By: John Riha HouseLogic.com

Every square foot of your home is valuable. Here are seven storage solutions that take advantage of underutilized nooks and crannies. And just for fun, we did some back-of-the-napkin calculations based on the average price per square foot of a U.S. home ($81)—so we could attach a theoretical value to the bonus space.

Stairway to Storage Heaven

Tuck pull-out drawers under sturdy stairs. They’re ideal for stashing extra linens and seasonal items. Each drawer provides about two square feet of storage. If you really could calculate this on a value per square foot realized, that’s roughly $162 worth of extra space per drawer!

It Came from Below!

Basement crawl spaces or open areas under apartment floors can be lined with shelves and outfitted with folding stairs to hoard anything. A finished 10-square-foot crawl space uncovers about $8,100 of space value and can even lower your energy bills.

Sleep-Away Storage

Not enough room for a Carrie Bradshaw closet? No problem. This mattress lifts to reveal a hidden compartment great for stashing bulky blankets. It could save you about $200, the price of a linen cabinet, and it provides about 20 square feet or about $1,587 of extra storage space.

Locker Room

Gain more kitchen space without a costly remodeling job. Reclaimed high school gym lockers sport a new use as built-in pantry compartments. These add 18 cubic feet or $243 in square feet of extra space.

Hidden Litter

Some things are best left hidden, and kitty’s business is one of them. An inexpensive, storage cabinet doubles as a rest stop for this tabby, who enters and exists via a small framed opening. Store the litter box and all its accoutrements in one spot and gain about $205 worth of storage space.

Overhead Room

Give your storage space a lift—overhead areas, such as narrow hallways, make an ideal place for floating shelves and cabinets. You could gain up to 2.5 square feet, valued at $203 of space, in no time!

Seasonal Stash

Keep wrapping paper out of sight but not out of mind by suspending it from your closet ceiling on a simple cradle of wire. It’s easy to reach but won’t get torn or creased. In a closet that’s 6 feet wide by 2 feet deep, this trick makes 12 more square feet of storage worth about $972.

Here’s a look at price trends and how they differ between distressed and nondistressed homes.

By Nick Timiraos of The Wall Street Journal

Home prices are falling again, but some analysts see a silver lining because the prices of homes that aren’t selling out of foreclosure have been holding steady.

CoreLogic reported that home prices in October declined by 1.3% from September and by 3.9% from a year before. A separate index released in early December by LPS Applied Analytics showed that home prices in September had dropped by 1.2% from August

"Many housing statistics are basically moving sideways," said Mark Fleming, chief economist at CoreLogic.

Still, the CoreLogic index shows an important emerging trend in which home prices — excluding distressed sales — are stabilizing.

What’s the difference between distressed sales and nondistressed sales?
Unlike traditional owners, banks are often faster to cut prices in order to unload properties quickly — or what are called "distressed" sales. The upshot: The more homes being sold by lenders in any given month, the faster prices tend to fall.

This was clear throughout the initial years of the housing bust. Prices declined most sharply in 2008 as banks dumped foreclosed properties at fire-sale prices. Owner-occupants are less likely to list their homes for sale in winter, too, which means that each winter prices drop because distressed sales account for a growing share of sales.

Are prices of distressed homes falling at the same rate as nondistressed homes?
That’s been the case up until recently. While home prices overall were down 3.9% from one year ago, prices excluding distressed sales were down just 0.5%. In September, total prices were down 3.8% from one year ago, but nondistressed prices were down 2.1%.

This shows that while price declines are resuming, they are not yet falling from one year ago for nondistressed homes. In fact, during the first nine months of 2011, prices of nondistressed homes remained relatively stable, with year-over-year declines between 2% and 3%.

Analysts at Barclays Capital, in a report published in early December, called this "the most important trend in the housing industry right now."

Why would any stabilization of nondistressed prices matter?
If it’s true that prices of nondistressed homes are stabilizing, even as distressed homes continue to fall in price, it would mean that a distressed home is "increasingly being seen as a poor substitute for a nondistressed home," writes Stephen Kim, a Barclays housing analyst. He says it’s possible that the "bifurcation between distressed and nondistressed homes will only widen with the passage of time."

Won’t the overhang of foreclosures put pressure on nondistressed prices anyway?
That’s all too possible. More than 2 million loans are in some stage of foreclosure, and it may be too early to argue that those won’t in some way affect the sale prices of nondistressed homes. For one, homes that sell out of foreclosure at significantly lower prices could be used by appraisers as "comparable" sales, which may make banks less willing to lend at an agreed sale price for a nondistressed home.

In certain markets where many homes are selling out of foreclosure, it’s hard to simply set aside distressed homes. "You can’t deny the fact that if half of homes that sold in San Diego in a given year were distressed, that is the trend," said Kyle Lundstedt, managing director at LPS.

