Daily Archives: June 29, 2011

Mt Kisco NY Homes sees 5 Great Tips for Small Space Living | Mt Kisco NY Real Estate for sale

This week I’m talking to small house dwellers for an upcoming article in Mother Earth News. I’m inspired by their commitment to minimalist living, and I’m learning a lot of tips and tricks for making the most of tiny spaces. Most of all, though, I’m inspired by the obvious joy and satisfaction that living in a smaller home brings to these folks. Living in a tiny home is a choice that no one regrets. (If you’d like to tell Mother readers your story, send an email to rlawrence@motherearthnews.com.)

This morning, coincidentally, I received an email from Hunter Douglas with five good tips for “living larger with less.” They’re worth sharing.

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The Container Store’s Water Hyacinth Bins offer an attractive option for storage in three sizes.

1. Contain It: More items in view means the room appears more crowded and compact. Contain as much as you can in stylish storage. First, designate a spot for every belonging so that there are a few items on tables and desks. Putting small items in neutral-colored boxes or decorative bins. Line up the storage pieces side-by-side and organize books or other items by color for an orderly look that, along with uncluttered surfaces, makes the room feel more spacious.

viva terra ottoman

Viva Terra ’s wool ottoman supports weary feet while storing magazines and media remotes in its secret drawer.

2. Furniture that Fits: Replace large, overstuffed furniture with trim, tailored pieces more in scale with the space. Place the heaviest piece in the room, whether a couch or a chest, along a wall to save space. To create balance, position another weighty item across from it. Place smaller furniture pieces such as chairs diagonally in corners to not only look inviting, but to open up the room. Find something the eye can focus on when entering: a beautifully dressed window or unobstructed view, piece of art, decorative mirror or well-kept fireplace. Lastly, invest in as many multi-tasking pieces as possible, like a coffee table that doubles as seating and also has built-in storage or a compact drop-leaf table that opens up to a desk or dining table.

mirror

Interior designer Shelly Handman uses translucent glass and mirrors to create the illusion of more light.

3. Lighten Up: Mirrors can act as virtual windows to enhance the light a room receives. Hang them so they can reflect something you want to see (artwork or the outdoors). Brighten the room with window coverings that make the most of mood-boosting natural light.

bungalow

Pale yellow walls give this Chicago bungalow a sense of cohesion and space. Photo by Michael Shopenn/Natural Home & Garden

4. Color that Creates Space: Bold and warm hues make a room feel cozy, while light and cool tones instantly expand the space. Try light yellow, soothing soft blue or always-complimentary ivory on walls. Continue with a neutral palette for the overall design to further optimize the space. adding only a few “pop” colors and patterns on pillows, art or tabletop accessories. Keep these cooler hues harmonious throughout the home to break down walls and create a flow.

hunter douglas divider

Hunter Douglas ’s Skyline Gliding Window Panels feature a track system that allows them to be used as room dividers.

5. Divide and Conquer: Create a breakfast nook, home office or even separate bedroom with a decorative divider.

South Salem NY real estate looks at Crafting the User Experience – Jeffrey Zeldman for South Salem NY Homes for sale

“IN HER PRESENTATION at An Event Apart in Atlanta, GA 2011 Sarah Parmenter discussed how principles from human psychology can reframe how we think about Web Design. Here’s my notes from her talk:” An Event Apart: Crafting the User Experience.

Katonah NY Real estate outlook: scattered showers of optimism | Inman News for the Katonah NY real estate market

Real estate outlook: scattered showers of optimism

Mood of the Market

Flickr image courtesy of <a href=

Real estate has become the bad news bear of an economy that is trying to break out of bearishness. In fact, I Googled the word “doldrums” the other day and one of the first results was a set of news stories about home values!

After four straight years, the virtually incessant onslaught of downer stories about the housing market is exhausting — even though these stories may reflect the actual state of affairs, and I suspect signal a new normal of much slower appreciation than we’re used to, until the job and mortgage markets find some deeper healing.

However, I have come across a few bright spots in the real estate news lately, which I want to share. Negative consumer sentiment in real estate and most other economic markets is truly a self-perpetuating cycle: the more negative we are, the less likely we are to buy homes, and that further depresses the market.

