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Curved edges. Elegantly balanced geometric compositions. Material mixes. And a shot of nostalgia. These are some of the top decorating trends to look forward to this year, according to 26 “very opinionated” interior designers who shared their thoughts with The Wall Street Journal, in this article from David A. Keeps. Here are the top five trends for 2016.
Black metals. “There is nothing fussy about iron and blackened steel,” said Mr. Butera. No longer sidelined as the metal for overwrought outdoor furniture or bed frames, the decidedly unflashy material is appearing as simple hardware, bathroom fixtures and even flatware, said British interior designer Martyn Lawrence Bullard. Contemporary designers, such as Jasper Morrison blend it with wood and glass, or sometimes create entire pieces of matte black metal. “Welders are the new rock stars,” enthused New York designer Julia Haney-Montanez.
Rounded furniture. “It started with the iPhone,” said New York designer Wesley Moon, who’s noting a curvy trickle-down aesthetic in home décor. English designer Rachel Laxer loves the execution of B&B Italia’s Oskar table: “It’s a racetrack shape, almost a rectangle, with the sexiness of curves.” Radial and bullnose edges soften hard materials like marble, said Glenn Lawson of Lawson Fenning in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, Los Angeles designer Timothy Corrigan asked, “Who doesn’t want to rub their hands along a smooth, rounded piece of marble? Touch is essential to design.”
Old-world ornamentation. “People want the traditional and dressy, with a shot of nostalgia, to feel like everything is going to be OK,” said Tobi Fairley, based in Little Rock, Ark. In 2016, look for brocades, tapestries and Georgian and Empire antiques. Fringe, cording and tassels “soften the austerity of modern upholstery,” noted Kirill Istomin, who has offices in Moscow and New York. Expect, too, dramatic drapes. “Rooms without curtains are like a man in a suit without shoes,” said British designer Kathryn M. Ireland.
Mexican midcentury modernism. Mexican designers who practiced in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s, such as Arturo Pani, Eugenio Escudero and Pepe Mendoza, “cling to the clean lines of [American and European] midcentury modern,” noted Jonathan Savage, a designer in Nashville, “but many of them also place a high importance on mixing materials – wood, metal and stone.” South American designers, including Jorge Zalszupin, are also coming into vogue for “uniquely shaped pieces in exotic rosewood and jacaranda,” said Perry Walter, a designer based in Decatur, Ga.
Scandinavian flat weaves. “With elegantly balanced geometric compositions, these rugs are a sophisticated answer to the omnipresent neutrals and sisals,” said Los Angeles designer Madeline Stuart, who is fond of early-20th-century designs from the company Märta Måås-Fjetterström. The somewhat folksy carpets adapt to a variety of contexts. “The restraint of Scandinavian design works with both contemporary and traditional interiors,” noted San Francisco designer Heather Hilliard.
Take a look at the full article to see five trends that are OUT for 2016.
If you’re considering selling your home this year, this CNN Money article from Dan Caplinger highlights some key factors to keep in mind before you address issues and concerns to make the best possible deal.
Selling a home is a monumental event, and it can introduce a number of complicated financial considerations. Being aware of those considerations and making a plan to deal with them will help the selling process go a lot more smoothly.
It’s a seller’s market …
Many homeowners remember the fallout that the housing bust had on real-estate prices. Even though most investors think of the financial crisis as having hit its peak in 2008 and early 2009, it took three more years for home prices to hit bottom.
Yet since early 2012, prices have climbed higher, and the Case-Shiller National Home Price Index is coming within spitting distance of matching its highs from 2006 and 2007.
Where you live is a key factor in determining just how much of a seller’s market you can expect. Hot markets like San Francisco have seen some housing-boom-era practices return to favor, with many reports of bidding wars that result in offers well above the asking price.
By contrast, areas where economic prospects are less favorable have never fully recovered from the housing bust. The more lucrative a region’s economic future appears to be, the easier you can expect it to be to sell a home.
… but mortgages could get more expensive
One key factor in how much sellers receive for their homes is how much buyers can afford. Low mortgage rates have helped fuel price increases in recent years.
But some now fear that with the Federal Reserve having begun a new cycle of rate increases, a move higher for mortgage rates could make homes less affordable.
So far, the tiny quarter-point boost that the Fed made in mid-December hasn’t pushed mortgage rates appreciably higher. Historically, though, tightening has generally led to increased rates on mortgage loans. Sellers need to be prepared for greater difficulty for prospective buyers trying to get financing.
