20 Ways to Add Curb Appeal

-Better Homes and Gardens

If your home's curb appeal makes a great first impression, everyone -- including potential homebuyers -- will want to see what's inside. Check out these simple, low-cost improvements that you can do in a day, a week, or a month.

In a Day

Create perfect symmetry

Symmetry is not only pleasing to the eye, it's also the simplest to arrange. Symmetrical compositions of light fixtures and front-door accents create welcoming entryways. This door is flanked by two sidelights. The black lantern-style sconces not only safely guide visitors to the door, but also coordinate with the black door and urns.

Replace old hardware

House numbers, the entry door lockset, a wall-mounted mailbox, and an overhead light fixture are all elements that can add style and interest to your home's exterior. If they're out of date or dingy, your home may not be conveying the aesthetic you think it is. These elements add the most appeal when they function collectively, rather than as mix-and-match pieces. Oiled-bronze finishes suit traditional homes, while brushed nickel suits more contemporary ones.

Dress up the front door

Your home's front entry is the focal point of its curb appeal. Make a statement by giving your front door a blast of color with paint or by installing a custom wood door. Clean off any dirty spots around the knob, and use metal polish on the door fixtures. Your entry should also reflect the home's interior, so choose a swag or a wreath that reflects your personal style.

Do a mailbox makeover

Mailboxes should complement the home and express the homeowner's personality. When choosing a hanging drop box, pick a box that mirrors your home's trimmings. Dress up posted boxes by staining or painting the wooden post to match the house's trim and woodwork. Create structures for your box from materials found throughout the hardscaping. Warning: Consult a professional when designing and building structures.

Install outdoor lighting

Low-voltage landscape lighting makes a huge impact on your home's curb appeal while also providing safety and security. Fixtures can add accent lighting to trees or the house or can illuminate a walking path. If you aren't able to use lights that require wiring, install solar fixtures (but understand that their light levels are not as bright or as reliable).

Create an instant garden

Container gardens add a welcoming feel and colorful appeal to any home exterior -- quickly and affordably. You can buy ready-made containers from garden centers or create your own with your favorite plants. For most landscapes, a staggered, asymmetrical arrangement works best to create a dynamic setting.

Install window boxes

Window boxes offer a fast, easy way to bring color and charm to your home exterior. Choose boxes made from copper or iron for a traditional look, or painted wood for a cottage feel. Mix and match flowers and plants to suit your lighting conditions and color scheme.

In A Weekend

Make a grand entry

Even with a small budget, there are ways to draw attention to your front door. Molding acts like an architectural eyeliner when applied to the sides and top of the doorway. Notice how the white door casing makes this door pop.

Add outdoor art

Give your yard a little spunk by adding weather-resistant artwork. Choose pieces that complement your home's natural palette and exterior elements. Birdbaths, metal cutouts, sculptures, and wind chimes are good choices for outdoor art. Water sculptures not only function as yard art, but the burbling sounds soothe and make hot days feel cooler. Place fountains on level ground in optimum hearing and sight vantage points. Avoid spots in leaf-dropping range.

Add shutters or accent trim

Shutters and trim add a welcoming layer of beauty to your home's exterior. Shutters also control light and ventilation, and provide additional security. Exterior shutters can be made of wood, aluminum, vinyl, composite, or fiberglass. New composite materials, such as PVC resins or polyurethane, make trim details durable and low maintenance.

Add arbors or fence panels

Arbors, garden gates, and short sections of decorative fence panels will enhance your garden and the value of your home. These amenities can be found in easy-to-build kits or prefab sections you simply connect together. For best results, paint or stain these items with colors already on your house.

Create a new planting bed

Add contrast and color to your home exterior with a new planting bed. Prime spots are at the front corners of the yard, along driveways or walkways, and immediately in front of the house. When creating a new bed, choose features that will frame your home rather than obscure it. Opt for stone or precast-concrete blocks to edge the bed. Include a mix of plant size, color, and texture for optimal results.

Replace gutters and downspouts

If your home has an older gutter system, odds are it's also suffering from peeling paint, rust spots, or other problems that can convey a sense of neglect. Replace old systems with newer, snap-fit vinyl gutter systems that go together with few tools and require no painting. Copper systems, while pricier, convey an unmistakable look of quality.

