What's Happening

The offer comes in at a price you can live with. Then you get to page two. The buyers are asking you to cover their closing costs. They would like you to pay for a rate buydown. And they are asking you to pay their agent's commission too. If you are the seller, your first reaction is probably some version of "wait, all of it?" If you are the buyer, you are probably wondering whether asking for all of it makes you look unreasonable, or whether not asking leaves money on the ta

Fall here is short and it rains, so you do not get to do everything. You get about six good weekends, two of which will be a washout, and then it is November and you are wondering where October went. So we stopped trying to do all of it. We have a handful of things we come back to, one we have only done twice and loved both times, and one my husband has been lobbying for that we are finally doing this year. Here is the list, what it costs, and what I have learned the hard way

Your parents' house has forty years in it and nobody handed you a plan. Where to start, what order to do it in, the three questions to take to a CPA, and where to find real help in Washington County.

You painted the whole main floor Agreeable Gray in 2019, back when every design account on the internet agreed that was the answer. New floors while you were at it. New light fixtures. The works. It looked great. It still looks great. And now you are scrolling past headlines telling you gray is over, wondering half seriously whether your house reads as decorated seven years ago. Fair question, and it comes up more than you would think. So let me walk through what changed, and