When you think about exciting home decor, chances are good your mind probably doesn’t immediately drift to planters.
Terra-cotta, ceramic, plastic—they’re pots. For plants. What more is there to say on the subject?
A lot, apparently! In fact, there’s a whole, wide world of weird, hilarious, and creative—did we say weird?—planters out there, just waiting for you to discover them.
So check out these fun ways you could be showing off your houseplants. Although to be honest, if you snag one of these, we have a feeling no one’s going to be focused on your plants
The notion that somehow an affluent set of Millennials is going to shift the housing market is not happening. What is happening is rather clear; historically low housing inventory is causing prices to inflate in the face of what has been very low new home building. If you want to buy, your options are usually an outdated crap shack that is already at an inflated price or in some new areas, glorified condos where builders are trying to max out every square inch of development where you can smell what your neighbor is cooking. The fact remains the same, over the past decade there has been a dramatic shift of renter household formation (not homeownership). For Millennials, tastes are dramatically different. Sure, you have Taco Tuesday baby boomers glued to Fox, MSBC, or CNN (typical age of viewers is 60+) so many are simply out of touch with the wants of younger Americans. Builders however understand this dynamic and multi-family unit construction has been running briskly for the last few years. Many large cities have now converted into renting majority locations.
Majority Renter Cities Expand
More than 20 large cities are now renting majority cities. This is a big shift and of course goes against the trend that things are back to “normal” in the sense that if you want to own in certain locations you will need to overpay for a crap shack. Low inventory and house humping logic are powerful draws. Many over spend dramatically when they buy. You see this with DINKs – they buy with two incomes but then pop out a kid and suddenly realize that in many overpriced hoods that daycare is expensive if you want to maintain a dual income household. We’re talking $1,200 to $1,800 a month. Forget about feeding an extra mouth or two. Yet they assume today will be like tomorrow. Nothing in their formula accounts for unexpected costs.
American fans of the British monarchy will be double-checking their alarms to ensure they don’t miss a moment of the upcoming royal wedding of Britain’s Prince Harry to American actress Meghan Markle.
Inspired by their impending nuptials, we’re highlighting 10 castles fit for a king and queen, or at least a duke and duchess. As Lorde helpfully pointed out, most of us will never be royals. But that doesn’t mean we can’t live like royalty, right here in America.
There are gorgeous properties in varying styles, sizes, and ages. One of them is a stunner in Milwaukee, modeled after a French chateau.
“My sellers have put the house on Airbnb, and they were booked solid because of the castle feel,” says listing agent Melanie Gilmore-Gaar.
Because who wouldn’t want to be queen for a day—or a least a weekend?
But a weekend stay is far different from owning your own castle, which means maintenance, more maintenance, and lots of mowing the lawn.
“The backyard is the size of a football field,” Gilmore-Gaar says of her listing. The upside is a spacious place for entertaining and perhaps even hosting events such as (nonroyal) weddings.
Practice your bow and curtsy, put on your fascinator, and check out these 10 glorious castles on the market.
At $1,585, the median price per square foot in Manhattan is miles away from Cleveland’s ($53/square foot). We calculated that, for $200,000, you could buy a tiny 126-square-foot room in the borough, but it would be difficult to actually live in such a place. Plus, it’s highly unlikely you’d even find a listing of that size and price in Manhattan.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, in Cleveland, for $200,000, you could buy more than enough space to enjoy, and then some. You could own a house so big that you’d be hosting fancy Thanksgiving and Christmas gatherings, with spare rooms for your extended family.
San Francisco, Boston and San Jose are in the same boat as Manhattan, where prices are sky-high, and the market is on fire, while El Paso, San Antonio and Memphis boast an affordability similar to Cleveland’s. San Antonio stand outs from the latter group with its thriving business activity, and the health and education sectors driving the economy in the area. The development pipeline is also robust, so San Antonio is definitely worth looking into, because with $200,000, you could buy a sizable 3,249-square-foot home there.
For the same amount, you could purchase a home ranging from 400 to 600 square feet in Los Angeles and San Diego or one as large as 2,000 square feet in Nashville or Orlando. Some might describe moving to LA as the American Dream, but you’d need a lot more than $200,000 to buy your dream house there. Orlando can be seen as an alternative to LA, with its pleasant climate, its nightlife and job opportunities—the one major difference being that the cost of living is considerably lower.
Although major cities, the following are slightly more affordable than San Diego or LA. For $200,000, you’d end up with decent living conditions in Miami (835 square feet), Portland (773 square feet) and Chicago (1,102 square feet), but probably not in the neighborhoods you’d want.
From 1978 through 2015, the median size of the single-family home increased every year until it peaked at 2,467 square feet, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Then, in 2016, that number began to shrink, albeit ever so slightly.
So, are we finally coming to our senses about McMansions?
Of course, owning a big house has long been a key component of the American Dream — you know you’ve arrived when you have columns, an indoor pool and a theater room — but, in reality, it’s all usually a huge waste of space, according to a study cited by Steve Adcock on the Get Rich Slowly blog.
A research team affiliated with UCLA studied American families and where they spend most of their time while inside their homes. The results were fascinating, but really not all that surprising. Here’s one representative example:
As you can see, most square footage is wasted as people tend to gather around the kitchen and the television, while avoiding the dining room and porch.
“The findings were not pretty. In fact, they helped prove how little we use our big homes for things other than clutter,” Adcock said. “Most families don’t use large areas of their homes — which means they’ve essentially wasted money on space they don’t need.”
A Colonial house is an architectural style that can be found in neighborhoods all across the United States. From California to the Carolinas, different iterations of the Colonial house still capture the eye of buyers with an appreciation for classic, historic American architecture. But how do you know you’re looking at the real thing?
Let’s take a look at the characteristics of a Colonial house, how to distinguish one type of Colonial house from another, and what makes Colonial houses so popular today.
If you have a hankering for traditional Americana, a Colonial house might be perfect for you, says Justin M. Riordan, founder of Spade and Archer Design Agency of Portland, OR, and Seattle.
Evolved from the simple log cabin, Colonial houses rose up in the days of the 13 original American colonies (hence the name) because they were “simple to build, efficient to use, and easy on the eyes,” Riordan says. “The style was heavily favored by early colonists and often made of wood, a resource that was readily available.”
Colonial houses are perhaps best known for their symmetry.
They “usually have a door right smack in the center first floor of the facade, with the same number of windows on the left side as the right,” Riordan explains. “They tend to have two or two and a half stories, but I have seen one-story Colonials, although these tend to be ranch houses with Colonial facades.”
Of course, not every single Colonial house looks the same. Builders across the U.S. have taken the basic Colonial blueprint and applied regional twists to them—variations that make the architecture appropriate for the different climates around the country. These “subsets” of the Colonial, as Riordan calls them, have the basic symmetry, along with other characteristics that set them apart from their “cousins.”
This delightful A-Frame from 1970 is on the market for the first time since it was built 48 years ago. The owners purchased the land back in 1963, built the pre-cut abode, and have lived there ever since.
The compact 1,536 square-foot home is located in a SoCal canyon surrounded by gardens and oak trees, with a layout that includes three bedrooms and two bathrooms. The sunny living room features soaring ceilings and walls of glass that open to a balcony.
The cozy spread includes parquet flooring, an updated kitchen, a bonus room with separate entrance that could be a studio or guest room, and multiple patios and decks. A-plus!
