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Looking for Great Rec Room Ideas?

October 28, 2015 by The Columbus Team

Are you looking for great rec room ideas? Search no more! We’ve collected some of the hottest trends and coolest ideas for recreation space out there. We know that while the rec room you have may not be the highlight of your home tour, it can be the heart of your home and deserves some tlc and good design!

2015 is filled with strong colors, a less-cluttered design, and many designers and homeowners are designing space around the purpose, in rec rooms that means hobbies and interests, and they are celebrating the room’s purpose in the decor details. How do you celebrate purpose? Think board game boards as wall decor, or musical instrument storage as part of the design aesthetic.

The first thing you need to do is identify what kind of recreation you want to build your rec room around, and who will use it. From a kid’s gaming paradise or board game palace, to a media man-cave or the hottest entertainment spot on the block, a rec room can be built around your dreams for the space. Here’s a few types of rec rooms, and some gorgeous examples of what you can do with a little extra space in your home!

Adults Only Rec Rooms

Looking for an adult entertainment space, perhaps with a wet bar, pool table and a comfortable space and large screen for viewing the sporting events you love? Everydayphotos.com has some great ideas. Clean, spacious, and divided into areas set up to feature the activities you love to share with friends. A whiskey-themed man cave is featured on Pinterest, Interested in creating your own man cave? DIYhomedesignideas.com has great suggestions on choosing important features, and even how to build them into your design.

Family Central Rec Rooms

Is your idea of a rec room filled with the family? From board games to tv nights and watching favorite teams together, these housebeautiful.com ideas are for kid-friendly, parent-proud rooms filled with family fun. Looking for something simple with bright colors, easily cleaned, and ready for youngsters? Take a look at this houzz.com rec room.

Gamer’s Paradise Rec Rooms

Is there a video game addict in your home? Whether your gamer is a weekend warrior adult, or a group of gung-ho kid gamers, here are some room designs just for them from MyLRF! Looking to ease into a gamer’s grotto? Apartmenttherapy.com offers 10 great tips to doing a gamer room right.

Music Room Rec Rooms

Is your dream rec room filled with a great sound system and comfortable listing area? Maybe it’s filled with instruments, music stands, and recording equipment? Pinterest has a selection of music room decor and design ideas to make the music lover or music maker in your life drool!

Media Room Rec Rooms

Is your ideal relaxation space less of an activity room and more of an ideal viewing space for movies, tv, and sporting events? Consider creating a dedicated media room. Start with a surround sound system, a large screen, and comfortable seating and build from there! Not the cheapest of makeovers, but a media room can make your home THE entertainment destination for all your family and friends. HGTV.com has some great media room designs, as does Houzz.com.

Smaller Projects Rec Rooms

Maybe you’re not ready for a whole rec room design or makeover. Hometalk.com has some smaller project examples(before and after photos galore!) that can spiff up your existing fun space and make it fresher, friendlier, or just more fun! Pinterest is a great place for finding photos, links, and ideas for rec room projects both small and large.

Photo Credit 1 Photo Credit 2 & 3

8 Budget-Friendly Indoor Halloween Decorating Ideas for your home

October 7, 2015 by The Columbus Team

It’s time to start thinking about decorating your home for Halloween! Whether you’re throwing a party and decorating to the nines, or just celebrating the season and spooking it up a bit, there are so many great ideas for creepy decor that fit anyone’s budget and get you in the spooky spirit! Here’s 8 budget-friendly Halloween decorating ideas for your home!

