Get ready to spook up your home with these Halloween décor ideas! Whether doing any DIYs’ from creating Halloween costumes for your kids or getting crafty with jack-o-lanterns; Halloween decorations make it easy to trick out your house in costly effective manner. Let your imagination run wild this Halloween night when you dress up your front door, path, hallway, and more!
The haunted front porch. Even if guests do not enter your home, trick-or-treaters will see the front porch; so, make sure you give it that festive feel that includes lanterns, pumpkins, and other various spooky decorations.
DIY idea: Draw spooky faces inside of an empty, clean milk bottle. Once that’s done, fill it up with holiday lights to decorate your porch with a ghostly Halloween glow!
A spooktacular centerpiece. Give your table that wow factor with a Halloween décor topped with some ghoulish decorations. That would make an exciting table centerpiece, especially around hanging decorations as well.
DIY Idea: You can make a ghastly terrarium as a table centerpiece by picking up some backyard twigs, moss, or rocks. You might also need some classic Halloween themed decorations such as skulls or brows to add to your terrarium. When you are building your seen, use the lid of a mason jar upside down. When you feel like your landscape is complete, screw on the jar and place it right on your table!
Dress up your windows. Give your front windows a haunting makeover with curtains stenciled with Halloween designs. Transform your windows into a ghastly scene with these few tricks!
DIY Idea: Mummify your front window (or front door, if you’d like) by using tape paper streamers to your surfaces, overlapping the strips to give a wrapped look! When you are done, cut sheets of black and white paper into circles to make the eyes, in which you can tape and secure on top of the window.
Make a statement with your pumpkins. Rather than just carving yet pumpkins, why not take it to the next level. Show off your DIY skills by covering a pumpkin in other decorative pieces, colors, and patterns! Perhaps dazzle up your pumpkins with fabrics and embellishments for a more sophisticated and tamed look.
DIY Idea: Make a witch inspired pumpkin for your front porch using a faux pumpkin and some basic art supplies from your local craft store. Create a friendly witch, black cat, or a cauldron pumpkin to welcome Halloween guests!
Champion Homes, Essentials A26804: The Bright, Luxurious Family Home
Elegant 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom home modeled to perfection! This custom home offers unparalleled craftsmanship and exceptional amenities! Here are just a few of its wonderful features: spacious walk-in closet, contemporary styled bathroom, 1813 square feet of spacious elegance, cozy fireplace, and a modern kitchen. To top it off, your home is completely customizable; so, if you don’t like some of the features within the home, you can change it to your liking.
Beautiful, spacious floors and plenty of natural night flow throughout the home’s open, airy layout. Other special highlights include: beautiful hardwood flooring for the kitchen and entryway, fashionable lighting and ceiling fans, lots of storage space, and room for washer and dryer. Enjoy gatherings within the open-spaced dining and living room, graced with a fireplace and huge windows to let in all the natural light. The master bedroom includes it’s own luxurious bathroom with an indoor closet, including the shelving system and room to store your belongings.
Living is easy in this impressive, generously spacious residence. Perfect for anyone, especially a family. This truly resort style living can be yours! For any questions or requests, please call us at (518) 580-1305.
Times are Changing: Modular Home Planning
So, what makes a perfect modular home plan?
If you know what you’re looking for, all you must do is find the home right for you. One of the first concerns that every new homebuyer asks when looking for their perfect home is, “Is my home big enough?” Or perhaps “Does it have everything I need?” Or maybe, “Is this the right place to put my home?” Since everyone has different needs, only they can answer these questions. Think about what is most important to you. A covered porch? Extra storage space? Whatever it may be, think about how you, your family, and friends may feel in your new home.
Custom home planning
When you are planning your custom home, try not to focus on the size of the home yet; instead, you should focus on the details of your home in the reflection of your needs. Modular home construction to customize your home, since it takes less time to build it and are greener than traditional built home. Modular home construction can produce a home to your exact specifications, as well as ensure that it is inspected thoroughly. If you any questions, be sure to contact us for assistance in helping you create your custom home!
Coming with a plan
If you’re coming with a floor plan ready, whether you already had collected plans from different sources or drew it by hand, we can start from what you have and add on. If it’s a modular home plan, we can quote it after adding in the requested changes. Even if it’s originally a site-built home floorplan, we can also possibly turn it into a modular home design. Here at Showcase Homes, have amazed and even surprised our customers with our ability to provide a customized modular home they have always wanted. Who knows, maybe this could be you next!
Starting from scratch
If you’re starting from scratch, that’s alright! It means you get to start with a little help from us and our modular home design expertise. We can help you incorporate everything you and your family needs in your new home, just you name it! When you feel like you finally found the house of you dreams with our help, we can help you feel at ease with the rest of the home buying process!
