The Artful Dwelling

Westhaven-A Great Family Neighborhood

Westhaven is one of those great family neighborhoods near Nashville where your kids can play nearby, you can walk to the grocery store, the neighborhood's own elementary school, restaraunts, a daycare, and other professional offices. It does remind you of a time long ago, where cities were actually like that and everyone knew each other. There is a sense of belonging here.

Luckily, the real estate market in Westhaven has not fallen as much as other areas in Nashville or in Middle Tennessee, and values are starting to come back up. People seek out this neighborhood, move in, and then keep moving around inside the neighborhood--they love it that much.The home values are protected by all those great feautures that people keep seeking out.

If you have a large family, or need an in-law suite, you need to check out this listing. It was especially designed with moms in mind. There is a huge mud room with cubbies, a very large walk-in pantry, and a mom control center/office right off the kitchen as well. It also have one of the biggest backyards in Westhaven that backs up to woods! It also has a custom retaining wall, stone flanked flower beds and a fountain. The floor plan is flexible enough that you can have 4-6 bedrooms, and you have a front staircase and a back staircase for convenience. To be a large house, it's very comfortable and relaxing, not overly decorated or dramatic. Front the front porch, from the family room, and backyard you can see for miles. It is a terminal lot, so no one is in front of you to obstruct your views.

There is a historically correct paint color scheme for the outisde of the home, plus custom from doors copied from a 1920's brownstone in New York City. To many custom features to list here.

Take a peek!

http://www.showcasebyagent.com/sba/index.php?sbo=ba1211301

 

www.golfwesthaven.com   www.westhaventn.com

 

Upcoming Plans!

The Artful Dwelling has huge plans coming up. We have diversified a little more, and are now offering Concierge Services through our Girl Friday Club^TM. www.girlfridayclub.com.  I still also offer Real Estate Consulting Services for buying, selling, remodeling, and investing through Property Chick^TM. My alias' as I call them, are all part of my vision for The Artful Dwelling, to make every home an artful, peaceful, and joyful dwelling for you and your family.

I am about to embark on an exciting journey, I am starting to design a fabric line! So very excited about this. I have dreamed of this for a very long time, since I was a little girl. I hope to partner with other artists as well so they also can have a fabric line. I am hoping to start fairly simple and offer 1 or 2 chair designs on which my fabrics can be used on, and put into specialty furniture design stores.

Other things are in the works, seeds planted, and my thoughts going ninety miles an hour. Some of my friends say, "how do you do all this?", and I tell them that I finally believe my doctor, I have ADD. It's all in my head, at all times. I used to get in trouble for 'daydreaming'. Daydreaming isn't a bad thing because you can file away everything you dream about, and when the time is right, it will come out of the file folder and you can make it happen. I still daydream.

Farm Cottage in Leiper's Fork, TN

This is the quintessential farm cottage in Leiper's Fork near Franklin, TN. The colors are fabulous and I even love the green stained floors that highlight the grain of the wood. The guest cottage is also charming with the Tiffany blue ceiling and the screen door. The "man cave" is in a refurbished barn and is also impeccably done. From the lighting, to the floors, the colors, the furnishings, and all the accents make this property a true gem! It's definitely a happy house...If I was living there I would always be in a cheery mood-how could you not?

It's for sale in Franklin, TN in the community of Leiper's Fork which is known for it's charm, food, and antiques. Take a peek!

tours.promediatours.com/mediatours/7515-pewitt-wits-end-farm/

Relocating to Nashville?

Relocating to Nashville?  Would you like to take a tour of Nashville, experience the culture, and look into real estate?

There are so many questions when you move that create a lot of stress and soaks up your time. Myself and two other women, small business owners, have created the brand of Gal Friday.  We offer Concierge Services to help answer those questions. We offer Relocation Services to make the move easier for you. We can call the gas company for you, find you movers, unpack and set you up in your new home, offer interior design and renovation services. We are not like Angie's list--we are a family companies that all know each other, vouch for each other, and will get the job done right. You can reach us through one phone call and we manage everything.

