Author Archives: david_marine

How to Properly Store Foods in Your Home Refrigerator

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refridge How to Properly Store Foods in Your Home RefrigeratorWhat? You can’t just shove everything onto shelves in your refrigerator? As long as the door shuts, shouldn’t everything be ok? Well, evidently not.

The folks over at Howcast produced this helpful video to help you make the most of the space in your home’s fridge while also making sure that you can maximize the freshness of each item.

For instance, did you know that you should store all raw meats at the bottom of your fridge? It prevents cross contamination in case anything spills. Also over filling shelves can prevent the refrigerated air from circulating properly and cause items to spoil faster.

Watch the video above for the full rundown on how to properly store food in your home’s refrigerator. If you have any refrigerator secrets to share, let us know in the comments.

 

Image courtesy of Flickr user ewen and donabel

Home of the Week: A Jamaican Escape

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I once heard a top luxury agent remark that to him the ideal place is whenever you can come home and still feel like you’re on vacation. This home in Hanover, Jamaica does just that.

Bambu is an elegant, harmonious mix of Italian and West Indian architecture that is tied together nicely in this unique home. The impressive entrance through wrought iron gates leads to a 2 story foyer finished with antique brick. A circular staircase leads up to an arched walkway & the rest of the house.

Italian marble statues guard the pool, which is framed by arches surrounding the terrace. The circular esthetic is carried into the octagonal living room with dark wood floors & french windows. The large master bedroom has “his & hers” dressing rooms, an en-suite bathroom & private terrace. There are 4 other guest rooms with en-suite bathrooms & a charming children’s bunk room that sleeps four.

An outdoor pavilion is the center point that divides the 2 sides of the villa & an octagonal great room comes complete with flat screen TV & a wet bar. Other amenities include a modern kitchen, enclosed garage, wine storage,separate service entrance & staff cottage. Interested buyers have the option of purchasing the home fully furnished save for a few pieces of artwork & personal items.

For more pictures and details on this amazing home listed by Coldwell Banker Jamaica Realty, visit coldwellbankerpreviews.com.

How to Keep Your Bills Low This Winter

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Learning to use utility resources sparingly to keep bills low can take time and practice. While homeowners are still figuring out how much heat and electricity they are truly expending, there are a few tricks first-time homeowners can use to keep their bills manageable.

Install insulation and keep vents clean

A properly insulated home makes a great deal of difference in homeowners’ heating and air conditioning bills. Adequate insulation keeps a home cool in the summer and warm in the winter, greatly reducing how often homeowners must rely on heating and air conditioning units.

In addition, it’s important to keep all vents and air conditioning units clean and free of debris, dust and other household items. Dirty vents inhibit the flow of cold air or heat, which often results in owners running the units longer than needed to get a sufficient amount of output, according to SmartMoney.com.

Seal cracks in drafty spaces

Regardless of how efficient air and heating units are, small holes and cracks around windows and door frames can cause air leaks. This can make setting a programmable thermostat or running units for a specified period of time virtually useless as cooled or hot air escapes the home. Homeowners can purchase caulk or sealant at home department stores to seal up these vulnerable areas.

Go green

Energy-efficient appliances and fixtures can greatly reduce a home’s energy output and lower the cost of electric, water and heating bills. Seek out Energy Star products and find out if department stores, cities or organizations are offering incentives for purchasing energy-efficient products. Not only will homeowners save on their energy bills, but they may also get a break on the purchase cost of an appliance.

Conserving energy by unplugging appliances, chargers and cables when they are not in use can also make a difference in energy output and lower utility costs. Even when an item is not in use, it continues to drain energy when connected to an outlet.

What tricks have you learned over the years to help your bills stay low in the winter? Share them in the comments.

Real Estate Headlines for First Week of November

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Goodbye October. Hello November. By now I’m guessing you’ve correctly set your clocks to observe daylight savings and if you’ve ventured out you’ve probably noticed holiday promotions are already setting in. While most of the Northeast still recovers from Superstorm Sandy, here are some real estate headlines to try and get back to a normal routine:

Michael Jackson’s home where he lived at the time of his death has sold for $18.1 million.

Here are 3 things mortgage lenders look for in a borrower.

Real estate mogul, Don Abbey, is selling two estates for $78 million each. No word on whether discount is available for purchasing both.

CNNMoney reports that mortgage relief is coming for disaster victims.