Benefits of Living in a Home a 1,000 Square Feet or Less
Large homes may be impressive to look at, but smaller homes offer more benefits than the bigger homes. Smaller homes have become a popular option for those looking to downsizing. Now these days, many people see downsizing as a step forward rather than backwards. Homes under 1,000 square feet requires less time, energy, and money than a bigger home; as well as provide greater flexibility for your lifestyle.
Small Spaces Equals Big Savings
According to the U.S. Census Bureau data, the average size of a newly built home is 2,657 square feet as of 2014. With that big of a home, comes a lot of challenges, such as electrical, heating, and water bill. The cost of insurance, taxes, and bills will always be less in a home that’s 1,000 square feet or less. Insurance and taxes can be affection by various other factors but with utility bills, you are guaranteed to save. According to Than Merrill, CEO of FortuneBuilders and former hose of Flip This House on A&E, a home that is 1,000 square feet has an electric bill of $200 per month less than the electric bill of a 3,000 square feet home. That adds major savings over the years you’ll be spending In your home. You’re living below your means, which is just as important (if not more) as having some extra money to spend every month.
An Easy Clean and Upkeeping
Cleaning a home that’s less than 1,000 square feet is of course much easier to clean than a 3,000 square feet home. When you’re cleaning a house every week, you can save significant amount of time. Not only are there fewer rooms to tackle, but smaller sized homes help cut down collections or clutter. Upkeeping is very easy to maintain within smaller homes too; whether it’s a leak or a broken pipe, larger homes require more upkeep.
Small Homes are Cozy and Can Help Build Relationships
Life is like a rollercoaster, it’s always up and down. When you live in a small space together, you learn to work around each other and diffuse problems. It’s very hard to avoid people within a small home. You can use this as an opportunity to work around your differences and mediate problems that may have come up. Everyone spends time the same small space, and it can make them closer to each other. Smaller homes can also create a more cozy, comfortable, and homey feel; because larger homes can make its space feel emptier, while smaller homes can feel more intimate and moved-in.
4 Tips on Defining and Dividing Space in an Open Floor Plan
Open floor plans are filled with infinite opportunities and ideas, and sometimes it can get very overwhelming. The multifunctionality and feeling of extra space with open rooms are impactful, but there are downsides. They can potentially look unstructured and unflattering if not done well; but worry not, there are many opportunities to turn your open floor plan beautiful! There are many ways to create a sense of division between the different zones in your home to give the appearance of having different spaces without having to put up any walls.
Arrange your Furnitures
The arrangement of your furniture can be an important too when trying to definite space in an open floor plan. Placing furniture closely causes the brain to process those pieces as a group. Another simple way to make two areas of a home feel divided is by placing the furniture in each area away from the other. People often think large pieces of furnitures should sit against a wall facing towards the center of the room but facing the large pieces out towards the wall can help act as a division of space. Perhaps you can use a sofa, table, etc. can be used as a room divider when being placed in the center of the room.
Color Coding your Spaces
You can also definite spaces from the use of color, which can be added through paint, wall décor and hangings, furniture, accent pieces or walls, or wallpaper. Make sure you keep a color palette that harmonizes well with all other spaces. Include different shades of the same color or overlapping colors. An accent wall can add an impactful feature. We tend to pay more attention to vertical surfaces (like walls) rather than floors.
Utilize Screens, Half Walls, and Dividers
A standing divider, screen, or half wall can divide up space without blocking slight lines to make the room appear much smaller than it is. Another idea is using a flowy, hanging curtain to enclose the bed at night. Even with a simple material, it can look modern. However, if you want total enclosure and separation, try closing up just the area with a opaquer screen. Closing off rooms or furniture like this, especially the bedroom, the space can become a cozy, comfy little space.
Use of Rugs
Rugs are wonderful for defining specific areas and making them separated from their surroundings. For example, placing a rug under a seating area can help you tie the furniture together into a group. Creating divisions on the ground can create a drawing line between different spaces.
Lawn Care for Fall
Summer has finally ended, but that doesn’t mean the end of lawn care. Fall is finally upon us, and it’s the prime time to prepare for the growing season. With a couple of tips, you can make sure your lawn will be flourishing and healthy by next spring. By autumn, witch cold weather and occasional rainfalls, it’s the ideal time to take EXTRA care of your yard. Give it some attention now, and you’ll be rewarded with a healthy spring lawn; just follow these tricks and tips!
Rake your leaves. Raking leaves is not a fun idea, but it’s extremely important to remove fallen leaves from your lawn as soon as you can. Don’t wait until the last minute, where all the leaves have fallen from trees to start raking. The leaves can become wet or damped from morning dew, and stick together, which can potentially create a layer that suffocates the grass when left untreated.
