5 Tips to Avoid Home-Design Arguments

(TNS)—Sharing your life with someone is a beautiful thing, but that doesn’t always mean you share the same design and style preferences when it comes to your home. Whether you’ve lived together for one year or 20, use this advice from highly rated interior designers to stop the fights that have kept you from painting the walls or tiling the floors.

1. Start with a design plan

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Jodi Schavone, owner of Décor Coach in Apex, N.C., says to make a list of how the room has to function for each person before embarking on a design project. This will help couples and families prioritize and understand why one idea might be better than another.

Think realistically about how you’ll use the space, along with whether you have a big family or like to entertain. Look through pictures online or in magazines, and talk openly about your likes and dislikes.

2. Listen to each other
Communicate openly, and don’t forget to listen. Interior designers say the majority of their job comes down to listening to clients. Sometimes your spouse or partner might just want his or her ideas heard. Discussing concerns helps to avoid conflict, and will help you determine what he or she likes about a particular color, pattern or piece of furniture.

3. Blend your design styles
“A home is like a marriage,” Schavone says. “It won’t work if it’s one-sided.” Not everything has to match. There are ways to mix style preferences, according to Schavone. This could be as easy as using one person’s color choices with the other person’s fabric selection. You want your new space to reflect both of you.

4. Give and take to keep the peace
There are usually places in the home where each person can have it their way, says Kathy Tufts, owner of Beyond Design in Clifton, Va., For example, choose neutral themes and colors for your common area, but allow some creativity in personal offices, bedrooms or hobby rooms. You’ll have to compromise many times throughout your life. This is good practice.

5. Hire an interior designer
Bringing in reinforcements often helps you see eye to eye, but could cost you between $100 and $200 for an initial one-hour consultation. “A big part of my job is being a marriage counselor or peace mediator,” Tufts says.

Schavone agrees. “In listening to my clients, I detail what’s most important,” she says. “If I address the important parts of their ideas, they can usually give a little.”

©2015 Angie's List
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

Reprinted with permission from RISMedia. ©2015. All rights reserved.

4 Ways to Come up with Brilliant Ideas when the Pressure's On

March is National Ideas Month. Hey, whose bright idea was that?

Here’s an intriguing idea from New York Times best-selling author and writing coach Michael Levin,: “Creativity is a muscle; use it or lose it.”

Levin, whose new Books Are My Babies YouTube channel (www.BooksAreMyBabies.com) offers 160-plus free tutorials for writers, says anyone can grow their creativity, just like any other muscle.

“I define creativity as ‘the ability to develop great ideas while under pressure,’ ” he says. “Pressure creates diamonds, so why shouldn't it also create great ideas?”

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But sometimes, pressure paralyzes creativity.“I've experienced it when writing under deadline pressure and writing under the pressure of my own high expectations,” Levin says. “Over time, I've developed several tricks to stimulate my creative muscle and help me come up with great ideas for whatever challenge I face – whether it’s writing or figuring out how to arrange a busy family weekend schedule so that everyone’s needs are met.”

Here are four of Levin’s no-fail tips for generating creative ideas under pressure:

1. Ask yourself, “What’s the most dangerous, expensive and illegal way to solve this problem?” We usually take the same approach to solving problems every time with the resources we have at hand. “This doesn't exactly translate into breathtaking creativity,” Levin says. So imagine that you have no limits — legal, moral, financial, whatever. You can do literally anything to solve the problem. The way-out ideas you develop may not be practical, but they’ll lead you to new ways of thinking about your problem. And then you can find a non-life-threatening, legal way to solve it!

2. Hide. We live in a world of constant, thin-sliced demands. Unanswered texts and emails. People waiting for you to say something, do something, read something, decide something. Run and hide. Lock yourself in your car or hunker down in a bathroom stall. Slow down and get your brain back.

It’s all but impossible for your creative brain to operate when you’re responding to endless external stimuli. The best ideas often come when you run from your responsibilities.

3. Count to 20. Go somewhere where you can be undisturbed, bring a yellow pad and a pen, turn off your phone, and sit there until you come up with 20 ideas for solving your problem. This requires discipline, because most of us are so happy when we have one answer to a problem that we want to move to the next agenda item. Not every idea you invent will be a great one, but that’s okay. It may be idea number 17 that’s truly brilliant, but you’d never get there if you ran back to your desk after you came up with one, two or even five ideas. If you do this daily, you’ll develop 100 new ideas a week. Imagine how strong your idea muscle will be!