Candles. Beyond the creepy factor of wavering candlelight, you can make striking decorations with inexpensive additions to items you may already own. Partially fill a straight vase, hurricane, or small glass jar with candy corn, tiny gourds, water with red food coloring, or wrap them in colored paper with a black design drawn on it and add a candle for a lovely centerpiece or the beginning of a mantle or table scape.
Jack-o-lanterns. If you tire of the same old pumpkin faces year after year, try adding red tacks for eyes and filling the open mouths with plastic vampire teeth. Bored with jack-o-lanterns altogether? Make a sticky glaze of one part white glue to 1 part water and paint it on pumpkins or gourds, then sprinkle glitter or confetti to give your gourds some bling. Glue bat wings or plastic bugs on these old-school favorites to give them a new look. Add some contrast to a bowl of gourds or squash by using poster paint or acrylic paint to coat a few to add a pop of color (black or white look great).
Window decorations. Paint autumn leaves white, and draw ghostly faces with black marker, then hang with ribbon or tape into place anywhere you want a little ghostly action! Use white glue and food coloring to create translucent window “clings” in the shape of bloody handprints or drips of blood…they’ll peel off when it’s time to clean up.
Spiders galore. You can cut out spiders and spider webs out of black construction paper or even black garbage bags and hang them around the house. Buy a bag of cheap plastic spiders (and snakes if you like) and tuck them into flower arrangements, stick them with double sided tape onto candles or lamps, or use Contact brand adhesive strips to attach them to walls and doorways for a truly creepy-crawly look! Have some cheesecloth stuck in a kitchen drawer? Use a toothpick and scissors to tatter it and move the threads around to create a realistic cobweb, perfect for draping a lampshade or adding ick to a door way or picture frame! You can even make small spiderwebs out of bobby-pins, paint, and string!
Balloons. Forget the expensive mylar balloons with pre-printed designs, make your own! White, cream, yellow, and orange balloons and a permanent black marker are all you need! Take white balloons, insert a green or yellow glow stick, inflate, and use your permanent marker to make a spooky ghost face…you’ll have a glow-in-the-dark ghoul in no time! Use cream, orange, and yellow balloons and add happy or scary jack-o-lantern faces. Hang from the ceiling, light fixtures, curtain rod, or just arrange them on a table top!
Silhouettes. Download and print some spooky silhouettes and place in family photo frames over the original photo for a quick holiday update. Make larger silhouettes out of black garbage bags or plastic table covers and tape carefully across windows for a spooky look inside and out. Use tiny silhouettes to tuck into glass hurricanes or clear jars and add electric candles for a ghoulish glow.
Tablescapes. Looking for a creepy place setting for a party or for the kids’ dinner before trick-or-treating? Touch a red permanent marker to a white paper napkin (or drip red kool-aid) and use vampire teeth as a napkin ring! Paint toilet paper tubes black, then cut scary eye designs with an Xacto blade, insert a glow stick and tape the ends with duct tape and you’ll have creepy glowing eyes to tuck amongst your table decorations. Create name cards or creepy fortunes by using holiday paper or torn parchment and rolling into a scroll, tying with black or orange ribbon. Looking for pretty table ideas? Apothecary jars or canning jars of differing sizes filled with colorful Halloween candies makes a tasty and welcoming centerpiece.
Ornaments. Create hanging bats or cats from black paper or craft foam, add eyes for humor or leave plain black for a creepier look, and hang from string, branches, light fixtures, or mantels. Use orange paper for jack-o-lantern shapes, or white for ghosts. White ping-pong balls, or painted white inflated beach balls can be transformed into eyeballs with paint or markers.

We hope you get some spooky inspiration from our 8 budget-friendly Halloween decorating ideas for your home! If you have any ideas you think we should add, let us know on facebook! Happy Haunting!

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Outdoor Decorating for Halloween: Spooktactular Curb Appeal!

September 30, 2015 by The Columbus Team

Bags of bite sized candies and loads of orange and black decorations have hit the stores, so it’s time again to consider how to approach your outdoor decorating for Halloween to increase your home’s spooktacular curb appeal! Choose the amount of effort and money you want to invest in celebrating one of America’s favorite holidays. You can DIY your decorations or visit your local home improvement, department, or party store to purchase all kinds of Halloween decor for outdoors, much of it can be carefully stored for re-use year after year. Whether you go for the simple, easy, low key decor, or you go all out Halloweentown for the holiday, we have some great decorating ideas and links to examples and directions to DIY! Whatever your level of Halloween spirit, you’ll love these outdoor decorating ideas!

Simple swaps.

