Rochester Area Real Estate Blog

 

July 26, 2023

Best Chicken Wings in Rochester, NY

Buffalo wings, a delightful combination of fried goodness and zesty sauce, originated in Buffalo, New York, in 1964. Teressa Bellissimo, co-owner of the Anchor Bar, introduced this now-beloved dish, making it an instant hit.

The popularity of hot wings soared when wing prices dropped in the 1980s. Restaurants and bars capitalized on this trend, offering chicken wings as a perfect accompaniment to cold beer.

Today, this spicy delight has become a national favorite, enjoyed in neighborhoods across the country. From Buffalo's culinary ingenuity to the warm vibes of Rochester, NY, embrace the flavors and spirit of upstate New York, where tradition and community blend seamlessly to create an unforgettable dining experience. Enjoy the journey from Buffalo origins to Rochester NY as you indulge in the mouthwatering deliciousness of these delectable wings!

Best Chicken Wings in Monroe County According to NORCHAR

Silver Iguana- Favorite of Michael Fallen

Barbill - Favorite of Jillian Kehrer

Dragonfly Tavern - Favorite of Manny Strickland

Tryon City Tavern - Lifeblood of Brandon Weeks

Windjammers Bar and Grill - Favorite of Emily Zeh

Tin Cup Social - Favorite of Molly Opp

Romig's Tavern - Favorite of Craig Schneider

Whiskey River - Favorite of Ann Schneider

 

 

June 1, 2023

Nine Stranger Things to Check for While Buying a House


So, you're on the hunt for a new home, huh? Well, get ready to step into the Upside Down of house hunting, where your checklist of "must-haves" takes a backseat to the weirdest little details. Sure, you'll consider the usual suspects like location, size, and price, but there's a whole other dimension of quirks to explore.

When you enter an open house, it's like stepping into the mysterious world of the Demogorgon. You might feel a bit uncomfortable testing toilets and measuring rooms. But fear not! Your trusty real estate agent is like a Hawkins Lab scientist, always ready to guide you and set up secret showings so you can investigate every nook and cranny without any interference.

These showings are your chance to determine if this house is "the one," a place where you can confidently take the next step without any buyer's remorse lurking in the shadows. Your agent's got your back, making sure you don't end up trapped in the Upside Down of bad decisions.

Now, let's embark on a journey through these 9 eerie details you absolutely must investigate:

  1. It's all about the power, baby. Count the number and location of outlets like you're deciphering a secret code. You need to charge your devices, set up your gadgets, and conquer the world. And if you're dreaming of baking like Eleven on a colossal kitchen island, make sure there's a plug to power your prized mixer. Pro tip: Go for those safer, three-prong outlets for compatibility with modern electronic experiments.

  2. Time to unleash your inner Nancy Wheeler. Flush toilets, check shower pressure, and time how fast the hot water arrives. Explore every bathroom, every sink, and even peek under the sink. Smell the water, take a sip if you dare. Water is the lifeblood of our existence, so test it thoroughly and unravel its secrets.

  3. Uncover the hidden darkness beneath your feet. Roll back the rugs and peel away the layers to reveal any damage lurking beneath. Don't let hidden stains or dings catch you off guard. By discovering these mysteries before you seal the deal, you can negotiate repairs and save yourself from a paranormal surprise later on.

  4. Can you hear the strange whispers? Wander through every room like you're on a psychic mission. Keep your cell signal strong, my friend. Grab your partner or real estate agent and go on a call, exploring every inch of the house, inside and out. Beware the dead zones that could leave you isolated and cut off from the world. We're not about standing on chairs to make a simple phone call here.

  5. Where will your secrets hide? Remember, you're not just moving into a house; you're stepping into an alternate dimension of life. Don't overlook the absence of a hall closet, unless you want your winter layers, shoes, and paranormal gear to haunt your dining room table. Trust me, you don't want that kind of upside-down chaos. Keep your secrets hidden away.

  6. Count the steps, my friend. Measure the distance from your car to the kitchen. This is the path you'll tread with bags of groceries and monster-killing supplies. Will you encounter treacherous stairs, rain, or snow along the way? Think about wrangling kids and hauling groceries, ensuring your journey is as smooth as a demogorgon-free Hawkins night. And don't forget the steps for taking out the garbage or letting your loyal pup out to roam the yard.

  7. Prepare for the ultimate challenge—moving day! Whether you're facing it alone or enlisting a team of demogorgon-taming movers, an oversized or double front door can be a lifesaver. Venture beyond the door

Posted in Home Buyers
June 15, 2022

Explore the Great Outdoors!

  As Summer heats up and the kids are out of school, we turn to ideas for entertainment. What can you do that will not cost a ton of money and keep everyone entertained? Why not try "Camping at Home"?

This is the perfect time to put down our phones (exception -> photos) and spend quality time together playing games. I promise you that this is the stuff that kids will remember. I used to buy a few outdoors toys in the Spring and hold off giving them to my kids until a hot day and I heard the ubiquitous phrase, "I'm bored". Here you go, let's set up this ladder toss game and have some fun. I would dangle the carrot of flashlight tag for evening. My kids loved it and I'm going to brag for a minute, it ensured minimal fighting amongst the sisters that day! If we had a particular glum day or a full moon, well, ghost stories were gleefully anticipated!

