Last week, we posted a post about how you can use our website tools to help you find your perfect home, specifically our community section. This week, we want to talk about other sections of our website, like the “Find Your Home” section.

In this section, you can sort by Floorplan, neighborhood, city, number of square feet, price, number of bedrooms and number of bathrooms.

When you find something you like, you can even share this information with a friend to get another opinion!

When you click on a particular floor plan you will then be able to:

• View available and quick move in home options
• Exterior elevations and detailed floor plans
• Mortgage calculator
• Interactive Floor Plan
• Online Design Center
• Other similar neighborhoods

We try our best to make it easy for you to look, learn and plan on your time. Stay tuned for more posts on other website tools to help you find your perfect home!

Generally speaking when buying furniture, you see it at a showroom in an appropriate setting. After the furniture is delivered many people feel like they made the wrong choice. Proportion is everything. A room could be filled with beautifully expensive furniture; if the proportion is out of whack, the room will look and feel un-appealing. Usually once the delivery truck leaves your driveway, you are stuck with that furniture. The following will help you make the right choice for your room and prevent you from being stuck. The intention of new furniture is to improve a space; not “make do”.

Step 1: Determine the minimum and maximum dimensions of all the furniture pieces you intend having in the space.

• Using quarter inch graph paper. Sketch your room to scale with the correct measurements. One square on the graph paper equals 12”x12”. Your sketch should include all doors, windows, outlets and anything else that can’t be moved or covered by furniture.

Step 2: Decide what activities are taking place in the space. Place the most important piece in your sketch first and work your way around based on priority.

• *Keep traffic patterns in mind. Walkways should be at preferably 36 inches wide; 30 inches wide is the minimum width you can allow for walkways.

• Place masking tape on the floor as a foot print for the size you feel most comfortable with.

• Measure the outline of tape on the floor. This will give you the maximum dimensions for that particular piece. You know that you can’t go bigger than the max but you can go a couple inches smaller; without disrupting the proportion.

• TIP: Artwork placed above furniture can help balance height, if you are working with a high ceiling.

Step 3: Go shopping and have FUN! Bring the pictures of the room along; this will help give a better idea of your space.

The last part of the year should be called “Decorating Season”.  Fall kicks off “Decorating Season”, with Halloween and Thanksgiving. Around the corner is Christmas and before you know its New Years.

Here are some decorating tips for Thanksgiving:
1. Pumpkins make for great outdoor decorations. You can get very creative with their carving. Save one of your Halloween pumpkins by not carving it. You can carry over intact pumpkins from Halloween through Thanksgiving. Of course incorporate them in your pies and cookies as your seasonal Thanksgiving dessert!
2. A Cornucopia basket makes for a great centerpiece. Fill it with colorful fruits (apples), vegetables (squash) and gourds. This is a simple and easy way to decorate the table. You can turn any basket you already have into a fall centerpiece.
3. Another inexpensive decorating option is candles. There is an array of assortment of shapes, sizes, colors and fragrances. You’ll be spoiled with the choices in stores now. You can use multiple candles and create a centerpiece or scatter smaller candles throughout the house so that the whole house can smell like  apple cider, pumpkin spice, or cinnamon. This is an easy way to put you in the holiday mood!

4. Use colorful fall leaves to scatter on a plain table cloth or runner or borrow the kid’s school idea and iron leaves between wax paper to use for place cards. (small gourds also make great place cards)
5. Lastly add a colorful wreath to your front door. You can make them from scratch yourself or get one pre-made and add your own special touch. Add leaves, greenery, pinecones, nuts (acorns), pheasant feathers and anything else you like! Browse craft stores for inexpensive items that can be added seasonally to your wreath. Use thin wire to attach items to the wreath (wire is also ideal for easy removal). Items you add can be traded out for different holidays. For example you can add fall colored foliage for Halloween and Thanksgiving. Then remove fall items and add Christmas decorations (like plastic ornaments that can with stand the outdoor weather).

Our best advice to you is be creative and HAVE FUN! That’s what the holidays are for.

P.S. We have another idea that isn’t exactly a decorating idea, but it’s a good one. Go outside and grab a good looking branch. (that means one with multiple twigs) Then grab some construction paper and yarn or string.  At Thanksgiving dinner, have everyone write something on the construction paper that they are thankful for, read it out loud at dinner and then hang it on the tree. It’s a simple concept, but you’d be surprised at how happy others are when they hear what you are thankful for.