Stone is one of the predominant materials used for house exteriors today. Whether your home’s style is colonial, traditional or contemporary,stone lends a timelessness and an organic connection to the earth. But stone homes in the U.S. have historically had an austere look, sitting atop the landscape with little or no connection to their foundation plantings, let alone their gardens.Let’s look at ways to make your stone home feel at home in your landscape.
Consider how to design a purposeful landscape. While foundation plantings of green boxwood and hollies may be the norm in suburbia, Houzzers want and deserve something more. What works for your neighbor’s home may not work for yours. To make your home feel truly at home in your landscape, begin by taking an objective look at its style, siding, coloration and textures.
This house, covered in gray stone and brick in tones of pink and orange, appears to be happily nestled on its lot because careful attention was paid to color and texture. The blue and purple tones of the lyme grass, Russian sage and purple salvia pull from the stone; their verticality speaks to the height of the home. The pink coneflowers pull from and brighten the tones in the brick, while the texture introduced by the blue atlas cedar visually reinforces the texture of the stone.
Add boulders. It may at first seem counterintuitive to add more stone to a landscape that surrounds a house of stone, but doing so can ground the home in a meaningful way by visually pulling it forward into the space. Make sure to match the scale of the boulders to the scale of the house. Undersize boulders can look like an afterthought, or worse yet, a weekend DIY project gone awry.
The many boulders in the landscape shown here accentuate the concept of juxtaposition by giving the appearance of deconstruction. Additionally, the water softens the vignette by adding a sense of flow and continuity.
Consider an entry gate or fence. What better place to set the tone for your home than at its entrance? By doing so thoughtfully, you can pull your home’s color, texture and style forward in smaller doses to encourage curiosity, exploration and the sense that your home is a special place. I realize that not all of us have the space or homeowner’s association approval to do such things, but if possible, make that connection by adding an appropriate gate or fence using the same stone.
From prepping for winter storms to gift-wrapping (or cookie-baking) marathons, December is a busy, holiday-focused month. Make the most of it by planning ahead, setting intentions and focusing on meaningful events rather than trying to do it all. The weather outside may be getting frightful, but that just means it’s the perfect time to get cozy indoors with a mug of hot cocoa. Check off these 12 tasks for an easier, safer and cozier month.
1. Get ready for winter storms. Keep snow shovels, gloves, ice melt and window scrapers near the door. Mark the sides of your driveway and other key places with reflective poles, to help the snowplows see where to go. Even if it doesn’t snow where you live, it’s smart to keep the pantry stocked with food, bottled water, candles and flashlights in case of power outages.
2. Disconnect hoses. If you haven’t done so yet, shut off the water supply to your outdoor faucets. After shutting off the water, turn on the faucets outside to allow any water left to drain out. Then disconnect garden hoses, drain the water and roll up the hoses to store them inside.
3. Decorate for the holidays — and sort holiday decor for the future. When you pull out the holiday gear this year, pay attention to what you are passing over. If you didn’t use a decor item last year and don’t feel like putting it up again, do your storage space a favor and donate it to charity.
5. Make space for mucky boots, coats and scarves. If you have a coat closet by the door, clean it out to make way for bulky winter coats and boots. If you don’t have a hall closet, set up your own systems to handle mucky items. A boot tray on the floor, a bench for sitting on, wall hooks for coats and a basket for hats and mittens should do the trick.
6. Update emergency supplies. Put your mind at ease that you are prepared for emergencies by making sure you have a well-stocked emergency kit in the house and in the trunk of your car. At the very least, include bottled water, a hand-cranked radio, a flashlight and extra batteries, a cell phone charger, food, blankets and a first-aid kit. At home also keep your most essential documents in one easily accessible place.
7. Boost home security. If you will be traveling over the holidays, use light timers for interior lights and ask a friend or neighbor to take in mail. If it’s going to snow while you are away, hire a service to plow or shovel your walkways. It will give the impression that your house is being lived in and make coming home much more pleasant. Even if you are staying at home, consider adding motion-sensor exterior lights to make it less inviting to potential burglars.
