■Market property to more buyers
■Allow buyers the opportunity to renovate/upgrade/improve to suit their tastes and preferences
■No need to settle for low-ball cash offers
■Current condition of property not required to meet FHA’s property standards
■Buyer is permitted to correct any property deficiencies after close of escrow
■No more inspection concerns
■Absolutely no repairs are required prior to close of escrow
■Seller not responsible for cost of repairs/improvements
■Transaction will close with property in “AS-IS condition
■Closing occurs in 45 days

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1. For efficiency, the work triangle (the space between the sink, refrigerator, and stove) should measure 26′ or less with no single side longer than 9′, or less than 4′.

2. In kitchens smaller than 150 sq. ft., opt for at least 13′ of base cabinets, 12′ of wall cabinets, and 11′ of countertop. In kitchens which are larger, go with at least 16′ of base cabinets, 15 1/2′ of wall cabinets, and 16 1/2′ of countertop.

3. For convenience, plan work aisles to be at least 42″ wide for one cook, and at least 48″ wide in multi-cook kitchens.

4. Specify a minimum of 24″ of counter space on one side of the sink and at least 18″ on the other.

5. To create the most accessible landing for unloading groceries, allow at least 15″ of counter space on the handle side of a standard refrigerator; on both sides if it’s a side-by-side model. Or include a landing area directly across from the refrigerator, but no more than 48″ away.

6. For cleanup ease, install the dishwasher within 36″ of one edge of the sink and allow for at least 21″ of standing room next to it.

7. For microwaves and ovens, provide at least 15 ” of counter space nearby, at least 16″ deep.

8. For optimum clearance, no entry, appliance, or cabinet doors should interfere with another.

9. For comfort and to help avoid repetitive-motion injury, plan for work counters of different heights; between 28 and 36″ off the floor (easier for chopping and seated-use access), and between 36 and 46″ for general tasks (higher counters accommodate taller cooks).

10. To install a cabinet unit above the cook top, make sure the clearance is at least 24″ for a fireproof surface, 30″ for an unprotected surface.

Designing a kitchen is as much a science as it is an art. Knowing the recommended measurements to use when planning the project can make all the difference in the final outcome.

Author Bio
Harvey Juric, is a veteran custom home builder in Southern Ontario. If you like this article, there is more at: www.ontario-home-builder.com

Article Source: http://www.ArticleGeek.com – Free Website Content

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This overlooked feature can really bring pizzazz to your décor and needs to complement both the window and the curtains you have chosen, as well as be appropriately functional.

Hardware for window treatments is available in a wide variety of styles. Some curtain rods are designed to be covered by the curtains, while others are best displayed prominently due to their highly decorative nature. If the rod is meant to be featured you could hang the curtains from decorative rings sewn into the top panel. Considering both the curtain and the rod at the same time will save you the disappointment of having pieces that don’t complement each other.

Today’s Lesson: Do you know what finials are? They are the decorative ends on the curtain rod. I didn’t know their official name for several years. I just called them “ends of the curtain rod.” They can be wooden, wrought-iron, glass, or plastic.

The most standard types are:

Finials can range widely in price, from the $2 plastic pieces to $100 very heavy fancy pieces. Consider your budget but also know that what you choose will make a certain statement in the room and that statement will last longer than the effects of spending a little extra money. You also have to be sure the finials will fit where you are hanging the curtain. Consider the shape of your window and the molding around it. In some cases there just isn’t room for large fancy finials, nor is it always appropriate for the style of curtain you’ve chosen.

Author Bio
Visit curtains.topicreviews.com/curtain-rods.html for more information on curtains, rods and finials.

Article Source: http://www.ArticleGeek.com – Free Website Content

The post Hanging Curtains? Don’t Forget the Rods and Finials! appeared first on Atlas Homes TX. Custom Homebuilder / Major Remodeling.

https://atlasgreenhomes.com.com  ” https://atlashomes.us.com” 

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The vast majority of contractors are honest, hardworking professionals. Protecting yourself against the few bad apples requires checking references, having a solid contract, and being alert to the warning signs of these top ontractor scams.

Take my word for it

When you first meet with the contractor, he’s very agreeable about doing everything exactly to your specifications and even suggests his own extra touches and upgrades. Some of the details don’t make it into the contract, but you figure it doesn’t matter because you had such a clear verbal understanding.

Pretty soon, you notice that the extras you’d discussed aren’t being built. When you confront the contractor, he tells you that he didn’t include those features in his price, so you’ll have to live without them or pony up additional money to redo the work.

