You bought the house. Now you need to make it a home. There's much to be done before the last paintbrush is cleaned and curtains get hung just so. Inspirational ideas and advice are yours for the taking as you explore this section.

Sell Your Home With Strategically Placed Artwork

Photography, oils, watercolor, posters: your walls say so much about you, sometimes even too much. Read the Article

Does Your Entrance Say Welcome or Walk Away?

Putting extra effort into your home's reception area will leave a lasting impression on potential buyers Read the Article

Great Kitchens Sell Homes

To sell your home fast, showcase your kitchen as a clean, modern, inviting and immaculate environment. Read the Article

Basement Renovations

Is adding the extra space worth it? Read the Article

Careful Landscape Planning Yields Big Payoffs

Landscaping projects can be a big commitment of both time and money. But by carefully planning your landscape design, you can make it come in on time and on budget. Read the Article

Building a Welcome Mat for Your Home

Your driveway should say, come on in. With proper installation, seasonal and setting considerations and the proper care, it's a great way to enhance your home and its character. Read the Article

Building Green from Basement to Rooftop

Creating an environmentally friendly home is not a simple exercise. It requires research, planning, design and execution. The secret to success is being able to make informed decisions. Read the Article

Choosing the Right Glass for Your Home

Windows are for more than just looking through. Putting energy-efficient glass in your windows can lower your heating and cooling bills significantly. Read the Article

Few homes have more charm than the Medieval revival style of architecture affectionately known as the Tudor.

Defined by steeply pitched and gabled roofs, prominent chimneys, and decorative timber, the Tudor style is equally attractive in cottages or palatial estates.

Tudor revival homes are recreations of late medieval architecture popularized during the House of Tudor reign in England, which ended with Elizabeth I.  Large beams were erected and filled in with plaster, and the beams were exposed in a technique known as half-timbering.

One of the reasons the style is viewed so favorably is because the Tudor reign ushered in the beginning of political reformation and the Renaissance, a period of unequaled enlightenment. 

The early Renaissance includes some of the greatest scientific and cultural advances in history, including the Copernican Revolution that the sun is the center of the universe, the study of physics by Sir Isaac Newton, and the passionate art of Leonardo Da Vinci, Raphael and Michelangelo, among many others. 

Creating your own Tudor look

The Tudor style remains popular today, and dovetails nicely with the public’s appetite for organic building materials. The long wear of Tudor brick and stucco exteriors is complemented nicely by hard floors of oak, slate and stone, and decorative accoutrements of copper and iron.

Late Gothic and ecclesiastical influences are strongly present in the Tudor style, characterized by leaded and stained glass windows, arched doorways and tall cathedral ceilings, often embellished with exposed wood beams. 

For a fairytale look, many modern Tudor homes include decorative half-timbering, overlapping gables, oriel windows, cut-stone trim, herringbone patterned brick, turrets and round towers that call Sleeping Beauty and Rapunzel to mind.