I think this break from the bad is important, and not just for morale, because it exposes us to new definitions of what the “real estate market” actually is for our own purposes, and widens (or narrows, in some cases) our viewpoint in terms of what information we should be consulting as we each make our own real estate decisions and form our opinions about what’s happening in the market.

So, here are the scattered showers of cause for optimism — not necessarily optimism that the whole market will turn around, but optimism about a specific problem or market challenge — which I’ve noticed of late.

REITs
Real estate investment trusts, or REITs, are shares of stock in companies whose whole business is investing in and managing various types of real estate, from self-storage companies, to hospitals and retirement homes, to apartment buildings and even dormitories for college students. Over the last two years, REITs have returned over 29 percent annually to their investors: people like you and me who individually buy shares like you would with a stock, or buy them through their retirement plans.

As Americans get older, the REITs that invest in hospitals, surgical centers and retirement homes have, predictably, done very well. And even the rest of the categories are on the upswing, in spite of the real estate recession. Or, maybe, because of it: two of the market dynamics that are perceived as problems or symptoms in what we would traditionally think of as the real estate market have fueled REITs’ financials over the last couple of years.

The decline in property prices has allowed REITs to buy at a much lower cost than they were able to before. And the decline in the homeownership rate, including foreclosed homeowners who are now renters and would-be buyers who are now afraid to get off the fence, has created more demand for REIT-owned apartment homes and self-storage units.

Makes you rethink the definition of real estate, doesn’t it? Past performance does not in any way guarantee future performance, but I suspect that many real estate investors are looking into REITs as an option.

Stock market sparks one real estate market
Over the last year or so, the tech industry has looked about as opposite from the real estate market as it can get. There is a lot of hiring, loads of new companies, venture capitalists investing billions — and lots of IPOs (the initial public offerings that launch a startup tech company onto the stock market) in the pipeline.

If you’re not familiar with how this works, early employees for these companies take less financial compensation than they might get elsewhere in exchange for stock options.

When the company “goes public,” employees are able to liquidate these options for sometimes many thousands or even millions of dollars, depending on when they entered the company and how large their role there was.

Companies like Groupon, Facebook and Zynga, the creator of online games like Farmville, are all set to have IPOs coming up soon; while other tech companies like LinkedIn and Pandora have recently gone public. How is all this related to real estate? Well, the housing market in Silicon Valley is super hot.

Insiders report homes selling above asking, listings receiving multiple offers, and the average age of buyers declining as the techies of the area start to wield their newfound (or anticipated) cash. And the data bears this out: home prices in cities like Cupertino, Menlo Park and Palo Alto are up as high as 20 percent, year over year, compared with the nation’s average home prices, which are down 3.6 percent on an annual basis.

You might think this means nothing to you if you don’t live south of San Francisco, but that’s not so. This is proof in the fabled pudding of the concept we recently covered here: of real estate microclimates.

Even when the nation’s market is all the way down in the dumps, it bears keeping in mind that individual states, counties, cities and neighborhoods have their own real estate market dynamics that operate independently of even nearby markets.

And especially keep this in mind as you look to make a rent vs. buy decision, or decide where to buy, or even decide how to operate in your community in terms of advocating for and supporting business-friendly local government initiatives.

Bank of America withdraws from reverse mortgages, redirects staffers to loan workout division
Both Bank of America and Wells Fargo recently exited the business of making reverse mortgages, which are loans to homeowners over 62 that require no repayment until after the borrower passes away. That in itself is not particularly positive; fact is, part of the issue was that widespread declines in home equity are rendering fewer and fewer homeowners eligible for the loans every year.

But what is positive is that Bank of America, in particular, states that 300 members of its reverse mortgage workforce will be redirected to processing loan workouts.

As the nation’s largest bank has been under very loud criticism about the inefficiency and understaffing of its loan modification and short sale procedures, this development seems to be somewhat promising or, at the very least, a step in the right direction, from the perspective of the millions of upside-down homeowners who are trying hard to work with the bank to keep their homes or to liquidate them without a foreclosure.

Who among us hasn’t heard that if we don’t have something nice to say, we ought not say anything at all? If I’d followed that advice over the past few years, when it comes to saying nice things about the real estate market, I’d probably be out of business.