Tax benefits still favor home sales
The biggest tax break for ordinary taxpayers is still the exclusion on capital gains for the sale of a personal residence. Single taxpayers can exclude up to $250,000 in gains from the sale of a home from tax, and joint filers get a double-sized exclusion of $500,000.
To qualify, you have to meet a couple of tests. First, the property in question has to be your main home. In addition, to get the full exclusion, you have to have lived in the home for at least 24 months in the past five years.
You can’t have claimed a home-sale exclusion on tax returns for the previous two years. In some cases, partial exclusions are available, but getting specific tax advice from your accountant or tax professional is essential to make sure you’re aware of all the tax implications of a home sale.
Here’s a little incentive to try and boost your joy levels: happy people make more money!
A 2013 study showed that when other factors like age are removed, happy people tend to earn $2,000 more a year than their grumpy counterparts.
Ready to bring on the sunshine (and the extra cash)? Here are seven things you can do at home to make yourself happier.
Introduce a social ritual. This one is a happiness double-whammy: it’s communal and it gives you something to look forward to. According to Harvard Happiness Expert David Gilbert (yes – that’s a real thing), family and friends are the two biggest sources of human happiness. So plan an activity you can do with people in your life. It can be as simple as cooking a new recipe for dinner every Sunday, or as silly as building an elaborate fort system with your kids every Friday night. Once you have your ritual, let yourself look forward to it! A study has shown that people can increase their endorphin levels by as much as 27 percent by just thinking about watching their favorite movie. If you love your new tradition, we bet you can crank that number up to 30 percent (or higher!).
Introduce radio silence an hour before bed. Smartphones are amazing tools. But these communication powerhouses are a double-edged sword. For example, reading a stressful work email twenty minutes before you’re about to hit the hay can ruin your peaceful night’s sleep. To avoid this, shut down all your communication channels an hour or so before bed. Phone, email, Twitter, everything. Take a bath. Read a book. Chat with a family member. Anything that’ll help you relax and head to bed feeling happy. Bonus: Avoiding electronics (and their bright screens) before bed will help you sleep better.
Wake up 30 minutes earlier than you need to. The big advantage here is reducing stress. There’s a huge difference between running out of the house in the nick of time while your hair is still wet and leisurely finishing your coffee while you watch the sun rise. That little buffer zone can help you center yourself, plan your day and start off feeling prepared instead of already one step behind.
Find your favorite smell, then fill a room with it. According to a study in the Journal of Social Psychology, ambient smells can have a pretty big effect on our behavior. In one instance, researchers saw altruism increase by 77 percent when the smell of freshly baked food was wafting around. We’re not saying you need to turn your home into a bakery (although you can recreate that smell by baking vanilla in the oven, just saying), but play around with different smells. Peppermint is known to help boost moods, and both lavender and coffee beans can reduce stress levels. Try them out!
Do random favors for your housemates. A study by University of British Colombia scientists showed that people feel better when they spend money on someone else instead of themselves. But the good news is you don’t have to shell out cash do someone a favor! Whether it’s a nice note to your significant other or fixing up your kid’s favorite toy, a random act of kindness around the house will go a long way. If you live alone, do something for your friend or neighbor!
Other tips:
The common perception around this time of year is that people travel via planes, trains and automobiles to be with their families for the holidays. But the reality is that most Americans live much closer to their parents, according to this New York Times article from Quoctrung Bui and Claire Cain Miller
Families traveling from far-flung places, returning home for the holidays. That image of an American Christmas fits the perception of Americans as rootless, constantly on the move to seek opportunity even if it means leaving family behind.
Yet that picture masks a key fact about the geography of family in the United States: The typical adult lives only 18 miles from his or her mother, according to an Upshot analysis of data from a comprehensive survey of older Americans. Over the last few decades, Americans have become less mobile, and most adults – especially those with less education or lower incomes — do not venture far from their hometowns.
The data reveal a country of close-knit families, with members of multiple generations leaning on one another for financial and practical support. The trend will continue, social scientists say, as baby boomers need more care in old age, and the growing number of two-income families seek help with child care.
The United States offers less government help for caregiving than many other rich countries. Instead, extended families are providing it, whether they never moved apart, or moved back closer when the need arose.
Over all, the median distance Americans live from their mother is 18 miles, and only 20 percent live more than a couple hours’ drive from their parents. (Researchers often study the distance from mothers because they are more likely to be caregivers and to live longer than men.)
