Julie Mendonsa can see what other people can’t.

Mendonsa is a professional home stager. Her job is to help people who are selling their home put the best “face” on their property.

When people have lived in their house for a while, they tend to overlook its cosmetic flaws. They might no longer notice chips in the exterior paint, the overgrown shrubs in the garden or Christmas lights still hanging from the eaves. Read more…

Raleigh architect Frank Harmon uses steel, pine as high-tech design meets low-country culture

Today’s Home of the Month is reviewed by Geoffrey Barton, a master’s candidate at N.C. State University’s School of Architecture and graduate research assistant with the College of Design’s Home Environments Design Initiative. Home of the Month, a collaboration with the College of Design, shows possibilities for constructing a living space built with homeowners’ living patterns and preferences in mind. Each month we profile a new home, selected by an expert panel, from designs by area architects. The goal: to offer inspiration and knowledge that can be applied to any living space. Read more…

Hard to imagine there will come a point, once spring actually springs, that we will want to retreat indoors to the couch, but maybe these TV whizzes know us better than we know ourselves. Bless their desperate little ratings-scheming hearts, they have lined up oodles of new home shows to lure us back to blobbiness.

(One programming note: We alerted you earlier to a couple of these shows — “Bought & Sold” and “Secrets That Sell” — but HGTV apparently juggled their debut dates, so now they’re back again. Newly previewed, we might add, since we’re not Katie Couric, and we don’t especially dig repeating previously written words. This also serves as a warning that any of these shows could be yanked, retooled or rescheduled, so please check your local listings.) Read more…

Custom-designed homes can be risky, but there could be a big payoff

Independent Austin architects and designers are making footprints on the cityscape in thoughtful and fiercely original ways.

Drive down a street in Hyde Park lined with bungalows and you’ll probably find a modest jewel of a house tucked behind a tangle of trees.

Who built that? Who lives there? The unfussy lines and calm silhouette say modern, but the tawny limestone and rustic expression are pure Austin. The house is earthy and simple, yet sophisticated. It doesn’t shout, but it grabs your attention. Read more…

Family-owned Coles Fine Flooring, also known as Coles Carpets, is turning 60.

The icing on this anniversary cake: a growing interest in home improvement that has netted this homegrown company — averaging $20-million-a-year in sales — its best years ever.

Company President George Coles carries the torch lit by his father, Hubert Coles, in 1947.

“I personally have witnessed three recessions and I think you simply have to learn from those experiences not to overextend, to run and manage your business prudently, and to hire and retain good people,” said George on the company’s longevity.
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The investment into a nice timber veneer desk is an investment into a piece of furniture that will serve you well into the future. The key to keeping the desk looking new is to know how to take care of the timber veneer.

There are certain threats to timber veneer office furniture. They are:

Light - Light bleaches dark woods and stains light woods over time. If your wood is stained or finished, the light can also break down those protective finishes. Read more…

The South West’s brightest design-led furniture showroom uncovers this year’s must have furniture designs

Choosing furniture for your home can prove a tricky business with a number of important factors to consider such as size, shape, colour, style and feel. Not forgetting the very important issues of practicality and comfort, what should be an enjoyable shopping experience can easily become a time consuming and daunting task. Read more…

Furniture Brands International, the parent company of Thomasville Furniture Industries and several other furniture manufacturers, will announce across the board job cuts Friday.

A Thomasville Furniture spokesman would not comment Thursday on the possible cuts, but the word is spreading quickly among workers who have said they have heard the news, but have not yet been given specifics.

Wayne Clark has worked for Thomasville Furniture for 28 years. “It doesn’t matter how many years you’ve been there or how faithful you are,” said Clark. “The company isn’t faithful to you now.” Read more…

Construction sites are rubbish-strewn inconveniences to most people, but for an environmentally friendly Thai architect, they spell opportunity.

Singh Intrachooto, a university lecturer and author of several books on architecture and the environment, was so appalled by the tons of debris generated during the building process that he decided to turn it into award-winning furniture.

“I’ve always focused on green buildings, but one day, when I went to the site of an office block I designed, I could not believe the amount of waste that trucks were hauling away from there every day,” he told Reuters by telephone from Bangkok.

“My inspiration to create furniture sprang from an attempt to reduce the amount of waste from my building sites.”

Singh said that up to 40 percent of the contents of most urban dumps is from construction sites, a statistic which spurred him into trying to “rescue” this rubbish. Read more…

Nicole and her husband, Walt Watson, are members of an elite and vanishing breed in America they’re craftsmen. Walt is a third-generation metal-smith who makes custom furniture, gates, or anything you can think of. Nicole has been sewing for 20 or more years, and calls her grandmother her biggest inspiration, although her clothing line doesn’t exactly conjure visions of blue-haired Bingo players. While the pair has done well to invent a niche for themselves, they worry about the loss of their craft to factory-designed clothes and metal.

“In this country, I think we’ve lost our edge,” Nicole said from behind her sewing machine. “Our craftspeople are fading away, and I think it’s really important that we have these skills. It’s important that young people find a way to do these things.” Read more…