Most people call a real estate agent first when they are planning to move.  However, by law, a real estate agent cannot give you the skinny on traffic, neighborhoods, schools, give quick estimates on remodeling, or see how a house can be changed to fit your needs. A realtor may send you a list of 20-30 homes that fit your criteria. If you don't know the area, it's hard to cut that list down. Our real estate consultant can help narrow that list down quickly, and save you and the realtor time and money. A realtor can give you a list of schools to go visit, a list of movers, a list of architects to interview....That's where we come in! We are your extra set of eyes, ears, hands, and basically your clone!

For LifeStyle Management, we can buy your groceries, walk your dog, be your virtual assistant, have house cleaners show up, organize your things, be the voice of reason (you don't need those pacifiers anymore, your kids are grown!) or run your whole life, if you don't want to. Give us a call!

You can find us on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gal-Friday/504228829588504

Your Gal Friday!

I am very proud to announce that I will be working along side my friends who own, House to Harmony! In a nutshell it's providing consulting and services pertaining to: LifeStyle Management, Concierge Services, Ask Me To Find Anything, who should I hire for this, and for some people, it's "run my life"! It encompasses anything and everything you might need, from where the best tattoo parlor is, to home and personal management, to should I sell my house or build a new one, and with who? We are your new best friend, other appendage, and Your Gal Friday. If you live in the Nashville, Brentwood, or Franklin, TN area and have some questions, shoot me an email. I can hook you up!

Property Chick--Restyle, ReInvent, ReDesign

Property Chick is now up and running! My new blog is up and we are reviewing houses and interviewing home owners to be on our opening segment on youtube! We will have our own channel and film episodes where we re-style a room or house, or highlight real estate that people pass up on that could easily become something fabulous. I will try to make everyone see the potential of their home through my eyes. It should be great fun and knowing me, humbling--because strange and funny things always seem to happen to me.

Please stay tuned to both my blogs, and look for our show on youtube soon!

www.propertychick.net

Property Vision

I have heard this a lot lately, "people don't have any vision" when it comes to buying an older home or foreclosures that have damage or aren't finished. I've heard this from clients and realtors. I've offered my "vision" services to several realtors. I am gong to start a new blog posting real estate that is for sale in the Nashville area that I see huge potential in, and in the Atlanta area where I have a second home. I look at real estate that is for sale all the time. I have said before, all I need is an investor! I dream up renovations from what I see that's for sale. This is fun for me, I'm a little quirky like that. I am The Property Chick. 

Another Great House to Flip

OK, here's a new project for me, Property Chick. All I need is the money!

I got to do my favorite passtime the other day, I went looking for my next remodeling project at Lake Lanier. This is still a great area for flipping properties. Property values have dropped like everywhere else, but there are diamonds out there and the lake market is doing better than ever. There are no more dock permits, so houses with docks will always be in demand.

Of course I found a house that I loved. This house would be a great property to flip. So many have already passed this house over. It's story is a well known story to me.

The owner of the house passed away recently and the remaining family member doesn't want to remodel anything or really come back to the house. My sister and I felt the same way after my parents died. It does though make for a great find. I would buy it as is and save the family the stress of cleaning it out. It does need a lot more work, more than the lake house I remodeled earlier this year on Lake Lanier (www.vrbo.com/348760), but the result would be absolutely amazing.

It would make a great family house. The rooms are very large, and after I was done you would have 180 degree view of the lake. The land itself and how the house sits on the land is fabulous- This is what people would pay for. There is also a wide gravel path that you can drive on all the way down to the dock. In blogging about this, I feel like I am letting a secret out-other flippers will rush over there. I am completely confident in the fact that I have the experience and talent to do it better than an investor or builder. I really have found ways to get the most bang for your buck in terms of product use and where to put your money. The one I finished earlier this year gained me more than two and a half times the equity against expenses. 