But these bright spots, among others, teach us to cast a wider definitional net about what constitutes real estate and about what constitutes “nice,” and we might just find something nice to say even when positive news is tough to find.



Bedford NY Realtor looks at Case-Shiller: 13 of 20 metros see monthly gains | Inman News for the Bedford NY Real Estate market

Case-Shiller: 13 of 20 metros see monthly gains

Index falls 4% year-over-year in April

After a “double dip” in March, U.S. home prices saw a slight seasonal boost in April, according to the latest Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller National Home Price Indices report released today.

The April indices averaged price data from February, March and April. The 20-city composite index rose 0.7 percent on a monthly, nonseasonally adjusted basis in April, to 138.84 — the first such increase in eight months.

On a seasonally-adjusted basis, the composite remained essentially flat at -0.1 percent. The indices have a base value of 100; indices above 100 indicate appreciation of a typical home in a subject market since January 2000.

Thirteen of 20 metro areas tracked showed monthly gains, including: Atlanta; Cleveland; Dallas; Denver; Los Angeles; Minneapolis; New York; Phoenix; Portland, Ore.; San Diego; San Francisco; Seattle; and Washington, D.C. Atlanta and Seattle posted the highest monthly increase at 1.6 percent each.

In a statement, David M. Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P Indices, called the numbers “a welcome shift,” but cautioned that “the seasonally adjusted numbers show that much of the improvement reflects the beginning of the spring-summer homebuying season. It is much too early to tell if this is a turning point or simply due to some warmer weather.”

North Salem Realtor finds 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website | North Salem NY real estate

36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

It’s a solid fact that real world companies have been trying very hard to infuse their brand into the web, due to the popularity of the internet. Apple knows about that, Coca-cola knows about that, even local fresh mart near my home knows about that.

For giant corporation like Nike, they can probably invest a small part of their fund to hire top-notch web designer to build an epic site, but for small companies without funds and design experience, it will be a crucial challenge for them to get their website existed online with nice design and functionality.

business templates 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

This post exists to solve this problem. Here we’ve collected 35 high quality resources which include WordPress themes, HTML templates, PSD mockups and even step-by-step tutorials to help you build a website that meets your business need. You can either download, work on a bit and put it online directly, or hire a web designer to perform the customization until it fulfills your company’s need.

Meanwhile, you can visit some of our collection posts to get more quality design resources:

HTML/CSS Templates

Art of Business

Designed by Template Monster, Art of Business provides you a completely professional corporate environment to showcase your company and products. I must say that the quality of this template exceeds most templates found in premium market.

art of business 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

Corporattica

Another very high quality site template built with brilliant typography, great color scheme, and professional content slider.

corporattica 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

Euphoria

Although the site is originally designed for personal work showcase, the site design itself suits very well for business site also.

euphoria 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

First

First stands out from common business templates with its fresh, creative and elegant design, making it a great choice for business user.

first 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

High Technologies

Just as its name suggests, IT Technologies is perfect for company related with tech.

high technologies 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

Industrial Services

Here you go, a HTML5 powered, professionally designed layout with brilliant typography and corporate color scheme.

industrial services 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

IT Technologies

Another nicely designed template which suits perfectly to tech-related company.

it technologies 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

Lawyer And Attorney

While most business templates are designed with bright color scheme, Lawyer and Attorney offers you a dark yet elegant layout to showcase your company or service.

lawyer and attorney 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

Mondays

If you are tired of business templates with heavy graphic and color scheme, Mondays probably meets your minimalistic needs with its clean and fresh design.

mondays 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

Smart Biz

Smart Biz is an universal business template with modern touch, which makes it compatible to most kind of business.

smart biz 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

WordPress Themes

Boldy

Boldy is a professional WordPress theme released exclusively by Site5 for business user. It includes WordPress-specific features such as image slider, real-time contact form and Twitter integration.

boldy 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

Genoa

Genoa is a business-oriented WordPress theme designed with simplicity and elegance in mind. It also includes built-in page templates to allow you to change the way the content looks with different layouts.

genoa 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

Simplybiz

Just as its name, Simplybiz impresses your site visitor with its simplicity and professionalism. The theme also contains large shortcode collection which makes your works even simpler.

simplybiz 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

Webfolio

Webfolio comes with ads support, content slider and even Flickr photostream, absolutely a feature-rich theme for your various business needs.

