By Nancy B   You may have read about Shirley Mae Roomba and her cousin, Erma Sue Shark, our two robot vacuum cleaners. Shirley Mae keeps the upstairs floors cleaned. and Erma Sue is the downstairs sweeper. They are both doing well, even though we did have a little incident the other day. I had asked Erma Sue if she would mind cleaning the carpets downstairs again, and being as sweet as … [Read more...]

By Nancy Brewer   Adult children are the best. They give such wonderful gifts. Our daughter Angelin and her husband Brent gave me a Roomba for Christmas and her name is Shirley Mae Roomba. You were introduced to her recently when Jim wrote about her. She and I have become fast friends and she promised not to disturb the small coals around the gas logs again. She still bumps into … [Read more...]

It’s expensive to add a room or an addition to a home. Current estimates to put an addition onto an existing home can be from $200 to $250 per square foot or more. That means if you’d like to add a 20 x 30 living area to your
house, you’re looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of $100,000. But what if you already had the space, and many people do, in their own yards. With the proper lighting, … [Read more...]

By Nancy B I hope your Thanksgiving was a time of great food and giving thanks. This year has been a tough one no doubt and many of us did not have friends or family join us for Thanksgiving and may not for Christmas. However, we still have much for which to be grateful. Did we each wake up this morning? As 2020 nears the end, we have hope that 2021 will be a year of good health, friends, … [Read more...]

  TOOL OF THE RESIDENTIAL LIGHTING TRADE   Have you ever had a home built? Or a deck? Maybe a screened porch? I work with builders and help their clients with lighting. I’ve walked many homes that were in the process of being built to help with the proper placement of lighting. I don’t often think of some of the necessary tools a builder requires. My brother was a builder and he … [Read more...]

By Nancy B   I’ve been hearing this word, “re-imagining”, lately and I don’t believe I have ever used it in a sentence. So I looked up the meaning: to imagine anew, to rethink, new concepts were just a few definitions. In the Furniture, Lighting Decor magazine I receive, there was an interesting article about this very thing. The article was stating our relationship with our homes has … [Read more...]

By Nancy B If by chance you read or subscribe to the Cville Buzz you notice Jim’s articles on our pond. We built a small pond in our backyard in the spring for our 8 goldfish, but mostly for my husband. It has been quite an adventure and now we have an additional 14 baby goldfish. How did that happen?  Anyway, I moved my parents’ very old metal glider in front of our pond for better … [Read more...]

By Nancy B As we live through this pandemic and uncertain times, we need to be more creative. While we WILL get through this, many of us are staying at home and many of us with children. Keeping wee ones busy is often a challenge not to mention the older kids. I’m speaking of “old kids”, like myself. Game rooms have become a central social space for family and friends to gather. This space … [Read more...]

By Nancy B Many clients refer to this terminology of “Open Concept” along with “Open Layout” and “Open Floor Plan”. They all mean the same. It used to be that kitchens were separated from the rest of the house by doors or a pass-through to the dining room. But now having the “open concept”, the kitchen is open to the rest of the entertaining areas and seen from the family room, great room, … [Read more...]

Big box stores sell lamp shades, but is there a salesperson who knows anything about them? Our staff does. Does your lamp need a riser, harp, saddle, bushing or finial? Do you have an old favorite shade (that may have come with the lamp) that needs to be relined? The heat from incandescent bulbs is hard on linings, so is the sun. Some old shades that are one-of-a-kind, simply cannot be replaced. … [Read more...]