Here are 6 reasons builders are bullish on 2013.

CNBC is predicting that “branded” properties could be the next big thing in luxury. I wouldn’t mind an Xbox home…ooh or maybe a Starbucks home…definitely a Ben & Jerry home…

And finally, this home (pictured above) has the ultimate audio and video setup in every single room.

A Walk-In Closet That’s Not a Closet

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Who wouldn’t love to have a walk-in closet? But of course some houses just aren’t outfitted with them.

Now for $5,000 you can have a walk-in closet without it even being a closet. Check out this amazingly designed free-standing wardrobe from Hosun Ching.

A Walk In Closet Thats Not a Closet

Now look at it open. This wardrobe has more space than most closets I’ve seen.

A Walk In Closet Thats Not a Closet

Shelves, drawers and beautiful wood design makes this the closet of envy.

A Walk In Closet Thats Not a Closet

Interested? I thought so. You can order yours at TheFancy.com.

Images courtesy of mocoloco.com

Wireless Lighting for a Home of a Different Color

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Controlling your home from your mobile device is one of the most recent innovations that’s extremely practical for home owners. While there are many companies that offer this type of control, none are doing it quite like Philips with it’s new Hue lighting solution.

You see Philips is going beyond the standard lightbulb and bringing a little extra color to your home. Instead of just going green with your lightbulbs, why not go magenta, chartreuse or a blazing blue?

Wireless Lighting for a Home of a Different Color

The new Hue series from Philips will screw into any standard light socket but these LED based lights can also change into a variety of colors on command. As if that wasn’t cool enough, just plug a little box into your wireless router and you now have the ability to control the color and intensity of any light in your home.

While that may sound like any typical lighting control system, Philips takes a step even further. Let’s say you have a photo of a gorgeously lit scene from a vacation in the Caribbean. Wouldn’t you love to recreate that gorgeous scene in your home? Well with Hue you can. Just use the Hue app to import the photo and have Hue match the lighting color and conditions of that photo.

Hue also offers the ability to set a timer for lights to go on, control lights remotely and other cool features. So if you want a home of a different color you should check out all the details on Hue at meethue.com.

Home of the Week: A Stately New Jersey Manor

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What looks to be a New Jersey version of Downton Abbey is actually so much more. This stately manor sits on 90+ acres of land making it one of the most sprawling and private homes on the East Coast.

Located in Ringwood, NJ, this stone home dates back to the mid-1800′s and offers architectural elements that are not commonly seen in homes today. From intricate doorway arches to hand crafted staircases to hardwood floors detailed with original designs, it is a place that transports you back in time to when homes were more than just a place for living and were also the owners most precious work of art.

With 15 bedrooms and 5 baths, you have plenty of space for entertaining guests and the pool outback is perfect for those hot summer gatherings. A fireplace, formal dining room and 27,000+ sq. ft. of living space round out what is certainly an impressive estate.

Listed by Bill Boswell of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, you can find out more about this home on coldwellbanker.com.

Two of the Best Suburban Places to Live

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bestplacessuburbanites Two of the Best Suburban Places to LiveThis past month Coldwell Banker Real Estate released its latest study on the Best Places to Live for various types of people and focused this last one on those we refer to as Suburbanites.

These are the folks that like to live in places that are within close commuting distance of work, prefer to stay in rather than go out and put a great amount of importance on the area’s safety and school stature. I’ll confess, I’m one of these people. Before you think this study to be less than interesting, the towns suburbanites like to call home are some of the prettiest communities you’ll ever come across.

In the video above, we teamed up with LXTV Open House to showcase two of the top 10 towns for Suburbanites: Haworth, NJ and East Grand Rapids, MI. I’ve never been to either of these places, but as you’ll see in the video they both offer a picturesque locale and all the benefits a suburbanite could ask for.

Take a look at the video above and see what other towns ranked well in our Best Places to Live for Suburbanites survey.

Here’s to Halloween and the Place We Call Home

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The doorbell to your home is used more on October 31st than potentially any other day of the year. It’s Halloween and there’s arguably no holiday where home plays a bigger role.

And by home I just don’t mean the address on your electric bill. I’m talking about the place where you chose to live. Sure you have your Christmas traditions, your Thanksgiving dinners or even your New Year’s Eve bash, but none of those holidays are neighborhood celebrations like Halloween. And aren’t our homes more than just the plot of land they reside on?

halloween2 Heres to Halloween and the Place We Call Home

Trick or Treat!

