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Northern Virginia Basement Finishing Ideas

October 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment

If you are thinking about finishing the basement in your northern Virginia home, here are some things to consider to make the job go smoother and get the results that you really want.

Insulation - Insulating your basement walls will help to keep your new living space more comfortable and energy efficient. But you might also want to insulate the basement ceiling to reduce sound transmission upstairs. The best type of insulation to use in the basement is rigid foam. Unlike fiberglass batt insulation, rigid foam won’t absorb moisture, settle, attract mold or lose its insulating value. Foam’s ability to stop air leaks is also an asset.
Install a larger window.

Bedroom or Not? Is there any chance that your basement might need to serve as a bedroom? If the answer is yes, then it’s wise to have a small basement window enlarged so that an “egress-compliant” window and exterior window well can be installed…Installing a larger basement window not only fulfills code requirements for a basement bedroom; it also brings much more natural light into the space.

Easy to Care For - Choose durable, easy-care finish materials.

Don’t Let Mold Grow – It’s important to use inorganic materials that won’t support mold. But you also want floor and wall surfaces to be as indestructible and easy-cleaning as possible. Low-profile, high-strength plastic floor tiles have gained a great following among savvy basement dwellers. Though they look surprisingly like ceramic tile, oak parquet or solid wood flooring, these tiles won’t ever warp, cup, or crack. They never require refinishing, and they clean up quickly whether you’re mopping or vacuuming. Wall panels covered with textured vinyl rather than paper offer similar advantages. Both of these products are carried by Total Basement Finishing dealers.

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Kitchen Cabinet Replacement Ideas

October 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Home Design Elements is always working on kitchens. From complete renovations to pull and replace cabinet jobs, we serve many families all across the northern Virginia area. Looking through the web for great new info on kitchen replacements, I found these seven tips that I thought were good. Here they are along with some of my commentary…

When it comes to refacing kitchen cabinets, it is usually cheaper and quicker than buying new. However, this may only be a good option when the current cabinets are of higher quality. If they are of solid frames, doors and drawers are fully self-contained with closed backs and reinforced corners. Painting the current cupboards is also an option if they are of high quality wood. Refacing usually takes one or two days.

The key here is quality.  The ONLY time you should consider refacing cabinets is if the originals are very high quality.  This means that they were originally fully custom (not always).  Solid wood means there are no veneers.  If the originals are not super high quality, ditch them for new or risk causing yourself the exact same issues within a short year or two.

If interested in completely replacing kitchen cabinets, stock cabinets are a good choice because they are the least expensive but still have a wide variety of shapes, sizes, colors and materials.  Solid hardwood cupboards made of cherry, maple, oak and birch are usually more expensive than laminate or veneer finished options. Custom cabinets can also be bought but at a much higher price point.

Homeowners should always check to make certain the cabinets have high-end hinges and mechanical hardware. Cheap ones may not function properly or could break and need to be replaced.

Before finalizing a purchase, costs should be compared with a variety of vendors before making a sale final.
If interested in refacing over replacing, hardware can be tricky. If painting the surface and replacing just hardware, ensure the new hardware has the same drill centers as the previous ones. Otherwise, old drill holes will need to be patched before painting.

Knobs are easier to install over handles because only one screw is needed and the spacing therefore does not need to be exact. These door handles or knobs should match the finish of the appliances and other kitchen features. When buying hardware, homeowners should pick up a couple additional pieces in case any need to be replaced in the future.

In our experience, you can often get a complete pull and replace job done with better results and much less hassle than with refacing or painting your cabinets. Give us a call to go over this – we’ll get you the help you need!

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5 Simple Fall Home Projects

October 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Fall is the time of year when we should all be prepping for the onslaught of home abuse that the Winter usually brings. The Farmer’s Almanac says that this Winter is going to be a bad one, so here are a few easy steps you can take to prepare your home.