What could happen if this trend holds up, with distressed prices falling and nondistressed prices staying flat?
It could stabilize something else: homebuyer confidence. "There is nothing that strikes fear in a homeowner’s heart than to hear that his home value has declined," Kim writes. "But if it was home-price trends that got us into this funk, it stands to reason that a recovery in sentiment will be similarly ushered in once price declines have abated — which is precisely what the CoreLogic price data shows us."

It’s time to put some of your tools to bed and prepare your home for the cold months.

By Roy Berendsohn of Popular Mechanics

You may be prepared for the snow to fall, but you had better make sure your home and tools are ready for the cold months ahead. We’ll tell you how to properly store those tools you won’t need, and how to prepare the ones you’ll be using this winter.

Mower
A mower used at the end of the season needs to be emptied of fuel. First, drain or siphon the gas tank dry. If the gasoline you’ve been using in the mower over the summer has a fuel preservative, you can store it until next spring or run it in your snow thrower. If the gasoline has not had a preservative added, you need to use it up as soon as possible. Allowing it to sit over the winter will cause the ethanol in the gasoline to separate and its other chemical components to degrade. It’s also likely that condensation will form in the gas tank.

Start and run the mower to empty it of remaining gas. If fuel lines are easily accessible, you can disconnect and drain them to ensure that the mower is as fuel-free over the winter as possible. (Note: There’s another school of thought here, espoused by pros such as Matt Scherbring of Iowa’s Monticello Equipment Co. He advocates adding stabilizer to a mower’s fuel tank, running the mower and then putting it away for the season. "Nine times out of 10, it’ll start right up in the spring," he said.)

You should give your mower a thorough cleaning before the winter, too. Remove and sharpen the mower blade. Apply a light film of oil to it and reinstall it. Disconnect the spark plug lead, tip the mower over and clean the underside of the deck with a wire brush and a putty knife.

Remove the spark plug and spray a shot of oil into the cylinder. Pull the recoil handle several times to ensure that this film of oil is evenly distributed on the wall of the cylinder. Replace the spark plug with a new one.

Clean or replace the air filter. Wipe the top of the mower deck clean. Lubricate all exposed cable-movement points and pivot points using a good-quality spray lubricant. Change the mower’s oil.

Finally, store the mower as far as practical from pool chemicals, cleaners or fertilizers — anything that could cause corrosion if it spilled on the mower deck.

Trimmer
The procedure for storing a four-cycle string trimmer is identical to that for a mower, but remember to clean the string head and install new line.

For two-stroke string trimmers, things are a bit simpler. Run the machine dry; clean or replace the air filter. Clean and rewind the string head. Sharpen the string-cutting blade on the debris deflector.

Chain saw
If you rely on a chain saw for winter woodcutting, now is the time to give the saw a thorough cleaning, tune-up and sharpening. Buy extra chain and, if you do a lot of cutting in frozen wood or in dirty winter conditions, consider buying a pro-grade bar with a replaceable nose sprocket.

If experience has taught you that you need to run your chain saw at a moment’s notice to clear your driveway or remove storm damage, consider storing the saw with packaged fuel in the gas tank. One example is Stihl’s MotoMix. This fuel consists of high-octane gasoline without ethanol. It’s blended with premium two-stroke engine oil at a 50:1 ratio. Otherwise, mix up a fresh-batch of two-stroke fuel using the highest octane gasoline you can find and two-stroke engine oil that is blended with gasoline preservative/stabilizer.

Snow thrower
If you haven’t prepared your snow thrower for the rigors of winter, now is the time to give it a tune-up, following the same procedure that you used on your lawn mower or string trimmer (if it’s an older single-stage machine powered by a two-stroke engine). In the case of four-cycle engines, however, be sure to use a winter grade of engine oil.

Buy extra shear pins. The last thing you want to do is hit a fallen tree limb buried in the snow, snap a shear pin and put your snow thrower out of commission. Keep the pins where you can find them, preferably hanging on a magnetic tool strip above your workbench.

Lubricate all linkages. The chute crank and various operator levers can take a beating in extremely cold and wet conditions. Lubricate all pivot and wear points and thoroughly test that they move easily before putting the snow thrower into service.

Consider all other spare parts. You don’t want to have a drive belt fly apart in the middle of clearing your driveway or a slide shoe grind a groove into it. Inspect these parts and be sure that any retaining bolts, clips and other parts are lubricated and turn freely, in case you need to bring the machine into the garage for a quick adjustment or repair.

Other jobs
Shovel ready: Now is the time to give your snow shovel a quick once-over. If it has an aluminum wear strip that’s loose, tighten it, remove it or replace the shovel. Take a file and clean up any ragged plastic or aluminum edges.

Snow-shovel blades are notorious for loosening in the handle socket. Remove the cheap little sheet-metal screw they installed at the factory and replace it with a larger screw.