In the market for a new home? Here are four reasons to add real estate shopping to your December to-do list.
Bargain prices
Did you know that, historically, home prices are lower in December than in any other month?
As for the overall housing picture, if you’re not yet in the market, you’ll like this news: While home prices are continuing to rise, it’s happening at a much slower pace.
According to a recent report from Zillow, U.S. home values are currently up 6.4 percent year-over-year and have been slowing for nearly two years. Next year home values are expected to grow at 3 percent — roughly half their current pace. These changing dynamics, and a shift toward healthy stabilization, put more power in the hands of buyers.
Low mortgage rates
What’s driving affordability? Low mortgage rates. Currently hovering in the 4 percent range, rates are projected to edge up to 5 percent by the end of 2015, according to Zillow Chief Economist, Stan Humphries.
To put this in perspective, did you know that if rates go up by just one percentage point, your purchasing power is reduced by a whopping 11 percent? Find out how much waiting to buy could cost you.
Motivated sellers
If sellers are listing their home for sale this time of year, this likely means they’re serious about shedding the weight of their residences.
Regardless of why that is – perhaps they’ve recently gotten divorced, have to relocate for a new job opportunity, or are under some other personal pressure – this puts you, the buyer, in a much better position to negotiate and ultimately cut a deal, particularly since competition is minimal this time of year.
Tax savings
At the end of the year, everyone is looking for ways to lower their tax bill. And closing on your new home before Dec. 31st is one way to get some breaks.
After all, you can deduct home purchase costs, including mortgage interest, property taxes and points — while you build equity and save yourself a significant amount of money.
A decade ago, the housing market was heading into the busiest years of the bubble. Ten years later, hundreds of thousands of homeowners are about to get a nasty surprise. As their loans turn 10 years old, they will see their monthly loan payments reset higher—in some cases more than double.
The trouble is coming for loans that had such features as adjustable rates and interest-only periods that let homeowners borrow more than they would have been able to afford via a typical fixed-rate loan. Subprime loans have typically been resetting after three years or five years; the more borrowers’ monthly payments went up, the more likely they were to fall behind on their loans.
A report from Fitch Ratings says this problem impends for more than 700,000 borrowers who took out prime jumbo loans—mortgages larger than what Fannie Mae (FNMA) and Freddie Mac (FMCC) allowed—and Alt-A loans, which went to borrowers whose credit scores placed them between prime and subprime. More subprime loans have already reset than the total number of affected prime jumbo and Alt-A loans, but payments for the newest batch will increase far more than they did for the subprime loans.
The national annual effective rent growth reached 4.33% in October, a 2 basis point (bps) increase from September’s 4.31% and the highest point of the year to date, according to the latest data from Axiometrics.. October marked the eighth straight month in which effective rent growth has increased.
The continued strong effective rent growth indicates that the national apartment market is likely to finish the year above the 4% mark. Even taking seasonality into consideration, Axiometrics said it does not expect the market to change too drastically during the remaining two months of the year.
“Effective rent growth typically declines during the fourth quarter, but not so far in the ‘Year of the Apartment,’” said Stephanie McCleskey, Axiometrics Vice President of Research. “Even though the rate of increase has slowed, the fact the market is steady means that the factors fueling the strength of 2014 — job growth, desire to rent instead of own and barriers to homeownership — are still in force.”
YTD Rent Growth Remains Best in this Decade
Whether year-to-date (YTD) effective rent growth remains above 5% during the usual holiday-season leasing doldrums remains to be seen. “But it still looks like a good bet for 2014 YTD effective rent growth to be above 4.0%,” McCleskey said.
