Curious, we talked to a few paint namers to find how paint colors are named. Plus, we wouldn’t be doing our job if we didn’t also provide painting tips.

What’s in a paint color name?
Whether it’s Harbor Fog, Just Peachy, or Van Buren Brown, an enticing paint color name has the power to excite, persuade, and ultimately close a sale.
But no matter how much Crème Brulee or Butterscotch Tempest may whet your appetite for freshly painted walls, your satisfaction is going to come down to good surface prep, and selecting a top-performing paint.
Do paint names come from thin air?
Creating paint names is more serendipity than science. And, it turns out, no two paint namers name alike.
“There’s no book on this; very few people do this, and we all do things differently,” says Mary Lawlor, manager of color marketing for Kelly-Moore Paints. In a typical year, a professional paint namer may be asked to come up with hundreds of new names — all checked against a master databank of paint names for originality.
Flowers, which stimulate scent and sight, are wellsprings of inspiration. Places, such as the French Riviera or Monte Carlo, evoke enviable lifestyles. And fabrics — satin, cashmere, even mohair — recall texture and feel.
But nothing stimulates the color imagination like food, which adds taste to the mix of memories.
“Strawberry Parfait is good to taste, as well as look at,” says Leatrice Eiseman of the Pantone Color Institute. “Pink Flambe has an exotic connotation.” Name aside, results matter
No matter what it’s called, a paint by any other name is still a paint. To get results you love, buy quality paints and take the time to prepare surfaces properly.
Top-rated interior paints recommended by Consumer Reports include:

• Benjamin Moore Aura Satin ($60/gal)

• Behr Premium Plus Ultra Satin ($33/gal)

• Kilz Casual Colors Satin ($27/gal)

For good surface prep, follow these guidelines:

• Gather up the right painting tools, especially brushes and drop cloths.

• Know your paints, including which sheen to choose, and how low-VOC paints protect indoor air quality.

• Fixing and cleaning walls before painting is essential; be sure to patch drywall holes and remove stains before painting.

If you could name a paint color, what would it be?

Copyright 2012 NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®

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A few hours of exterior home and yard work can add thousands to your home’s value.

April 28 and 29 marks Nationwide Open House weekend — the unofficial opening day of the spring real estate season. Since curb appeal strongly influences home values, it’s a great weekend to spruce up your own yard, especially if the neighbors are trying to sell their home.

How much value can neighborhood curb appeal add? Having nice landscaping adds $1,777 in home value when you’re selling your home, according to data collected by HomeGain.com’s annual survey about how home improvements boost home value.

Curb appeal works in the other direction, too. If a for-sale house down the block is sporting some bad curb appeal, it could sell for less than it might otherwise. And that comparable sale drives down the value of your home.

We couldn’t find any data on how much the average buyer discounts his offer when the neighbors haven’t painted their house since 1979, but we do know nobody pays top dollar to buy next door to a house that looks like the “before” picture in a siding ad.

Here are 6 quick exterior projects you can do in a day or two to add to your home’s value and neighborhood appeal.

• Landscape for curb appeal by re-sodding bare spots, trimming shrubs, and adding colorful spring flowers to your front yard.

• Add some outdoor lighting for curb appeal to highlight your beautified yard after dark.

• Pitch in with the neighbors to rent a power washer for a day to give your sidewalks and deck a little care and maintenance. Be gentle and careful if you decide to use the power washer to clean your home’s exterior; you can easily blast things off your house, like the paint, or get water into siding seams.

• Clean your siding, whether it’s brick, wood, or vinyl, by using a long-handled, soft-bristled brush, soap (trisodium phosphate), and water.

• Create a little cool curb appeal with house numbers — that is, dress up your address.

• Freshen up the look of winter-ravished patio furniture with new pillows, a bright umbrella, or a colorful tablecloth to give the impression to anyone at the open house that the neighbors have fun parties.

Are your neighbors’ yards boosting or detracting from home values on your block?

 

Copyright 2012 NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®

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You shouldn’t need a heap of gold to be green. Here are five simple, cheap things you can do to make your home — and your life — a little greener.

Seems like all the green talk today is about buying things: buy Energy Star, buy solar panels, buy tankless water heaters, buy new sustainable building products. Buy, buy, buy.
What’s a budget-minded home owner to do? Follow these five easy, cheap green nuggets of advice, of course.
1. Resist the temptation to buy.