The only things more useful than a snow shovel are a square-edge No. 2 shovel (the kind you use for shoveling sand and gravel) and a round-edge version of the same tool (the kind you use for digging in dirt). Both of these can be lifesavers if you need to loosen up the berm formed by a passing snowplow at the end of the driveway, or if you have to chop through the snow and then move the remainder with your snow shovel. Grind or file away any ragged edges on the blade. If the blade is loose in the socket, re-rivet it. Yes, you can still buy shovel-handle rivets.

Lawn care: Apply fall fertilizer to your lawn. This should be a high-nitrogen blend that contains extra potassium — that’s the "K" in the fertilizer’s NPK ratio listed on the bag. Potassium improves the grass’s cold-hardiness and, combined with nitrogen, it sets the stage for the grass to store carbohydrates over the winter so it can bounce back quickly in the spring. Rinse the fertilizer spreader out on the lawn, and be sure to sweep or blow fertilizer onto the lawn if it has fallen onto paved surfaces.

Salt: Stock up rock salt for routine ice-melting chores, but also buy some more expensive calcium-chloride pellets and save them for when conditions really get bad. These will melt ice at lower temperatures than rock salt; U.S. Salt Inc. says calcium chloride is effective all the way down to minus 25 Fahrenheit. Even if that’s a bit of a stretch, its ice-melting prowess is well-known and worth the money for severe conditions.

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: Make repairs now and avoid disaster later. Have the boiler or furnace tuned, stock up on emergency supplies and make any repairs that keep the house safe and weather-tight. Example: The last thing you want is a loose handrail on the front stoop when someone is making his way up icy steps, in the dark, with the wind blowing in his face. You get the idea.

Take a look at the most common things that can go wrong when you have guests and learn how to prevent them.

Imagine you’re preparing to host your annual holiday party, and you’re past the point of no return. The veggies and meats have been bought. Guests are already braving busy airports and crowded highways to get to your home—and then your oven won’t turn on. Your home-cooked meal has quickly turned into a microwave dinner.

That’s just one of many hosting nightmares that can end your holiday party before it even begins. Thankfully, some of the most damaging mishaps easily can be avoided. We collected five of the most prevalent issues and give you preventative tips to keep your holiday party on track.

Problem: The oven doesn’t heat

For any holiday occasion, the oven is the most important appliance in your house. If it fails to work, the centerpiece of your meal could go from roasted beef, ham, duck, or Tofurky to Peking Duck from the local Chinese takeout joint.
How to avoid:

• There are any number of reasons a stove can break, but one common cause of disaster is easy to prevent. Don’t self-clean your oven until AFTER the holidays. You risk blowing a fuse or a thermostat, and tracking down an oven technician around the holidays can be tough.

Problem: The kitchen sink clogs

The day after Thanksgiving is the busiest of the year for plumbers. The prime cause of this clog-a-thon is the mistreatment of drains when cooking holiday feasts. We hope your Thanksgiving went well, and that you avoid clog-a-thons for the rest of the holidays.

How to avoid:

• Fats and cooking oils can solidify in your pipes, so never dispose of them in your kitchen sink.

• If you have a garbage disposal, make sure it’s running before anything goes in it, and never feed it any stringy, fibrous, or starchy foods like poultry skins or potato peels.

• To fix, don’t rely on chemical drain-clearing products that can harm your pipes. Use a snake instead, available for $15 at your local hardware store. Best to keep one on hand.

Problem: The heat goes out

As the party’s host, you’re supposed to hang guests’ coats—not apologize to them for having to keep them on. A lack of heat can stop a holiday party dead in its tracks.
How to avoid:

• The key to avoiding freezing your party to a standstill is regular maintenance of your HVAC. Every 90 days, a new one-inch pleated furnace filter should be installed. If you haven’t done it in a while, now’s a good time to replace it.

• Also inspect insulation on refrigerant lines that are leading into your house. Replace them if they’re missing or damaged.

Problem: The toilet stops up

Toilets have a way of clogging up at the worst times, such as during parties and when you have overnight guests. This is especially true if you have a low-flow toilet from the early 1990s.

How to avoid:

• Don’t flush anything other than sewage and toilet paper down the toilet. And there’s nothing wrong with putting up a polite note to remind your guests to do the same.

Problem: The fridge doesn’t cool

Without a properly functioning refrigerator, your meat could get contaminated, your dairy-based treats could go sour, and you may not be able to save your yummy leftovers. To avoid discovering a warm fridge after it’s too late, take these simple precautions.

How to avoid:

• Get a thermometer for your refrigerator to make sure each shelf stays below 40 degrees and you can be aware of any temperature changes.

• Also make sure the condenser coils located on the back of the unit or beneath it are free to breathe. Coils blocked from circulating air by cereal boxes atop the fridge, or dirtied by dust or pet hair can prevent a fridge from keeping cool.

