Advents Corner

I don’t know what is going on with everything these day, insurance, taxes, mortgages, gas prices (which are better now) the rising cost of food.,….it is all just becoming too much.  We have our home insurance and our property taxes escrowed into our mortgage payment so most of the time we do not pay attention to the rates until the beginning of the year when they adjust our mortgage payment to cover the raising cost of taxes and insurance so in turn your mortgage payment goes up.

This year our property taxes when down a couple of hundred dollars but our home owners went up 100 and our flood went up 200 so at this point we are exactly where we were last year.  Florida tried to help everyone by lower our property taxes but they let the insurance companies raise their rates so it really did not help.  We are now shopping for a new home insurance company because there are some out there that really do try and keep the rates down so be on the look out for the good ones.

The weather is finally starting to warm up in Tampa, thank goodness.  We were in

I was looking at a house a friend of mine sent me and it was one of those really old houses that had things like a lazy butler. I think that is what they are called. The little elevators you put the trays of food in to send it to the second floor. I also had a stair lift and a laundry shoot. Now those are cool. No need to carry basked down stairs anymore just throw it in the shoot and it does downstairs to the laundry room for you. I always thought that those were pretty neat.

Have you found the home of your dreams and now you want to get the biggest bang for your buck.  All of the closing cost can add up really fast and that is a lot of money coming out of your pocket.  What if you could get back up to 15.5% cash back or perks such as a free cruise for 2, how is that new purchase looking now?  ePERKS.com has complied incentives and perks on one website with their top real estate agents.  Enter your zip code and it brings up list of agents in your area that offer incentives.  Once you pick your agent you can review the incentives and perks they offer and their current listings all in one hassle free place.

Is your garage workshop floor looking really bad, but you think it is way to expensive to do anything about. Having garage floors repaired is easier than you thought. With several options such as covering with tile or an epoxy coating. Transform your garage into the workshop of your dreams.

We love our home theater seating.  We had just a regular sofa before we got this one and I don’t see how we ever lived without it.  We have 4 seats on ours.  There are single seats at each end and a double in the middle, each with its own cup holder which is very nice.  One thing about theater seating I do not think people realize is that it does not need any clearance from the wall.  You can push it right up against the wall and they still recline.  The fact that it is leather is also nice because when someone spills something you just wipe it up.  With upholstered furniture the dust mites in there alone make me shiver.  You may think you need a basement or a separate room to convert into a theater to have this seating.  Not true we have ours in the living room and with the leather and the classic design it makes it an inviting space to be in.

We are looking for new home lighting for the common bathroom.  The lighting is very dim in there right now.  I have no clue how old the light fixture is that is in there now.  We have a lot of family coming in for Christmas and we want everything to be perfect.  Lighting Showplace allows us to shop by room and by finish, that way I don’t have to look through all of the gold finishes when we know we want silver. 

It is home improvement time again and Matt and I have our eye on the tarkett laminate flooring. They even have a library to help you pick out what floor is right for you and install instructions. You always save money by doing it yourself but some people are intimidated. With DiscountFlooring.com you don’t have to be.