In the simplest possible terms, Home Staging is simply having a professional interior designer, trained specifically in Real Estate Staging, come into your home and redesign it so that it sells faster and for more money than it would have otherwise sold for.

There is a little more to it than that, but that’s really all anyone but stagers themselves need to know!

So, you’re thinking to yourself “That sounds nice, but why should I invite this person into my home and allow them to judge my sense of style?” I’ll try not to word my response too harshly.

You’re preparing to invite many strangers into your home. Strangers who will be judging every aspect of it, including your decor! Why would you risk being judged negatively by all of them and, possibly, not getting anywhere near your asking price or, worse, not selling your home at all? That’s the whole truth of the situation; I hope it wasn’t too blunt.

An accredited Home Stager won’t judge your sense of style at all! On the contrary, they’ll do what they can to add to it! By inviting an accredited Home Stager into your home and letting them to what they do best, you are able to sell your home faster and without being judged by anyone but yourself!

Keep telling yourself you’d quit dining out as much and start cooking more if you had a new kitchen? Putting it off because you don’t want to deal with the hassle of designing your new kitchen? Never fear, Home Depot has professional kitchen designers on staff!

You’ve been to Home Depot and seen the kitchen displays that have been painstakingly set up. Did you know that the designers at Home Depot can make your kitchen just as beautiful?

Next time you visit Home Depot, stop by and talk to one of the designers. Bring in a diagram of your kitchen, mark out the locations of windows, doors and outlets, as well as your existing plumbing and show this to them. It should be all they need in order to start building your dream kitchen and getting your family gathered around the dinner table, rather than the table at the diner.

Water and energy go hand in hand. It takes significant resources to prepare and deliver tap water, more so for bottled water. When you heat that water, you’re using even more energy. These simple tips can help you save water, energy and money.

1. Use less hot water.
• Hot water is doubly bad. Not only does filtration, treatment and delivery use energy, heating uses even more!
• If you really can’t use less hot water, consider a tankless water heater. Where a standard water heater uses energy to heat water and maintain its temperature, even when not in use, a tankless heater heats the water as it’s used.
2. Replace aging appliances with newer, EnergyStar certified units.
• All EnergyStar certified appliances certainly use less energy than your existing aplpiances.
• EnergyStar certified water appliances, such as washing machines, use less water.
3. Redesign your bathroom water usage.
• Consider a newer toilet, which will require less water per flush.
• Install a shower head with smaller, higher-pressure nozzles. This will provide you with the same feel as your existing shower head, while using less water.
• Look for hands-free, automatic faucets. There are several on the market that use the force of running water to charge a battery, so they don’t require any power. They also save a lot of water by shutting off automatically when not in use.
4. Eat less meat.
• Fruit, vegetables and grains require water to grow and energy to harvest.
• Animals require water and vegetation to raise and energy to slaughter. Meat requires energy to process, transport and store.
• Not only are fruit, vegetables and grains healthier, they require much less energy to produce, as well as prepare.
5. Shrink your lawn, expand your garden.
• Watering.
• Fertilizing.
• Mowing.
• Did I forget anything?
6. Use locally sourced water.
• Water is heavy. It takes a lot of energy to transport water.
• Bottled water uses energy in the bottling process; then, uses more to get to a warehouse. From there, more energy is used to track and count the bottles before even more is used to ship them to your local store. Then, you get to use your own energy to go get your water and to store it in your fridge.
• Much less energy is used to simply filter tap water and pour it into a bottle or pitcher.

All of these steps are simple and, when you really think about it, make a lot of sense. Some of them require an up-front investment but, rest assured, they will pay for themselves many times over, in the form of reduced water usage and lower energy bills. Combining these ideas with the use of compact fluorescent bulbs (they’ve come a long way in the last couple of years, try them again if you didn’t like them a few years ago) could reduce your overall energy bills by 20-50%!

Improving the environment and saving money? That’s a no-brainer.

Home staging starts at the curb, including your lawn. A green lawn is also a great place to spend time with the family and socialize with friends and neighbors. An organically grown green lawn is even better!

Going organic means a safer, cleaner, greener lawn that costs less money and requires less upkeep. Despite what chemical companies tell us, organic agricultural and horticultural solutions, used properly, are more effective than any chemical solutions available. We all know, beyond any doubt, they’re safer, to boot. Many facets of organic growing are methods, rather than products, which means you spend less, as well.

If your lawn is overrun with weeds, you may prefer to start fresh, tearing out the old lawn and starting over, after ensuring that your soil is up to snuff. Quality soil is key to a green lawn, whether you’re going organic or using chemicals.

The best soil composition for lawns in Ohio is 50% silt (regular dirt), 20% clay and 30% sand, with an ideal pH between 6 and 7. If you need to raise the pH and soften clay soil, you can accomplish both of these by adding crushed limestone to the soil before tilling. It’s best to add any sand you will need at the same time. Once you’ve added any amendments you need, it is time to till. Ohio lawns should be tilled to a depth of at least 4 inches, preferably as deep as 12 inches, before seeding.