Don’t forget about exterior grading, indoor air quality

By Paul Bianchina

Fall is in the air already, which means that another chilly winter can’t be too far behind. So before the cold weather arrives, here’s your annual checklist of things to do to get your home ready for the change of season.

Inside your home

Check smoke detectors: Don’t neglect that smoke detector any longer! Take some time right now to check the operation of detectors, and to change the batteries. If you have an older house with a limited number of smoke detectors, install additional ones at each sleeping room, and make sure there is one centrally located on each level of the home as well.

Install a carbon monoxide detector: As houses get closed up for winter, the chances of carbon monoxide poisoning from malfunctioning gas appliances increases substantially. If you have a furnace, fireplace, water heater, or other appliance that’s fueled by propane or natural gas, or if you have an attached garage, install a carbon monoxide detector. They’re available inexpensively from many home centers and other retailers, and offer easy, plug-in installation

Service your heating system: Perform a complete system check of your furnace annually, either by yourself or by a trained furnace technician. Check for worn belts, lubrication needs or other servicing that might be required; refer to your owner’s manual for specific suggestions, and follow any manufacturer safety instructions for shutting the power and fuel to the furnace before servicing. Check the condition of duct joints and insulation, and of course, change the filter.

Upgrade your thermostat: An older thermostat that’s a couple of degrees off can result in a lot of wasted energy, and so can forgetting to set the thermostat down at night. You can take care of both of those problems with an upgrade to a programmable thermostat. Programmable thermostats are digital and typically very accurate, and they allow for easy, set-and-forget programming of temperatures for different times of the day, including energy-saving nighttime and workday setbacks.

Outside your home

Trim trees: Trees that are overhanging your home can be a real hazard. They can deposit debris on your roof, scrape against shingles during wind storms, and, worst of all, snap off with potentially devastating results. Have a professional tree trimming service inspect the condition of overhanging tree limbs, and safely cut them back as needed.

Check the gutters: Clear the gutters of leaf and pine needle debris, and check that the opening between the gutter and the downspout is unobstructed. Look for loose joints or other structural problems with the system, and repair them as needed using pop rivets. Use a gutter sealant to seal any connections where leaks may be occurring.

Break out the caulk: A few hours and few tubes of caulking can make a big difference in both your heating bills and your comfort levels this winter. Caulk around windows, doors, pipes, exterior electrical outlets, and any other exterior penetrations where cold air might enter. Use a good grade of acrylic latex caulk, either in a paintable white or, if you don’t want to paint, use clear.

Drain sprinkler systems: In colder areas, now is the time to be thinking about having your sprinkler and irrigation systems blown out. You can rent a compressor and do this yourself, or contact a landscape or irrigation system installer and have them handle this for you. This is also the time to shut off outdoor faucets and install freeze-proof faucet covers as needed.

Adjust exterior grade: Fall is also a great time to look at the grade around your home, and make sure that everything slopes away from your foundation to avoid costly problems with ground water. Add, remove or adjust soil grades as necessary for good drainage.

Change light timers: If you have exterior lights that are controlled by timers, including low-voltage ones, check the timer settings. Change the "on" times to an earlier hour to reflect the earlier winter darkness, so that you always have adequate outside light available.

By Tara-Nicholle Nelson

With so many homes on the market, many buyers house hunt for months, even years before hitting property pay-dirt. Even for the savvy buyers who have narrowed their house hunt to an affordable price range, the condition issues so common in distressed homes can make choosing a home difficult.
And on the flip side, some subdivisions have scads of similar homes, all of which are in good shape, all listed at a similar price, making it nearly impossible to choose just one.

Here are five indicators that a particular home you’re viewing might be “The One” – the property on which you’ll want to place an offer:

1. You feel possessive about it, instantly. I once showed a less-than-fabulous home to a buyer who stepped in the front door, opened her eyes wide, and uttered in a much-quieter-than-normal voice, “I would cry.” We got a good laugh out of this later, after she found and bought a home that made her feel virtually the opposite.

Not only did the winning home bring a smile to her face, it also made her instantly possessive. She didn’t just want it – she wanted it immediately. She could barely even wait to write the offer paperwork! When another agent showed up to bring a buyer through the place while we were still there, she lingered leisurely (in hopes they would just leave) and secretly looked at them with daggers in her eyes (out of competitiveness, because in her heart, the home had already become hers).

If you walk through a place and leave wondering how quickly you can get your offer in, how much you’d offer to beat someone else out, or what you can do to lock it down quickly, it might be “The One.”

2. You start rationalizing its flaws away. Train tracks 10 feet from the bedroom window? Next door neighbor that runs a pigeon-sitting service? Okay – I exaggerate. But if you find yourself viewing a home with traits that you would normally deem undesirable or as deal-killers, yet you like the place so much that you instinctively compile a mental list of reasons those traits just don’t matter, you might have found “The One.”