In A Month

Tile your doorstep

Create a permanent welcome mat by tiling or painting a design that contrasts with the porch floor or front stoop. Not only will you not have to worry about replacing the mat when it gets ratty, but you can impress your visitors with your creativity.

Dress up the driveway

If your driveway is cracked or stained or has vegetation sprouting from it, you can upgrade it without doing a complete redo. First repair the cracks and stains (and kill the weeds), then dress it up by staining the concrete or affixing flagstones. If you need more room to move your car or park, add stone, brick, or pavers to the sides of the drive to widen it with flair.

Build a walkway

Well-designed walkways make your home feel warm and inviting. For a dramatic improvement to a straight concrete path, replace it with a contoured one made of stone or brick. For a less radical upgrade, apply a colored concrete resurfacer to the old walkway, then edge with brick or stone borders. Brick pavers offer traditional, classic beauty to the landscape of any home.

Upgrade railings

Porch and stoop railings can deteriorate quickly if not treated properly. If your railings are past their prime, look for quality wood or metal components to replace the existing material. As with other improvements attached directly to the house, make sure the color, scale, design, details, and material are compatible with the home's main features.

Renew paint, siding, and trim

An exterior facelift (new paint, siding, or trim details) automatically transforms the look of a home. Periodic maintenance of that exterior surface is the surest way to keep your house looking its best. Any obvious defects, such as cracked or rotting material, can downgrade the aesthetic and quickly turn away potential homebuyers. Once defects are repaired, look for ways to add personality with color, trim, or shingles.

Apply stone veneer

Nothing carries pedigree and permanence like stone. It's a great option for dressing up exterior features such as concrete foundations, column footings, and other masonry details. Natural and manufactured stone can be costly options for large expanses, but both are affordable and well suited for use as accent material..

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Fannie, Freddie refi market set to enter housing Twilight Zone

-Housingwire

U.S. residential mortgage lending volume will struggle to reach the mid-$800 billion range in 2012, according to market research, as the recent boom in refinancings dries up at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Furthermore, the report from iEmergent, paints a picture of a housing market floating in its own Twilight Zone — a reality where "the distribution and location of local lending opportunities will continue to re-shape and reset the long-term home financing prospects and projections for most U.S. communities."

This year, roughly 838,400 Fannie and Freddie loans received a refinancing, according to data released by the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

In 2012, this market share is likely to dry up, according to the forecasting and advisory firm (click chart below).

Even more unfortunate, the other side of the mortgage origination — new home sales, is unable to fill the gap in business.

"Home affordability indicators have never been better, yet total buyer demand shows no signs of life," the iEmergent report states.

The reason for this forecast, according to the analysis, is that housing is in its own dimension of economic recession.

The nation's economy may be recovering, but in terms of housing, lack of jobs, lower income and continued high levels of negative equity, America's property ladder is missing more than a few rungs.

"The middle-class buyers on whom future home buying demand depends will continue to struggle to re-build their cash reserves, pay down their debts, and grope their way out of the shadows," the report states. "Their recovery will be very slow."

But there is a silver lining to the forecast that Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac will see higher purchases, yet very low refinance volume in 2012 (click chart below).

In the total originations market, outside of the government sponsored enterprises, iEmergent projections indicate purchase home loan volume might actually rise 0.3%. However, through 2012, mortgage originations as a whole will see less business.

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Another Fannie servicing portfolio up for sale

-Housingwire

MountainView Servicing Group will help sell a $485 million servicing portfolio of Fannie Mae mortgages.

Nearly all of the loans in the portfolio are fixed rate and primarily located in Illinois. The average delinquency rate on the portfolio is 2.21%. Interest rates average 4.67%, and the average FICO score is 761. The portfolio also carries an average 30-basis-point servicing fee.

A spokesman for MountainView said the portfolio is being sold by a private mortgage bank but did not specify which one. Bids will be taken until Sept. 7.

So far in 2011, MountainView has helped sell more than $800 million in Fannie Mae servicing portfolios. In April, the firm began marketing a $262 million portfolio. It also sold a $110 million portfolio in January.

It is also marketing a $45 million portfolio of Ginnie Mae servicing rights. All of these loans are fixed rate with more than 78% of the mortgages located in California. The seller of these loans will be taking bids through Sept. 7 as well.