But now everyone was hungry. No problem, if you've got a boujie backyard, you might have a designated fire pit. Today it's actually quite easy to pull out a portable fire pit too. I found one for under $100 at a big box store. We would buy a bundle a firewood, get it going and roast a few hotdogs on sticks. Equally dangerous and fun, throwing a long armed JiffyPop over the fire. It's hot and dangerous work, but our family has so many funny memories of dad yelping over the fire between the flames shaking a tin of popcorn in which only less than half would actually pop! Boy, was it memorable! Ah, good times!

For the folks who are committed and you need to prove something, camp with your kids in the backyard. Buy the tent, tarp, and sleeping bags and endure the wild of suburbia in your own backyard. As your family grows, it does not make it mandatory for adults to sleep in the tent. Maybe the kids want to take on the dangers of sleeping alone! Have at it!

Most of all, make it fun! Backyard fun makes memories your kids will hold forever!

Nov. 16, 2021

Let's Talk about Wintering your Home

The winters in Rochester, NY will put any home to the test.  Winters are cold and snowy which in turn can wreak havoc on your home if you are not prepared.  If you are new to living in cold weather or a new homeowner, figuring out how to winterize your home is a key component of basic maintenance and preventing major damage.

One of the most common problems you might experience if you skip out on winterizing your home is burst pipes.  Especially those pipes that might be exposed in your basement or attic, not just the interior wall pipes.

When water freezes in pipes, it naturally expands in volume, preventing unfrozen water from passing through and dramatically increases pressure.  Once the ice thaws, this built up pressure causes water to rush through, leading the pipe bursting.

And this is just one of many problems you can run into. Gutter failure due to ice dams, foundation damage, roof leaks, cracked and peeling caulking, and HVAC failures can occur if you don't winterize your home in Western New York.  These types of issues can be far more expensive to repair than to do the preparation work to prevent them.

Below is our Comprehensive Checklist that will troubleshoot the areas of your home you must look into winterizing in Rochester, NY.  By following along, it's likely you will discover some areas you may have overlooked in your rush to make room for those snow shovels and sleds!

Your Home's Exterior 

  • Clear gutters and downspouts
  • Hire a roofing pro to check for loose/missing shingles or flashing and fix any damage
  • Have a lawn expert blow out sprinkler lines and shut off system for winter
  • Disconnect all hoses from exterior faucets and attach an insulated hose bib cover
  • Trim weak or dead branches that could break and fall on your house, fence, or car
  • Cover up or store outdoor furniture/grills 
  • Apply a fresh coat of sealer to any decking to prevent damage from snow buildup 
  • To prevent fires or any hazards, have your chimney cleaned, inspected, and repaired
  • Get those snow shovels/salt/sand readily accessible 

Your Home's Interior

  • Have an HVAC pro check the furnace
  • Replace your furnace filter and continue doing so every 4-6 weeks throughout the winter
  • Seal drafts around doors and windows
  • Check all smoke detectors/carbon dioxide detectors and replace batteries if necessary
  • Move furniture and other items away from heating vents ensure efficient airflow
  • Set ceiling fans to turn clockwise to push hot air from the ceiling down to the floor
  • Install a Smart or programmable thermostat to control temps when you're not home

If you need help finding an HVAC professional or another service, please reach out to your NORCHAR Realtor or our Operations Manager, Molly Opp.

Nov. 3, 2021

1353 Lake Rd., Hamlin, NY 14464 - VIDEO

Erin Rossi (00:00):

Welcome to Hamlin, New York, a waterfront community that celebrates both history and agricultural alike. Established in 1852, it was originally known as Town of the Union, but was later changed to Hamlin after Abraham Lincoln's Vice President, Hannibal Hamlin.

 

Erin Rossi (00:17):

Hamlin also serves as an agricultural community thanks to its mild climate due to its proximity to Lake Ontario. It also is the home of Hamlin Beach State Park, which serves as a space to enjoy the beauty of Lake Ontario as well as its sandy beaches and now is your chance to experience the peace, tranquility and beauty, that Hamlin has to offer here at 1353 Lake Road.

 

 

Erin Rossi (01:05):

This charming five bedroom, two and a half bath farmhouse, creates a beautiful and warm ambiance with endless possibilities. The main living spaces maintain traditional colonial elegance, while including more modern designs from the beautiful kitchen, to the completely remodeled first floor master suite. Don't forget to kick off your shoes and enjoy the radiant floor heat, perfect for those chill winter nights.

 

Erin Rossi (01:31):

This property sits on over three acres, featuring apple and pear trees, an above-ground pool with Trex decking and a patio. As a bonus, this property is equipped with solar panels, turning light into electricity, in order to keep your utility costs low.

 

Erin Rossi (02:03):

If you dream of comfortable living, then your country oasis awaits you right here in the heart of Hamlin. The true beauty and opportunity must be seen to be appreciated.