If you’ve read this far, you’re probably already on board the no-buy boat. This first piece of advice is simply to provide validation (replacing something that isn’t broken isn’t green, and it’s not too budget-savvy either, and so on) and to encourage you to stay on board.
So give yourself a pat on the back every time you tell temptation to take a hike.
2. When you do need to buy, buy wisely.
Read product labels. You might need reading glasses to accomplish this, but it’s worth it.
Don’t try to figure out each ingredient — it’s much too hard to do that. Besides, a great many product-makers don’t even bother to list every ingredient.
Instead, train your eye to spot terms such as non-toxic, biodegradable, and petroleum-free, all of which give you the all-clear signal to go ahead and buy.
That helpful tidbit comes from WebMd, as well as this one: Beware of products that list a few specific terms, and then use non-specific terms such as “inactive ingredients” for the rest. And be leery of any products that list “fragrance” without telling you what ingredients make up the fragrance.
Be careful, though — label-reading can be addictive. Before you know it, you’ll be perusing the National Library of Medicine’s Household Product Database.
3. Dust off your Crock-Pot.
Yep, your Crock-Pot is an energy saver.
An electric oven at 350 degrees burns 2.0 kWh in just one hour. But a slow cooker at 200 degrees uses only 0.70 kWh over seven hours. And, besides, it’s nice to come home to delicious aromas and a meal that’s ready to eat.
4. Go crazy for power strips.
The most pragmatic way to save electricity is to turn off electronics when you’re not using them. But seriously, who does that?
Smart strips, which sense when a device is idle and shut off its power supply, are a good compromise. And they’re not that pricey. You can get one for about $25, although there are some pricier models.
If you do make the effort to hook up your computer and media equipment to a smart strip, it will pay for itself eventually.
How long will that take?
Depends on how much of a bad dog you were pre-smart strip, and how religious you become about using the smart strip, which is a perfect segue to the final piece of advice:
5. Just use less.
Turn off your lights, turn down your heat, turn off the water when brushing your teeth. Obvious? Yes. But it’s really one of the simplest, easiest, cheapest things you can do to be green.
Ask yourself (and answer honestly): Are you really paying attention to your electric and water consumption? Awareness is half the battle. Maybe you need an energy monitor to goose up your efforts.
Make yourself think about it day in and day out. That’s the hard part.
Bonus tip: How to be a better recycler.
Courtney Craig and Kathryn Hawkins contributed to this piece.

Copyright 2012 NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®

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These apps take the guesswork out of gardening. All you have to do is dig.

Let’s just agree there’s an app for everything, and gardening is no exception. I tried out a number of apps for the iPhone (though some of these have Android versions) and picked a few that will help your garden grow.
1. Food Gardening Guide (free for iPhone, iPad, Android): Mother Earth News has produced this delightful and comprehensive guide on how to grow your own food. Chapters are titled “All About Growing (whatever),” and they deliver info on planting, harvesting and storage, saving seeds, pest and disease prevention, growing, and kitchen prep. For instance, did you know you can harvest carrots, store them over the winter, and replant in spring to generate seeds? Now you do.

2. Landscaper’s Companion ($5.99 iPhone, iPad; $4.99 Android): This is a planting reference for just about anything you can stick into soil — trees, shrubs, annuals, perennials, bulbs, and on and on. For each species, the app provides its growing zone, watering and sun needs, height, width, and bloom time — plus a pretty picture. You can also scroll through images, pick a plant that sparks your interest, and then research it.

3. Garden ID (free for iPhone, iPad): A personal gardening guru that customizes information for your particular slice of heaven. Allow the app to use your current location, and it suggests fruits, vegetables, and herbs that can thrive in your edible garden anytime, and even varieties you can plant now. Select a veggie, and Garden ID gives you planting, growing, and harvesting tips. As a bonus, it also names plants that like to grow together, like corn that shades lettuce, giving it a longer growing season. You’ll also learn which plants don’t get along, like cauliflower and tomatoes.

4. Garden Tracker (99 cents for iPhone, $3.99 for iPad): A digital gardening journal that helps you keep track of what you planted where, when you watered and fertilized each plant, and days until harvest. It also gives info on sunrise, moon phases, and USDA Hardiness Zones. It’s a great planning tool for square or rectangular plots and beds, because it lays out plants in a grid.