Control the weeds. If weeds have taken over your lawn, it’s time to get rid of them now. Weeds are very lively and prominent during the fall. Applying a herbicide now can ensure that the weeds won’t return in the spring.
Fertilizing the lawn. Just as grass needs water to last the winder, they also can benefit off plant sugars that protect the roots from freezing, which can help ensure that the grass will bounce back in spring. The autumn application of fertilizer provides essential nutrients for the grass to grow deep roots and keep it healthy over the season. It’s recommended you wait until mid to late fall, then apply dry lawn fertilizer in grassy areas. A drop spreader can provide the best way to apply consistent and even layer of fertilizer, which is something to keep in mind.
Home Buying Trends of 2018: What Does the Future Hold for Homebuyers?
Trends come and go, and some trends even stick around so long that they can barely be called trends anymore. Many must haves are similar, and others such as home automation technologies are just now emerging. It could be a challenging year for buyers; future homeowners, many of which are millennial renters waiting for the right moment to buy are struggling with the lack of affordable homes.
Millennials are much more flexible in how they view their property, and by delaying the traditional life that precedes homeownership (such as delay in marriage, kids, or dealing with student debt), millennials are renting longer. They’re more than happy to rent into their thirties or live comfortably and stress free with their relatives. This is not a bad thing! However, there is an option for those who are struggling to be able to afford homeownership – modular and manufactured homes! Not only are they affordable, but they’re an investment opportunity that can help you save more money in the long run.
Modern manufactured or modular homes are well built and inexpensive housing alternatives. Even if these homes are factory-built, they come with various amounts of customization options that are tailored to suit a wide demographic. These types of homes are now designed to look like traditional homes; and guaranteed to be safe for you and your family. Codes and structural regulations enacted by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development have ensured that modular and manufactured homes meet higher quality standards than most traditional homes.
Here are a handful of customization options available for your modular or manufactured home:
We are here to help you find your perfect dream home; even if you don’t see the option you want on the site, we can still try to make it happen for you!
Features that Newer Homebuyers are Looking For:
Millennials are changing the game when it comes to the housing market. Tech savvy and mobile, millennials know exactly what they are looking for. Here are the top features millennials look for in their homes:
Protecting your Manufactured Homes: Wind Safety and Wind Zones
Every manufactured home is built to the standards of HUD Code wind zone classifications. The HUD code specifies that homes shall be designed and constructed to conform to one of the three wind zones. The chosen Wind Zone is dependent on where the home will be installed. Homes that are designed and constructed for the higher Wind Zone can also be constructed in a lower Wind Zone. However, a home designed for a lower Wind Zone cannot be constructed in a higher Wind Zone area. Unfortunately, it is hard to upgrade your home to a higher zone once it is built, so be sure to know which Wind Zone you live in!
Image from MHI (Manufactured Housing Institute)
There are 3 wind zones currently; Zone I, Zone II, and Zone III. Most of the United States are where hurricanes are not expected and are usually designed for Wind Zone I. Wind Zone II is designed for areas that are prone to hurricanes and can experience up to 100 miles per hour of wind speeds. Homes that are in the Wind Zone III must be built to withstand 110 miles per hours winds, and hurricanes are very frequent in this zone. Keep in mind that the HUD Code Wind Zones are not based on where your home is built, but rather where your manufactured home will be placed.
If you are looking to buy a new manufactured home, the best way to determine which wind zone your home will be in (once you choose which lot you’d like your home on), is to ask us! If you would like to check which zone your manufactured home was built to stand, there is a “Data Plate” within the inside of your home with information on it.
If you’re worried about high winds, you can communicate with us about having your home constructed and installed for Wind Zone II standards or higher as a means of caution.
Saving and Budgeting to Construct the House of your Dreams
Building a home has its highs and lows, even with modular or manufactured homes. No matter how excited you get, or how frustrated you get about finalizing your home, you can never forget that the house is your home and you’re the boss (for the most part). If you really want to save money, know what’s important to you and where you can save during the process. There are a lot of choices that can potentially determine how much you will end up paying. Here at Showcase Homes, we do our best to accommodate to you and your family’s needs when building your home. We can and will help you every step of the way to help you find your dream home all the while staying in your budget.
Figure out what you want early.
Sit down and figure out what’s important for you and your family when it comes to purchasing and building a new home. Figuring out what you and your significant other wants in a home and compromising would relieve some frustration from picking customization options in the future. Planning out clear expectations for what you are looking for and what you need is important to making sure the costs stay within your budget.
Do your research and communicate.