 

Erin Rossi (02:13):

My name is Erin Rossi from the Rossi and Rossi Home Team at NORCHAR Real Estate and I look forward to you joining me here at 1353 Lake Road, where you can leave your worries, and your shoes, at the door.

Jan. 28, 2021

How to Paint Like a Pro - Interior Walls

Today, we're going to talk about painting. It's one of the best things that you can do to your home, to make it actually worth more money. And everybody gets in their new home and obviously wants to paint. Step one, is actually prep. You want to make sure that you do a lot of great things, to make sure that the stuff under the paint looks really good too. Number one thing is to fill nail holes. We're probably going to have some nail holes from the last person that lived there.



The one tip that I'll give you on that, is you want to make sure that when you fill a nail hole, and unfortunately I don't have one here, I could put one in, but I think you guys will get it. The one thing you want to do, is you want to make sure that the actual... Anything from the nail hole is actually indented.

So a little trick that I like to use is just the backside of a screwdriver. It's kind of rounded always. If you just take it, and then you just push and rotate that little dent into the wall. I'll put a little dent here, why not? You can see now there's a little dent there. Imagine a little nail hole in the middle of that.

So then what we want to do, is we want to get some products. So obviously you should have a screwdriver at your house. The other thing is you should invest in, in your home ownership, would be in some type of trowel that looks like this. I like an angled trowel. Make sure it's got a little bit of flex in it, as you can see. It's easy to flex. And then a trowel, I would encourage you to get a 12 inch or an 8 inch trowel like this.

You'll find that in the drywall section, both of these tools. Don't get plastic, they don't last well. I've had these for probably 15, 20 years. And if you can take care of them, they'll last forever. And I'll give you some tips on that as well.

Just these two pieces. I would encourage you to get some type of drywall tape either the mesh, which I would probably encourage for most projects, or just regular tape. This is not sticky tape, this is just paper tape. We use it to cover up cracks and big patch jobs. This is a mesh tape, same thing. It causes the cracks not to extend. There is a little bit of a stickiness on this, so this is more like a true tape.

And what you do is, I can't find the beginning, you guys get it, you just roll it out, put it over the crack and then go over this, so that the crack doesn't come right back through the drywall. I would encourage getting a couple of sanding sponges. These are really good. I tend to like getting these ones nowadays. They also make them in packets about half the size of this one.

The bigger one just seems to do better, and I'll show you why here when we get to that step in the process. So a couple of sanding sponges and then some plaster. Now the way this looks when you open it, there's going to be a tear tab that you have to pull off first just so you know, so make sure you pull that off before you...

I probably bought this a year ago, maybe a little bit longer. One tip I will tell you, is when you are storing, you should always make sure that it's nice and smoothed off at the top, so that you have a nice storage like that. Another tip would be to put some wax paper over it. This can get moldy. And if it does get moldy, throw it away, do not try to use it if it's already been moldy. Just throw it away and get some new stuff.

You also got to be very careful, you do not want this to freeze. So if you are storing it over the winter months, or you are using it over the winter months, make sure that it's in your home at least 40 to 50 degrees. In the garage it freezes, it will be no good and you'll want to get rid of that.

Once again, so grab a little bit from your bucket. You're going to go ahead and put it on your larger piece here and then that little nail hole we were talking about, we're just going to take... As you can see, a little bit like that, centered like that and we're just going to kind of run it right across. And I might run it diagonally as well. Now I like to leave a little extra so that when I sand it, it's perfectly straight. So I'm just going to go over it again and you can see there's air holes.

Well, the way get rid of the air holes, is you can go a few times across or you can use your Spackle knife like Bob Ross used to do with his paintings. And then we're going to go ahead and once again pull it across. And it doesn't have to be perfect. If you don't get it the first time, you might have to come back and do a second coat, but in most cases it's going to be fine. You don't want to over overdo it, but you want to have enough on there to take care of the issue.

The other thing you're probably going to have to do is fill nail holes maybe in trim or maybe an area where, especially if you get a new trim installed, you can see here we just fit some new trim around this window. All I would suggest with that, is that you go ahead and just take a little bit on your finger, like that, and go ahead and fill the nail hole. And what I tend to do, is I'll put it on and twist my finger away.

It leaves a lot more mud. It is going to shrink, so we do want to overfill it. So once again, if I was going to be putting it on there, I would have... Take a little dab with my finger, push it down, twist my finger and leave the rest behind and then just let that dry. So that is plaster. We're going to let it dry. Once it's dried we're going to show you how to go ahead and sand that.

So we talked about the bigger sponge. Now I'm a big fan of this bigger sponge because it gives you more coverage and more space to cover and then the smallest one is what you find a lot of people use. This gives you a little more finger control because of the angle of this. But let's say I'm sanding this. Now we're here, I'm just going to go ahead and you can see because of this drywall Spackle, it sands pretty quickly and easily.

And once there's actually paint on there, that thing will be as hard as the rest of the trim. So we're just going to go slightly over it and that's it. So you can how quickly I've already sanded three of these off. So in a couple of minutes, I can be through this whole piece. We're going to come back and talk about caulking. But one last thing I do want to talk about is when you've got that crack that you've filled and now you're ready to come back and sand it.