These points were originally posted over at the moneypit.com and we thought they made a lot of sense. Here they are:

Seal Leaks. Doors, windows and electrical outlets are common culprits. With energy prices continuing to climb, energy and money saving measures can be a big help. Air leakage accounts for between 25 and 40 percent of the energy used for heating and cooling a typical home. Before the weather gets too cold, check around doors, windows and joints in building materials for air leakage.

Clean Air. In cooler weather we all spend more time indoors – where the air quality is often 25 times more polluted than the air outdoors. The solution is a whole house air cleaner. Unlike the seen-on-TV room air cleaners, a whole house air cleaner is built-in to your home’s heating and cooling system. As a result, it can clean the entire home. High efficiency units not only remove dust, but also removes bacteria that causes colds and flu. Professionally installed whole house air cleaners can also help extend the life of your heating and cooling equipment, and is a good fall home improvement project.

Add Programmable Thermostat. Did you know that programmable thermostats could help you save money and energy all year long? They allow you to control your home’s climate around the clock, winter and summer – without any additional effort. In fact, setting the thermostat to control the operation of your central air conditioner can also manage excess humidity in the home and reduce your overall cooling bills.

Prep for Storms. Be it sleet, snow or something in between, winter storms can wreak havoc just about anywhere. In fact, each year 75% of all Americans experience a power outage. A backup generator is a great idea, especially if your household has young children, elderly residents or anyone with special needs. A great type of backup power to consider is a generator that will automatically take over the running of your home’s electrical appliances if power is suddenly cut off. Running on your home’s natural gas or propane, there’s no messy gasoline to handle or extension cords to connect. Providing worry-free safety and security in sizes ranging from 7,000 to 150,000 watts.

It is also noteworthy that HDElements just launched an off-shoot company – Storm Restoration Services. SRS provides complete storm restorations. So, if you need storm repairs in northern Virginia, call SRS and we can help!

Tweaks and Squeaks. Before winter’s corrosive weather sets in, homeowners are wise to give their homes the once over with a can of WD-40. With windows and doors to lubricate, squeaky hinges to silence and much more, no home should be without WD-40.

Follow these tips and tricks for a more secure and more energy efficient home.

Happy Fall!

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Experimental Robot Can Build a Home In a Day

October 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Engineers are hoping to let loose on the housing market a much larger version of 3D robot printers developed to “print” food.

This robot isn’t planned for making little gingerbread houses, but home builders probably should not fear them as Terminators – just yet.

A California scientist’s experiments have led to developing a robot that can read an architect’s computer aided design (CAD) drawings and whip up a full-sized house using 3D printing technology.

Behrokh Khoshnevis, a University of Southern California professor of industrial and systems engineering, says the robot can build a complete house in a single-day – with little assistance from human builders.

Khoshnevis is focusing on residential applications, but also has the attention of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), for his out-of-this-world home building research. NASA is looking into systems than can be used for extraterrestrial habitats, perhaps a lunar base.

Khoshnevis also sees early adoption for his “Contour Crafting (CC)” robots in building fast, post-disaster housing, military housing, low-cost inner city and developing nations’ infill housing, rather than traditional mass-produced homes.

“Robots of this kind could potentially dramatically reduce the time and money needed to build quality homes, including plumbing, electrical and HVAC conduits,” said Robert Federowicz, CEO of Quantum International Corp. a publicly traded robotics innovation company.

“These machines can theoretically work around the clock, needing only a constant supply of power and semi-liquid concrete. It’s exactly the kind of robotics innovation that we’re interested in helping to commercialize on a global scale,” Federowicz.

The CC robot, a computer-controlled crane or gantry, which looks like scaffolding with nozzles, loads up on semi-liquid concrete and extrudes it in layers as surfaces, wall structures and domed roofs, building the home from the ground up.

