has taken me this long to get onto the team sports bandwagon. And of course, here in The Triangle, the team sport defaults to college basketball.

We got to go to rounds one and two of March Madness in Raleigh. They were the first basketball games I have ever been to, other than the time California Boy played rec ball in the fourth grade. It was great fun, made even better by the fact that Carolina won both of their games.

Thanks to excellent coaching and team work, Carolina has made it all the way to the Final Four. Thanks to a friend at work, I scored Final Four tickets, and Yankee and I are headed to Houston. Go Heels!!!

Extreme Closet Make Over

Our under-the-stairs closet is a little over three feet wide by ten feet long. Large enough to fit at least two - maybe even three - orphaned wizard children comfortably, or in our case, tons of stuff that had not found a permanent home in the new house yet.

The previous owners' closet organization system, consisting of one lone 38" wire shelf with a rack for hanging things, was pretty poor. Our organization system of cramming our coats onto that rack while stuffing the rest of the closet with unpacked boxes, unhung pictures and a plethora of other homeless items was no better. Last week, I finally had enough of tunneling my way through the junk just to get to my coat and decided it was time for a closet makeover.

I started by pulling everything out which was similar to taking an air mattress out of the box. The stuff that was tightly packed into a fairly small space was now taking up the entire dining room, and just like an air mattress, you know there is no way you are ever getting it all back into that box/closet.

I have no explanation for the number of lampshades.

I pulled the lone shelf down and painted the walls with some light blue paint bought, but not used, for a previous project. Then I put up a Closet Maid organizer I bought at Home Depot on the long wall across from the door. I have two 48" poles going from it to the wall, giving us more than double the room for all of our coats. During this process, I did have to wonder how have people who live in a fairly temperate climate collected so many coats?  For me it is probably a style thing, and I guess Hubby is preparing for his dream cabin in Vermont.

This is where the lonely wire rack hung. Now there is room for photo albums, storage boxes, mail supplies, files and vacuum cleaners.

The shelf with the hooks was another thrift store find that I painted white. It is a great place for the take-the-dog-out coat, my picnic blanket scarf and the all important Georgia Bulldog scarf (both survived the great scarf purge of 2016).

I put up two shelves were the wire shelf had been. In the corner I placed a nice two drawer file cabinet that holds legal size files - very necessary for real estate agents - that I bought at the Durham Rescue Mission Thrift Store. Next to it was room for my two downstairs vacuum cleaners.

You can see in the photo that there are still quite a few unhung pieces of artwork stacked against the wall. That is a project for another day.

Before putting everything back, I purged - again. I was stunned to see some of the useless junk that made it up here from Georgia.  How many winter scarves do two people living in North Carolina need? Certainly not 17! I was able to cull down to nine. The same held true for mittens, wrist braces, entire packages of school photos (I kept about three for each year) and so on.

There was a lot of work, and a good week and a half of stumbling over the out-placed closet dwelling junk, but it was oh so worth it. If you are a person like me who loves nicely organized closets, drawers, cabinets and pantries, you know the feeling of joy I get when I open the door to this closet now.

Goodbye and Hello

I had always planned to trade in the mini-van when College Girl graduated from high school. Now that she is a second semester junior, I finally did it.

Sally IV

I hung onto the Debate Mobile (her legal name was Sally IV, but more on that later) for so long for several reasons. One was that she was a great car. At 165,000 miles, I never had any engine trouble with her, she was very comfortable and had plenty of room for all of my stuff. I just hated spending money replacing her when she was perfectly serviceable. The only issue with her was she was getting a bit long in the tooth so to speak. She had lots of driver-induced digs and scratches on the outside. On the inside the dash was cracked and peeled.

Reliability is important, but as a REALTOR, I need a car that looks good as well , so with I traded her in for this beautiful Acura RDX.

Clearly I have a type: I like my men Italian and my cars red.

It was a day of mixed emotions. I was could not believe how sad I was about letting the van go, but really it should not have come as a surprise. I had driven her for 12 years. The kids were in elementary school and middle school when we got her and now one has graduated from college and the other is not far behind. A whole lot of living went on in that car, and it is sad to see that era come to an end. On the other hand the new car is uber nice, so it makes the change a little easier.

The van's name was Sally IV. My grandmother called all of her cars Sally. When she died, I continued the tradition. But this new car seems to want a different name - Baby. No she's not a '67 Chevy Impala taking me and my sibling across the country to fight Supernatural beings, but I still think she's cool like that in her way. She can take my around Wake County selling real estate. It is almost the same thing. Although with a name like Baby, Hubby pointed out I can never park her in the corner.