Here's a giant tip for you. You're going to love this tip. One second, I'm just going to go grab a flashlight. Right guys, I always encourage you to use a flashlight when you're doing drywall sanding on flat surfaces. It's going to show all of the imperfections and help you get a perfect finish.

So here, if you look over here, you're going to see that there's... If we were to paint over this right now, you would see all of these imperfections. You'd see this line here, you'd see even these little stripes here and you'd even see this line here. So it would give you a pretty poor job. So our goal is, is to leave our flashlight here across the surface then we see all those imperfections and then lightly come in and you want to go in a turning method and you want to start off by just getting the big ridges off.

So I'm going to get those big ridges off of there first, not pushing that hard. I'm pushing very lightly and letting the tool do the work. And you can see that ridge is completely gone. So now I have no ridge and what I'm going to do is I'm now just going to fan in the outside. So I don't care about getting the inside anymore because it's nice and smooth already. Because if you don't try to go even, you're going to get to that tape and you're going to have to come back and put another coat on. So our goal is to just come around the edge and get rid of that. Make that almost invisible. So we're going to go around the outside, almost like a circle.

And we're going to do that same circle motion there. And as you can see, now there're no places where it sticks up, it's completely flat. And the only reason you can see where that patch is at all right now, is because it's a little different color. Okay. So here's one more tip when you're actually doing repair jobs on your wall, especially when you're going over taping, you need to get a little bit thicker coat over that tape so that the mesh doesn't come through when you sand it. So what I typically do, is I'll put my first coat on a little thicker.

I don't worry about this big ridge here because I'm going to come back in and fan some additional mud into that crack. So this is nice and dry. The first thing you're going to do is you're going to actually take your knife, or the bigger knife, even before you get the Spackle. And you're going to go to this lightly over it. You'll see that it will go ahead and almost in a way of sanding it, take off the big ridges for you.

So you want to get those off so that when you're coming over with your second coat, it doesn't have that big ridge effect that you're worrying about. So once again, just light sand, you don't want to push too hard and create new scrapes. And then you're going to go ahead and get a little bit of mud from the bucket again. And then we're going to take that mud and we're going to go ahead and fill in the second area here. So you can see, I'm not going up all the way to the top anymore, I'm just trying to fill in the space from where that coat was in the second coat.

And then what I'm going to do is I'm going to take the excess off of my big knife and leave it on my little knife. And I'm just going to come across... I'm just going to do it this way and smooth it up. And you can see, I got that little excess on there and that's pretty good. Don't go back. If it looks pretty good, leave it, don't try to make it perfect. You're going to make it perfect with the sandpaper. So you'll find that you don't want to keep on going back.

I'm going to do the same thing up there. I'm just going to take a little bit more of this off of my knife. Go there. And the goal here with this step is to just make sure that you're getting a little excess mud everywhere you want the mud. And then once again, we'll leave that on here and then I'm just going to come across with my bigger knife. And smooth it off.

Now we've got this excess mud on our knife. This might have some imperfections in it, so don't go worrying. This is so cheap this drywall mud. Throw this away. Wash your knives off immediately after with just warm water and dry them real good so they don't rust. And these things will last you a hundred years.

We're going to talk about caulking next and then we're going to get into the pump bottle, which is actually a pain. All right. So actually we're on another step of the prep. Really important step that makes everything look really good. And that is caulking. So I'm going to give you some tips on caulking. The first thing I would do, is there is something called painters caulk. Typically, comes in a green kind of caulk too or it would be white with green.

This, I always find is the best. Go one step up. This is for paint projects. The difference between this and other is it has a little bit of silicone in it so it does flex a little bit so well. So as your house is drying out or moving a little bit, it's going to stay without cracking. If you've never used a caulk gun, you should buy the regular size caulk tubes and then buy a regular size caulk gun.

There's a few different versions of these. But what I'll tell you, is don't use the auto cut-off feature. That is not what we want to do here. I'm going to show you why. You just basically push your thumb on to release and pull that all the way back. And then the caulk gun goes in with the bottom part first and then you tape it up then it stays in there.

Now this type of caulk doesn't have a seal at the bottom because that's what this little guy is for. So if you're buying a true a hundred percent silicone caulk or you're buying a construction adhesive, in that case you could even use a little cutout machine and then go ahead and use this to puncture that seal at the bottom. In this case, once again this is a painters caulk, you do not need to do that. Do not do that. If you've already done it, I'm sorry, you're probably going to have to throw that tube of caulk away and start from scratch and I'll show you why.

So we want to cut off the smallest amount that we can, I would say about that much, which is about a quarter or I'm sorry about an eighth of an inch which would be about the width of a nickel. So we're just going to go ahead and if you want to zoom in here? We're just going to cut that little tip off and you'll know you did it if you can see a little tiny circle there, which you can see is almost there. It looks like there's just a little tiny bit of plastic still covering it so you can see right there... That was caulk actually.