In addition to the potential for architecural departure from the standard cookie-cutter, rectilinear design of new homes, the 20 to 25 percent savings on financing, 25 to 30 percent savings in materials and 45 to 55 percent savings in labor make CC attractive, Khoshnevis reports in “Houses Of The Future – Construction By Contour Crafting Building Houses For Everyone”

Building speed reduces financing costs, the process reportedly leaves zero waste and it will replace muscle power with brain power – women and older workers can find job opportunities in CC construction, Khoshnevis reports.

“This revolutionary technology uses modern robotics in combination with a construction tool used since ancient times – the trowel – to build a custom-designed house in a few hours. A full implementation of the technology will have the potential to significantly improve the urban housing infrastructure in Southern California, the entire nation, and the world, by providing much higher quality construction at much lower cost,” he added.

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What Do Sellers Really Want?

October 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment

A new article from Realty Times was very interesting.

The availability of information online in the 21st century has radically changed many industries, including real estate. Travel agents and car dealers have found their businesses impacted dramatically as consumers tap into online information that gives them power and choices and makes proprietary information a thing of the past. In the real estate industry, the “one size fits all” model is quickly become antiquated. Consumers want choice. They want more control. They are more educated and feel more empowered and many do not fully understand the value of the real estate agent in their transaction.

The good news is that our business is more complicated than buying a trip or a car. You and I both know much of the information available online is not accurate or useful, the volume of information is staggering and valuations shift quickly based on market demand. So, our ability as professionals to interpret the information and bring value and sense to it all is vitally necessary to help a consumer make good decisions.

How have you changed your business model? During the ’80s and ’90s, most agents and companies offered a single way of doing business, usually with a fixed percentage of the sales price as compensation. As flat fee, limited service brokerages, offering menus of service, became more common, consumers have begun to question which model suits their needs best. Traditionally, the seller’s objective has been to sell their home for the most amount of money in the least amount of time. This is still usually the goal. Consumers often find hiring a full-time, full-service professional is the best and easiest choice to achieve that result. An expert knows how to put more money in their pockets. However, others are questioning that premise and are trying to understand the value of using a full service broker.

With greater access to more information and exposure to different models, today’s consumers now have lots of choices. Smart agents, who previously offered just one model, are adapting and expanding their thinking and strategizing for how best to serve and bring value to today’s consumer. Offering different levels of service with different costs is one variation that is becoming more popular. As the Gen Yers, 78 million strong, become a more significant segment of our markets as first time homebuyers, their love of self-sufficiency and autonomy will continue to mold expectations and drive the desire for multiple models and choices.

How Will You Stay on the Short List of Most Wanted?

If you are seeing the need to do some re-invention, here are four questions to give you a framework for your brainstorming and re-strategizing. Set aside a couple of hours to work on this. If you are part of a team, the synergy of masterminding with others is more powerful than solitary work. If you have a coach, their outside perspectives can help expand the thinking you have. Or invite a few friends to do the work with you.

The National Association of REALTORS® as part of its Right Tools Right Now program, has made The Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers available to members for free. This profile offers a wealth of information to help understand the wants, needs and buying habits of today’s consumers. It is available at

Ask yourself:

1. Who are your clients? Know your target client/market in terms of their age (generation) and preferences. Define your present clientele and project what this will look like in one year and in five years. The easiest way to do this is to define your business by percentage of type (i.e. 35% Internet, 20% 1st Time Buyers, 20% Referral, 25% Sphere of Influence).

2. What do they want or expect? For each category, list their preferred style, buying habits and needs. Think about where they do their research. What social media do they use? What ways of communicating do they prefer?

3. Where are you right now? (Or look at last year.) Review your present business to determine:

  • What segments or niches generated business?
  • Where did you generate leads that didn’t turn into business?
  • What percentage of your business comes from buyers? Sellers?
  • What choices are you giving consumers in regards to services? Commissions?

4. Where can you learn to increase your business?

  • What objections are you hearing on listing appointments? Are you losing listings because of these objections? What scripts or objection-handling tools should you be using?
  • What new services can you offer and what would you charge? Look at each of your business segments (Internet, SOI, first-timers) and identify the services that are most wanted or important.
  • What seminars, courses, certifications or designations could give you new ideas and tools? Consider for technology & Social Media training, The designation or the (ACRE®).

