Brainerd Lakes Real Estate News

       For anyone interesting in obtaining their Minnesota Real Estate License, the next real estate course at the Business and Industry Center of Central Lakes College in Brainerd has been changed to Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays October 11-29.

     The course is a series of three, with the first being Real Estate 1: covering listings, contracts, agencies, purchase agreements and financing. One book will cover all three courses.

     Bob Welch will be the instructor for all 3 classes, to be held from 6-10 P.M..  Payment is required at the time of registration, which must be completed by October 4th.  For information or to register call 800-933-0346, ext. 8142, or 218 -855-8142.

                                                                                photo by fragileheart

The Central Lakes College in Brainerd, Minnesota will focus on Spain as their next topic for Cultural Thursday. The program  starts at noon, October 4th in the Chalberg Theatre.

     Admission is free.

      There will be a variety of presenters, including instructor Victoria Montes and CLC students who participated in the 3-week Study Abroad course at the Universidad de Sevilla.

     Dave Kobilka, a student in the course said, "Sevilla and its surroundings are layer upon layer of human history.  One could spend months touring and studying the history or art, culture, religion and architecture all in a radius of 100 miles of the city.  People have been   living there thousands of years."

photo by mnjeurope 

     The students spent time with the people of Sevilla practicing their Spanish speaking skills.  A few field trips were taken to Italica, the 1st Roman city, and Aracena, a mountain community that has a castle and caves.

     For more information on Cultural Thursday call 218-855-8183

                                                                                                              photo by markwp
 

     I learned more than how to stuff a turkey or properly dice an onion in my mother's kitchen  She hardly ever let me cook (her kitchen), but she let me watch and she talked.  She would tell me where this recipe came from and on what special occasion it  would have been served.  She talked about her mother and how she did things.  She talked - I listened and watched.  Having an very good visual memory - I learned.  (Please don't ask me people's names, I am bad at that.)

     My mother is now gone, but her recipes live on, as do her notes.  "V.G." on a recipe card means she thought that recipe was very good. "Skip salt", "more sugar" "cook 10 minutes longer" meant just that.  "Walt's favorite" (my dad) surely couldn't have been written to jog her memory!  My mother was recording history. 

                                                                                  photo by T W Collins

How to Wrap An Extension Cord Video

     Whether you are a home stager, make bird houses in your garage or really like to light things up for Christmas - you probably own an extension cord and need to watch this video.  I have been wrapping extension cords up for years and I have been doing it the wrong way!  The result of that ignorance ( and some general misuse, theft, wear and tear)  has resulted in my  having to buy many new cords every year.

     Since I am also the partner in Quality Roof Systems located in Brainerd, Minnesota  , we have very long (translate into expensive) cords.  No matter how long your cord nor what you use it for, it pays to wrap them correctly and get more cost effective use out of them. This  instructional video is quick and can save us all a good deal of money and frustration in the long run.

     Here I brought the popcorn!
 

     People are often living with rooms that have no designated use.  At one time, it was their child's bedroom, but the child grew up.  Now underneath, it is still a bedroom with a good deal of storage in between and on top.

     This is where the moving boxes are being sent once packed.  Would this impress a potential buyer?  Only if you are leaving all your stuff with the house.  Otherwise, they want to see what they are buying.

  DON'T MAKE THEM USE THEIR IMAGINATIONS!

       Buyers want to look into the dining room and see their family sitting down to a holiday meal.  They want to visualize themselves in the recliner with the remote in hand.  Little Suzie will have this bedroom and Bobby, the one down the hall because he is older.

      They know the big fluffy towels do not come with the house, but already they have one hanging nearby for a nice bubble bath. How convenient and thoughtful of the owners.

     Are those people insane ?  No - just normal like the rest of us. 

So give them what they want- their dream house just waiting for them to move in.

      The Home Staging team at Re$ale Design and Home Staging specialize in making some dreams become realities. Call us for your Central Minnesota listings.

                                                                              photo by Brit
 

       It all has to do with sugar and temperatures, basically.  On days when it is warm and sunny the leaves produce sugar.  Bright sunlight generates a reaction between the sugars in the leaves and anthocyanins, the compound that produces red tint.                                                             

      Different tree varieties produce more or less sugar.  Hence, the sugar maple is capable of brilliant scarlet.

     The cooler temperatures we experience in Minnesota in the Fall season, cause the veins in the tree leaves to gradually close, which prevents the sugars from moving and preserves the red tones.  For the most spectacular colors - we must have a succession of warm, sunny days and cool, crisp nights.

      There that was relatively easy, right?  

  Here is a photo I took just for you in our local Northland Arboretum

     Has anyone seen the ads for the bronze appliances?  I  know Jenn-Air  ( click for  photos) has them out already.  They look like an up-graded version of the old Copper-tone without the shade variations that went  darker to the edges.   I'm sure that they are really very good looking up close.

     My parents had a Copper-tone kitchen and laundry room.  My Mother thought it was very chic.  Each manufacturer had a slight variation on the color, however and my parents appliances were all different brands.

     My sister had the Avocado appliances and then in her next home, went to Red appliances.  I really liked those and never saw them anywhere else.