webfolio 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

Wise Business

Released by the same company that publishes Webfolio, Wise Business comes with business friendly features like testimonials page templates and real-time contact form with email validation.

wise business 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

PSD Templates

Hongkiat Exclusive: Polo360

Released exclusively by our site, Polo360 is suitable for a wide range of site like portfolio, product page or main business site. The best part of this Photoshop template is it comes with home page, about page, service page, portfolio page, and contact page design, almost everything you need to build a complete website.

polo360 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

Hongkiat Exclusive: Business

Yes, another high quality business template released by our site. The design features a clean, slick and professional layout ideal for modern company. The template also comes with necessary page design like home page, service page and portfolio page.

business 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

Corporatix

Designed by GraphicsFuel, Corporatix is a modern business template with completely slick and creative design. Although it looks quite complicated, graphic layers inside the template are well-organized for your easier customization.

corporatix 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

Crims Nite

Crims Nite has a completely different design approach with common business template by judging on its color scheme, so it’s suitable for business user who prefers a very different look to his/her company’s site.

crims nite 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

Exponet

Exponet is a well designed Photoshop template available to you with a home page and an about page design.

exponet 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

Handmade

Produced by Web Designer Raid, Handmade is another very slick Photoshop layout perfect for business site.

handmade 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

Interpoint

A Photoshop business template built with simplicity and elegance in mind.

interpoint 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

Openmint

Besides its clean and modern layout, Openmint includes a content part in the footer area that features company’s partners, which is greatly desired by most companies.

openmint 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

Product Layout

Product layout is actually a freebie released by HVDesigns, followed by the tutorial that teaches how to create this slick layout.

product layout 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

Purios

An one page Photoshop layout with elegance applied, looks simply nice.

purios 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

Terrion

This free advanced Photoshop template is purposefully designed to suit portfolio, agency or business site.

terrion 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

Tutorials

Create A Business Website Design

Guided by Journey Digital Media, this tutorial will show you the detail to design a clean and solid fictional business layout. You can download the finished result as a Photoshop file as well.

business website design 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

Create A Detailed Portfolio Homepage Design In Photoshop

Let the First Web Designer teaches you the true way to create a slick home page design well-suited for portfolio and business use.

create detailed portfolio homepage 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

Create A Professional Web 2.0 Layout

Published by web design giant PSDTuts, this tutorial will guide you to create a web 2.0 layout with many Photoshop techniques mentioned.

create professional web20 layout 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

Create A Sleek, Corporate Web Design

From design to coding, you get to create a complete site template with corporate feel in this guided video series.

create sleek corporate web design 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

Create A Stylish Design Agency Website

An easy to follow tutorial to produce a business site that stands out from other designs.

create stylish agency website 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

Create An Amazing Personal Website From Scratch

Yet another comprehensive tutorial that teaches you to create a website from scratch with just shapes, layer styles and fonts. The result design of the tutorial suits very well to business site too.

create amazing personal website 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

Create An Extremely Simple Dark Web Design in Photoshop

Here comes a rare tutorial that walks you through the process of creating a dark-theme website layout which features an almost pitch-black color theme with some glowing elements for contrast.

create dark web design 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

Create Fantastic Landing Page

With proper use of spacing, typography and colors, you can create a professional landing page like below, just follow the tutorial!

create fantastic landing page 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

Design A Beautiful Website From Scratch

From Nettuts, this tutorial will show you how to create a beautiful website with a modern touch.

design beautiful website 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

Design A Clean Business Website

While most tutorials teach you to create a color-rich layout, this tutorial focuses on creating a very clean yet professional design for portfolio or small business use.

create clean business website 36 High Quality Templates & Tutorials To Design Business Website

Reflection

Although WordPress themes and site templates showcased here can be put online directly, I strongly recommend business owner to hire a web designer to perform customization until the template matches your brand like logo, color scheme, etc. After all, a great web design should not just look good or function well, but represent the precious brand and the very purpose of the company.

We are willing to hear what you think about these business templates, and possibly your favorite template from this showcase post, sincerely thanks.

Author: Alvaris Falcon

Alvaris is a web designer and developer. He also consider himself a charity runner and blogger in Holy Aviary.

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