Living

Get helpful advice on remodeling, home maintenance, and home security, plus tips on decorating, gardening, DIY home projects, how to prevent damage to your home, and more.

Living 3 Garden Alternatives for a Patchy Lawn I’ve met with more than one client while standing on a struggling lawn. “I keep trying,” they tell me, “but the grass won’t grow.” I tell them that maybe this means there’s another option, something even better than a lawn. Maybe it’s time for a garden. And it’s as if I’d just told them the secret to eternal happiness and long life.
Living 5 Tips to Improve Indoor-Outdoor Flow Wouldn’t you love to double the size of your house for the holidays, or when you’re entertaining a large groups of friends? And when the party is over and all the guests have gone home, have your nice, cozy house back just like that?
Design A Beginner’s Guide to Managing a Remodel Browsing photos and ideas can be a fun part of creating your dream room. But making your designs a reality also takes smart planning and organization. Project management is an essential part of remodeling, and there’s nothing like the feeling of implementing a plan to create something new and beautiful. These tips can help you achieve your desired results.
Living Weekend Warrior: Quick projects to upgrade your home Memorial Day traditionally represents the kick-off of summer. Kids are getting out of school, families are making summer vacation plans, and backyard barbecues are on everyone’s minds. This is also a great time of the year to get your house in order and ready for the summer season. The following is a handful of ideas and tips to help you with this process.
Living What Millennials are Looking for in an Apartment or Condo LinkedIn recently told us that 4,279 new apartments were added to Seattle’s local inventory last year, and based on the number of cranes you constantly see around the city, we believe them. With so many choices, Millennials are getting really specific about what they want in a living space and the lifestyle it provides them.
Living Keeping Up with The Joneses: Seven Yard Tools a First-Time Homeowner Needs Did you know that gardening tools are really expensive? I didn’t. We even priced out what it would cost to have a landscaper come every two weeks just to mow and edge our front and back yard (which would leave us to the weeding, sweeping, etc.) but alas… that is also expensive (about $100 per month). So… Hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off to Home Depot we go…
Living New Home Construction Trends to Watch Out For Earlier this week, at the Windermere Builder Solutions Breakfast, more than 100 Windermere brokers came together to listen to Windermere President OB Jacobi lead a panel discussion on new home construction trends in the greater Seattle area.
Living 8 DIY Fire Pits to Get Your Yard Ready for Summer If you’re thinking about the changing seasons, think about making your own fire pit. This popular backyard feature is surprisingly easy to construct, and will bring your outdoor living to the next level. Make a quick trip to the hardware store, grab the kids to help out, and you can have one of these gorgeous backyard features by this weekend!
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Living Keeping Up with the Joneses: Seven Phases of Home Renovation We haven’t blogged in a while . . . and that’s because we’ve put a slightly unintentional pause on our renovation projects. If you’ve ever done a project around the house, you may have found yourselves in one of these seven stages.
Living Keeping up with the Joneses: Giving Our Fireplace a Facelift While we were willing to do some major updates to the bathroom, plumbing and electrical, we decided to pick a few areas of our 1940s fixer to do some smaller, mostly cosmetic updates. One of these projects included giving the fireplace a little facelift to bring it into this century.
Living Keeping up with the Joneses: The Guest Room, Part I Before we started our renovations, we didn't plan to do much to the basement guest room: maybe a little paint, installing some blinds for the window. My wife, Jenn, thought we'd buy a bench to put at the end of the bed for linen storage. Then Demo Day One happened. Within an hour, it was clear we would be a few weeks out from painting. In order to paint, you needed walls.
Living Keeping up with the Joneses: Would You do a DIY Home Renovation again? See what Windermere Real Estate agent, Tyler Davis Jones and his wife Jenn have to say about their do-it-yourself home renovation on the blog today:
Living Keeping up with the Joneses: The Harsh Realities of Renovation Follow along with Tyler & Jenn Jones as they work through their do-it-yourself home remodel. This week the Joneses are sharing an update on their progress and some highs and lows of buying a 1940's fixer.
Living The Tax Benefits Every Homeowner Should Know About Tax breaks are available for any type of home — single-family residence, town house, mobile home, or condominium. However, to take full tax advantage of owning a home, property owners need to understand the expenses they can deduct, and learn some tips to get the most tax advantages out of home ownership.
Living 6 Ways to Incorporate the Color of the Year in Your Home The Pantone Color of the Year was announced a couple of months ago and we can’t express how awesome these colors are apart, let alone together. For the first time Pantone introduces two shades as the Color of the Year 2016: Rose Quartz and Serenity are a fusion of warm and cool; promoting not only a non-traditional color match, but also gender equality. Here are six different ways to integrate...
Living Keeping up with the Joneses: How Much Does it Cost to Update a Bathroom? (Part 2) Remember that cutesy little budget we posted late last week? There are a few things we naïvely left off that list… and I’d try to list them all but that would require getting up off the couch and digging out the 1,634 receipts from Home Depot that are currently floating around my diaper bag (along with an old banana and a jar of spackle. I'm not kidding.)
Living Three Projects, Three Ways: Valentine’s Gifts for Your Loved Ones Love it, or hate it, Valentine’s Day is fast approaching! If you want to create a thoughtful gift for a loved one (or for yourself because you TOTALLY deserve it), try one of these easy, inexpensive, do-it-yourself Valentine’s Day ideas!
Living Keeping up with the Joneses: How Much Does it Cost to Update a Bathroom? Ever wondered what it would cost to update your bathroom? Basic raw materials can range from $30 to…very high. We decided to spend a little bit more on some beautiful, high quality floor tile and go middle-of-the-road with our fixtures. The most cost savings will be found in labor — we are doing all of the demo and install work ourselves once the professionals are finished with the...
Living Keeping up with the Joneses: Demo Day One Our closing date had finally arrived! We were officially the owners of our little Wedgwood home. We rushed over to the house as soon as we got the go-ahead with boxes delicately packed and a cheap bottle of lukewarm champagne. Tyler carried Addie over the threshold. We prayed in the kitchen together. It was one of my favorite moments we've shared to date.
Living Keeping Up with the Joneses: Home Renovations Tyler Davis Jones is a Windermere Real Estate agent in Seattle who, with his wife Jenn, recently traded in their in-city condo for a 1940s fixer-upper. Tyler and Jenn, along with the help of some very generous friends and family members, are taking on all the renovations themselves. You can follow the transformation process on the Windermere Blog or on Tyler’s website and Instagram.