The easiest way to decorate for Halloween is to swap out a few of your annual autumnal decorations for holiday versions. That beautiful selection of mums in the flower bed gets bedecked with handmade mohair webs (or cute commercial ones from the grocery store seasonal aisle) and plastic spiders. Trade your autumn leaf and sunflower wreath for a spookier wreath that will thrill trick-or-treaters! How about an orange and black ribbon (and a plastic bat or two) to spiff up your mailbox? Slip a few Jack-o-lanterns into the pumpkin and gourd display on your front porch and you’re ready for the holiday!

Definitely decorated.

Simple swaps are nice, but do you want to go a little further? Take advantage of the easy swaps, then step it up a notch. Try adding silhouettes made of black paper or black garbage bags to your storm door, windows, and even your landscape uplights! Ghost ornaments are easy to make, whether they’re the full sized gauzy ones affixed to the porch columns or the tiny handkerchief variety haunting your favorite bushes or tree. Jack up your Jack-o-lanterns with zombie style or interactive details. Put the final touch on your spooky curb appeal when you visit your local home improvement or department store and pick up a string or two of holiday lights. Choose creepy eyeballs, grinning mini jack-o-lanterns, or glowing witches on brooms…there’s a light for every spooky-fun Halloween theme!

Frightfully fabulous!

Ever wanted to go hog-wild for Halloween? Go for it! Be the owner of the house that thrills the trick-or-treaters, wows the neighbors, and get the maximum Halloween bang for your buck!

If you’re wanting more even after all the simple and moderate decorating ideas, go for the wow-factor! Drape webs or spanish moss over your home, trees, and bushes. Giant spiders or bats crawling on your home? Ick! Add a graveyard to your front yard…you can customize the headstones to be funny, ironic, historic, or just plain frightening! Get fancy and include a fence, or go old-school and allow visitors to explore. Eek! Create a creepy cauldron with dry ice and glow-sticks, decorated with spanish moss or even a rubber hand. Swap your landscape lightbulbs with colored bulbs: Green creates a monstrous glow, red is bloody creepy, and blue can cast a boo-tiful light on all your decor. Life sized figures are especially creepy and scary, whether you create a whole haunted house scene in your garage or you have them simply lounging on your porch rocker…every visitor wonders if they’re going to leap to life! Use outdoor speakers to add audio and offer spooky background music!

Whatever your outdoor decorating level, The Columbus Team wishes you and yours a very safe, fun, and happy Halloween!

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Simple Ways to Save Money in the Winter Around Your Home

October 9, 2013 by The Columbus Team

Heating bills can break the bank during cold winter months. According to the Earthworks Group, the average US home has leaks equal to a nine foot hole in an outside wall! Here are 13 ways to cut down on home expenses that cost little or nothing:

Drain and hang up all hoses and sprinklers. Put an insulated cover over outside faucets, which will prevent frozen pipes.
Wrap exposed pipes under counters close to an outside wall or in the basement. There are foam sleeves in your hardware store made for this. You’re preventing frozen pipes, and wasted heating costs for an exposed pipe with hot water in a cool basement.
Reverse your ceiling fans. Counterclockwise = cooling, while clockwise = warmer. Warm air at the ceiling blows back into the room, saving you as much as 10% in heating costs.
Layer up the clothing. More clothes = money saved. Warm sweaters, slippers and insulated underwear will keep you warm and save you money. Add an afghan or blanket for additional savings.
Look for air leaks around windows, doors, electrical outlets, etc. A few dollars spent in caulking and weather-stripping equals big savings in heating. The US Dept. of Energy states minor leaks can result in 5-30 percent heat losses in a year.
Latch and lock all windows. You’re safer from burglars and the windows are sealed.
For stubborn windows and patio doors, use window film kits to block any air flow.
Turn the temp down when you leave the house. Make it a habit- hang your car keys by the thermostat as a reminder. Why spend money for heat when you’re not there?
Is your heating vent blocked by a sofa? You’re spending money to keep it warm, but not the room. Buy a vent heat diverter to send that warm air into the room.
Clean your chimney and woodstove in the fall and keep the flue closed when not in use. Otherwise, you’re paying for heat that you’re sending outside.
Have your furnace serviced. Make sure it’s running properly to get the best bang for your buck. Change your furnace filter every 2-3 months.
Need more attic insulation? Take a peek- a good rule of thumb is if you can see your attic joists (about 10-11 inches high), you need more insulation. You want a minimum of 12 inches to prevent heat loss.
Inspect your duct work where there are seams. If the tape is old or torn, replace it with new metal tape. Otherwise, your heat is blowing out in the wrong places.

