EQUITY FIFTY-FIVE REAL ESTATE
THE MIKE FIX TEAM
THE MIKE FIX TEAM
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Quarterly Newsletter from The Mike Fix Team.
Team Updates:
We are still busy with listings and sales. As always, we appreciate your confidence in us with your referrals.
We can sell any property, no matter who has it listed.
BUYING A HOME
There is still a tax credit for military. See the link on our home page.
Home Updating:
#14 Bedroom Updates
Average return at resale: 52 percent
Cost for new lighting will vary from $100 - $500.
For a romantic design touch, swap the old light fixture for a small chandelier. The formula for sizing a chandelier: Room width + Room
length in feet = chandelier diameter in inches.
When doing dry wall repair, less really is more. Using as little joint compound as possible makes it easier to even out the surface when
sanding later.
Scale your window treatments to your room size. Cost to rent wallpaper steamer: $20; new bedding and window treatments: $300.
Hardwood floors are hotter than ever. Pull up worn carpeting and refinish old floors to let the wood shine. Sanding hardwoods is
physically demanding and if you do it wrong, you ruin the floor. Hire a pro to do the sanding and then do your own staining and sealing to
save money. Cost $1 to $1.50 a foot. Fill carpet tack holes with Color Putty®.
Taken from hgtv.com
Container Gardening
Gardens can be quite interesting if they're designed in a series of discreet spaces made to feel like a little collection of rooms. An easy
way to create these garden rooms is by using pots. Container gardener Steve Silk offers tips on how to design and arrange containers to
add beauty to the landscape:
Use pots to define garden spaces. Cluster small- to large-sized containers to enclose a garden space or frame a view. Create "hallways"
through a space by placing pots with different shapes and sizes to provide a sense of enclosure; place pots on risers to make plants look
taller.
When creating any kind of garden space, whether it's a room or a hallway, start with a corner. "As long as you have strong corners, it feels
much more like a room," says Steve. "Then you can easily connect the dots between the corners and enclose your room."
Add architectural interest with variety in your potted collections. Mix it up with a variety of sculptural plants with strong shapes to draw
attention. For example, elephant ear, which is a tropical, has much different needs than agave, which is a succulent. By planting them in
individual containers, each plant gets the ideal soil, fertilizer and watering regimen to suit its needs, and you can play around with the
various textures, shapes and colors of these plants.
Take advantage of containers as a forgiving (and movable) form of garden design. If you don't like the way the pots look together, simply
move one out and another one in until you get something you like.
Use containers as a means of traffic control. If you want to get people to slow down, group as many pots together as possible to form a
nice, tight passageway. This naturally causes garden visitors to slow down as they make their way through the space.
Place fragrant plants near walkways for a sensory-enhanced stroll. It's almost impossible to walk right through a space without detecting
the fragrance of pineapple sage, scented geraniums, rosemary, lavender and other herbs.
Use pots to signal change in the landscape. Planters can handily mark transition areas in the garden — the beginning of a flight of stairs,
a path or an entry to a new garden space.
Combine containers with annuals, perennials and other plants in complementary colors. Enhance the look of a colorful pot with matching
or contrasting seasonal flowers and foliage.
Even empty pots can be useful in the garden. "Find a pot with a nice sculptural form or beautiful color, and it becomes an art object all on
its own," says Steve. Place an interesting pot as a focal point or to anchor a seating area.
Taken from hgtv.com
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