4. Give up. Cardiologists recommend to heart patients that they visit nature, go to a museum, or attend a classical concert. Why? It slows them down and allows them to appreciate beauty instead of seeing life as a constant battle. Surrender your own siege mentality. Life isn't war, thank goodness. Take a major step away, even for a couple of hours, from whatever battles you’re facing, contemplate the greatness of the human spirit or the wonder of nature, and reawaken the creative energy that our fight-minded world suppresses.

So there you have it, four ways to generate great ideas under pressure. Where’s your next big idea coming from? From your mind at peace, that’s where!

Reprinted with permission from RISMedia. ©2014. All rights reserved.

Can You Do Anything about Encroachment?

University City/La Jolla, CA, Jan 28, 2014—You may be sitting there wondering what “encroachment” is; if you've ever been in a sticky situation with a neighbor regarding property boundaries, then you're more familiar with the term than you think.

“Encroachment is when another individual builds a structure that sits on or interferes with your land,” says Nancy Beck, REALTOR ® at CENTURY 21 Award. “Perhaps your neighbor builds a deck that creeps out onto your property line, or a shed for his new boat that sits a few feet over the border.”

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So what do you do? And more importantly, what can you do? “If the encroachment doesn't bother you, than maybe there is no reason to do anything about it—you save the relationship between you and your neighbor, and what's a few feet of yard loss anyway? However, when it comes time to sell your home, you could run into some trouble,” Beck explains.

Here are a few steps you can take:
1. Solidify the boundaries. Double and triple check your boundary lines so you don't start an issue over a mistake or misunderstanding.

2. Talk with your neighbor. If it's a shed or movable structure, perhaps they can relocate.

3. Consider alternatives. “There are several things you can do to remedy this situation without ending up in court,” says Beck. One is writing the neighbor a written permission to use your property. While this will not hold over if you sell your property, it will at least clear the air and any confusion between who owns what. Another possibility is selling the square feet to them, extending their property line so that their structure now sits on their land and they are no longer encroaching. Not keen on selling the square footage? Suggest renting it. “Be sure to contact a legal advisor and, if necessary, your mortgage lender before a property sale. And of course, keep all documentation of the sale,” Beck cautions.

4. If you aren't able to keep the situation hospitable, you may have to take the issue to court. This can be a painstakingly long process, so Beck suggests this as a last-ditch effort.

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For more information on encroachment, please contact Nancy Beck at nancybeckrealestate@gmail.com. (858) 945-5478, or http://www.nancybeckrealtor.com/

For more real estate information, please contact CENTURY 21 Award at info@century21award.com, 800-293-1657, or CENTURY 21 Award.

Life After Foreclosure: When Can You Buy?

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ANAHEIM HILLS, CA, Dec. 10, 2013—For those consumers who have a foreclosure on their record, it may feel like they will never repair their credit enough to become a homeowner again. It can happen, notes Sid Fowler, REALTOR® at CENTURY 21 Award, but it will depend on a variety of variables.

“Bouncing back after a foreclosure will depend greatly on your individual circumstances, as well as the mortgage interest rate you are willing to pay,” says Fowler. Foreclosures can remain on your credit record for seven to 10 years. Most lenders will consider your request for a home loan two to four years after your foreclosure, although your interest rates will be higher.

“Keep an eye out for predatory lenders that will issue a home mortgage in less time than average, but will charge you obscenely high mortgage interest rates, fees, and penalties,” warns Fowler.

A quality lender will expect you to show that you have cleaned up your credit. In this light, a borrower who has worked hard to reestablish good credit may also be shown some leniency by the lender.

Repairing your credit is possible, although it can be a slow-moving process. Act as quickly as you can to take care of any outstanding delinquencies, tackling a little at a time until you get back on the right track. “Make an effort, if at all possible, to repay your debt in full and on time for six months to a year to prove you are working hard to repair any damage,” says Fowler.

“It will also be helpful to provide a reasonable explanation about the circumstances that led to the foreclosure, such as exuberant medical expenses or lifestyle changes beyond your control,” notes Fowler. If you declared bankruptcy because you were laid off from your job, the lender may be more sympathetic. If, however, you went through bankruptcy because you overextended personal credit lines and lived beyond your means, it is unlikely the lender will readily give you a break.

If you've waited several years after your foreclosure and you're still having trouble obtaining a traditional mortgage, consider other options, such as subprime mortgages, which are made to borrowers who do not meet traditional credit criteria at a higher interest rate.

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For more information on returning to the real estate market after a foreclosure, please contact Sid Fowler at reasuper@aol.com, (714) 779-4370 or http://reasuper.com/.

Contact CENTURY 21 Award at info@century21award.com, (800) 293-1657, or CENTURY 21 Award.com