Now, smart buyers should be aware of a syndrome I like to call “Pottery Barn Psychosis,” whereby the aesthetics of a wonderfully staged home with amazing curb appeal can hypnotize a buyer, rendering them blind to the negative property features, which would be glaring or grave concerns if the place weren’t so stinking cute. It’s fine to make a conscious decision that the pros of a place outweigh its cons, and even to consciously re-rank your priorities in light of a particular property’s advantages. But buyers should take steps to avoid falling victim to Pottery Barn Psychosis (and the Buyer’s Remorse that often follows suit) by writing down your absolute musts and deal-breakers before you ever step foot in a single property – and by revisiting this document before you write an offer and again before you remove your contingencies.

3. The bathroom and kitchen don’t disgust you. We humans are born with only two fears in life: the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises. By about eight months old, we start to acquire new fears, and most of us never stop. Among the first fear most people learn: the fear of other people’s kitchens and bathrooms.
I exaggerate (again!), but it is true that generally speaking, other people’s kitchens and bathrooms hold definite gross-out potential. There’s just something about what goes on in those rooms that seems exceptionally intimate and even unsanitary. So, if you happen to find yourself falling in love with a home’s river rock shower floor or drooling over the pot-filler over the stove and the built-in cookbook stand on the countertop, that’s a sign that you’re falling head over heels with a home that might just be “The One.”

4. You involuntarily envision your own family, furniture, decor, daily activities or remodeling choices into the home. They say that the best staging helps prospective buyers envision their own idealized lives taking place in the staged home. But whether or not a property is staged, if you find your mind’s eye Photoshopping a given property to insert your own kids and sofa into the living room, your dining table and favorite wall hangings into place in the dining room, and your daily meditation in the breakfast nook – or even start mentally removing walls entirely – it’s entirely possible that the home you’re in could be “The One” for you.

5. You lose interest in seeing other homes. I once took some buyers out for their first house hunt in my territory after they’d spent two years looking for homes in a neighboring area, without ever making a single offer. I’d planned to show them seven homes, but when they got to the fourth property, they declared that they’d found their home, and they neither wanted nor needed to see any more. I insisted that they finish the list, if for no other reason than to confirm their choice and to avoid feeling later that they hadn’t seen enough nearby homes to compare theirs to. They humored me and saw the last three places on the list, then promptly bought house #4 and still live there, blissfully happy, to this day.

When you find “The One,” continuing the house hunt you may have obsessed over for months, even years, starts to seem silly, like a waste of the energy you could be using to move into your new home.

Setting the bar too high may leave you with an unsold house.

By Jeff Brown of MainStreet

A new study by property website Zillow.com shows that many home sellers are unrealistically optimistic, asking considerably more than they’re likely to get. As a result, they risk long delays in finding buyers, which means a lot of lost revenue while the house sits idle on the market.

What’s more, homeowners who bought after the housing bubble peaked in 2007 were even more unrealistic than those who bought before or during the bubble, perhaps because post-bubble buyers thought they got better bargains than they actually did.

"We found sellers who bought after the housing bubble burst, in 2007 or later, price their homes 14% above market value," said Zillow, which used sales of comparable homes to figure market value. "Those who bought before the housing run-up, prior to 2002, overprice by nearly 12%. Somewhat surprisingly, sellers who bought during the run-up, from 2002-2006, seem to be the most realistic, pricing their homes 9% over market value."

Market value is a tricky number, because comparable-sales data do not always provide a good guide to a home’s value. Nearby homes that have sold in the past six months or so may be quite different from yours in appearance or condition, and there may be too few recent sales to get a proper valuation. That being said, you won’t have much chance of getting a premium price on a cookie-cutter condo if identical units have sold for less.

As a seller, you have a right to ask for whatever price you want, which you can drop if no one bites. You may get lucky, but asking too much involves a number of risks, even if you’re just "testing the market" for a few weeks or months.

On the pro side, you might get your high asking price. Selling a house is not like a dealer selling cars or McDonald’s selling Big Macs, because the home seller needs only one buyer. It’s possible that someone will find your home so perfect that it justifies a premium price. For example, a home with a garage converted into a shop may be a turnoff to most buyers because most of them have cars, but a nondriving tinkerer may love the extra work space.

More often, though, pricing your home too high works against you in some important ways. Here are three of them:

1. Agents react. Real-estate agents — yours and the buyers’ — may not want to waste time with a home that’s unlikely to sell. Though a higher price means a bigger commission, agents might figure they can move two or three homes in the time it would take to sell yours, earning more even if each offers a smaller commission than your property does.

2. Buyers react. Buyers who like your house but pass on your property because of the price may find something else and close a deal before you drop your asking price to a level they’d accept.

