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Archive for January, 2010

A few words about Louisville Colorado

January 30th, 2010 author No comments

The City of Louisville Colorado is a small city located only about 15 minutes East of Boulder Colorado. Louisville, long regarded as a bedroom community, has grown especially in recent years and, since the 1990s, has seen the establishment of many large companies.

Louisville lies only five minutes West of Lafayette CO, and about 10 or 15 minutes south of Longmont Colorado . In proximity is Erie CO , another five minutes away from Lafayette,Louisville offers a great combination of inexpensive homes and “small town” living instead of the “college town” atmosphere of Boulder, where you would be working.

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Just Another Day in Paradise

January 30th, 2010 admin No comments

My day starts fairly early.  I’m usually up and out the door by 6 a.m. with my dog at my side to get in his daily walk.  We like to walk early; it’s cooler and there is less traffic.  Our walk, practically, never covers less than 2 miles.  He’s a good walker, well trained, but still likes to pay attention to cats and tenses up when he sees a squirrel.  You can tell he’d love to try catching one.  As soon as we get home, I like to pull weeds from the flower beds.  They just seem to come out easier in the morning – no doubt due to the moist soil.

Our walk being over, I sit down to read the news and yesterdays mail.  My sons are still in bed, and will probably still be there when I leave for work (one is over 20, the other is a teenager.  My wife leaves for work about the same time as I get back with the dog.

Breakfast is fast and simple; either a can of soup or a sandwich, then it’s off to work.

I work a hybrid shift.  Our company downsized and streamlined itself practically out of existence.  Now everybody is multi-functional.  My hours keep me there from late morning to early evening (the busiest part of the day).

It’s warehouse work, so I’m on the move all day, pulling and stocking parts.  Not a glorious job, but work none the less.  There is no airflow in the building, so going to the dock to load or unload a truck is a pleasant change of pace.  Sometime during the day, I stop for lunch – there’s no set hour, you go when you can.

After work I slide home in no hurry and throw together a late dinner than can be made in an hour or less.  Try to sneak onto the computer if nobody is there or sit down and watch a TV show if the computer is busy.

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Carpet, Wood and Tile Flooring compared.

January 27th, 2010 author No comments

Whether you are readying your house to sell or considering what features you like in the next residence, new floors is almost certainly something that you would have in mind.Flooring can be an important part of selling your residence because buyers will be turned off by dirty, old stained carpet or scratched up wood floors and will subtract an amount from the price they will offer, even if it isn’t the right amount for replacement.

Tile and wood floor covering are currently popular when it comes to replacing floor covering because they are easily cleaned and maintained and less apt to cause allergies. You are staging your house for sale and might be considering new carpeting but keep in mind that many potential buyers currently prefer tile or hardwood floors.. The other thing about carpet is that color is a thing that can always be controversial. This color problem can affect the sale of the home and it is safer to stay with natural wood or neutral colored stone which are unlikely to be offensive to many natives.

In order of floor covering costs, carpet is the cheapest, wood floor covering costs more and tile is the most expensive. Many buyers and sellers are reluctant to undertake extensive floors projects because of the expense involved with tile costing four times as much as carpet and wooden floors twice as much.If you are considering buying a house where the owner has just replaced the floor covering, you’ll need to figure out what you can get it on with until you find whatever you are looking for The seller is unlikely to revisit the price because of your personal tastes.

Maintenance costs have a direct relationship with the cost of the floors. Wood and tile flooring are far less demanding of time and money than carpets which require a lot more in order to be kept clean and in good order. Wooden floor covering can get easily scratched so tile would have to be the most durable choice.

Many people still prefer carpet because of the warmth and the appeal that it can give to the surroundings. Use area rugs if you have wood or tile floors and enhance the room with the warmth and aesthetic appeal of carpets. Large room-size area rugs are good for living rooms and can also protect the floor. Whatever your preferences are, whether in terms of fashionable natural material, Oriental and Indian patterns or just plain solid colors, you can easily match the color scheme in the room.

Sometimes carpets can be as expensive as the low end wooden floors and there may not be lot of price difference if you take into account Carpet is harder to keep clean and allergy-free, as opposed to wood or tile flooring, but floors will always be a matter of personal choice. No matter what kind of floors you have, just make sure that it is well maintained in order to achieve a quick sale of the home.

Whether selling Boulder real estate, Louisville CO real estate, or Lafayette CO real estate, make sure your carpets are in tip-top shape to sell your house as quickly as possible.

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The Wizards Almost Won!