Most agents who have expanded their offerings for consumers have found something interesting: While the clients call or are attracted to the agent because of the choice they are offered in how to work with them, over 80% will still choose full service in the traditional way. So while choice is important to attract the interest in the first place, an agent who can demonstrate the value of all of their different marketing tools and strategies provides the consumer with a compelling reason to choose them.

It should also be noted that about 15% of consumers make their choice on price and price alone. These clients are often higher maintenance and less respectful of what you do. These are the ones that will take an inordinate amount of time and energy. So we should be cheering for the fact they have models that fit their wants. And…if their homes don’t sell with a limited service model, because you have stood your ground with how you do business and the choices that involves, they may come back and give you the respect you deserve. “You want to be the first love, second wife and third REALTOR®!”

These are demanding times, and this is the new NORMAL. So even if your skills were honed and served you well in the past years, to be successful in the coming years, you must make some adjustments and connect with the needs of today’s (and tomorrow’s) sellers!

If you don’t want to lag behind and are ready to be among the elite selling agents, set aside time today to hone your skills for today’s markets!

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ROI and Social Media For Realtors

October 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment

There is a great article about social media and how realtors can use it to get new clients. After reading the article, I thought it would be good to share here and stimulate some conversation about what works, what doesn’t and some of our shared experiences.

The article make some interesting points:

There are three basic elements to ROI measurement that I have found to be successful in my agent career:

Brand identity.
Lead generation.
Sphere of influence.

Brand identity is vital in this overly saturated digital world we live in. You need to stand out. And your brand must be clear, concise and have continuity. I always consult agents to begin with WHY they want to utilize social media and WHO they are as a real estate agent. If these questions are not answered, you already are “behind the social media eight ball.” It’s like the foundation of a house: It’s what everything is built upon.

Next: lead generation. And before I begin, I want to note that I believe all leads generated through social media are “warm leads.” As agents, we all want to:

Increase our revenue.
Drive more traffic to our listings and agent pages/blogs/social media.
Produce passive income.
Bring in more relocation referrals.
Pull in more customers.
Establish a legacy.

Here is one way to begin. I advise other agents to create a spreadsheet on Google Drive or whatever cloud service you use.

The main columns are the specific lead source (FB, Twitter, Pinterest); customer name/info; active/inactive; search criteria; and conversion status. You have to track the complete cycle from generation to conversion. Don’t just keep it in your head. Without facts and analysis, we, as agents, get irrational — and irrational is not good for making sound business decisions. Using myself as an example, I was able to bring in $200,000 of commissions in 2009 generated from social media alone, not taking into account my other sources.

Lastly, increase your sphere of influence (industry and non-industry). I believe whole-heartedly that the power of social media is in the second-degree connections. And from my tracking, the facts stand by this. Furthermore, this has been one of the biggest surprises for me. My SOI has grown exponentially every year since 2007. I have become colleagues with high-profile industry experts by meeting them on Twitter. I have also met potential warm leads participating in an interest group on Facebook. I have even found (through Facebook) a wonderful business networking group for real estate professionals and social media.

You can see the full text at:  http://next.inman.com/2012/09/can-an-agent-truly-prove-the-roi-of-social-media/

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Home Renovation Project

July 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Here at Home Design Elements, we do all kinds of home renovation projects for our clients in the northern Virginia area. Most projects are a kitchen, bathroom, basement or other area in need of attention.

However, sometimes we get a project that combines ALL of these areas. We recently completely a home renovation that we’re really proud of. The house is in Oakton, Virginia and needed extensive work. Virtually every aspect of this house needed work, and Home Design Elements did just that.

We’ve updated this gallery to show you the fantastic work we did (if I don’t say so myself!). Just have a look at this work.