In recent years, Halloween has become as decorated a holiday as Christmas…pun intended. Ghosts, graveyards, and ghouls adorn the lawns, porches, stoops and windows of homes regardless of the type of city you live in. While certain neighbors may not celebrate a particular religious holiday, no home is safe from Halloween. If you have a door, you better have some candy for the adorable kindergarten princess and swashbuckling elementary school pirate when they come caroling with their sing songy “trick or treat.”

Right now you may be remembering your Halloween travels of years past. You know which home gave away Pez dispensers and Matchbox cars that made you try and visit them twice in one night. And of course you have the other side of the treat spectrum with the lame folks that gave away pencils or “healthy snacks.” That’s right. I’m calling you folks out. It’s one night a year. Let them have candy!

On Halloween you pass your neighbors on the street, get to see the kids masquerade from porch to porch and enjoy the rare walk around the neighborhood. It’s a night where we literally open our doors to others and make preparations to give regardless of who steps to our front door, something we should probably do more often.

I’m willing to bet that if you took out your photo albums and flip to the pages of Octobers past, you’ll see some masked individuals. But I’ll also bet that photo is taken in front of a home. Might be yours. Might be a friend’s. But in either case, home probably played a role.

I’ve celebrated Halloween in many a home town from Rockaway, NJ to Columbus, OH to Succasunna, NJ (yes, it’s a real town name) to Irvington, NJ to Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Each one had its own costume and memory attached to it as well.

So tonight appreciate the home you have and the community in which you reside. Open your doors and give just a small, sweet-toothed token to the kids, and even those awkward teens who don’t really dress up anymore, that knock on your door.

This year Hurricane Sandy has uprooted many of our friends and neighbors from their homes so let’s make an extra effort to extend more than just a treat to those folks as they work to get their homes and neighborhoods back in order.

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. Honestly, what beats fall mixed with costumes and an overdose of candy? It also happens to be my birthday.

Here’s to Halloween and all the things that make a house a home.

If you have pictures of your home from Halloweens past or present, share them with us on Instagram by tagging them with #coldwellbanker.

Woodbury, Georgia: The First Zombie Free Community

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The Walking Dead Logo Woodbury, Georgia: The First Zombie Free CommunityA popular sci-fi question to ask is “when the zombies take over where will you go?” Looks like I’ll be headed to Woodbury, Georgia. In this week’s episode of AMC’s The Walking Dead, viewers were introduced to what appears to be the first fully functioning zombie-free community left in the series’ fictional world.

Those that have read the graphic novel series already know about the small rural town in Georgia, but let’s take a closer look at what makes up this last bastion of safety in a zombie cursed world.

Woodbury, Georgia is actually a real town. It lies in Meriwether County, Georgia and is about an hour south of  Atlanta. The population according to the last US Census is about 1,200, however in The Walking Dead episode, “Walk with Me,” we learn that there are only 73 people who call Woodbury home.

The main street of Woodbury looks a lot like a typical southern town. Stores, restaurants and greenery line the the streets, but there are zero cars on the roads. We also learn that there’s a school, a hospital and even the Governor’s mansion (ok, it’s more like a house than a mansion, but it was pretty good pun, right?).

The graphic novel also has a working McDonald’s and WalMart featured in the town. Not sure how they restock the shelves, but I’m pretty certain coupons are not accepted. Evidently the second amendment is no longer upheld as there are no bearing arms in Woodbury unless you’re exiting the town for good.

So how does this sleepy town, nestled in the middle of Georgia stay safe from the hordes of “walkers?” (or “biters” as the Governor calls them). Much like Babylon and Rome before it, Woodbury relies on high walls and strict curfews to keep its people safe. Woodbury’s walls, unlike Rome and Babylon, aren’t the traditional kind but made using makeshift elements like overturned buses and rubble to keep the undesirables out.

That coupled with the ruthless efficiency of an overbearing, self-made dictator like the Governor and of course the secret room with zombie heads in water all make Woodbury, Georgia one of the best places to live in the zombie apocalypse.

On second thought maybe I won’t be headed to Woodbury, Georgia when the zombies come. I’ll start working on rebuilding this zombie proof house instead. For now I’ll just visit Woodbury via my television on Sunday nights at 9 p.m. on AMC’s The Walking Dead.

 

Images are courtesy of AMC Network Entertainment LLC.