YTD effective growth measured 5.2% for the first 10 months of 2014, down 30 bps from September’s 5.5% but up 27 bps from the 4.9% YTD growth recorded in October 2010. The 2010 trend decreased by 40 bps to 4.5% during the last two months of that year; 2014′s rate would have to slide 67 bps to fall below the first year of this decade.
Occupancy Sagged in October
The national occupancy rate dropped to 94.9% in October, the first time it has been below 95% since April, but the news is good when taken in context. October 2014 occupancy is higher than any other October since at least 2008, when Axiometrics started reporting monthly, and occupancy is 95% on a same-store, annual basis.
A rest stop in Flower Mound, Texas. Photos by Ryann Ford via Design Milk
Over the past five years, Austin-based photographer Ryann Ford has documented over 150 of America’s rest stops, a dying breed of roadside shelter that’s been largely superseded by the gas station and the drive-thru. On the Kickstarter page for The Last Stop: Vanishing Relics of the American Roadside, she writes that the disappearance of their “teepees and wagon wheels, and geometric shapes echoing classic mid-century design,” filled her with the need to “capture as many as I could before they were gone forever.”
Below are a few standout images from the book Ford hopes to produce, all shot on a medium-format film camera. You can check out some more over at Design Milk
Over the last 10 years, German furniture maker Vicco von Voss has been building out his dream cabin in rural Maryland, one piece of timber at a time. Recently profiled in the New York Times, von Voss’s 1,400-square-foot, Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired house is a masterpiece of patient craftsmanship: each plank and beam was milled by hand, using fallen trees salvaged from the woods nearby.
Assembling hundreds of varieties of trees, including the Eastern white pine, cherry, cypress, and swamp maple, von Voss added each design feature with care. Take, for example, how von Voss spent weeks crafting the cherry and yellow wood door to his daughter’s room, which now also has notches carved into them to record her growth. Or the fact that he had to let all of the meticulously scavenged wood age three years per inch to control how they expand and contract through the seasons. Check out more photos of the “results” below (the house is still a work-in-progress) and a slideshow of its construction process over here.
As home prices rise, homeowners are wasting no time making use of their newfound, or regained, home equity. In fact, while all mortgage originations rose in the third quarter of this year, the biggest gain was in home equity lines of credit (HELOCs).
Originations of these loans, which are often in addition to primary mortgages, jumped over 17 percent for the quarter, according to Inside Mortgage Finance, a mortgage industry publication: $20 billion in new HELOCs, which is the most quarterly volume for the product this year.
Phillip Spears | Digital Vision | Getty Images
At the current rate, lenders could originate more than $67 billion in HELOCs for all of 2014, which would be the most since 2009. Volume is still low by historical standards, but the gain points to not only more home equity available, but more confidence among consumers that they can tap their homes again for much-needed cash. There has, however, been a shift in the borrower mindset.
“It certainly seems like people are doing it a lot more responsibly now,” said Rick Huard, senior vice president of consumer lending product management at TD Bank. “People seem to be much more educated customers and much more responsible.”
They have to be, because on the flip side, lenders aren’t just handing out the loans to anyone with a pulse. During the last housing boom, borrowers extracted trillions of dollars worth of home equity, spending it on luxury goods and vacations, as lenders turned a blind eye to basic safeguards, like the ability to repay the loan or the borrower’s other debt load.
Today, lenders are following more stringent guidelines enforced by federal regulators, and most HELOC borrowers are using the money to improve their homes, adding value to their largest asset, not subtracting it.
A survey of more than one thousand HELOC borrowers by TD bank found many using HELOCs to consolidate other debt, thereby lowering interest rates (29 percent); credit cards can carry interest rates more than four times that of a HELOC. Others used the loans for automobiles (27 percent), emergencies (19 percent) or education expenses (20 percent). Some are refinancing HELOCs they already have.
“People are readdressing or redoing,” said Craig Strent of Maryland-based Apex Home loans. “That has probably resulted in this increase in equity line originations.”
Yes, home prices are expected to grow. And a recent October 2014 survey by the National Association of Realtors shows by how much.