5. Home Outside ($1.99 for iPhone, iPad): Home Outside lets you dream up out-of-the-box landscaping not limited to rectangular plots. You can arrange trees, gardens, patios, hammocks, even driveways. Don’t like the way it looks? Move, rotate, scale up and down until your landscape design looks just right.

What are your favorite gardening apps?

Copyright 2012 NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®

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When you’re spending thousands to remodel a kitchen or bath, you want those updates to last a while.

To help you get ahead of and sort out the kitchen and bathroom trends — pity the last fool to install an avocado appliance in the 1970s — HouseLogic.com went to this month’s trend central, the International Builder’s Show. Our takeaway: For gosh sake, enjoy your home; remodel so that you love where you live.

Still, with a couple of exceptions, these five kitchen and bath trends offer lasting value: 1. Kitchen cleanliness. By clean, we’re talking design, not germs. Kitchens are going clean, contemporary, and horizontal (open shelves, long and horizontal pulls, thick countertops). Even in a classic kitchen, go with simple, flat cabinets rather than highly carved cabinet details, says designer MaryJo Camp of Design Camp, Denver, N.C. HL tip: This is a trend to get on board with. A simple, tidy, fresh appearance will have broad appeal if you decide to sell. 2. Color is out. This year, colors are cycling out, Camp says, except for black and white used together. HL tip: Practically speaking, black and white are hard to keep looking good. Black kitchens show every scratch and white cabinets show every speck of dirt. Regardless, color is fickle; choose what’s best for your space. 3. Dark wood is where it’s at. If you’ve had white cabinets, you know they show every speck of dirt, which can drive you crazy unless you have a cleaning fetish. Combine those white cabinets with another up-and-coming trend: dark wood. Or if your budget can handle the hit, go with specialty woods like mahogany or zebra wood that can make an island look like a piece of furniture. HL tip: Alternatively, you could invest your money in more kitchen storage and functionality than trendy decorative elements that might not stand the test of time. 4. Appliances that blend in. The more open our kitchens get, the more we want them to look like the rest of the house. That’s fueling a trend away from the big pro range and ginormous stainless-steel refrigerator and toward concealed, high-performance refrigerators and dishwashers. Induction cooktops, which use less electricity than electric cooktops, are growing in popularity, Camp said. HL tip: When you buy appliances, look for the Energy Star label or go even deeper on energy performance ratings with Consortium of Energy Efficiency. 5. Ageless design gets easy. What the Baby Boom wants, the Baby Boom gets. And Baby Boomers want to live in their homes forever. That’s led manufacturers to create DIY remodeling products with built-in universal design features — like toilet paper roll holders strong enough to hold your weight as you arise from the throne. If you wanted a no-threshold shower five years ago, you had to have it fabricated as a custom piece, said Mary Jo Peterson, a Brookfield, Conn., designer. Today, companies sell no-threshold shower kits with trench-style drains covered with grills so you can roll yourself right in. HL tip: We love the trend to universal design-ready remodeling products. To get started, check out our four universal design product ideas from anti-scald valves and door handles.   Which of these trends will your incorporate into your remodeling plans? Do you worry about staying ahead of trends?

One company wants all building materials to have ingredient labels. Would you use them?

Have you ever looked at your maple cabinets and wondered what death-defying ingredients they contain?
Wonder no more. Perkins + Will architecture firm has created a database that links common construction materials to government warnings about the health-harming ingredients, including VOCs, building materials contain. The company also is spearheading a movement to plaster ingredient labels on common building products, like flooring and lumber.
Thinking of painting the family room? Paint contains chromium compounds that can trigger asthma.
Want to replace carpet with vinyl tile? Vinyl contains diisoheptyl phthalate, which has produced cancer in lab animals.
If Perkins + Wills has its way, all building materials someday will contain ingredient labels, like those on backs of cereal boxes.
Peter Syrett, an architect and a leader of this labeling movement, thinks consumers should know what health hazards lurk in the remodeling materials they buy.
“People make sophisticated choices every time they go grocery shopping. Or buy baby bottles or toys,” Syrett told the New York Times. “There’s no reason it can’t be the same with building products.”

Do you want to know what your carpet is made of? Would you read ingredient labels?

What Chemicals Lurk in Our Home’s Building Materials?

By: Lisa Kaplan Gordon

Published: February 9, 2012