3. You need that money. Even if you get your full asking price, the time it takes to get it may cause you to miss out on the house you want to buy. You may have to settle for something that’s not as suitable. Even worse, you may end up spending more than you had planned, offsetting the premium you got on your sale.

Setting a proper sale price is both an art and a science. A key step is to shop carefully for an agent who can help you, looking for one who is very familiar with your community and comes with good references. Steer clear of dabblers who sell only a few homes a year. You want a pro who is on top of the market and will value a good reference from you.

Drive around to look at the "comparable" homes used to set your asking price, and look for others if necessary. If you’re on a hill, don’t use a comparison from a home down in the less desirable floodplain. Make sure the house’s curb appeal matches yours. Keep in mind that a computer that spits out comparable sales isn’t likely to know that your home has a new kitchen and the others don’t.

Finally, keep an eye on the "traffic" – the number of potential buyers who come through your property. A good agent will have a sense of how many buyers are looking. If you are not getting your share, it’s a sign you are reaching on price. If dropping your price is inevitable, it’s better to do it sooner than later.

By: The Editors of This Old House, This Old House online

Get Ready for the Cold Season

Fall means vibrant red, orange, and yellow foliage, lots of pumpkins, and refreshingly cool temps. But, it also means winter isn’t far away. Here are a few projects—from looking after your exterior to maintaining your heating system—that can help your home brace for the cold and save you some cash.

Install and Maintain Paths and Walkways

When crossing your muddy yard to fetch the daily paper turns into an obstacle course of slips and slides, perhaps it’s time to think about an alternative path—literally. Holiday guests to come would also appreciate safe passage to your door. So, take a weekend to lay a brick walkway.
Make sure you check sidewalks and driveways for cracks. If you don’t fill them now, water can seep in and freeze, making them even larger. Take the time to resurface worn concrete now and save you a whole lot of time and money later.

Light the Way With Outdoor Lanterns

Less daylight calls for illumination. You can also enhance the nighttime curb appeal of your home, while adding a measure of safety and security, by installing low-voltage landscape lighting. These exterior-grade fixtures are typically placed along walkways and driveways, but they’re also ideal for illuminating steps, trees, stonewalls, fences and other prominent garden features.
You can also add a charming lamppost to mark the start of your driveway.

Prep Your Landscape and Start Composting

"Grass roots keep growing until the ground gets down to around 40 degrees," says TOH landscape contractor Roger Cook, "so this is a good time to feed them." Apply a high-phosphorus (12-25-12) mix to lawns in fall to encourage roots, so turf greens up earlier in spring.
It’s also a good time to seed a new lawn, start a compost pile, and trim shrubs and trees.

Build a Trash Shed to Hide Unsightly Containers

Nothing mucks up the holiday season curb appeal of your house more than a bunch of beat-up trash cans and overflowing recycling bins scattered next to the side door.
Build a sturdy storage house that hides two 32-gallon trash cans and several stacked recycling bins. Flip-open lids give it easy access so that you can quickly toss something away in the right place. Bifold front doors make it easy to move heavy cans in and out.

Put Light Where You Need It With a Garage Floodlight

If you’ve never been stuck with the task of taking out trash after dinner clean-up, then lucky you. But, in the fall and winter, the last haul often goes out after-dark. Install a motion-sensor garage floodlight to keep you company. It’ll also welcome you and your guests home with its warm illumination.
Speaking of garages, now’s a good time to tidy up the place. For most, the garage sees a lot of action during the summer with yard tools and pool accessories moving in and out. It might be handy to actually get the car in there now that winter weather is on the way. Create a garage storage plan and build a work bench to stow tools if you have the space. Consider replacing the stained concrete slab with an epoxy-coated garage floor that’ll resist oil stains, bead water, and wipe clean.
TOH Tip: While you’re in the garage, fuel up the snow blower so you’re not caught with your gas down when the white stuff comes. Take some time to put your lawn mower to bed with a tune-up that’ll ensure it’s working like new come spring.

Freeze-Proof Exterior Faucets

Even the most intrepid do-it-yourselfer shudders at the thought of a burst water pipe. If not immediately noticed, a ruptured pipe can be both expensive and time-consuming to clean up.
Fortunately, the pipe that’s most susceptible to extremely cold weather—the outdoor hose faucet—is also one of the easiest to protect from freezing. Replace an existing hose faucet with a freeze-proof faucet. You can do it yourself in just a few hours.

Get Your Entry Guest-Ready

Unfortunately, a door’s weather seals, if it has any at all, can rip, compress, bend, or wear out over time, leaving chilly winter air free to enter (or expensive air-conditioned air to leave). Lucky for you, making your door draft-free is a straightforward exercise, far cheaper and faster than installing a new door.
Once that’s done, enhance curb appeal with aesthetic entry upgrades like adding exterior trim, flanking the door with sconces, throwing down a doormat, and swapping entry locksets.