The problem right now with the house is that it's still living in the 70's, and when you walk in the front door and look around, you don't know where you are. The things that you see confuse you on the use of space. This would turn off buyers immediately because they would not know what was bothering them about the house, then they would see the non-updated decor, and leave immediately. I don't see this as a big remodel, but most people would.

The vision is already in my head and I keep thinking about this house. It is such a diamond. I am so excited, all I need is a client to buy it, an investor, or HGTV to give me the money and follow the remodel! See what you think.

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/4480-Cherokee-Trl-Gainesville-GA-30504/14854764_zpid/

 

 

 

 

 

Colors For 2012

I have been in love with the color gray for a long time. I use it all the time as the current 'neutral'. I am moving a little away from the steel gray that I love so much to a warmer, taupe-gray. The steel gray I use with more cool colors like blue and lime. The taupe-gray is more of a warm color to be used as a back drop for other softer hues.

Whether you know it or not, color and design relate from year to year to the world climate and economic times. In college I wrote a paper on how the economic times affected the design of furniture in France during the reign of Louis XIV and Louis XVI. Also, current design colors trickle down from couture fashion design. (Did you see "The Devil Wears Prada"? )

I have not actually looked at color projections for 2012, but here's my thoughts. I am in the mood for softness and a calm, but crisp aesthetic. I don't necessarily associate soft with pastels. Pastel type colors can be soft but what I call ooey-gooey (for kids, or from the decades ago). Crisp colors emerge from the pastels but with a little more life, and a little more edge to them.

So here are a few of my new favorite colors:

Butterscotch- Benjamin Moore- Summer Harvest or Vellum

Papaya-Sherwin Williams- Emberglow

Citrus Green- Benjamin Moore-Sweet Pear

Taupe-Gray- Benjamin Moore-Seattle Mist or Harbor Gray

White- Benjamin Moore -Snowfall White

To create this softer aesthetic, I would use the neutrals of white and gray, with pops of the other colors. For a more lively space, I would paint the walls the butterscotch color with a few prints with the other colors thrown in.

I also love taking one accent color and staying with it throughout the entire room. If you take one of these colors, such as Papaya, you can easily move into orange-red or back off a litte into a coral color so the room won't be very matchy-matchy.

In all of these options, we are working with colors next to each other on the color wheel to keep it softer to your eye. AAAhhhh-color 101. I shall give another color lesson on another day! For a while now, the home furnishing market has been displaying color pairings that are on the same side of the color wheel. The most popular pairings have not been"across the color wheel' in some time. I do see that trend staying the same for a while. Think about it, right now in our world we aren't look for or need strong, jarring color combinations. We need peace and softness.

If you are totally confused, you can always contact me for more advice or direction.

Photo courtesy of http://tinywhitedaisies.tumblr.com

 

Can you see the potential?

My favorite new program on HGTV is Property Brothers. This show really highlights how you can take an ugly, out-of-date house and make it your dream home. My favorite game online is to look at houses and see how I can renovate them and make them current. I was given the talent to see all the possibilities easily in my head and I sometimes forget that most people cannot do this. Some potential homeowners on Property Brothers think the brothers are insane and cannot possibly do what they say they can do.

When I renovated my lake house, most of the work was purely cosmetic, except for the master suite and bathroom upstairs. It looks so different cosmetically most people think it was a MAJOR renovation but it really wasn't. For less than $50,000 construction cost, I gained about $180,000 in home value. I really don't consider a renovation to be major unless it's over $100,000 and you tear down a lot of walls.

There are so many homes on the market that are fantastic deals that need updating or a complete renovation. Pay most attention to the neighborhood and lot description on these homes. If there is a home on a fantastic lot that is ugly or out-dated, call me and I will go look at with you. I can help you see a better, more modern picture of what the home could look like. I can help you create your dream home out of an ugly duckling. I actually love this process and live to do this.

Call me, the Property Chick.