How to protect yourself: Unfortunately, you have no legal recourse because you signed a contract that didn’t include all the details. Next time, make sure everything you’ve agreed on is written into the project description. Add any items that are missing, put your initials next to each addition, and have the contractor initial it, too—all before you sign.

I don’t need to pull a permit

You’re legally required to get a building permit for any significant construction project. That allows building officials to visit the site periodically to confirm that the work meets safety codes.

On small interior jobs, an unlicensed contractor may try to skirt the rule by telling you that authorities won’t notice. On large jobs that can’t be hidden, the contractor may try another strategy and ask you to apply for a homeowner’s permit, an option available to do-it-yourselfers.

But taking out your own permit for a contractor job means lying to authorities about who’s doing the work. And it makes you responsible for monitoring all the inspections—since the contractor doesn’t answer to the inspector, you do.

How to protect yourself: Always demand that the contractor get a building permit. Yes, it informs the local tax assessor about your upgrade, but it weeds out unlicensed contractors and gives you the added protection of an independent assessment of the work.

We ran into unforeseen problems

The job is already under way, perhaps even complete, when this one hits. Suddenly your contractor informs you that the agreed-upon price has skyrocketed. He blames the discovery of structural problems, like a missing beam or termite damage, or design changes that you made after the job began.

The additional fees might very well be legit, but some unscrupulous contractors bid jobs low to get the work and then find excuses to jack up the price later. If you’re unsure whether your contractor is telling the truth about structural problems, you can get an impartial opinion from a home inspector, the local branch of the National Association of Home Builders, or even your local building department.

How to protect yourself: Before signing the contract, make sure it includes a procedure for change orders–mini-contracts containing a work description and a fixed price–for anything that gets added to the job in progress. The extra work, whether it’s related to unforeseen building issues or homeowner whims, can proceed only after the change order is signed by both homeowner and contractor.

I’ve got extra materials I can sell you cheap

This hoax is usually run by driveway paving companies, whose materials—hot-top asphalt and concrete—can’t be returned to the supplier. So the crew pulls up to your house with a load of leftover product and quotes a great price to resurface your driveway on the spot.

Even if it’s really a bargain (by no means a sure thing), taking them up on the offer is risky if you have no idea who they are and haven’t checked references. And if the driveway starts cracking next year, you can bet you won’t find this bunch again.

How to protect yourself: Never hire a contractor on the spot, whether it’s a driveway paver, an emergency repairman who shows up after a major storm, or a landscaper with surplus plantings. Take your time to check contractors out to make sure they have a good reputation and do quality work.

By: Atlas Green Homes HQ

Published: January 7, 2019

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The average cost of a bathroom remodel over the last quarter was less than $10,000. Out of a pool of 3,000 homeowners, 9 out of 10 were not only pleased with their project, but would recommend it to others. When you think of the money and resources that get wasted by leaky pipes, dripping faucets, inefficient showerheads, and obsolete toilets and, add the hassle of waiting for mirrors to clear up, waiting for hot water (or running out too soon), and dealing with water pressure problems it’s easy to see why so many folks are so happy with their new bathrooms!

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We all want our homes to provide comfort and ease. And something instinctual tells us that color — whether a can of paint, a bright new patterned rug, maybe that sun-drenched painting you saw at the last art opening you attended — can change our world for the better.

Springtime home maintenance offers a new opportunity to add the color we crave. And picking the right colors for our homes is not magic. The process simply requires that we look at the physical qualities of our home’s architecture and apply color that will put the focus where we want it. Here’s how.

 

1. Study your home and the light that enters it. Rather than worrying about style and the artful assembling of accessories, consider the structure of your house and make a color strategy that works for movement and creature comforts first. By taking a look at each room and asking yourself, “What do I want to see?” you can create a plan that puts the focus where it is most important and will lead those in your life to experience your home as you want them to.

Start by touring your house the way your guests do. Drive up to your home, park, enter and try to see your home with fresh eyes. Make note of positive and negative attributes. Pay particular attention to the orientation of the house and the light that enters each room.

Sometimes using a camera’s viewfinder can help you see your home’s true potential. Snap a picture of each room as you enter and from different angles as you peruse the space. The pictures will help you see what you are working with.

Color is one of the most immediate and simplest ways to move walls and change the proportions of your house (visually, that is). But to make changes, you must understand the light that illuminates your living space and use it to accomplish your objectives.