MountainView is a financial services firm specializing in asset management and valuation, among other services. It is also a subsidiary of MountainView Capital Holdings, a financial advisory firm to banks, thrifts and credit unions.

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Big banks could tighten lending following FHFA lawsuit: FBR Capital

-Housingwire

The decision of the Federal Housing Finance Agency to sue major banks under representation and warranties clauses prompted Paul Miller with FBR Capital Markets to criticize the plan, saying it will likely further drain capital from the banking system.

Miller's criticism is pointed mostly to the unintended negative impact the lawsuit may have on the average American. As banks tighten purse strings further, for whatever reason, future qualified borrowers continue to stay on the sidelines.

Miller's analysis arrives days after FHFA announced it would sue 17 banks – including Bank of America (BAC: 7.40 +5.87%), Citigroup, (C: 28.78 +3.90%), Goldman Sachs (GS: 107.33 +2.65%) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM: 34.59 +3.44%) among others – for selling toxic mortgages that became part of the securitization process that eventually led to the housing market meltdown.

Miller wrote: "Because there is no centralized housing policy coming out of Washington, housing agencies (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Federal Housing Authority) are acting in their own self interest as opposed to that of the broader U.S. economy. For Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, this means minimizing losses by digging through their loan books and pushing back loans barely delinquent on their mortgages under reps and warrants clauses."

Miller said suing banks for securitization issues would further pressure the housing markets, delaying a recovery and draining capital from the banking system, keeping many borrowers out of the market.

In his report, Miller claims "we believe the banks have developed overly cautious residential lending standards as a result of concerns over reps and warrants claims, even as they struggle to grow revenues."

His report estimates repurchase losses could reach as high as $121 billion, with 60% of those losses being incurred by the nation's top four banks – Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citibank. That is up from previous estimates which said the industry would see $54 billion to $106 billion in losses, with the nation's top four banks facing 40% of those losses.

Keefe, Bruyette & Woods estimated that a remedy to the claims could cost the defendants as much as $60 billion, but added it's likely a settlement will be reached between mortgage originators and the FHFA for a smaller amount.

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US Economy Is Basically 'Still In Recession': Fed's Evans

-CNBC

The U.S. economic outlook has "clearly" deteriorated this year, and the continued softness of economic indicators shows that the headwinds facing the country are even stronger than thought, Chicago Federal Reserve President Charles Evans said on Wednesday.

"Conditions still aren't much different from an economy still in recession  ," Evans, speaking at a seminar in London said.

He said the Fed  faced significant challenges in overcoming the obstacles left behind by the financial crisis.

Evans, a voting member on the Federal Open Market Committee  , said he believed central banks should focus on medium- rather than short-term inflation as many short-term effects such as fluctuations in food and energy prices were beyond policy makers' reach.

Given how "truly badly" the U.S. was doing on the jobs front, the Fed should consider more aggressive action, he said.

He did not explicitly call for more quantitative easing  or bond purchases but called for "strong action."

"I argue that the Fed should seriously consider actions that would add very significant amounts of policy accommodation," he said. "Such further policy accommodation does increase the risk that inflation could rise temporarily about our long-term goal of 2 percent," he said.

The Fed Open Market Committee said in August that it would continue to keep its benchmark interest rate low for at least through mid 2013, acknowledging that the recovery it had hoped for had so far failed to take shape.

The Fed ended a $600 billion Treasury bond-buying program at the end of June.

Temporary inflation above 2 percent is not something we should "regard with horror," he said.

Evans said it was "painfully obvious" that large quantities of unused resources were an enormous loss to the U.S. economy, referring to the 14 million Americans unemployed today.

Some argue there are limits to what further accommodative measures can do, he said, adding: "I'm personally much more optimistic and don't want to subscribe to that pessimistic view."

"Monetary policy should be used more aggressively to try to increase aggregate demand," Evans said.

He added he fully supported the policies implemented by the Fed, but added that more needed to be done.

"We should not be afraid of such temporarily higher inflation results today...These are not usual times," Evans said.

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10 Major Architectural Failures

-CNBC

People make mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes happen on the job. Usually, the incident is corrected and the whole thing is forgotten within minutes. However, the workplace mistake is harder to ignore when the person who makes it is an architect. After all, when the teenager working the drive-thru window gives you a Quarter Pounder instead of a Big Mac, it causes a lot less trauma than when a 3,000-foot-long suspension bridge collapses into the Puget Sound.