Thanks to the combination of rising inventory and modest expectations for demand growth, Realtors expect home prices to increase only modestly in the next 12 months.
The rate varies across the nation but the median price increase is about 3% and never goes above 5%.
2080 Washington Street (before the infamous hedge), via SAN FRANCISCO HISTORY CENTER, SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY The Spreckels Mansion at 2080 Washington – best known as the current home of romance superstar novelist Danielle Steel – has been a major San Francisco landmark since day one and has played host to tales that are worthy of her books. Of course, it’s now hidden behind a massive hedge worthy of a photo tribute, but we took a peek inside the storied home’s history. Here now is a look back at one of the city’s most iconic mega-mansions.
The Spreckels family is one of San Francisco’s oldest and most illustrious. Their story goes back to Claus Spreckels, who first started a brewery when he brought his family to San Francisco in 1856. Claus soon switched to the sugar industry and built his fortune in Hawaii by allegedly acquiring water rights in poker game with the King of Hawaii. He built his first SF-based sugar refinery in 1867 at 8th and Brannan, but soon needed more space and opened a larger facility in Potrero Point. His California Sugar Refinery funded additional Spreckels enterprises, like a resort hotel in Aptos, an investment in the Santa Cruz Railroad, and sugar beet operations in the Salinas Valley that sprouted the company town of Spreckels, California.
Spreckels’ Sugar Factory beneath Potrero Hill c1890s, via Found SF
Claus was the sugar daddy (sorry) to thirteen children with his wife Anna, but only five survived to adulthood. The oldest son, John, established a transportation and real estate empire in San Diego, while second son Adolph ran the family sugar business. Adolph was a big whale in San Francisco, but it was his wife Alma who gained the moniker “great grandmother of San Francisco”.
Adolph and Alma with their kids, both via SAN FRANCISCO HISTORY CENTER, SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY
Alma lived a true rags to riches story. She was born in the Sunset in 1881 when it was still a windswept district of sand dunes. Her parents were Danish immigrants, and while her father spent more time hating on the city’s nouveau riche than working, her mother ran three successful business out of the family home. Alma had an interest in art and took night classes at Mark Hopkins Art Institute. At six feet tall, “Big Alma” soon became a favorite model of local artists. These jobs led to several lucrative side gigs as a nude model.
After a lawsuit against an ex-boyfriend for “de-flowering,” Alma became something of a celebrity in the city, and was the obvious choice to model for sculptor Robert Aitken’s monument to Naval hero Admiral Dewey and President William McKinley (it still stands today in the center of Union Square). Wealthy bachelor Adolph Spreckels was on the Citizen’s Committee in charge of the landmark’s funding and became smitten with the model. After “courting” for five years, they finally married in 1908.
Alma looking fierce as the Goddess of Victory atop the Dewey Monument in Union Square, both via Flickr/Peter Kaminski
The new couple first lived in Sausalito, but Adolph purchased the property that would become the Spreckels mansion as a Christmas present for Alma. The Victorian-style home was torn down to make room for a new French Chateau designed by architects Kenneth MacDonald Jr. and Beaux-Arts trained George Applegarth (fun fact: Applegarth was buddies with Jack London, and the pair would ride their bikes from the Bay Area to Yosemite and Half Dome). The Spreckels had to buy up several nearby Victorians to make room for the new manse, and Alma insisted on saving the structures by moving eight of them to new locations. Completed in 1912, the new house became host to lots of lavish parties and launched Alma into high society.
Alma went to Europe on a trip to stock the new house with loads of 18th century antiques. She became friends with dancer Loie Fuller in Paris, who in turn introduced her to sculptor Auguste Rodin. Together, the women secured thirteen of Rodin’s bronzes, which Alma brought to the Panama Pacific International Exposition of 1915. This sparked the idea for Alma to build a museum for her art. It later became the California Palace of the Legion of Honor.