 

2. Create a positive entrance. Storage is key to organizing typically cluttered areas, like a front entrance or mudroom, but color is equally important. Use a light color for walls and trim for an entrance that is cramped. Small, awkward spaces expand when painted a cool white or blue, dropping walls back.

If you have an uncomfortably large foyer (with a cathedral ceiling and imposing staircase to the second floor), use yellow on the walls to bring it down in scale. Yellow will make the walls appear closer and sun-washed, which will start your guest’s experience off right and create a positive memory of home for your family on the go.

But it’s not just your walls. Make sure your entrance is free of items that blend in with the floor. Everyone can see those red rubber boots and avoid tripping on them, but items that match the floor in color and tone are a hazard.

 

 

To offset the snow white of walls and trim of your space-frugal foyer (like the entrance pictured here), try a red or deep orange floor that expresses your home’s happy side. A warm floor color can impart the red light of the sun without shrinking the room.

 

3. Simplify angles with color. Keeping the flight path through your house free and clear includes diminishing harsh ceiling angles and edges. A grayed color on the walls and ceiling can unify shadows and take away the hard lines that come with the intersection of forms. Softening the angles with color can redirect the emphasis from the awkward to something else — say, a painting or series of family photographs.

Streamlining architecture by minimizing color shifts works for all parts of the house. One client told me that she went to bed each night looking at icebergs overhead. Clearly the “ceiling white” used to color the series of odd triangular forms of her cathedral ceiling had created an ominous focus that kept her up at night. A quiet tone of a green-white on the ceiling and walls did away with the arctic landscape while bringing the attention to the soft furnishings that supported a sound sleep.

In this color plan, a warm lemon on the ceiling creates a backdrop for the cool light fixture and causes us to lower our gaze toward the main attraction: the bed.

 

4. Pick wall colors that optimize sunlight. Natural light is what we all crave in varying amounts. Decide how the light coming from windows and doors aids your use of each room, and at what point during the day. A sunny kitchen first thing in the morning is perfect for a busy family that wants to get up and meet the day. Want to amplify light? Use white and shiny surfaces that reflect. Want to cut back on glare? Window treatments are an easy fix, but consider that you may want to keep the view and subdue the impact of the reflective planes. Gray is a color solution for a room with a glare.

If your room misses out on abundant sunlight, use color to create the illusion of it. A light sisal gold on the walls will create a cozy place in which to flop.

 

 5. Use color to play up or play down features. Sometimes the house that you call home is as uncoordinated as a growing teenager. Additions built when space was in demand can confuse the overall design. Proportions in one part of the house may be different than those in another, which can make certain features stand out when you wish they’d recede. Doorways that are too large make others look small.

The visual presence of architectural elements can be controlled by the value and intensity of their color. Want something to stand out and make an impression? Paint it the most saturated or contrasting color in the room.

If you want something to go away, paint it the same color as its surroundings. Is something too large and imposing for your space? Choose a color that is dark and gray. Charcoal will shrink and set what was once a foreground element into the shadows.

 

 

This living room design allows us to forget the structure of the sofa while still providing a warm seating area with a view.

 

 6. Let color create a visual path. Repetition is an important element in good design and helpful for finding our way through a space. Establish a feature or material in your home that you want to have noticed, then use its color repeatedly throughout the floor plan. For example, the blue in the tile shown in this living room carries our attention through to the dining area.

Creating visual pathways may not be your idea of a priority when designing your interior, but it is one of the strongest subliminal visual pursuits of your family and guests. Use color for visual touchstones, and your visitors will compliment you on your calm, beautiful home.

The post 6 Strategies for Making Color Work for You, ATLAS GREEN HOMES appeared first on Atlas Homes TX. Custom Homebuilder / Major Remodeling.

Say you need to complete a major project or tackle a task you’ve been putting off. Or maybe you desperately need to crank out a ton of work in a short period of time, yet you never seem able to find that time.

What you need is an extreme productivity day.

Keep in mind that the following isn’t suitable for everyday use; try that and you’ll soon burn out. But once in a while? It’s the perfect cure for the “I will never get that done” blues.

Let’s say you have a task that will take you 10 to 12 hours to complete. Here’s how to do it in just one day.

1. Tell everyone you won’t be available.

Interruptions are productivity killers, so letting people know you’re doing something special and will be out of reach for a day is an absolute must.