In "The Yale Book of Quotations," the legendary American architect Frank Lloyd Wright is quoted as saying, “The physician can bury his mistakes, but the architect can only advise his client to plant vines.” While this statement from 1954 is still true today, it doesn’t take into account the architectural, design, and engineering errors that became possible in the decades after his death. Those mistakes have been bigger, costlier, and more spectacular than Wright could have imagined, and there are not enough vines in the world to hide them.

What are some of the more notable architectural failures in modern history? Click ahead to find out.

Aon Center

The Aon Center is the third-tallest building in Chicago. It was completed in 1973 and was originally named the Standard Oil Building. When it was completed, the building was a visual wonder to behold, thanks to the decision to sheath the entire structure in Italian Carrara marble. The building looked great, but its fetching exterior came at a very high price. Carrara marble is much thinner than building materials normally used to clad buildings, and in 1974 one of the slabs detached from the building and crashed into the roof of the neighboring Prudential Center. An investigation revealed the completely unsuitable marble was cracking and bowing all over the exterior. Ultimately, the building was refaced with granite at a cost of more than $80 million .

Playground at Pier One, Brooklyn Bridge Park

Most parents who take their children to the playground know the drill. Before putting their kids into a swing, they touch it first to make sure the seat, which has been sitting in the sun all day, isn’t too hot. However, the designers of the playground at Pier One in New York’s Brooklyn Bridge Park managed to overlook this principle when they designed three play structures for children to climb on, and built them out of steel. The domed structures regularly became too hot to touch, much less climb. Geoffrey Croft, president of New York City Park Advocates, measured their temperature at more than 127 degrees, and parent Roula Fokas observed, “You can fry an egg on them ." In July 2010,The New York Post reported the domes would be replaced with new equipment which, presumably, could be touched by anyone, at any time of year.

John Hancock Tower

The John Hancock Tower is a 60-story skyscraper in Boston that was designed by the I.M. Pei & Partners architectural firm and unveiled in 1976. Its striking, minimalist appearance won it accolades from the architectural community, but it was famously plagued with problems. One major issue the building encountered concerned its windows: They were falling out and crashing to the pavement hundreds of feet below. In the 1992 book "Why Buildings Fall Down," authors Matthys Levy and Mario Salvadori explained that this was due to unanticipated, repeated thermal stresses to the panels. Ultimately, all 10,000 windows would be replaced at a cost of $5 million. The John Hancock Tower encountered one other major problem. Skyscrapers are meant to sway in order to absorb strong gusts of wind, though the sway is normally not felt by the building’s residents. The John Hancock Tower, however, swayed so dramatically that it gave the occupants of its upper floors motion sickness. The problem was finally solved by Cambridge engineer William LeMessurier .

Vdara Hotel & Spa

When researching hotels for an upcoming trip, many potential guests hope to find certain amenities, such as a mini-bar, a gym, or close proximity to sightseeing. However, the Vdara Hotel & Spa in Las Vegas offers a unique accoutrement that neither its guests nor its architect anticipated—a death ray.
The hotel opened in December 2009 and featured a unique, curved structure. However, its design collected solar rays and beamed them to the hotel swimming pool area. Guests sunning themselves nearby were regularly singed, such as Bill Pintas, who claimed that the hotel’s impromptu death ray had burned his hair and melted the plastic bag he had with him .

Tacoma Narrows Bridge

The Tacoma Narrows Bridge was a suspension bridge that connected the port city of Tacoma, Wash., with the Kitsap Peninsula. It was the third-longest suspension bridge in the world when it opened to the public on July 1, 1940, but it closed four months later after a spectacular collapse.
The cause of the collapse was inadequate girders that were used to keep construction costs low. They failed to keep the bridge deck in place, allowing it to sway violently whenever a strong enough wind blew. This situation was already noticeable to construction workers, who nicknamed it “Galloping Gertie.” The name stuck when the general public crossed the bridge and noticed its similarity to a bucking bronco. It finally collapsed on Nov. 7, 1940, under the stress of a 40 mile-per-hour wind.

