One of the first things a licensed Architect will do during his initial Due Diligence on a project is verify how vehicular access is obtained to your land.

Without property lines connected to roadways, or without access easements that connect to your land, you cannot legally get to your property without trespassing on someone elses land.  For someone to sell land to another person without such access, is reprehensible at least, and downright illegal at worst.  That is why some states require each party of a real estate transaction to be represented by a real estate attorney.  And if your State does not require this representation, hire an attorney anyway.  The minimal cost can save you heartache later.

There is one other professional that you might want to have on your team: your Architect.  Your Architect will be looking for obvious things like this: how to you get to your property.

The developer does not intend to build the 2 legally platted roadways to the Clients land, as the topography is too steep there.  So, he simply created a dirt road to the land over other peoples land, to whom he sold lots in a small neighborhood.  He never replatted the neighborhood to reflect the easier access dirt road.

This put the Architect on full alert.  How odd!  After further investigation, it was discovered that the developer never did what he should have done: have a Surveyor replat the neighborhood property lines OR indicate a new roadway access easement across some of the other lots to reflect what his real intentions were.  Now the Clients have a real situation on their hands.  They own land with no legal physical access in place.  They can try to coerce the developer to do the replatting or new easement recording, or sue him for misrepresenting the access he indicated in legal documents that he never provided.  What a problem!

Most lay people, happy to be buying land for their future dream house do not know much about such matters.  Why would they?  That is why there are other professionals available to assist them.  Most people probably think that involving such entities as Architects and Attorneys before they buy the land to be needless expenses.  Probably about now you may be thinking: Oh, no!  They ARE needed.  I dont want that to happen to me!

If the Architect had been onboard Before the land was purchased, as part of the Clients Due Diligence team, the Architect would likely have spotted this discrepancy up front.  Then the Clients would have had much more leverage with which to induce the Developer to perform his easement recording, holding their money as incentive to obtain his performance.  Dont let such an unfortunate set of circumstances happen to you!  Hire an Architect and pay them to help you understand your land BEFORE you buy it.

Architect: 1-828-269-9046  

If you’ve checked in on the blog over the past couple of months and noticed the lack of updates you’ve probably been wondering whether I’m still alive and breathing! Well, I can asure you I am and I’m currently recuperating from one of the busiest Fall seasons I’ve had in a while, hence the radio silence. Besides working full-time and executing my biggest project of the year which just wrapped up the first week in December, I was traveling quite a bit, had some family obligations to tend to and also just took the opportunity to enjoy some much needed “me” time. When I wasn’t swamped with work or travel, I used my free time to catch up with friends, catch up on sleep and also committed myself to working out 3-4 times a week which has done wonders for my sanity. I’ve also been wo

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Summer break is a golden opportunity for kids to engage in quite a variety of activities. They and their families can take vacations to beaches, go on road trips, or enjoy amusement or theme parks together. Or they can just sit around and do nothing.

Some — more adventurous — kids choose to spend a week or more at a sleepaway camp. Typical camp activities include everything from swimming, canoeing, and horseback riding to campouts, arts and crafts, and fishing.

But there was a summer camp of a different sort which took place during the last week of June in Kentucky: Camp Habitat.

This summer was the second year of the Camp Habitat program, and it brought in 60 middle and high school kids from across the county.

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Sachiko has a soft spot for fabrics, so when she goes through her and her husband’s closet, she keeps an eye out for such. In this case, it was an old t-shirt that belonged to her husband that he hadn’t worn in years. Still in good condition, Sachiko decided to disassemble it and turn it into something else, namely, a gorgeous ruffled pillow. For the entire tutorial, visit Tea Rose Home. 

Tutorial/T-shirt Pillow (just because I found an old t-shirt) [via Fine Craft Guild]

City: Melbourne, Australia Architects: ITN Architects Photos: Mathew Moore, Michael Downes, Nigel Grigg

Just because the sky is gloomy and grey, it doesn’t mean your garden can’t be a vibrant space that brightens your day.  There are many wonderful native plants that can be used to create a stunning winter wonderland against a backdrop of fresh snow.  The following plants will add great winter interest in color, texture and structure for your garden:

Keep in mind that you may find cultivars of some of these plants that offer different sizes, or other characteristics, than the ones listed below that perfectly suit your site.

Cornus sericea, Red Osier Dogwood.  This deciduous plant offers four seasons of interest with bright red bark in winter, clusters of creamy white flowers in spring, tiny white berries (a songbird favorite) amongst a thicket of greenery in summer and purplish leaves in autumn.  Height 6-12′.  Grows in wet soils and is great for riparian areas.  Stems can be used to make a nice red dye.  Hardy to zone 3. Read more…

At Vastu, we dont like being limited in our choices. Its why we strive to find manufacturers and products that give you a wide range of personalization options. An option we get asked about often is leather.

Whether youre creating a custom sofa or headboard or specifying a lounge chair, we carry and represent some of the best and highest quality leathers in the industry. Leather is one of those durable upholstery options that only gets better with timeif its done right.

For our custom upholstered pieces from Steven Anthony we provide you with several different leather styles with varying textures and colorways.

Ordering products from Knoll opens up the collection of Spinneybeck leathers which contains hundreds of different options from sealed leathers to sueded varieties. S

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