May 14 Monday

Host a Movie in Your Austin Backyard

austin backyard theatreDrive-ins can be a fun and nostalgic experience, but watching a movie in a cramped car or wedged in between large vehicles while in a lawn chair can quickly drain the fun out of the experience. A better alternative is to set up an outdoor theatre in your own backyard. Austin’s warm weather means outdoor viewing parties can be held for movies, football, or watching concerts streaming live on the internet. Neighborhoods with large, tree filled yards like Lake Travis or Davenport Ranch are ideal for creating a private backyard cinema. Outdoor movie screens are the perfect partner for an outdoor kitchen.

If you don’t have a portable projection screen, it’s not difficult to make one out of sheets. 



May 1 Tuesday

Homes in Austin TX Housing Market Update

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THE BELOW MARKET UPDATE IS CURRENT AS OF THE ABOVE DATE OF THIS BLOG POST.

Active: There are currently 787 homes for sale in Austin Texas with a median list price of $153 per square foot ($319,990) and averaging 335 active days on the market. The average home for sale has 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, and 2714 square feet. Prices range from $26.80 per square foot up to $1,776.25 per square foot or $32,500 up to $12,000,000…



Apr 28 Saturday

Luxury Eyelash Extension Salons in Austin

austin luxury beautyAustin is a city ideally sized to have the perks of a big city, with all the charm of a small, friendly town. One perk of the big-city side is the availability of luxury amenities, from Austin luxury homes to luxury spas and salons offering specialized treatments and embellishments for both beauty and wellness. Eyelash extensions are a luxury embellishment that calls attention to every person’s most defining feature: eyes. Below are a few of the best salons for eyelash extensions in Austin:

Dolce Blu

Located across the street from the Milwood neighborhood, Dolce Blu offers a wide range of services, specializing in custom eyelash extensions by highly-trained, local stylists that many Austinites consider to be the best in the city. The eyelash extensions at Dolce Blu are semi-permanent, 100% synthetic and curved to replicate a natural eyelash. The lashes are thicker at the base and taper to a fine point. They are applied to individual eyelashes, one extension at a time, for a natural, elegant look to lengthen and add fullness to the existing lashes. The extensions look and feel completely real, moving with your natural lashes. Each application is customized to suit each individual. Various individual lash lengths are chosen to carefully replicate the shape and frame of a natural lash line. The thickness is determined by the health and thickness of your natural lashes. The overall effect is added curl, thickness and length, opening up the eye for added definition.



Apr 12 Thursday

Chandeliers for Austin Homes

make a chandelierChandeliers were born from a utilitarian purpose: to provide as much light as possible before electricity, by extending arms across the ceiling with multiple points of light. Later, in the 17th century, this idea was improved when crystals were added to further reflect and intensify the light. Traditional views find chandeliers relegated to dining rooms and dancing halls, but today chandeliers have made their way into kitchens, bedrooms, and bathrooms, providing both light and ambiance to Austin luxury homes.

Besides simply moving locations, chandeliers have become an artistic medium, being constructed from beads, metal, antlers, glass, old wagon wheels, and materials only limited by an artist or designer’s imagination. In this vein, chandeliers can be purchased new, antique, or secondhand and repaired or painted by a homeowner.

When planning to install a chandelier, it’s important to know what size will fit a room, and how high it will need to be hung. A general design rule is to add the dimensions of a room together in feet and then convert the answer to inches. The answer in inches should equal the diameter of the chandelier chosen. For example, if a room measures 10′ x 20′ the diameter of the chandelier should be about 30″. Exceptions to this rule can be made when a small chandelier is hung as an accent piece in a corner of the room, for example, over a reading nook in a Lake Austin home.



Apr 1 Sunday

Homes in Austin TX Housing Market Update

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THE BELOW MARKET UPDATE IS CURRENT AS OF THE ABOVE DATE OF THIS BLOG POST.

Active: There are currently 884 homes for sale in Austin Texas with a median list price of $152 per square foot ($311,445) and averaging 305 active days on the market. The average home for sale has 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, and 2668 square feet. Prices range from $26.80 per square foot up to $1,776.25 per square foot or $32,500 up to $12,000,000…



Mar 28 Wednesday

Buying is Cheaper Than Renting 98% of the Time

renting home versus buying homeA recent study by property search engine Trulia has indicated that in 98 out of 100 US housing markets, it is cheaper to buy a property than to rent one. Austin is an example of this trend, as rental rates rise, and home prices, while slowly increasing, remain affordable, especially in neighborhoods like Olympic Heights and Milwood. The two national exceptions to this rule are San Francisco and Honolulu, where purchase prices for homes remain high.