Lotus Riverside

The Lotus Riverside is a residential apartment complex in Shanghai consisting of eleven 13-story buildings. On the morning of June 27, 2009, one of them toppled over, just barely missing an adjacent building. Had it not missed, it might have caused one toppled building to topple into the next, creating a horrifying domino effect that, thankfully, did not come to pass. The cause of the collapse was attributed to excavation that was in progress to create an underground garage . The earth  removed from beneath the building was dumped into a landfill near a creek, and its weight caused the river bank to collapse. Water from the creek then seeped into the ground, turning the building’s foundation into mud.

Ray and Maria Stata Center

The Ray and Maria Stata Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was designed by award-winning architect Frank Gehry. It opened in 2004 and houses the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, and the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems. It was hailed for its logic-defying angles and walls that challenged the laws of physics. Three years after it opened, MIT filed a negligence suit against Gehry, claiming design flaws in the $300 million building had caused major structural problems. Drainage issues had caused cracks in the walls. Icicle daggers hung pendulously from the roof like deadly sash weights. Mold grew on the building’s brick exterior. The school paid more than $1.5 million for repairs. A spokesman for the construction company, Skanska USA Building, claimed the company had tried to warn Gehry of problems with the design on numerous occasions, and had made repeated requests to use more suitable material. "We were told to proceed with the original design," the spokesman said . "It was difficult to make the original design work."

W.E.B. Du Bois Library

The University of Massachusetts Amherst is home to three distinguished libraries, which include the Music Reserve Lab and the Science and Engineering Library. However, the best known is the W.E.B. Du Bois Library, a 26-story structure that is the tallest library in the U.S .
Within two months of its opening, the building began shedding brick chips, a phenomenon known as spalling. There are various urban legends that persist about its causes, the most popular of which is that the architect who designed the building failed to take into account the weight of the books to be housed inside it. While no official cause of the spalling was given, 60,000 books had to be moved out of the building. It was later discovered the building was sinking into the pond-saturated ground on which it was built. However, YouMass, a helpful guide to life on the UMass Amherst campus, says this claim is overblown and describes the degree to which the building is sinking as “ not so much .”

Kemper Arena

Kemper Arena is an indoor stadium in Kansas City, Mo., that opened in 1974. It had been the site of the 1976 Republican National Convention and it won raves for its unique design. Rather than employ view-obstructing columns, the roof was suspended from trusses on its exterior. On June 4, 1979, the roof collapsed when a heavy storm battered the city. Fortunately, it wasn’t being used at the time, so there were no injuries or fatalities, but it was a shock to the city nonetheless. The roof had been designed to release rainwater slowly, in order to avoid flooding the nearby West Bottoms area. This caused rainwater to collect on top and pool anywhere the roof sagged, creating excess weight. Worse yet, the roof was suspended from hangers, and the strength of their bolts had been miscalculated. Once a single bolt gave way, many of the neighboring ones followed suit, ultimately leading to the roof’s collapse.

CNA Center

The CNA Center is a high-rise building in Chicago that opened in 1972. The 44-story building was designed by the firm of Graham, Anderson, Probst & White. It’s painted bright red, making it impossible not to notice. In 1999, a large piece of a window came loose from the 29th floor of the building and plunged to the ground, causing one fatality. The culprit was thermal expansion , and after an $18 million settlement every one of the building’s windows was replaced. Each window is still checked on a monthly basis to this day.

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Ten Then & Now Photos From Around The World

-DjMick Travel

Pictured here are ten locations around the world photographed years apart showing how some places undergo dramatic change in a relatively short period of time, whilst others can change very little even after forty or fifty years.

Shanghai 1990

Shanghai 2010

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Piccadilly Circus, London 1948

Piccadilly Circus, London 2010

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Centralia, Pennsylvania 1962

Centralia, Pennsylvania 2008

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Kabul, Afghanistan 1970

Kabul, Afghanistan 2010

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Bristol, England 1920

Bristol, England 2009

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Hong Kong 1960

Hong Kong 2010

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Brockville, Ontario 1900

Brockville, Ontario 2010

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Jericho Beach 1940s

Jericho Beach 2010

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Unknown, China 1960s

Unknown, China 2005

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Port Austin, Michigan 1934

Port Austin, Michigan 2009

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