So no plastic. Make sure you have a box blade. Cut the very, very tip off. The smaller, the better, because then you can go and put extra layers in. And then what we're going to do is we're going to actually come in and caulk in anywhere where there's a seam or where there's a crack. So the way I encourage you to do this is, less is more in this situation. Because you can always come back and put a little bit more to take away, then it's going to get sloppy. So I'm just going to wait until I get... You can see got a little tiny... Tiny bit there.

We're just going to bring it all the way. And I usually stop a little bit from the bottom and the reason is you're going to have some excess, so you might as well just use it in and then you can fill in the rest. So then you just take your index finger, put it into the corner, push and slide with an even pressure. And you don't want to push too hard. You just want to keep it... You'll feel the difference in the bottom. And then you can come up again and do the same thing the other way.

Now the first few times you do this, you're going to get a lot of caulk on your fingers. So make sure you have an old rag. If it's a little damp, it comes off even better. I usually in between a few times, I'll go and just wash my fingers off in the sink. It is a water based clean up, so you just wash your fingers. Here we got a little that didn't come all the way down and you come into the bottom and just bring a little bit more. You can always add more, like I said... Come up. And when you're coming from both sides, that's where doing a full all the way from top to bottom is going to help you out.

So that's how you caulk and then we're going to do the same thing with the baseboards. One tip though is make sure everything is super clean. Make sure that you've done a good job vacuuming up all the dust from when you were doing the drywall, because that's all going to sit on the top of your baseboards or on your other pieces of trim. And then when you put the caulk in there, it's not going to stick properly.

So make sure you clean it off real good, usually a little brush, a shot vac, get it super clean so that when you do it with this, it will stick well. Hopefully this was helpful. This is to get to those corners all looking really good, fill all the gaps and then the next thing we're going to do is actually the paint. Okay? So now we're going to talk about actually painting, which is the thing you've been waiting the whole time for.

We want to make sure that all of this stuff is sanded. All of our seams have been caulked and everything has been... All the nail holes have been filled. Everything's been done and vacuumed and sweep with the brush, including on top of the headers of the doors and stuff because that's where dust just hides out. So we've got a nice clean surface to work off of. Now we're there. So let's talk about paint.

So the first thing we're going to talk about is we're going to actually cut in the ceiling and the trim first. So you want to get all your trim and all of your ceiling done first. And the reason for that is you can be a little sloppy because we're going to cut in with our final color for the walls. So we'll do that last. So when it comes to ceiling paint, you typically want to go with flat.

I go with flat almost all the time. The flat is going to be the luster of the paint. So it goes from flat, to an egg shell, to satin, to a semi-gloss, to a gloss paint. Now, as you work your way up the pallet there, the flat is going to hide as many imperfections as possible whereas the gloss is going to show everything. It's going to be like your auto-car finished. So any type of little defect in the wall or any type of blemish in the wall is going to be highlighted with a gloss finish. So usually trims are going to be a satin to a gloss. And usually the walls are going to be from flat to an egg shell, maybe satin in certain cases. Some people, in their bathrooms and their kitchens, they want a little bit more durability so they'll go up to maybe a satin finish or an eggshell finish.

That's what we're going to do here today is we're going to do a new type of product that acts like an eggshell but is truly a flat. It's a little more expensive but we'll talk more about that in a second. So most people paint their ceilings white. That seems to be the normal in our industry. Sometimes people will do it crazy with colors and stuff. For resale value, not a great idea. However, if it's something you love then go for it obviously.

So when we talk about ceiling paint, once again, white in a flat is going to be your best option. I just use this paint from Home Depot. It's a Behr paint. As you can see, the red means it's a flat paint and I use this ultra pure white on pretty much everything because it's just really sharp and clean and looks great. So this is a thing I suggest, but it's up to you. You can buy it from any of your suppliers or whatnot. I bought this giant canister years and years ago, I've been using it for the last couple of years. It's great, it comes highly recommended.

Also, Behr paints are heavily pigmented, so they usually go on a little bit better. So great product that as well. On the trim, I'm going to use this. I use this on all my trim. I really love it. Once again, interior satin enamel. So we're in a satin paint, so it's not going to be super shiny, but it's going to be able to take some beatings. So great looking paint, once again an ultra pure white. So a green can, you can buy it pre-mixed just like this, just have them shake it before you take it with you so that if it has been sitting on the shelf for a couple months.

Buy good paint brushes and take care of them. There's two brands that I highly recommend. One would be this brand here, which is Wooster, W-O-O-S-T-E-R or Purdy. The Purdy is P-U-R-D-Y. And you can see them here, the same thing in rollers. Wooster and Purdy. And if you buy a really high quality brush, you'll be able to cut the edges in really, really good. If you buy a cheap brush, you're just not going to be able to do that and it's going to look like garbage and people are going to tell you, you should be using the painter's tape and all that other stuff. You don't want to do that for a ton of reasons which I'm going to explain in a minute here.