Come check out our on-lot models at our property to figure out what you would like in your new house. Setting up how to save during the process can help you better purchase your home without regret in the future. Make sure to communicate with us, Showcase Homes, when purchasing your new home from us. We can help you choose what your priorities are when it comes to your home. Let us know what’s important and seek our input when you’re trying to save; we can always clue you in on ways to save on the construction of your new home.
Look into building a smaller footprint home.
The bigger the home is, the higher the cost. If you have an abundantly large family, small homes many not make the cut. The point of a small home though, is to focus on the things you only need. Try to use small spaces in your home efficiently; it can help to open rooms within the home. The result will be incredibly affordable and simplistic, and you can potentially save a lot of money in the long run.
Make sure you know the cost of living for the location you want your home.
When trying to find which lot to place your new modular or manufactured home, a way to save in the long run is to buy a land in an area with a lower cost of living. Keep in my the cost of the home itself, costs of everyday necesseties, property tax, and so on.
Haunting Décor Ideas for Halloween (With DIY Ideas!)
Get ready to spook up your home with these Halloween décor ideas! Whether doing any DIYs’ from creating Halloween costumes for your kids or getting crafty with jack-o-lanterns; Halloween decorations make it easy to trick out your house in costly effective manner. Let your imagination run wild this Halloween night when you dress up your front door, path, hallway, and more!
The haunted front porch. Even if guests do not enter your home, trick-or-treaters will see the front porch; so, make sure you give it that festive feel that includes lanterns, pumpkins, and other various spooky decorations.
DIY idea: Draw spooky faces inside of an empty, clean milk bottle. Once that’s done, fill it up with holiday lights to decorate your porch with a ghostly Halloween glow!
A spooktacular centerpiece. Give your table that wow factor with a Halloween décor topped with some ghoulish decorations. That would make an exciting table centerpiece, especially around hanging decorations as well.
DIY Idea: You can make a ghastly terrarium as a table centerpiece by picking up some backyard twigs, moss, or rocks. You might also need some classic Halloween themed decorations such as skulls or brows to add to your terrarium. When you are building your seen, use the lid of a mason jar upside down. When you feel like your landscape is complete, screw on the jar and place it right on your table!
Dress up your windows. Give your front windows a haunting makeover with curtains stenciled with Halloween designs. Transform your windows into a ghastly scene with these few tricks!
DIY Idea: Mummify your front window (or front door, if you’d like) by using tape paper streamers to your surfaces, overlapping the strips to give a wrapped look! When you are done, cut sheets of black and white paper into circles to make the eyes, in which you can tape and secure on top of the window.
Make a statement with your pumpkins. Rather than just carving yet pumpkins, why not take it to the next level. Show off your DIY skills by covering a pumpkin in other decorative pieces, colors, and patterns! Perhaps dazzle up your pumpkins with fabrics and embellishments for a more sophisticated and tamed look.
DIY Idea: Make a witch inspired pumpkin for your front porch using a faux pumpkin and some basic art supplies from your local craft store. Create a friendly witch, black cat, or a cauldron pumpkin to welcome Halloween guests!
Understanding Home Building Terminology
Before you embark in a home-buying journey, it’s best you know the home-building lingo before purchasing a home. When you first start looking into home construction for your modular or manufactured homes, there will be tons of new terms that you’ll need to know to make sure you’re making responsible decisions to avoid costly mistakes. Here are some common constructions terms you should know before purchasing a home:
IRC – Also called the International Residential Code, which have been adopted by most states. The IRC is updated every three years. However, a state may adopt one version of the IRC and can choose to wait several years to adopt the next version.
Traditional, or Site-Built Homes – These are homes that are built on the onsite construction. Onsite construction is how homes are traditionally built. Each part and fixed, constructed, and delivered upon the home-site. Ba
Factory-built, or Offsite Homes – Homes constructed within a factory are built in a controlled environment, transported to the site the home-buyer desires, and installed. Manufactured homes are built under a federal building code administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The HUD Code also sets performance standards for heating, plumbing, air conditioning, electrical systems and so on. Modular homes are factory-built homes built in modules to local or state codes, which is determined by where the home will be located.
Dormer – A dormer is added on top of roofs. It comes in various styles to reflect the roof style. They provide a way for the light to get under the roofed area, as well as create more space under the roof area.
Sub Floor – Boards that are nailed to the joists over where the finished floor will lay.
Rafters – A-shaped figures that support the roof. They are more time consuming and expensive to make than trusses.
Trusses – Triangular shaped structures used as an alternative for rafters. Trusses tend to be stronger than dimensional lumber and are used mainly on the floor and roof.
Grading – Before starting to build on your lot, there must be initial preparation to the ground surfaced around the home, including the driveway. The final grading takes place after the installation on site.