Build a Mudroom Bench With Storage

Fall means back-to-school. Create a stopping area just inside the entry where everyone can leave the weather and dirt from their day behind. Build a mudroom bench that’s the perfect catchall, complete with an open top shelf, coat hooks, and flip-top bench storage.

Maintain Your Washer and Dryer

Left unattended, a burst washing-machine hose can spill hundreds of gallons of water an hour. Likewise, a dryer can erupt in flame if lint is allowed to build up inside the machine or its ducts.
Preventing such mishaps is as easy as replacing a washer’s old rubber hoses, ideally with steel-jacketed ones that can’t split open. Or discarding the dryer’s flimsy—and flammable—vinyl duct and putting a metal one in its place.

Drape Away Drafts

Even after you’ve weatherstripped and caulked them, windows in older homes can still be drafty. Here’s another line of defense against the chills: window treatments.
The right shades, curtains, and even blinds will help retain some portion of the estimated 10 to 30 percent of heat lost through windows in wintertime. Install window shades and you’ll also gain control of natural light.

Give Your Fireplace a Facelift

Chipped bricks, a stained hearth, and years of accumulated soot can turn what should be the focal point of a living room into an eyesore. Replacing a hearth and surround—either with seamless stone slabs or with stone or ceramic tiles—makes a big difference in the way a fireplace looks. Take a look at our 8 steps to giving your fireplace a facelift. For added safety, consider adding glass fireplace doors.
Adding an insert is a smart investment that’s pure win—it’ll keep you warm and slash your heating bills all at once. Complete this energy-efficient upgrade before December 31, and you’ll score yourself a tax credit from Uncle Sam.
TOH Tip: The National Fire Protection Association recommends that getting chimneys swept at least once a year at the beginning of the winter to remove soot and debris. Find a certified sweep in your area via the Chimney Safety Institute of America.

Add Warmth Underfoot With Cork or Carpet

Nothing’s worse than waking up to the icy shock of a cold floor. Resilient yet durable, stylish yet earthy, adding a natural easy-install cork floor can turn any cool room into a cozy haven.
Cork not your thing? Warm up rooms with traditional carpets; here’s how to install wall-to-wall carpeting yourself with professional results.

Create an Efficient Home Office

Few people today would consider remodeling a house without making room for a home office. Chalk it up to the spike in part- and full-time telecommuting, after-hours e-mailing, and an effort to keep the Internet out of kids’ rooms.
Whether it’s a bare minimum desk off the kitchen or a full-blown study with custom cabinets, multiple work surfaces, and extensive file storage, here’s how to create a workstation that’ll work for you.
For added storage in your workspace, build a bookcase or put up wall-mounted shelves

Get Your Heating System Serviced

Before the chill sets in, make an appointment for your furnace’s annual checkup. Without this yearly cleaning and inspection, a system can wear itself out quickly, pump deadly carbon monoxide into your home, or simply stop working.
If you have forced-air heating, change the furnace filter. You’ll notice a difference in the air quality, and your furnace will run more efficiently.

Tara Nelson

In most parts of the country, the housing market is good (or great!) for buyers right now – interest rates are bizarrely low, lots of inventory means lots to choose from, and the cost of renting has increased in a lot of markets. But just because the market’s good doesn’t mean it’s the right time for everyone to buy. The decision whether to buy a home is a very personal one; you need to carefully examine your own situation to determine whether it’s right for you.

So, what are the questions you need to answer in deciding whether you’re ready to buy? Here are some of the big ones:

1. Do I have enough money for a down payment?
And how much, exactly, is “enough?” Today’s minimum down payment requirements range from 3.5 percent on an FHA loan to 10 or even 20 percent for conventional loans. That means coming up with anywhere from $7,000 to $40,000 on a typical $200,000 house. While there are still programs that can give you a down payment assist (see last week’s post, 5 Insider Secrets for Coming Up With Cash for Down Payment), much of the heavy lifting here will need to come from you – in the form of saving up your hard earned cash. And keep in mind there are also closing costs you’ll probably have to pay in cash, which can run as high as 3-4% of your total purchase price.

Talk with a real estate pro and a mortgage broker in your areas to start wrapping your head around how much “cash to close” (i.e., down payment + closing costs) will run, approximately, on a local property that would meet your needs. Can your savings cover this? If not, where will you get the money – what’s your plan for coming up with it? Putting down as much as you can a) makes you more attractive to lenders, so you might qualify you for better loan terms and b) gives you additional purchasing power, either decreasing your monthly mortgage payment or increasing your purchase price limit for a home.

2. Can I handle the not-so-glamorous aspects of homeownership?
If you can’t even fathom the prospect of having a home maintenance crisis without having a landlord to call to fix it, you might want to reconsider homeownership – or at the very least, buy a lower maintenance condo or townhome in great condition, and make sure you get a home warranty! As a home owner, after all, you essentially are your own landlord. Pipe bursts in the middle of the night? Guess who’ll be up fixing it or calling (and paying) the plumber? (Hint: you.)

