Archive for January, 2010
Stage Your Home for Success
One of the best things you can do when trying to sell your home is to keep it immaculate. A spotless house shows potential buyers that you have cared for it over the years and that it is all ready for them to move into. This can be difficult - after all, life is messy - but it will be worthwhile and will help your home sell for more money. In addition, some sellers hire professionals to “stage” their home - they’ll rearrange furniture, add attractive props, repaint rooms, and more - but you can do this yourself.
Just follow these home selling tips. Buyers are attracted to light, bright spaces. Rooms with light walls and lots of light streaming through the windows look bigger, so repaint dark rooms and always leave curtains or blinds wide open when buyers visit. You should also rearrange your furniture to create more open space in your living room and bedrooms. If needed, store some furniture in a friend’s garage or a heated storage unit to free up even more space for showings. Lastly, invest in fresh flowers and simple vases for your entryway and kitchen - they’ll make all the difference in creating an inviting, homelike atmosphere.
Where to Put a Table
Did you ever wonder where to place a table? We seem to have too many small tables. They are not really very small - bigger than end tables, but smaller than a dining table
. They are nice and we don’t want to sell them or give them away. We have managed to find a use for all of them, but every now and then we change our minds and decide to put one in a different place.
When we are thinking of these things, we just wish the tables were small and we could put them by a chair or in a corner and they would look pretty and be a nice place to lay your book when you were finished reading. I can remember when we did not have enough tables. We just needed a nice small table to make things look pretty. When we finally could afford just the right table, we were so excited when we found it at a store. Now people can find almost anything at a store or on the web and see exactly how much they need to save before they will be able to buy it. Oh well, these are the good new days.
Cruising
Cruises are fun. At least the one I went on was! It just made me decide that all cruises must be fun because we have some friends that go on lots of them and they never come back saying it was a bore. Anyway, it is a little different than being out on a lake in a fishing boat which I have done many times.
All of this brings us back to the good old days and I mean old days. The days of the clipper ships. Those ships are the ones that we see in bottles and as figurines. Those are in the stories and movies of pirates. They are the stuff of Long John Silver and Robinson Crusoe. I probably would not have enjoyed a cruise on one of those ships. However, since I am not getting ready to go on a cruise, nor do I ever expect to go again, I must admit that sometimes I enjoy the movies of those old days and have even read a book or two about them. Now I will just stare at my figurines, etc. and remember - the real and the stories.
Winter, Winter, Winter!
We had some beautiful spring days during the winter last week. Now just as I was getting used to that they tell us winter will be back Thursday. No! No! No! Oh well, I may as well accept it. Back in the good old days, the forecast would have been wrong and we just might have a few more “spring” days. Now it is almost certain they are right and we will have snow and ice and cold and stay -inside-days.
Well, let’s think of something fun. Fountains. Have you ever just thought of a fountain and felt “ah, how beautiful.” There are water fountains that we drink from. There are pretty water fountains that “live” outside in the park or in someone’s yard. There are also pretty fountains that are inside and we can just enjoy seeing them or we can turn on the water supply and listen to them, too. Our grandson sleeps with one of those flowing when he comes home from college. Anyway, we can take our minds off winter and search for some pretty fountains on the web that we can enjoy when we make up our minds which one we want.
Do You Like to Read?
It seems there is always a book around with a marker in it. A person in the family is reading it. Someone may have recommended the book or it just may have had an interesting title or we may have seen it advertised on TV. Anyway, it makes us appreciate the teachers who had a hand in teaching us to read. Sometimes everyone is reading a different book and there those books are with their cute or funny or plain bookmarks just waiting until we have time to pick them up and curl up on the sofa or somewhere quiet for a while.
One of the other things that goes with reading the books are the bookend
s we have. After all these years, we have bookends that fit best in the living room, some that are in a bedroom and some that are in the family room. It is fun to see the different ones we have collected over the years. Sometimes we just can’t part with a pair of bookends when a new set arrives and we just put them away for a while. Maybe someday we will get them all out and put the unused ones in a display case that will be just as special as the shelves with the used bookends!
Useful and Fun
What fun it is to choose a new item for a room. Especially when you just get your first apartment at college and you get to choose at least one new thing to use. What will it be? There are so many things that you need. First you need a microwave because you have to eat and that is the fast way to fix something when you are in a hurry. But you have the microwave that your sister used and it is still in good shape. You wonder if she ever used it? Then you might need a new set of sheets, but the ones you have fit the bed and they are still good.
Hey! This is it! You need a new lamp for your bedroom, because you will be reading your homework assignments there. It needs to be good and pretty and fun. How about the money your aunt gave you? It is quite a lot, but you need a really good lamp. It will be a lamp that will lift your spirits and serve its purpose, and maybe, just maybe, be unique. Okay, get on the internet and find just the right one. It will be so much fun when it arrives at your door.
A Nautical Theme
For centuries, mankind has been fascinated with wide-open spaces. The ultimate example, of course, would be the ocean. Great works of literature, such as Moby Dick and Treasure Island, speak to our inherent obsession with the mysteries of the sea. Vast expanses of water seem to promise freedom and adventure - the sort of experiences landlubbers could never truly appreciate.
These ideas are often expressed in the form of nautical décor. It’s not uncommon to see a beachside home decked out with nautical accents. With the water beckoning from just a few yards away, it’s possible to make an interior space look just like the captain’s quarters, or the kitchen like a galley. The options are limitless, and it’s amazing what a few sea-themed touches can do to pique the imagination.
Just for Fun
A new year is well upon us. Some of us are “suffering” from an unusually cold winter. We wanted it to be spring when January came, I guess. In our case, the snow melted , but now we have fog. Sometimes it lifts and we are so happy! The geese have stayed on the pond, but the small birds are all gone. Still we think of the nice, warm spring time that surely is just around the corner. We are making plans for what we will do when “the weather clears up.”
At least at our house, the garden catalogs are not arriving yet. The big lawn mower started, so that means things are warmer. We sometimes think of those decorative birdhouses and the pretty little birds we might expect them to attract. It is still too wet for our little next door neighbor children to be out playing and coming over to see our dogs. Those are all things we can look forward to when the cold gets us down. If you love winter, enjoy it for a few more weeks. Us lovers of spring are standing here waiting with our garden tools all ready to go!
Horses Through American History
When you take a moment to think about it, horses are inextricably linked to our national identity. Horses made transportation, exploration, commerce and war much more expedient up until the 20th century. Draft horses remain useful farm animals, bearing a tremendous physical burden in the service of human needs. And of course there are the majestic racehorses that gallop around tracks across the country, providing observers with a thrilling rush.
It’s no wonder, then, that so many people classify themselves as horse lovers. For these individuals, no other gift could compare to horse figurines, which capture the freedom and grace inherent to equestrian animals. Whether they are placed on a living room mantle or in the center of a coffee table, these figurines are sure to serve as conversation pieces for years to come.