Moving On Up

The United Van Lines' National Movers Study shows the migration patterns of Americans and this year North Carolina is the fifth most popular state to move to. This is no surprise since North Carolina - particularly The Research Triangle - offers the things people are looking for when they relocate such as economic opportunity, good weather, and outdoor recreation.

North Carolina is really pretty much perfectly situated globally. We have four complete seasons, but none of them are brutal.  As far as outdoor recreation, we have it all. On one end of the state we have beautiful beaches and on the other side there are mountains, and in between we have the best place I have ever lived - The Research Triangle Region.

Unique to this particular area of the state - and the most of the country really, is that the three corners of The Triangle are each anchored with a major research university. In Raleigh we have North Carolina State University with over 33,000 students, strong engineering programs and the state's vet school. 

Twenty-five miles to the west is Duke University, one of the country's top universities with a hospital ranked number 14 in the entire country by U.S. News & World Reports. And they have a fairly decent men's basketball team.

Nine miles south of Duke, in one of the most beautiful college towns ever, is The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill  - ranked as the fifth best public university in the country.  It boasts a gorgeous, historical campus, its own hospital complex, and a great women's soccer team and men's basketball team. Plus there is one beautiful College Girl there who happens to be my daughter, so clearly this makes UNC the best of the three schools, but I digress.

I believe this triangle of top education is one of the reasons the Raleigh, Durham, Cary, Chapel Hill area is such a great place to live.  It attracts the kind of businesses that need well-educated workers and in turn provides high paying jobs. And because of the Duke and UNC hospitals, we have excellent health care.  The universities provide an abundance of activities ranging from the stunning Duke gardens, to music, theater and that wee college basketball rivalry we have going here.

The other side of the states-people-most-want-to-move-to coin, is the states-people-most-want-to-leave side. According to the Movers Study, that state is New Jersey* followed by New York, Illinois, Connecticut and Ohio.  The common thread seems to COLD.  So if you are looking to escape the cold or migrate for any other reason, I suggest the Research Triangle region of North Carolina.

*New Jersey is Hubby's home state. Number nine on the list of states-people-most-often-leave is my home state of Mississippi. We both hold a love in our hearts for our home states, but I think North Carolina is where we are meant to be.



















 

The Cary Real Estate Frenzy...

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.. has already begun.  Last year, the crazy Cary real estate market of multiple above asking price offers and homes selling before they even hit the market started in April. This year, it started last week. On Wednesday, my clients and I were the first people to tour a home that had just hit the market. Thursday morning I called the listing agent to ask a few questions only to find out that the house was under contract, sight unseen to an out of state buyer. Her words were - it went WAY over asking price.

Luckily, my clients weren't absolutely in love with it, so we set up a schedule of homes to see on Saturday.  Early Saturday morning, I got a message from the agent of one of those houses, saying they already had multiple offers, and were asking us to submit our highest and best offer by 5pm. It had been on the market less than 24 hours.

Something new popped up on the MLS Saturday night, so we scheduled a showing for noon on Sunday.  I got a call from the agent cancelling it because they already had two offers. Ugh. What's an agent to do?

The main issue is that while we have buyers chomping at the bit, there is very little for sale. Most people wait for spring to put their homes on the market, but if it is in the right LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION (Cary) and priced right, I suggest you give me a call today, so we can get it on the market and with a little tiny bit of luck, sold by Sunday. Of course, I cannot guarantee I can actually sell your house in a weekend, but if this buying frenzy holds up, it could happen.

Winter, Movies and Shoes. Oh My!

Winter hit the Triangle hard this week. It was twenty degrees when I left the house this morning which is not sleep in the carcass of a dead horse cold, but chilly all the same. And what better way to spend a cold winter night than at the movies?

Cary's First Flurries of 2016

When the Academy Award nominations came out, I was shocked to learn that I had seen four of the eight best picture nominees.  Because of one of my new favorite places, Frank's, I have become a semi-cinephile. Since I am already half way there, I am going to try to see all eight nominees.  And from the aforementioned horse carcass, the astute reader may have guessed my fifth Oscar potential was Revenant staring Mrs. Tom Brady's ex-beau, Leonardo DiCaprio

Revenant a great movie, but out of the seven movies I've seen over the past year it is not my top pick.

Here is my list so far:

7. Bridge of Spies - I would describe this movie as perfectly serviceable, like a pair of Dansko work clogs.  Well made, well acted and a good story, but it lacks pizzazz. Definitely watch at home material.  

They will save your feet.