At a minimum, tell co-workers and family, but don’t forget important clients. Send a quick email a day or two before explaining that you will be tied up on a certain day and will respond to calls, emails, etc. first thing the following morning.

Some customers will contact you before Thursday; others will mentally note that you can’t be reached. Either way it’s all good.

And you get an additional benefit from telling other people your plan: Those important to you will know what you intend to accomplish, and they will know if you don’t succeed.

Peer pressure can be a great motivator. Use it.

2. Decide how long you will work…

Don’t plan on the basis of “I’ll work as long as I can,” or “I’ll work as long as I feel productive.” Set a concrete target. Commit to working 12 hours or whatever period of time you choose.

Why? The longer the time frame you set, the quicker the early hours seem to go by.

When I worked in a factory we typically worked eight-hour shifts; the hours before lunch dragged and the last couple of hours each day always seemed like death. But when we worked 12-hour shifts, the morning hours seemed to fly by. Something about knowing you’ll be working for a long time allows you to stop checking the clock; it’s as if you naturally find your Zen (work)place.

When you know you’re in for a long haul, your mind automatically adapts. Trust me–it works.

3. … And totally commit to meeting that deadline.

You know what happens: Once you decide a task should take four hours it somehow ends up taking four hours, even when it should actually take only two. It’s natural to fill extra time with “stuff.”

The opposite happens when a deadline is seemingly too aggressive: We find ways to strip out the nonessential and get things done much quicker than we could have imagined.

So don’t just set a deadline. Totally commit to hitting that deadline.

And feel free to play any mental games that help: Make a bet with someone else, or make a bet with yourself (with losing meaning you have to do something you really don’t want to do)–in other words, make the stakes personal so you’re not just professionally but also personally invested in the outcome.

4. Start at an unusual time.

Have you ever taken a long car trip and left at 3 or 4 a.m.? I bet those first few hours flew by, because you stepped outside your norm.

The same trick works for an extreme productivity day. Start at 4 a.m. Or indulge your inner night owl and start at 6 p.m. and work through the night. Those first few hours will fly by.

An extreme productivity day is not a normal day. Set the stage for the unusual by breaking free of your usual routine.

5. Delay and then space out your rewards.

Say you like to listen to music when you work. On an extreme productivity day, keep the music off for the first few hours. That way, when your motivation starts to flag, a little music will provide a great boost to your morale.

However you tend to treat yourself, think of those treats as personal productivity bullets; use all your ammunition too early and you’ll have nothing left when you really need it.

Whatever typically carries you through your workday, hold off on it for a while. Delayed gratification is always better gratification.

6. Refuel well before you think you need to.

Waiting until you’re thirsty to drink when you’re exercising is already too late.

The same is true when you work. Plan to eat or snack a little earlier than normal. If you sit while you work, stand up long before your rear gets numb. If you stand, sit long before your legs start to ache. In short, when you allow yourself to feel discomfort your motivation and resolve will weaken–so do everything possible to keep that from happening.

And speaking of food, plan meals wisely. Don’t take an hour lunch break. Prepare food you can eat quickly without lots of organization or mess. The key is to refuel and keep rolling.

Remember what Isaac Newton said: A productive body in motion tends to stay in productive motion. That’s why you should…

7. Take productive breaks, not relaxation breaks.

Momentum is everything. Don’t take a walk, or watch a little TV, or goof around on the internet. You will need breaks, but those breaks should reinforce your sense of activity and accomplishment.

Pick a few productive tasks you like to perform–and gain a sense of accomplishment from–and use those for your breaks. Spending even a few minutes in the land of inactivity weakens your resolve.

8. Don’t quit until you’re done–even if finishing takes longer than expected.

Stopping short is habit-forming. If you quit this time, what will keep you from quitting the next time? (Answer: nothing.) Quitting is a habit but staying the course is also a habit, so make sure your first extreme productivity day is the start of a great new habit.

Plus you can gain a great side benefit from extreme productivity days: You’ll unconsciously reset your internal limit on your output.

How? We all have this little voice inside us that says, “I’ve done enough,” or, “I’m exhausted–there’s no way I can do any more,” which makes us stop. But that little voice lies: with the right motivation, or under the right circumstances, we can always do more. Stopping is a choice.

An extreme productivity day automatically ratchets your internal limits to a higher level. And after a few–maybe even just one–extreme productivity days, you’ll perform better every “normal” day too, because you will have unconsciously quieted that little voice and raised your own bar.

And isn’t your own bar the only one that truly matters?

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