After your done looking through these home renovation photos, then take a moment to envision what your home would look like once we helped you with your space! We always say, “Add life to your time.” Well, we mean it. This space became more usable top to bottom. The kitchen is modern and functional, the basement is a real entertainment area and even the hallways and stair cases have a new beautiful look.

Check this out…

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Custom Wine Cellar Gallery in Northern VA

July 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Home Design Elements completed a great looking wine cellar for one of our clients in northern Virginia. Like many homes, the client had extra space under the stairway leading to the second floor. This is often under-used space, since the ceiling is at a sharp angle and the space is often limited.

We did this one right… We ran duct work up into the ceiling and out to the back of the house and installed refrigeration and humidifier units to keep the wine nice and cold.

To finish the job, we placed a door with plenty of windows so the homeowner can show off his new space.

Have a look at this project – and do let us know if you’d like to discuss doing this in your home!

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Finished Basement in Chantilly, VA

May 29, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Getting your basement finished is a fantastic way to increase the livable space in your home and add a great recreation area at the same time.  Home Design Elements recently completed a basement finishing job in Chantilly, VA.  Some of the details are likely very similar to what you may experience in your own home.

Job Details

The Mancinder’s home is in the westernmost portion of what is considered Chantilly, in a neighborhood just off of Rt. 50, west of where Rout 28 crosses.  The house is a four bedroom 2 1/2 bath and is about 3,700 sq./ft.  The family has 2 children who are middle school aged.  When we first spoke with Mr. Mancinder, he was shopping several contractors for the job.  He was even considering doing some of the work himself.  He wanted something simple to include a large TV with surround sound, and also an area where all the kid’s toys could be stored.

How The Job Unfolded

In this basement finishing job, we encountered two situations that  warranted special attention.  First, support beams interrupted the large space where the main entertainment area was to be.  This is really not a big problem, but we did have to decide how to dress up the beams so that they were at once unobtrusive and also aesthetically pleasing.  Two of the poles were used to frame out a half wall, which creates a rear border of the TV viewing area – you can’t even tell what they are.  The third is boxed in and finished and is sufficiently out of the line of site to the TV wall.

The second area that created a challenge was that the basement does not open up at ground level.  Like so many homes in Chantilly – especially those in South Riding – the basement opens to a walk-up.  The issue is that when it rains, the area just outside the door tends to flood.  A sump pump keeps the water at bay.  For this, we decided to use large ceramic tiles for the area inside the door.  So in the event of any mild flooding the carpet will be spared.

The Finished Basement

Although the customer didn’t think he could afford it, we managed to incorporate a full bathroom and a small wet bar.  By smart choices in materials and going with a design center/contractor, the Mancincer’s were able to have the new space they had wanted. Homes in the Chantilly, VA area took a hit in value with the rest of the country.  By adding a finished basement with nice features like a full bath and wet bar, you can get back so much of what the market took!

Call Home Design Elements to find out how we can help you get the finished basement you’ve been wanting.

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How to Fend Off Foreclosure – a Playbook

April 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment

This is a fantastic piece.  As a realtor, you’re the one homeowners will call when the “f” word first begins to surface.  Here is some great advice that you can use.  Check this out…

There are many actions borrowers can take before facing foreclosure. Many find solutions to their difficult situations by short-selling their homes or simply walking away, an option the Obama administration’s Making Home Affordable program makes slightly easier by paying $3,000 to borrowers for relocation costs.

Those looking to avoid foreclosure have ample and growing resources, including:

  • The HUD website, which lists various options for different types of homeowners facing foreclosure.
  • The Federal Housing Authority (part of HUD).
  • The Obama administration’s Making Home Affordable program, which includes HAMP, Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) and Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives Program (HAFA).

Bank of America, among other banks, offers advice on its website for consumers seeking to avoid foreclosure.

If homeowners want to stay in their home, there are a variety of options, including: refinancing directly with the bank or with a program like HAMP, the Federal Housing Authority, or the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD); and payment forbearance; among several other options.

Get the rest of the piece here…

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