To some extent, people’s proximity to their parents is a reflection of opportunity: The biggest determinants of how far people venture from home are education and income. Those with college and professional degrees are much more likely to live farther from their parents than those with a high school education, in part because they have more job opportunities in big cities, and especially if spouses are juggling the career aspirations of two professionals.
Wealthier people can afford to pay for services like child and elder care, while low-income families are more likely to rely on nearby relatives. It seems likely that the more education someone has, the farther from home they go, said Robert A. Pollak, an economist at Washington University’s Olin Business School in St. Louis, who studies the economics of family. Middle-class, educated two-income couples — say, a schoolteacher and a nurse — seem to be more likely to live near parents than those with higher-earning careers.
“It speaks to a class divide in the population,” Mr. Pollak said. “Particularly as you go further down the socioeconomic scale, people are living pretty close to their parents, and this means they’re able to provide help.”
Families live closest in the Northeast and the South, and farthest apart on the West Coast and in the Mountain States. Part of the reason is probably cultural — Western families have historically been the least rooted — but a large part is geographical: People live farther apart in rural areas.
Married people live farther from their parents than singles, and women are slightly likelier than men to leave their hometowns. Blacks are more likely to live near their parents than whites, while Latinos are no more likely to live near their parents, according to data from Janice Compton, an economist at the University of Manitoba, and Mr. Pollak.
In these family dynamics, a key change is the role of women, who have typically been the nation’s unpaid caregivers. Now that most women also have jobs, if the family doesn’t have extra income to pay for child care or elder care, the financial and time strain become intense.
“The culture of caring is not well rewarded in this country,” said Anne Tumlinson, a health care policy analyst and consultant who writes about elder care at Daughterhood.org. “You go from raising your kids and dealing with all the challenges of compromising your career that come along with that, and then all of a sudden you’re thrust back into a caregiving role.”
Economists, always eager to quantify things like love and kinship, see family caregiving dynamics during adulthood as a series of trade-offs and payments — of either time or money. Grandparents help care for grandchildren; their own children will help care for them later.
Career and income affect which type of payment families choose. The most-cited reason for living near home is the tug of family ties, while the most-cited reason for leaving is job opportunities, according to a Pew Research Center survey. It found that with the exception of college or military service, 37 percent of Americans had never lived outside their hometown, and 57 percent had never lived outside their home state.
Want to brush up on credit best practices and keep your credit card debt in check? This Bankrate article from Mitch Strohm offers helpful tips for managing your plastic in 2016.
Make the switch to EMV. Card issuers have been rolling out EMV (Europay, MasterCard and Visa) chip cards to comply with the deadline for new rules and standards on fraud liability that went into effect in October. These new cards contain a computer chip, making it more difficult for fraudsters to counterfeit. You’ll see merchants and financial institutions adding new in-store technology to comply. Overall, it means better protection against fraud. If you haven’t yet received your new chip card, call your issuer and ask when you’ll be receiving it. The longer you continue using the old magnetic strip, the more vulnerable you are to fraud.
Be vigilant about fraud. Even if you’ve already received your EMV chip card, it’s still important to be careful when using your credit card and to be especially proactive about fraud. Many retailers have made the shift to EMV readers after the liability for card fraud shifted to them in October 2015. But numerous self-service payment terminals are still a target of fraudsters. For example, self-service gas pumps aren’t required to have EMV card-reading devices until October 2016 for MasterCard and October 2017 for Visa. That leaves an opening for skimmers – devices that can steal your credit card data.
Freeze your credit. Placing a freeze on your credit makes things a lot more difficult for identity theft. Creditors typically want to see your credit report before extending credit. And if there’s a freeze on it, they won’t be able to see your file. Therefore, they won’t approve credit, according to the Federal Trade Commission. It won’t affect your credit standing at all. You can place a freeze by contacting each of the 3 major credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. You’ll need to provide your name, address, date of birth, Social Security number and other personal information. Expect to pay $5 to $10 per bureau, depending on where you live, the FTC says.
Pull your credit report and statements. Data breaches are on the rise. In 2014, nearly 20% of American households suffered a data breach, according to a report from the National Cyber Security Alliance and ESET, an antivirus and security software firm. That makes it very important to closely monitor your credit reports and statements for signs of fraud.