So paint brushes are really important. I would suggest an angle brush is what I like. As you can see, it goes at an angle and this is the size that I've always had the most success with. It is two and a half inches wide. The wider the brush, the better you have to be. It's. This seems to hold the right amount of paint for me. I have a modified one too, where I cut the handle off. So if I got to get into tight places, I use that. But this brush is the go-to best brush you can buy. If you feel like you're not going to be really good, buy something a little smaller, this is a two-inch. The smaller, the easier it's going to be to learn with. When it comes to rollers, for most interior painting, you're going to use somewhere between a three eighths inch nap and a half inch nap.

They're going to create more texture the bigger the nap you get. So I always encourage, this is probably the go-to standard, a three eighths inch nap roller. Now let me show you a little tip I've learned from years and years of painting here. So we're going to open up this roller and as you can see I've got it here. I'm going to take some of this blue painters tape. So everybody's like, well why you got the blue painters tape if you don't believe in it? It's great for this. I highly recommend before you start painting you go ahead and just go ahead and tape the roller, just like this.

And what I do is I just roll it on here, really good like that. And then I just go ahead and I peel the tape off. And what that does is it gets all that fuzz off so it doesn't end up in your paint. So really great little tip, and you can see all that fuzziness on there. That is all not going to end up in your paint now. So now the next thing we've got to talk about is your roller. I encourage just going with a cheap, regular, run of the mill. You can buy them in a pack or whatever. It comes with a paint tray and everything else. Roller. And it's nice to have one of these extension rods as well. So you can use a regular painter or a regular broomstick, but this one expands out so you can screw that right onto the bottom of your roller when you're doing higher spots.

And this just gives you a little bit more control of your roller. So it's a great tool to have. Now, if you don't want to buy one of these, they're not that cheap. They're probably 30 bucks or something. You can usually find one of these rollers. I've had this probably for 15 years now. It's a great roller, it extends out like with a twist. You've got that. And then you can extend that one out too. So this is also a great one. Either these, if you take care of them, you can get a really long life out of them and use them for years and years and years. So what we're going to do is we're going to take the roller, slide it onto the roller sleeve like that. And you want to make sure that your roller doesn't have any gunk or stuff that could fall off into your tray.

Now they do have these things called tray liners. If you're interested in those they are great. They're pretty cheap. They're a dollar each I think. I'm not a big fan. I really don't care about cleaning out my metal tray. I highly recommend you buy a metal tray. They are easier to clean out. Just make sure you clean them out. This one has been used for probably five, 10 years and as you can see there's no paint in it or anything. And that's because after each use I do clean it and I get everything out of there. So highly recommend buying a metal tray.

So what we're going to do next is we're going to actually do some painting. I'm going to show you some really quick tips when we're doing the main painting and then we'll come back and show you how to do the cutting end. Okay. So when it comes to painting on your ceiling, we're going to take this big gallon instead of storing it what I'll do is I'll just shake it like this for maybe five minutes or maybe a minute to two minutes, I've already done that quite a bit so I don't need to do that anymore.

And then what we're going to do is we're just going to open up this easy pour spout. There we go. So you can see there's an easy pour spout there. I got some pain on my fingers, no big deal. It's a water-based paint. We'll wash our hands off here in a minute. And I'm going to go ahead and pour in probably about a couple of inches of paint there. I don't want so much paint where I'm not going to use it all. I typically don't like putting paint back into a paint can because once it's started drying out, you don't want to mix that old paint or half dried paint with fresh paint. So I'm going to put it off to the side a little bit.

One other tool that you definitely should invest in is a nice drop cloth. Once again, it'll last years and years and years. So when you load your brush, don't ever dip a brush into a can. Please do not do that. And whatever you do, don't go more than that deep into the paint. You have no reason to dip a brush beyond where my fingers are. Cause all that paint will get up in the top here and be very difficult to get out. So when you're loading your brush, if you want to come down here, we're just going to do just like that. And now we're going to offload some of that brush on one side only. Okay? And I'm going to leave the paint on the other. So you can see that and then if you want to take it off the edge, you can bring it out to the main tray.

See how that edge is dry. That edge is really wet. Now what we're going to do is we're going to come up and we're just going to... When we're doing this, we don't care if we get some on the wall because we're going to be painting the wall anyways. And we just want to put a nice even coat. We want to keep our brush loaded. So if you're going to be up a lot, one of these little cups is a great little investment as well. And then you can stay up there and not have to come up and down. This is a pretty small project. So I'm just going to jump up and down just so I don't have to clean this but if you were doing a larger project, I'd highly encourage going ahead and filling this up and using this as well.

I want to put on enough paint where it's on there thick, but I don't want it to drip obviously. There's kind of a balance there. You want it on there thick enough so you don't have to do a ton of coats. And my goal here is to get a little bit on the wall as well, so that I don't have any space where it's not covered in paint. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to cut in everything and then I'm going to come back and I'm going to roll.

Okay, so we're back. We're now going to do the rolling. As you can see, we got all the cutting in done. A couple of tips there as well is if you have to take a break or something, make sure you put your paintbrush in a zip tie bag. If you're going to be a little bit longer, like a couple hours, you might even take some cellophane wrap and go around the paintbrush and then put it in the bag.