There are also some less-than-glamorous bills you’ll have to deal with in your new role as a homeowner that you never laid eyes on as a renter: property taxes and hazard insurance, to name two. When you go from renter to owner, you also need to account for the cost of appliances and maintaining the property’s roof, windows, and landscaping, among other things.

3. How long do I intend to stay in the house?
If you think you might move out of the area next year, then you really shouldn’t be thinking about buying a house (unless of course, you want to play landlord and rent it out after you leave – a prospect which requires its own risk/rewards analysis). For your home purchase to pencil out as a good deal, financially, you’ll shouldn’t buy unless you’re comfortable staying in the house at least 5-7 years – even longer, if you’re buying a home in a foreclosure hot spot or an area with a sluggish job market.. This gives you some time to build up equity and make up for the costs of buying, selling and moving.

4. Are my job and finances stable?
Maybe you just went through a major career change and are in the process of working your way back up from the top. Or maybe you work in a field that has been hit really hard by layoffs and cutbacks. The worst case scenario is to find yourself in a spot with mortgage payment you have no way to make, when you could have avoided that by seeing the writing on the wall. If you feel like there’s a real chance you could lose your job or income tomorrow, you may want to hold off on buying a house – that has the added bonus of giving you the geographic freedom to move, if needed, to get a new job.

Is there really such a thing as 100 percent job security in today’s economy? Probably not. But the best practice is to be confident that your finances could handle a temporary loss of income and still make your mortgage payments, before you buy. One way to do this is to have enough money in the bank to cover 4-6 months’ worth of living expenses, calculating them to include your mortgage payment – before you deem yourself ready to buy. That way, even if you lose your job with no warning at all, you’ll at least have a reasonable window of time to find a new one without digging yourself into a hole – or worse, losing your home altogether.

5. What are my real reasons for buying?
Buying a home is a long-term commitment that will have massive impacts on your lifestyle, your family and your finances. In other words, don’t do it unless you’re really sure you want to and are ready for the lifestyle change – don’t let someone else talk you into it. Worthy reasons renters with homeowning readiness give for their decision to buy include some or all of the following:

· You want to build equity instead of paying a landlord. Fact is, if you get a fixed rate mortgage and make the payments for the full term of the loan, you’ll eventually pay it off. That’s not possible when you’re renting.

· You want a place to call your own, where you can paint a wall purple, add a pottery spinning studio or build your dogs an obstacle course (oops – that’s my reason for homeownership!), because it’s your prerogative.

· You want the tax advantages of homeownership.

· You want a stable place you and your family can live for as long as you’d like.

Ask yourself these questions, and be honest with your answers. If you really want to buy, but your answers to these questions today don’t weigh in that direction, it doesn’t mean you’ll never own a home. It’s usually just a matter of strategically timing your purchase out a year or two when your savings, your career and your lifestyle are in alignment with the implications of ownership – consider working closely with a real estate broker and a mortgage professional to get an action plan in place and start working that plan.

If you’re selling a home this fall, make the most of the season with these seven ideas for sprucing up your home’s exterior.

By Shannon Petrie, FrontDoor.com |

Spruce Up the Lawn

While brilliant fall foliage can automatically make your home look more attractive for showings, that doesn’t mean you can slack off on lawn maintenance during this season. Keep falling leaves at bay with frequent raking and patch up any brown spots in the grass.

Add Fall Flowers

Once your lawn is looking its best, spice it up with a splash of color. As your summer plants start to fade, replace them with vibrant mums or other colorful flowers.

Highlight the Front Door

Making your front door the focal point of your home’s exterior is a good tactic no matter what time of year you decide to sell your home. During the fall, a simple wreath of fall foliage and flowers can add an inviting touch. A fresh coat of paint in a vivid red can also make your entrance stand out.

Address Your Home’s Exterior

When fall rolls around and the trees shed their leaves, your home becomes more exposed, making its exterior appearance extra important. Before putting your home on the market, pressure wash the exterior and clean the windows. If the paint is chipped or faded, applying a fresh coat will do wonders to revive your home’s appearance.

Clean the Gutters

Staying on top of yearly and monthly maintenance lets buyers know you care about your home’s upkeep. During the fall, be sure to clear your gutters and downspouts of leaves and other debris, which will protect your home from water damage.

Light It Up

As the days get shorter, it becomes increasingly important to provide potential homebuyers with a safe path to your front door. Use decorative lights to illuminate walkways, and install flood lights or lanterns to brighten up entrance areas.

Keep It Simple

While subtle fall decor — a wreath on the door or pots of seasonal flowers — will make your home look inviting and fresh, going overboard will distract buyers from your home itself. Save your scarecrows and spooky Halloween decorations for another year.