      We have a house trailer that we lived in after our tornado, while our house was being rebuilt.  It has perfectly functioning Harvest Gold appliances.  At the time, I was just happy to have a little "home" to live in and appliances that worked. I think that I will keep them for a while, I am rather fond of them now. I use the trailer for storage for my staging props.

     They say that there really isn't anything new under the sun, so someday (and maybe, already) all these colors will be back. Aren't you excited about that?
 

                                                                                         photo by CCCSTL

     Many homes built in the past 20-30 years did not put  central lighting fixtures in many rooms , such as the living-room, bedrooms, and dens or studios (now called "the home office).  Unless homeowners are willing to have wires threaded through ceilings and new switches installed,  home stagers are going to have to work with what you have.   That means floor lamps, table lamps, buffet lamps, plug-in night lights with decorative shades, up-lights and the like.  Most of these come with cords.  Cords are ugly.  Not only ugly, but potentially dangerous and you can not put them in a walk path over or under a rug.  NO, NO!!!!

•      So when strategically planning that perfect furniture arrangement - you need to consider where the wall outlets are.  Better to scope them out before the furniture placements starts.

•      While natural light is always a wonder to uncover - I will go against the flow and state "Maybe, don't turn on every light in the house."

•      Lighting helps set the mood for a room's perceived use.  Some overhead lighting such as the older style fluorescents can be quite harsh.  It is hard to look good in that light, unless you are under the age of 2.

•      I am not advocating that rooms be dimly lit either.  People need to see what  is for sale or they will wonder what is being hidden.  Low light may work for a romantic candle light dinner, but not for a home showing.

•       You need a balance of light from whatever sources you can put in a room.  A variety is the best and well thought out light placement will play up architectural details, angles, and put each  room in a flattering glow. For example:  rope lights along the top of a kitchen cupboard pulls the eye up and vaults the space. An up-light on a corner tall plant gives interest to that space. A small lamp on a kitchen counter or a plug -in decorative night light will do the trick there.

    As with most things in life it comes down to a matter of balance. This is where a professional home stager such as those with Re$ale Design and Home Staging in Brainerd, Minnesota will make your home a Shining Star !

  photo by MeFind - Creative Commons

Since we are constantly adding to our numbers on Active Rain - I thought a little information on blogging might be in order.  When I do my Realtor presentations on  home staging, I mention Active Rain and blogging and send out invites to the agents in the following days.  My success rate is not good, so I can't give you tips on "how to get people to join". But , often, although they have heard the term blog, they really don't have a clue as to what that means.  They even inform me that their Real Estate agency has urged them to start blogging and they don't.  This article is not about the merits of blogging - but what it is. Your spell checker doesn't even know, unless you program it.

  From WordPress, another site I blog on and help with edits:

"Blog" is an abbreviated version of "weblog," which is a term used to describe web sites that maintain an ongoing chronicle of information. A blog is a frequently updated, personal website featuring diary-type commentary and links to articles on other Web sites. Blogs range from the personal to the political, and can focus on one narrow subject or a whole range of subjects.

Many blogs focus on a particular topic, such as web design, home staging, photography, or mobile technology. Some are more eclectic, presenting links to a variety of other sites. And others are more like personal journals, presenting the author's daily life and thoughts.

Generally speaking (although there are exceptions), blogs tend to have a few things in common:

• A main content area with articles listed chronologically, newest on top. Often, the articles are organized into categories.
• An archive of older articles.
• A way for people to leave comments about the articles.
• A list of links to other related sites, sometimes called a "blogroll".
• One or more "feeds" like RSS, Atom or RDF files.

Some blogs may have additional features beyond these.

I'm not sure that I want to post this blog in the Active Rain Fit Club , but although I ate many things at The Minnesota State Fair - I shared them all with my husband.  I know, that was awfully nice of me. I actually ate my whole ear of roasted corn all by myself, so there.

We had fresh strawberries  in whipped cream, the aforementioned corn, a pork chop on a stick, fresh squeezed lemonade, a chicken dinner, 1919 Root beer, and in the evening hot coffee, and warm chocolate chip cookies. It could have been much worse!  I was eying up the fried gator, until I remembered we don't have gators in Minnesota, so it probably wasn't fresh. The fried green tomato stand was not to be found nor were the cream puffs, I so enjoyed in the past. We used to eat pasties, too" just like Grandma used to make", but apparently Grandma quit making them.

When we went to the dairy building to buy my yearly supply of homemade soap, I was barely tempted by the  sundaes,  pineapple malts,  and cones - only because I was already full.

Oh, the fair is great - you can see by the photos just a bit of what we got to see.

 We walked for what seemed like miles and miles and at a good pace to help with the calorie intake.  However, I'm sure more went in than what we burned up.

The highlight for me was not the food, but the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.  We got to go behind the scenes in the barn and meet them and visit with the horses.  The Police were nice, the horses were great. I have a young horse that would fit in with their group very well, same breeding, so then same looks and temperament. Black as the night with only a bit of white- a bit of a show off and definitely in to people.

All in all it was a long and wonderful day - we will be back next year.!