In Austin, with 160 new people moving to the city every day and rental rates consistently increasing, buying can be a much smarter choice, especially for Austin luxury homes, as Austin is home to a wide range of new and expanding business ventures.



Mar 14 Wednesday

Austin Home Rentals During SXSW, ACL, and Formula 1 Events

formula one austinAustin is a perennial good host, inviting visitors from across the globe every year for major events like South by Southwest (SXSW), Austin City Limits Festival (ACL), and soon, the Formula 1 races. SXSW alone brought 286,000 travelers to town in 2011, with final counts for 2012 still being made as the SXSW music festival picks up speed. Most of the major events for SXSW are held in Downtown Austin, where only 6,000 hotel rooms are currently available for occupancy, and only 50,000 in the entire Austin area, all of which were fully booked two weeks in advance of SXSW, with many hotels full since December. This creates one major problem: too many heads, not enough beds.

Austin entrepreneurs Carl Shepherd and Brian Sharples created a solution to benefit both visitors and locals when they founded HomeAway, a company dedicated to matching out-of-towners with homeowners willing to rent their spaces at fair, but lucrative, rates. Austinites can list their property and rental rates for a night, week, or month, on HomeAway’s website, and could easily earn part or all of their mortgage payment during a popular festival like SXSW. Neighborhoods with the best proximity to downtown, like the cottages of Hyde Park or the Austin luxury homes of Westlake Hills would be prime spots for travelers wishing to stay close to the action of SXSW, while Barton Creek homes would be prime for renting during ACL.



Mar 1 Thursday

Homes in Austin TX Housing Market Update

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THE BELOW MARKET UPDATE IS CURRENT AS OF THE ABOVE DATE OF THIS BLOG POST.

Active: There are currently 1214 homes for sale in Austin Texas with a median list price of $145 per square foot ($286,658) and averaging 264 active days on the market. The average home for sale has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and 2565 square feet. Prices range from $18.85 per square foot up to $1,776.25 per square foot or $31,900 up to $12,000,000…



Feb 23 Thursday

City of Austin Ranked 2nd in U.S. for Green Power Use

austin energy conservationAustin has a reputation for being an eco-minded, green city, and new rankings released by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Green Power Partnership have solidified the claim. The City of Austin municipal government ranked second in the country for the largest purchases of renewable energy by a local government for their electricity use and eighth overall nationally by any organization or business, including some of the nation’s top Fortune 500 companies. The City of Austin government also ranks third overall for the largest purchases of renewable energy to power 100% of all of its electricity use.

Austin’s citizens, living in the Texas heat, are pros at energy saving tricks like installing blinds and thermo curtains, planting shade trees, keeping lights dim, and discovering the benefits of solar power for both Austin luxury homes like those in Steiner Ranch, and smaller ranch style homes like those in Travis Country. The City of Austin’s operations followed suit, and switched to 100% renewable energy on Oct. 1, 2011. The 12,000-employee organization is subscribing to Austin Energy’s GreenChoice® renewable energy program for 100% of its 406 million kilowatt-hours of annual electricity use for city-owned buildings and facilities. The City of Austin also ranks eighth in the nation’s top 50 purchasers nationwide behind such well-known companies as Intel Corp., Kohl’s, Wal-Mart, Whole Foods, Johnson & Johnson, the City of Houston, and Starbucks.



Feb 22 Wednesday

Water Saving Bathroom Makeover Tips

water.saving.austinSaving water in Texas is a hot issue, literally, as droughts and scorching summers have left ground water reserves thirsty, even in light of recent thunderstorms. HouseLogic.com, a comprehensive website about all aspects of homeownership from the National Association of Realtors®, has a series of posts about water saving tips that can benefit every home owner or apartment renter starting an Austin home search. The website also features reader redesigns of bathrooms that move from wasteful and dated to hip and green.

HouseLogic is a free source of information and tools for homeowners that helps them make smart decisions and take responsible actions to maintain, protect and enhance the value of their home. It helps homeowners plan and organize their home projects and provides timely articles and news; home improvement advice and how-to’s; and information about taxes, home finances and insurance, advice that can benefit anyone living in an Austin luxury home like those in Steiner Ranch, or a charming starter home like some of the homes in the affordable $200,000 range in Belterra.



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