January 27th, 2010 admin No comments
Washington Wizards
Image by RMTip21 via Flickr

My husband got free tickets to a Washington Wizards game from work a couple months ago. They were playing the Detroit Pistons. This game was the first time that the dynamic duo of Caron Butler and Gilbert Arenas had been back in action on the court in months after being sidelined by injuries. We were four rows back from center court, and the game was fantastic! It was a close game throughout the first half. The Pistons started to pull away in the second half and gained a double digit lead, but the Wizards managed to tie it in the last three minutes. The score went back and forth for a while, and in the end the Pistons managed a two point win. Even though our hometown team lost, it was the best basketball game I’d ever been to because of the great seats and we got free Wizard hats to boot!

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Keep your home cool in hot weather without spending a fortune.

January 26th, 2010 author No comments

Have you been hot and uncomfortable in your Colorado property in the summer because you would like to save yourself the expense of air conditioning. Stop sweltering right now. There are a number of different things that you can do to keep your residence cool even in the height of summer without spending an awful lot of money. Here are a number of inexpensive methods that you can use to cool your home in the summer.

Ceiling Fans
A ceiling fan will cool your residence nicely without unduly inflating your electricity bills. Ceiling fans can cool a room down by about seven degrees and they only increase your electricity bill by about ten dollars if you leave it on 12 hours each day. That is a great cost-benefit trade-off!

Close the Drapes
Keep the house cool and shady by using your blinds or the drapes to keep out the sun in the daytime. The blinds and curtains help to block the sun’s heat from raising the temperature inside the residence. Your residence is thus being cooled without the use of any electricity.

Keep the use of lights and appliances to a minimum.
All illumination and appliances generate heat that increase the temperature inside your house. Heat is also given off by large appliances. Keep the use of your illumination and appliances to a bare minimum. If your air-conditioning thermostat picks up the heat from the appliances or the lights, it will assume that the room is hotter than it actually is and increase the cooling and your power bill.

Avoid cooking
A good way to generate heat inside the home is to do some cooking or baking. You may not fully realize this but cooking or baking generate enough heat to raise temperatures inside the residence by several degrees. Stick to cold food instead of cooking a meal. When it is really hot, a cold meal of sandwiches and salads or fruit is good for you.

Plant shade trees and bushes
You can plant some vegetation and shrubs in front of the windows where the sun comes in the most. This isn’t a “quick fix,” but when they blossom in a few years, they’ll do wonders for keeping your residence cool. In fact, you may not even need your air conditioner or ceiling fans that much when you have full trees and shrubs in front of your windows.

Use proper insulation
If your home is not well insulated the interior will tend to absorb and retain heat in the summer. Make sure your attic is properly insulated to keep the cool air in and the hot air out in the hot weather. If you upgrade your insulation from 3 inches to 12 inches, your electricity bills will reduce to 90% of what they were before the upgrade.

It is important to keep yourself cool in hot weather. When it is hot, you don’t feel like exerting yourself unless you are comfortable. Allowing yourself to get hot in summer is bad for your health and can cause long-term problems. Stay cool this hot weather with the help of these pointers.

Other sources:
Boulder real estate
Longmont Colorado
Louisville Colorado real estate
Automated Homefinder

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Before selling your old residence, can you consider buying a new one?

January 23rd, 2010 author No comments

For many inhabitants who read the news about the housing markets, the prospect of buying a new residence is scary because they are afraid that their old homes will not sell. Whether you are considering selling Boulder real estate, Louisville CO real estate, or Longmont CO real estate, you should be looking at the following. Amidst all the gloom and doom of severely depressed real estate markets, there are still some real estate markets where the price had been inflated and has now been corrected and residences are selling at the current market price.

The other point to keep in mind is that you can conclude a contract on a new home which is contingent on the sale of your old one. You can therefore be locked into a favorable exchange and also give yourself an additional incentive to sell your house quickly. Because of this timetable, you would be induced to put more electricity and effort into tidying up your residence and pricing it right. Your real estate agent should be able to prepare a CMA or comparative market analysis that can serve as a database for residence prices in your location.

When you start looking for a new home, you need to have the reassurance that you would be able to sell your old one. If you wait for the housing market to rebound, you may not necessarily make a larger profit because the increase in the value of your present residence would be set off by increases in the prices of the houses that you are interested in buying. You would do better to get a good exchange on the residence you plan to purchase and move your home at a price you can live with. The end result might be a great savings on your new residence that exceeds any loss of profit you anticipated when you sell your residence.

If you ensure that your house is appealing and that your pricing realistic and in line with the market, there is no reason why your residence cannot be sold quickly. If you are to execute this strategy successfully, you need to be sure that your house compares favorably with the competition in the neighborhood whether in appearance or in price.

Whatever you may require of your new residence, you should try and locate a home that fits these specifications at an acceptable price and try to sell your house at the same time. You’ll have to balance the gains on buying a new residence against losses on selling your old one, and if the buying and selling prices are based on the CMA, you will likely be better off financially in the long run.

When you are ready to find another home, you should find the home you want, at the price you want and make your best effort to sell yours. If you get a little less than you were hoping for, chances are you might be saving more than that on the residence you are purchasing and will come out ahead in the long run.

