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11 Tips to Make Your Home Landscaping Attractive and Successful

Your newly built home is not complete until you dress up the outside with the raiment of landscaping. The bare earth around the foundation and along the walkway and driveway calls out for flower beds and beautiful plantings of shrubs and trees. Here’s what you need to know.

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Designing the Best Walk-in Closet for Your Master Suite

Designing the best walk-in closet for your master suite is the perfect way to clear away all of your clutter behind closed doors. Whether you're creating separate his and her closets or working with one large space, we have the top tips for decorating and organizing the ultimate walk-in closet.

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House Plan Traffic Patterns: More Green Lights and Fewer Detours

A home's traffic pattern is a big part of the design process. One of the most important aspects when building your home is making an efficient home traffic pattern – the way you travel from room to room inside your home. The flow of traffic should be unobstructed and organized.

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ICF Construction: Why You Should Care about It for Your New House Plan

Energy efficiency and eco-friendliness should be at the forefront of every homeowner's mind. But despite the shift to LED lighting and efficient HVAC systems, many homes are still lagging behind when it comes to their walls and insulation. Insulated Concrete Form construction may be the answer for your next home!

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4 Steps to a Long-Lasting Exterior Paint Job

If exterior painting is on your summer to-do list, there’s plenty of incentive to do the job right: By following proper procedures, you’ll help ensure that your paint job will not only look more attractive but also last much longer, so you won’t have to re-paint anytime soon.

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Like the Look of Stucco? You Need EIFS

Some materials have obvious natural insulating and temperature-regulating properties and excel at battling the weather, like brick or stone, but they are also very costly. A form of modern stucco – called Exterior Insulating and Finishing System (EIFS) – withstands the elements, is energy efficient, and not surprisingly, is growing in popularity.

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11 Ways to Stylish and Bold Home Interiors with Concrete

With help from architects and manufacturers, concrete – the once plain and boring construction material – has emerged as a hot trend in home interiors. As designers and artisans explore ways to make it decorative, concrete should stay in the spotlight for a while. Here are some innovations that make concrete appealing.

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Braced Walls and the International Residential Code

Implementing proper wall bracing increases the structural quality of the home and makes it much safer to live in. Bracing that is installed according to building code guidelines protects against collapse during high winds or earthquakes as well as the stress on wall components from supporting the heavy roof.

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10 Steps to Getting Your House Back-to-School Ready

Perhaps that “Zen-like” state before a new school year begins is just a pipe dream. However, the way you organize home and kids can be the difference between chaos and order. So roll up those sleeves and check out these helpful ideas in getting your home back-to-school ready. Perhaps that “Zen-like” state before a new school year begins is just a pipe dream. However, the way you organize home and kids can be the difference between chaos and order. So roll up those sleeves and check out these helpful ideas in getting your home back-to-school ready.

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5 Most Popular Materials for the Roof Over Your Head

Many components go into a roof to make it a cohesive unit. All are crucial, but nothing gives it “personality” like the materials used on the surface. Asphalt, metal, tile, and the like provide not only aesthetics but the durability and longevity that serve as the roof’s true value.