Get a family education on best practices. Credit card myths just won’t die. According to a recent Bankrate survey, 51% of Americans wrongfully believe that having accounts with high balances helps a credit score as long as those accounts are paid on time. That myth and others provide a great example of why it’s important that the entire family gets an education on responsible credit card use. It also pays to create a plan for when and where to use your credit cards. For instance, certain cards offer better perks at grocery and home improvement stores.
Start paying off your credit card debt. It’s one of the most effective ways to bump up your credit score. The “amounts owed” category contributes to 30% of your FICO score’s calculation, according to MyFico.com. Start by prioritizing your credit card payments, making larger payments on the card with the highest annual percentage rate. You also might want to consider opening a balance-transfer credit card, which allows you to move expensive debt over to a new card, with a low – often 0% – APR for a set time period. Just make sure to read the offer carefully.
When you have 37 people in your home all at the same time, it’s bound to happen: a drink gets tipped over, and your carpet gets a colorful new stain that resembles the state of West Virginia. During the holidays, these things just happen. But don’t worry! This article from Mother Nature Network provides helpful tips on how to clean your carpet from 8 of the most common spills.
An elegantly carpeted living room provides a warm atmosphere for entertaining your near and dear. Unfortunately, it also seems to provide the perfect target for spills and stains caused by holiday goodies. Here are our emergency carpet-cleaning hacks, using materials you’re likely to have right in your kitchen cupboard, to help you cope.
Treat any spillage as soon as possible before stains can set – and before the mess can get tracked all over your house. Use a blotting motion; never rub hard or you might damage the pile. Work from the edges of the stain toward its center to minimize spreading. Test your carpet in an inconspicuous place before applying water or other liquids.
Your readily available tools: a clean white cloth or a sponge, together with a moderate amount of lukewarm water. Very hot water is your enemy for this type of cleaning. Not only can it shrink wool carpeting, it’s capable of “cooking” protein-based stains (containing milk, egg or meat) until they are nearly impossible to remove.
Eggnog. Though eggnog tastes sweet and innocent, it packs quite a punch when you enjoy a mug or two. Same thing when it lands on your carpet. Clean eggnog up fast or it will produce an aroma that will put you off dairy products for life. Start by working in a small quantity of a mild dish detergent solution (1 teaspoon to 2 cups warm – remember: not hot! – water). Should a follow-up treatment be necessary, use white vinegar mixed 1:2 with water. If you still detect an unpleasant scent heading toward Valentine’s Day, try a pet-odor remover.
Red wine. Some folks swear by club soda as the antidote to red wine spills, while others claim that plain water is just as effective. Whichever camp you belong to, you’re doing your carpet a favor by rinsing it off as quickly as possible. Just beware of trying to use white wine on the residue, or you’ll end up with a truly vile sugar stain.
White wine. Being as it’s almost colorless, white wine won’t harm your beautiful carpeting, right? Wrong. It’s relatively high acid content can cause off-coloring of the carpet. Sprinkle lightly with alkaline baking soda to neutralize the acid. Let it dry, then brush off or vacuum up the powder.
Coffee. Coffee may be considered the perfect solution for how you feel the morning after the party the night before. The perfect solution for coffee spills on the broadloom is application of 1 teaspoon of dish detergent mixed with 2 cups of lukewarm water.
See the full article for tips on cleaning your carpet from other spills, including deep red cranberry sauce, gooey chocolate, sticky candy canes and greasy turkey gravy.
Mansion, The Wall Street Journal’s luxury real estate section, offers a compilation of its best “House Call” interviews of 2015, highlighting interviews with 10 famous personalities as they recall their favorite memories of home.
Every week in Mansion, writer Marc Myers speaks with one of the day’s noteworthy personalities – singers, actors, authors, athletes – about their early lives and current careers. What emerges are frank accounts that delve into the personal, the professional and the real estate (naturally). Here are our favorite House Calls from the past year.
Jimmy Carter: The former U.S. president recalls working the fields and what he learned from being a plowman. “Our house was from a model sold in the Sears, Roebuck catalog. You received everything you needed except the lumber, which was harvested from the trees on our land. Daddy had many talents and took pride in being self-sufficient.”
R. Crumb: The counterculture cartoonist looks back on his many homes. “We moved 20 miles north to Dover in 1959 and lived in three houses in three years. I had no friends and mostly hung out with [my brother] Charles. We had our little world of comics and literature and existential alienation.”
Dion DiMucci: The teen idol was set to make a fatal decision until he remembered arguments over the Bronx rent. “Our landlady, who lived downstairs, had a Pentron tape recorder that she loaned me. One day I sang into the microphone. When I heard my singing voice played back, I was blown away. I expected to sound like [Hank] Williams, but it was different, and I liked it.”