If it's going to be overnight, I would encourage you to do that with the cellophane and then put it in the freezer actually. That will reduce the speed of the drying time as well. If it's going to be more than 24 hours, always wash your brush out. Don't try to leave it longer. If you do freeze the brush, obviously give yourself enough time for it to thaw. So pull it out a little bit about an hour before you start painting. We've got our roller that we did the little trick where we use the blue tape and put the blue tape on it and pulled all the fuzz off. So we got a clean roller here and we're going to get rolling.

So the way you do this is make sure you load your roller really nice. You're going to actually pull the paint towards and then just roll it down. Now you want a nice, consistent amount of paint on the roller, as you can see there. And it's first time I ever loaded this roller. And I encourage buying new rollers. I don't think it's worth cleaning them out. If you like to, there's a little tool that you can use to squeeze all the stuff out, but I've never really liked a roller after I've used it before. I never really liked how it works again.

So it's up to you. If you want to try to clean your rollers out, you're more than welcome to, but I highly encourage is buying new rollers. So now that I've got a nice amount of paint on the roller, the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to start rolling it out. So the trick to using a roller is to not put a lot of pressure on it and just let the paint come off of the roller.

So you're going to take your time, nice and slow. You want to keep a wet edge, but you want to keep an even coat. And once again, I don't want to put any pressure. I don't want to push the paint off of the roller. I want to let the paint just come off the roller. I want to just reload the roller again. So I'm going to come back here. I'm going to get paint on this roller again and don't be afraid to go over the area that you went and did the clean brush with. You want to get rid of some of those paint brush lines with the roller. And we're going to keep a nice flat edge. Now, there's a little bit of fuzz here. Go ahead and wipe that off with your finger and get that off of there because you're going to have a mark on your wall if you don't.

Once again, don't be afraid to get some paint on here. If you do it this way, you can usually paint most rooms in one or two coats. If you push the roller, you're going to have to put five or six coats on because you're not going to get the same amount of coverage. And you're going to paint it in a W motion and nice and light, I'm not pushing on the roller. I'm letting the roller just glide across the surface. And then when you're lifting off the wall, let it just kind of fade out. You're going to fade, just get away from it.

Don't stop and pull because you can see there's a line there now. So what I'm going to do is just come across and fade away. So those are my tips for rolling. Just keep on working your way across the room.

Okay guys, we're finally to the point where we're actually going to start painting the main wall color. What we've done here is we've got all the trim cut in. As you can see if you get close, you'll see that we have a lot of over paint from where we just went over. So, our trim around our windows you can see up here really good where I just went over. You don't have to worry about that when you're doing the trim first. Same thing with the ceiling. We've got the trim paint down the ceiling and the same thing on the baseboards. So now all the baseboards, window trims and the ceiling all have two coats of paint. So now we're on to our favorite part, which is the cutting in of the wall color. So this is the part that everybody always gets concerned with.

And as I shared with you earlier, and I'm going to share it again, the number one thing that is most important is the brush. You want to spend some money here. You know when I talk about painters tape, I would highly recommend that you do not use painters tape. It's a lot of extra prep work. Sometimes it'll peel off paint in places you don't want to peel off paint. The blue tape is the lesser of the two. The green tape is a better as you can see they call it Frogtape or whatever.

I will tell you, both of them will bleed. So if you want a perfect job and not a ton of extra work, just buy a good brush and just don't get these at all. So the next thing we talk about is actually picking a color. That's a really fun process. I want to give you some tips on that.

Number one, when you're picking colors for an area of your home, make sure you get the palette of all your other colors out in your house as well. You want it to feel that it's working with the whole flow of the home and not just it's on its own and every room you walk into is a different feel. So we're going to pull out our whole color palette for our house and pull those color chips together and pick a color that's going to work or work well with that.

Now, if you're painting everything over again, there's a couple of things. Number one, we can suggest a designer to come and help you pick out a full color palette for your whole home. I highly encourage that if you're going to pick out a new color for your home to pick out everything at the same time, so they can go through your whole home and say, here's what we're going to pick out.

So they usually start with one main color and then build off of that. Now sometimes you'll use the same color through the whole home and that's great too and then uses decorations to change the colors per season or for the room. But what I like to do is pick one main color and then build off of that. So our color that we had in our home was a color that is very, very popular. And that's called Edgecombe Gray. It's a Benjamin Moore color. It's this color here. Now, when we chose this bathroom color, we decided to go with this green, which is in my opinion is a money green.

We also have a few of these colors mixed into the pallette as well. So we're working off of this kind of little area of the color chart here. Now, if you do not want to go wrong with color, a great way to go is with the historic collection at Benjamin Moore. These colors are tried and true. They're going to be fairly safe, neutral colors. As long as you don't start mixing from one side of the pallet to the other, you should be very safe.

One other thing I suggest when picking color for your room is go ahead and get a larger swatch of one of these color palettes here and go ahead and put a couple of them on different walls with just some blue tape or something and look at how it changes through the day. So don't paint right away, get to enjoy the color and see if you really like it after the shadows and the light has changed across the room through the day.