Credit Score Basics

December 20, 2010 by The Columbus Team

Lenders determine how much home you can afford based largely on your credit score, or you and your spouse’s combined scores.

Your credit score is a numeric score based upon the information contained in your credit report. This credit report contains information on your financial transactions, such as credit cards, loans, and payment histories for taxes, utilities, and sometimes even rent, as well as other information. This information goes back for 7-10 years or more. It allows financial institutions to quickly and objectively evaluate whether you are a good credit risk based on how you handle your past and existing debt.

Scores range from 300 to 900; as a measuring stick, 720 is considered a good score.

The standard model of credit scoring was developed by Fair, Isaac and Company, also known as FICO. They have created the most common credit scoring model that is used by the Big 3 credit companies: Equifax, Experian, and Trans Union. Many people use the term credit score and FICO score interchangeably.

There are five categories that make up your overall score:

Payment History – This is about 35% of your score, the most important area of all. Have you made payments on time consistently? Are there any bankruptcies, liens, or other signs that you’re a risky borrower?

Amounts Owed – This is about 30% of your score, the second most important area. How much do you owe in total? Are your balances at or near the limit? Has there been a change in your spending habits recently? How much new credit do you seek? What is your debt-to-income ratio?

Length of Credit History – This counts for about 15% of your score. How long have you had credit? How long have you had a good credit score? Bear in mind, being an authorized user on someone else’s credit, even if you paid the bill, is NOT establishing a credit history. This begins with your own first credit card, apartment, or loan.

Credit Mixture – This counts for about 10% of your score. If you have only high interest accounts or loans, if you don’t have any credit at all, this can count against you. Higher scoring mixtures include a sample of credit cards, loans, and other types of credit. Financial institutions want to know you can handle multiple payments, and that you’re responsible with all your financial obligations.

Inquiries – This counts for about 10% of your credit score. Have you been seeking a lot of new debt lately? If you have, it’s a red flag, and a lower score, as it may indicate you’re taking on too much, too fast. If you DO need to shop around for a credit card or a mortgage, do it quickly. FICO will not penalize you if there’s a short period of time that your credit is being checked. For example, eight mortgage inquiries made in any 14 day period will count as one inquiry.

Credit Dos and Don’ts:

1. Don’t make large purchases during the mortgage process…even if there’s delayed payments. The total will still count in your debt-to-income ratio…and can change your pre-approval status, so beware!

2. Don’t open a series of credit accounts or take on several small loans to increase your credit history quickly. Remember, balance is the key, and a bunch of new accounts can make you look financially unstable or risky.

3. Do make regular payments and pay down any high balances. Hard work, but worth the increase in credit score.

4. Don’t close a bunch of accounts to “clean up” your credit score. A sudden reduction in accounts can count against you. If you do choose to close an account or two, try to choose a “younger account” as that will raise the age of your average history and improve your score. Closing all the older accounts will count against you.

5. Do check your credit report annually. Errors and identity theft take time to correct, and while you are trying to get a mortgage is NOT the time for lengthy resolutions!

6. Don’t assume that paying off balances at the end of the month will improve your score. While lowering balances is good, eliminating monthly payments on debt gives FICO less to score, and less history of on-time payments…so do pay some balances over time, to keep your score up and your credit history healthy.

An easy way to check on your credit score is to go to myFICO.com. For a small charge, you can order your own score and a report with complete details. You are also able to request your credit report from each of the major credit reporting agencies once a year for no charge through AnnualCreditReport.com.