Gloria & Emilio Estefan: The two musicians met in Miami after escaping Cuba in the ’60s. “I left Cuba in 1967 when I was 14. I had been playing the accordion and my parents felt I deserved a better future. My mother, Carmen, didn’t want to leave, so my father, Emilio Sr., bought two plane tickets to Spain.” (Emilio Estefan)
Tony Shalhoub: The actor developed a keen eye for characters as one of 10 kids in a lively, crowded home. “My mom was funny and nutty. I suppose she had to be to survive raising 10 kids. To cope and keep a cap on things, she kept us buoyant and harmonious. She wouldn’t let us express anger, which later on landed me in therapy but also made it easier for me to play laid-back, measured roles.”
Oscar Robertson: The NBA’s ‘Player of the Century’ looks back on his family’s Indianapolis shack. “The house was a tar-paper shotgun shack built in the 1890s. There were two bedrooms. My older brothers, Henry and Bailey, and I slept in one, and my mother and father were in the other.”
For those of us who never want Christmas to end, this article from Jessica Leigh Hester of CityLab highlights some special towns across America that celebrate the spirit of the holiday 365 days a year.
Dusted with snow, Santa’s Candy Castle looks like a massive gingerbread house sprinkled with powdered sugar. The brick turrets are lined with red trim, like piped icing. The confectionary shop is one of many outposts in Santa Claus, Indiana, that dials up Christmas cheer all year long.
The town – originally Santa Fe, or maybe Santa Fee – changed its name in the 1850s after losing out on its bid for a post office. (Turns out, the name had already been claimed.) The Indy Star newspaper notes that the town eventually decided to go all in to capitalize on its new name. In 1935, it debuted a 40-ton Santa statue. Then, over the years, it rolled out the Lake Rudolph Campground, Christmas Lake Golf Course, and a restaurant named Frosty’s.
They got their post office, and it’s been working hard ever since. Many kids’ letters to Santa end up there. Locals clock in shifts as elves with sharp secretarial skills. Over the past century, the town has received nearly a million notes; around 250 of them have been compiled into a new book.
Across the U.S., other towns also have wintry monikers. Take Snowflake, Arizona, or Evergreen, Alabama, or Dasher, Georgia.
Some of these merrily-named towns are populated by people deeply (weirdly?) committed to spreading holiday cheer.
Some of the greatest lessons we can teach our kids are financial ones. You may be surprised how little our older teenagers and young adults know about managing their credit cards, or what credit scores mean. This MarketWatch article from Joanna Nesbit – reprinted by permission from NextAvenue.org – offers credit and debt tips for parents of college students and recent graduates.
If you’re the parent of a college student or recent grad, you’ll want to explain why establishing good credit is key for a postgrad future of utility bills, auto insurance and apartment rentals (as well as becoming financially independent) – and that wise use of a credit card can be a help.
“Credit cards provide peace of mind for emergency purchases and offer superior fraud protection to debit cards,” says Gerri Detweiler, director of consumer education for Credit.com, a free educational website. They can also jump-start essential conversations about money and debt management.
So pass along the following on three ways to start out with credit cards and tips for handling them without getting burned:
Becoming an authorized user
This can be an easy, low-risk way to build credit. You, the parent, add your child as an authorized user to your existing card account if your card allows (most do) and designate a separate, low credit limit for your son or daughter.
Your student benefits from your good credit score because the account’s usage information appears on both the primary and authorized user’s credit report. “This arrangement also promotes conversation about spending habits, because parents can easily monitor the card,” Detweiler says.
Students might qualify for their own card after six months of positive credit history, she adds, but if they’re under 21 they must be employed.
Getting a secured credit card
Typically, a secured card is available to anyone 18 or older and simply requires a small deposit of $500 or $1,000, which serves as the card’s spending limit. The deposit doesn’t pay the monthly bill – the user must make payments – but it secures the user’s credit and limits how much he or she can charge. When the account is closed, the deposit is returned.
“It’s like a credit card on training wheels,” says Laura Adams, a personal finance expert and host of the Money Girl Podcast. “It might be more beneficial than ‘authorized user status’ because it’s in the child’s name.”
Getting a regular card in his or her name
This offers a powerful way to build credit. If your child has conscientious spending habits and experience handling a debit card or managing an allowance, an individual credit card with a low limit of, say, $500, can be a good idea.
