January 2013 RSS Feed

When you are trying to sell your house there are many aspect to consider, and address, before it is ready for the market. If you own a particularly old house, functional aspects of your home are a major concern. Commonly referred to as invisible renovations, improvements to the structure, plumbing, electrical, and insulative parts of your home may rank at the top of your priority list. But these invisible renovations are just that; invisible. Most buyers will not even pause to look at your place if it does not have external appeal. The trick to ensuring that your investment in invisible improvements is not wasted, is to make your house just as visually appealing.

Curb Appeal

First of all, your house needs to look charming. Yellow patches in the grass,…

We're all familiar with downtown Boise, Idaho's Banner Bank Building, but most of us may not know about it's amazing and innovative design. It is Idaho's only "LEED Platinum" rated building and stood as the 18th building to do so in the nation at the time it was built. Banner Bank was the first multi-tenant, privately owned building to receive the LEED Platinum award. A few of it's unique systems include underfloor air distribution and reclaimed water use.

According to the U.S. Green Building Council, LEED is an internationally recognized green building program that provides building owners and operators with a framework for identifying and implementing practical and measurable green building design, construction, operations and maintenance solutions.

The perfect utopia for green investors lies in a unique combination of eco-friendly features designed for luxury homes, a vision of impressive high-quality, eco-conscious amenities suited for top end real estate.

Eco luxury building is taking a strong foothold in a world that has grown increasingly pro-environment and energy minimalistic. Over the last several years, we've seen property developers, investors and prospective homeowners take an avid interest in protecting our world, and what better way to reduce our own footprints by living in homes that breathe environmental sustainability?

The luxury market may largely have been overshadowed by the wholly awesome and extravagance found in the latest and greatest of home features, but luxury trends…

If you've lived in your house for any length of time, you may find yourself beginning to get bored. It doesn't take long for your own home to seem unappealing and cravings for change to creep up on you.

The good news is that you can do a lot with very little. You can add jazz to rooms by making the smallest of changes. With a little bit of creativity and some time investment, you can transform your own living space and add life to every room. Take it day by day or weekend by weekend and in no time you'll feel like you're living in a brand new house!

Here are just a few easy ideas to improve and change both the inside and outside of your home.

Lighting. Arguably the most inexpensive and easy home improvements you can make, changing up the lighting…

Volunteers played a large part in keeping Idaho's state parks open, thanks to their more than 85,000 hours of free work this past year.

Idaho's department of Parks and Recreation receives only $1.3 million a year in state funding, down from the $9.6 million we saw in 2003.

"We are very proud to say we've been able to keep all 30 of our state parks open," the state Park's Director Nancy Merrill said during her annual budget pitch. She credited Idaho's great volunteers for making this a reality.

In the midst of all the free labor given by volunteers to keep Idaho's parks running, overnight occupancy has increased by 2.69 percent while revenue from all other sources went up by 7.45 percent. Idaho's total budget for state parks this year is $32.4…

Boise, Idaho is one of the most bike-friendly cities around with over 100 miles of bike lanes, nearly that of Chicago! People love to ride their bikes, particularly on the Ridge to Rivers Trail System and around Boise's Northend, the official mountain and touring bike headquarters in the Treasure Valley.

In fact, Boise, Idaho is number 9 on the list of U.S. cities with the most bicycle commuters at 3.9 percent, beating San Francisco and Seattle.

For many people, commuting to work on a bicycle is a joy, they save money and get a workout. But when the cold weather season rears its sometimes-ugly head, commuting on a bike is suddenly wrought with new potential hazards.

Boise bikers don't need to fret too much though, as Boise has a relatively mild…

You may not think that Idaho is a center for engineering, energy research, and innovation. You’ll be surprised, then, to find out that Idaho houses many major labs and engineering companies. Hewlett Packard and Micron both have large establishments in Boise and Meridian. These companies provide employment for many Treasure Valley occupants. The rest of Idaho’s cities are interspersed with smaller companies. In addition to the many science and engineering labs in Idaho, there is one major lab that conducts pioneering research in nuclear energy, bioenergy, robotics, and various other projects. This is the Idaho National Laboratory.

History

How did such a lab end up in Idaho? The lab is located in a remote, high desert location between Arco, Idaho, and…

We always hear about the phenomenal things to do in Boise, Idaho, from the world class fly fishing to the area's outstanding skiing destinations and the miles and miles of river suitable for boating, swimming and floating. Of course, Boise, Idaho does in fact boast all of this fantastic outdoor recreation that drives enthusiasts and vacationers from all over to make the most of their well-earned free time.

But what about those of us who have never put on a pair of skis, those of us who don't want to scale the side of a mountain, and those of us who are repelled by the big and sometimes frightening outdoors? Idaho is the ultimate outdoorsman paradise, there's no denying that, but is there more than that? You bet there is!

Go shopping. There's plenty…

If you are interested in buying a home in 2013, there are several things you need to be doing right now in order to make the process as smooth as possible. First and foremost, if you haven’t already started, you need to be saving money and paying down as much debt as possible. These two factors will help contribute to your debt to income ratio that mortgage lenders look at before approving you for a loan.  If your situation is not exactly where you want it to be, you don’t have to panic, but you should be consciously making an effort to improve it with every day that passes.

The next thing you need to do is to take a close look at your current financial position to establish what kind of mortgage you think you can afford.  If you already own a home,…

Boise, Idaho doesn't always get the attention it rightly deserves, tucked away in the high desert of one of the least populated states in the U.S., it remains largely undiscovered and under appreciated. However, that's been changing over the last ten years with national attention finally dawning upon the capital's high quality of life and impressive attributes. But Boise still keeps some secrets, and the art and culture scene in Boise is one of them.

Inspiration is everywhere in Boise, Idaho. Not only can you go fishing or kayaking in the morning, but after dinner you can take in a ballet or dance performance. The city offers both picturesque backdrops and wild adventure with a thriving dose of art. You'll find several cultural hotspots within a few…