Once you’ve prepared the soil bed, you need to seed your lawn. Take a moment to sketch out your property, noting the areas that receive sunlight all day, those which receive only partial sun and those areas which receive mostly shade. Bring this sketch with you to your local Home Depot or Lowe’s (as a side note, I’ve worked the garden center at Home Depot before and can vouch for their training program and overall knowledge) and have one of their lawn care experts assist you in determining which types of grass will work best in your lawn. It is best to use a slot seeder to seed your new lawn, as it actually buries the seed to the proper depth.

For more information, refer to this page at the Ohio State University website.

Car dealerships are reporting better than average sales lately, despite higher gas prices. Apparently, all the SUVs they’ve sold over the years are losing appeal.

I’d venture a guess, in fact, that car sales are booming because of, rather than in spite of, gas prices. There’s a lot of appeal in a smaller, lighter, newer vehicle that gets 30 or more miles per gallon, especially when compared to larger and older vehicles getting less than 20.

If your weekly trip to the filling station is putting a dent in your pocketbook, consider trading your gas guzzler for something smaller that will sip, rather than slurp. I know when I sold my Jeep, in favor of an Accord, my weekly stops for gas were no more.

I fill up monthly now. That’s green for the planet and the pocket and, with all the money I save, I’m the envy of all my friends.

Wadsworth Municipal Airport is considering a complete redesign, including runways and hangars. The project, if approved, will be completed at a cost of over $25million. The proposed redesign will be done in three phases, starting possibly as soon as two years from now.

Medina County residents needn’t worry about funding, according to City Service Director Chris Easton, the FAA may fund 95% of the renovation.

Wondering what those green labels are selling you on the beauty products you purchase? Here’s a guide:

Certified Natural Cosmetics - meet European Union natural-ingredients rules and don’t have any of the 1,000 chemicals banned by the EU.

Ecocert - 95% of the farmed ingredients adhere to organic standards approved by the French government.

 FSC - Certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, using at least 10% of the wood and paper from responsibly managed forests.

 Green-e - Icon that signals that renewable energy sources like wind and solar power were used in making the product.

Made with Certified Organic Ingredients - Similar to the USDA Organic label, Certified Organic, a USDA-accredited certifying agent, grants the seal to products that contain 70% organic ingredients.

Soil Association - A United Kingdom seal that certifies the product contains at least 95% organic ingredients.

 USDA Organic - The U.S. Department of Agriculture gives this seal to products that are 95% organic.

*The closer a product is manufactured to you, the more green it is. Shipping and packaging can make a big impact on the amount of pollution that a product really creates!

If you’re getting ready to move to a new house, you’re almost certainly looking at everything in your home and asking yourself “Where do I start?”

By following a few simple tips, you can answer that question and move onto making your move!

• List and Link Locations
• Create a list of locations and number them. As you pack each box, label it with the number, from the list, of location from which the items in the box came.
• Purchase Plenty of Packing Products
• Be sure to buy plenty of boxes. Having a few too many is certainly preferable to having to run out and buy more! You can always return unused boxes for a refund after the move.
• Pick up a few rolls of packing tape, markers (for marking boxes) and at least one roll of bubble warp. Heck, get two rolls, popping what you don’t use will provide great stress relief after the move!
• Where’s the Wardrobe?
• Make sure you get at least one wardrobe-sized box for each family member moving with you. This allows everyone to have a place to put their own clothes, making unpacking them much easier.
• Attach Accessories
• When things go together out of the box, be sure to pack them in the same box!
• Pack Preemptively
• If you aren’t going to be using something before the move, pack it as early as you can. This leaves you with less to do on moving day!
• Consolidate Cleaning Commodities
• Pack all of your cleaning supplies together.
• Make sure you pack bleach and other acidic cleaners in different boxes than ammonia and other basic cleaners.
• Load the Luggage
• Pack items you are going to need right away after the move into your carry-on and stow-away bags for easy access.
• Protect Precious Pieces
• If something has special meaning to you or is worth a substantial sum of money, take extra care to pack it adequately.

Lake County is at risk of losing federal funding for bridge maintenance due to failure to inspect three bridges this year. The kicker here is that the bridges they allegedly failed to inspect no longer exist. One was removed completely and the other two were recently removed and rebuilt.

After spending over one million dollars on the two new bridges and having the new structures inspected, the county is still, apparently, on the hook for the inspections of the old bridges, as they were before being rebuilt.

Hopefully, for residents of the county, this is an oversight which is easily corrected, as losing federal maintenance funding would mean the cities which comprise the county would have to foot the bill for bridge upkeep. This, ultimately, woult most likely lead to tax increases for residents of those cities.