This article was provided by AHF – your Colorado real estate experts.

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Affordable Kitchen Remodels Can Help Your House Sell Quicker

January 22nd, 2010 author No comments

When you wish to sell your Colorado real estate</a., use your kitchen and your bathroom to appeal to potential customers and make the house sell more quickly. You can spend anything been a few hundred dollars and a few thousand on remodeling your kitchen, but you should bear in mind that if you spend more than $10,000, you are not likely to see a proportionate return.

In planning a kitchen remodeling, appliances can be a big part but not if you're planning to take them with you. If you decide on stainless steel appliances as part of your upgrade, you may not get full value if the customers have other ideas. Mind your expenditure and don't splash out on fashionable new appliances. Focus on items that add value to the house such as cabinets, floor covering, faucets and countertops.You can make an exception in the case of built-in appliances like range tops or dishwashers. If they are built-ins that stay with the residence, they should be updated or added. Putting in a dishwasher will improve the possibilites of a residence sale. Adding a garbage disposal is another thing that purchasers expect to find.

Stone or granite are the materials that are the most fashionable and appealing today when it comes to countertops. When you are updating the kitchen, floors and cabinets should also have priority. If your existing cabinetry frames are in good shape, you might want to consider re-staining them or painting and putting new doors on for a modern appearance. People have been known to update plain cabinet doors with the use of trim or glass front panels.

You can easily upgrade the appearance of a kitchen which is in basically good shape by just adding a new kitchen sink or new faucets. Leaky faucets can be terribly offputting and it only costs about $100 to replace them. For new appliances, bear in mind that the current popular favorites are stainless steel and black. Some of them have magnetic panels that can change the look either way and appliances that are modern will sell a kitchen more than older ones will, obviously.

Tidy countertops that are free of clutter and small appliances are an inexpensive way to improve the appearance of your kitchen. A corner pantry is an improvement that you could consider. Attend to leaky faucets and clean up the contents of your cabinets. Make sure that the appliances are shining and squeaky clean and wax the floor for a spotless appearance. Your cabinet doors should be attractive and freshly painted and, if you get a new countertop, make sure it appeals to everyone by using Corian or granite resin ones .These upgrades, which can be carried out affordably, will result in a much better looking kitchen.

Other issues of interest:
Broomfield real estate, Louisville CO real estate, or Erie CO real estate

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A Day for the Temporary Homemaker

January 22nd, 2010 admin No comments

During the summer, when I’m not working, my day proceeds at a relaxed pace. I get up when I’d like to get up, which is usually around noon! Then, I eat some breakfast, and I might meditate for a while. One of the highlights of my day is usually reading a great mystery novel or working on a knitting project, which I wouldn’t have time to do during the rest of the year. Then, I usually take a walk, or head downtown to the local library. Because my job keeps me very busy from September to June, I treasure every summer day, and I try to make the most of each one.

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Colorado bound!

January 21st, 2010 author No comments

I am moving to Colorado, because I found a job in Boulder, but I am not sure where I am going to live. I doubt if I could afford a place in Boulder itself. I realize that Boulder real estate is a better investment, but it is beyond my means at present. Boulder is beautifully located close to the mountains and I understand that the shopping is outstanding but the surrounding cities seem to fit my budget better.

I am giving serious thought to Longmont Colorado real estate also. Longmont in the Northeast is only a 15 minute drive. That figure could be 30 minutes instead of 15 minutes but I can live with that. I understand that costs there could be as much as 25% to 40% lower. Longmont CO has many more homes to choose from.

I would reckon that my wife will find a job in Denver Colorado, and, in that case, we should probably be considering Louisville Colorado, or even Lafayette CO. Because these locations lie more south, she would probably find it much more convenient to drive to Denver. Louisville and Lafayette have really cool downtown locations but they are both costlier than Longmont. They are also close to Superior real estate and I am not fond of Superior/Rock Creek. That city is too much like California for my comfort.I suppose I could consider Broomfield CO real estate. That area offers the best commuting to Denver and its location, further south than Louisville or Lafayette, is also conveniently located from Boulder.

}I guess I’ll figure it out when I go to Colorado for my next residence hunting trip.

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My favorite basketball game

January 19th, 2010 admin No comments
NYC - MSG - Walk of Fame - Michael Jordan
Image by wallyg via Flickr

My favorite basketball game was by far game 3 of the 2003 first round playoffs. Philadelphia 76ers vs. Charlotte Hornets, Iverson absolutely unleashed. Scoring 55 points in that game, one of the highest scoring playoff games in history. He went 21-32 from the field and did a remarkable ankle breaker on George lynch. This guy was simply amazing this game, this performance couldn’t be matched by any player besides Michael Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon. This was a truly great game.

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