6. Heart of the Sea - If we are going to stick with the shoe analogy, and why not, I am going to go with some sparkly spiked heeled Jessica Simpsons. The CGI is flashy and looks great, so it is definitely the kind of movie to go out for, but the quality of the story is lacking so it is not something that is going to last. (The Heart of the Sea is one of Yankee's favorite books, and he was very disappointed in the movie interpretation, so he puts this movie at a distant last. Having never read it, that was not an issue for me.)

Flashy and worth wearing - at least once.

5. The Martian -  Toms. Definitely Toms. They are fun, uber comfortable, and make your heart happy wearing them.  Matt Damon was lovable as always. The film makes you feel like humans have actually walked on mars and because of this I give it a 'Worth Going to the Theater' recommendation.

Oh so wearable

4. The Big Short - I am think a great pair of Kate Spades here. They seem very conservative and even a bit everyday, but they are really very fine, special shoes. I think in delivering the impossible, this movie went even beyond the whale in The Heart of the Sea and the bear mauling in Revenant. This movie made the financial meltdown entertaining and almost understandable. It was interesting, funny and frightening all at the same time. Plus Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt in the same movie? Worth the price of admission right there.

Simple. Timeless.

3. Revenant - Think Frye boots here. The attention to detail is unmatched in a movie/shoe that is readily available to the masses, and it has a longevity none of the other movies have.  In the same way that you can look fabulous wearing a pair of Campus boots from 1975, this movie will be watchable for decades to come. Even with a great story and high caliber acting, the true star of the film was without a doubt, the cinematography, and not just for the huge majestic mountain scenes, but also the stunning beauty and realism of the bear mauling. Because of this, Revenant is a must-see-on-the-big-screen film.

Just as beautiful and stylish as the day they were made 40 years ago.

2. Straight Outta Compton  - Converse All Stars have been around for almost a century and are very affordable and yet, when you see someone wearing them, you know that is a cool person. The same goes for the story of NWA - cool, very cool. This film successfully tells a very interesting story, with good writing, acting and music.  Sadly it had no chance of being nominated since the entertainment business is portrayed as, well, less than stellar.

Cool. Cool. Cool.

1. Mad Max: Fury Road - A fabulous, funky pair of Marc Jacobs. If you have not seen it, don't laugh at my number one pick. This movie has it all -  a strong story, almost non-stop action, and stunning cinematography. This is the kind of movie that movie theaters were made for. I saw it at the theater and recently watched it at home, and I like it so much I would probably watch it again.

They have it all - quality, beauty and pizzazz!

If I see any of the other nominees, I will be sure to let you know what its spirit shoe is.

It's a Holiday Wrap

It is eight pm on New Year's Day which to me means the holidays are officially over. Here is as rundown of the some of the highlights of our second Christmas in Cary:

• The most Cary-centric activity we did was the North Carolina Chinese Lantern Festival at the Koka Booth Amphitheater. It was pretty amazing. They build all of these displays out of lighted lanterns. The dragon was 186 feet long and sprayed water out of its nostrils to mimic steam. We lucked out to go on one of the few rain-free nights this December.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

•  My birthday is right before Christmas and Hubby gave me this sweet Mid Century Modern clock! 
  

• Comedian Son came from California and stayed a little over a week. I cannot really say he came home because as much as I love living in Cary, it will never be his home - it is just the place his parents and sister live. Georgia will always be home to him. 

• This is a photo of our beautiful Christmas tree. Please enjoy it because it is the last real tree we will ever have. We always had a fake tree until about four years ago when College Girl finally talked me into getting a real one. It was fine when we lived in the other house, but it was terrible in this house. The difference being hardwood floors. A reasonable person would think the hardwood/real tree combo would be better than having pine needles stuck in carpet, and that certainly is a benefit. The problem we had was ornaments falling to their deaths. I figure with a fake tree I can secure the ornaments better. Plus there is the lack of sneezing and hives too.

    

• Generally we spend our New Years Eves sitting at home, but this year we ventured out to see The Book of Mormon at the Durham Performing Arts Center. This was our first play since moving to the Triangle. It was very different than going to the Fox Theater in Atlanta. The Fox is an old movie theater and it is stunningly beautiful with an Arabian Nights theme including stars painted on the ceiling, but that old beauty comes a steep price or rather very steep steps with a serious lack of handrails. The seats are sized for 1920's sized butts, so a little tight for today's theater patrons. The DPAC is shiny and new, with comfy seats and safe stairs. As for the play, I enjoyed it but would not recommend it to anyone who is easily offended by ANYTHING AT ALL, because it is super offensive.  

So it was a great holiday, but I am ready to get on to the day to day living of 2016. I hope you had a great holiday too, and I wish you a very happy new year.

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.