Now we're going to do the fun part. We're going to cut in. And how we do that is number one, I showed you the tools, great Purdy brush, two and a half inch with an angle and a paint handle bucket that you can use while you're up on the ladder.

So the way you're going to do this is we're going to first load our brush. So we're going to dip the brush in. Once again, you don't want to dip very deep. You can see, I dipped in about probably a half an inch and we're going to clean off one side. It's going to be the side that's going to be against the angle. So in this case, I'm going to pull it towards me. And the brush is going to be clean on that side and be wet on that side. So once again, clean on this side, wet on this side. So then what I'm going to do is I'm going to come up into this corner.

And before I start painting, I'm going to dab it down below. So you can see I've created all that wet paint I've offloaded onto there. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to get a little bit on the edge. So I'm going to dip it in there. And then I'm going to go off to the side and I'm going to start pulling in towards the corner. And I'm just going to let the edge of the brush do that sharp line for me and I'm just going to bring it straight across. And if you don't get it perfect, if I was to go down like that and then back up, the cool thing is, is you can come back in and you can keep on adding more. If you take a little extra time here, your paint job's going to be perfect.

So once again, I'm going to offload a little bit below, as you can see, I'm going to come up to that corner and I'm going to push up into it and come straight across. Now, what I find that works well is I try to hold my pinky out a little bit. You want to hold the brush at about a 45 degrees so when you're pulling it across, you get that nice clean, clean angle like you see there. And then what you want to do after you get that nice tight cut like that, is you want to come and put the paint on, once again half an inch, pull it off the one side and then the side with the paint, come in and fill it in a little bit. Now don't go right up to the top, hold it back down half an inch and then you can fill up into it if you need to.

I just want it to be on there, nice and thick, so I don't have to put 40 coats of paint on here and that's it for that. And then what you're going to do is you're going to cut in all your corners the same way. So you're just going to come in here. What I like to do is I like to get just one side first and then I'll let that dry and then I'll come in and get the other side too so you're not fighting both sides of that. And that's cutting in. We'll come back to the final piece, which we'll be rolling after I get this all cut in. Hopefully you learned something?

Okay guys, we made it to the final step, which is rolling out the walls. We did the cut in. I cut in twice with the good brush. Once again, we're using that Purdy two and a half inch with the angled. As you can see really nice and sharp brush to cut in those edges, you can see how nicely everything looks, just took a little time to do it. And it works out really well.

So we are using, just so you guys know in this particular application, because it's a bathroom we're using the Benjamin Moore. We wanted a flat finish, but flat paint in a bathroom isn't ideal. So we're using this product, which does cost a little bit more, but in a small room like this, you're only going to need a gallon of paint anyways, so you can splurge a little bit and get a higher quality product. It's called A-U-R-A, Aura, bathroom spa matte finish. And this is a really cool paint. One thing you do need to know when using this paint though, is you have to make sure that your cut in is dry before you roll.

This product does not react well with a wet edge. It creates a weird, funky finish. So here we go. I got some paint poured into the tray here. I'll once again, as you guys know, I'm not a big fan of tray liners. This is the same tray I used earlier in the video and we're just going to load our roller. The way we do that is just keep on going, towards the paint, until we get to a certain point. And then we'll pull some of that off. My goal here is just keep on turning this until it rolls on its own. So now what I'm going to do is I'm just going to put it against a wall.

And once again, I'm going to let the roller do the work. I'm not going to push the roller hard. I'm just going to let it offload the paint right onto the wall. And if there are any boogers or anything, I'm going to once again, pull the booger with my finger and I'm just going to wipe it on a rag. And I'm just going to, once again, come into a couple coats here. As you can see, I'm not pushing that pain off and just letting it equally pull the paint off the roller. I'm going to load again. I want to make sure I got plenty of paint on the roller as I'm spreading it across the wall.

We want to get close to our cut in surfaces so that we get that nice texture from the roller but not so close where we have to come back and repaint the white obviously. If you do that nice and slow, you won't get marks or where it's going to be lighter and darker. So you're not going to have to do multiple coats. You can do this all in one coat. So help you guys learn a few great tips from us today. However, painting is not for everybody. And we understand that after watching our video, you might say that looks a little bit more complicated than I'd like to get involved in or that's just not for me.

If that's the case, please contact us. We want to be your person for anything house related. So call us and what we'll do is we'll hook you up with some great painters. We have some great resources to provide some of the best painters in Rochester. And once again, we try to find some affordable ones too, so we can keep it semi-affordable for you. So I hope you enjoyed these videos. I look forward to teaching some other things as it pertains to taking care of your home. Talk to you soon.

 

Jan. 14, 2021

Buying a Home - Step 1

Hey guys. Today, we're going to actually talk about probably the most important thing we do talk about, which is real estate. We're going to talk about the steps that you take when you're looking to buy a home. So what are the logical steps someone takes when they're buying a home? That's what we're going to talk about today.

So, number one step is, you need to identify a real estate agent that's going to be able to help you through that process. The first thing you're going to want to do is, you're going to want to actually find somebody that's going to have a meeting with you, what we call an initial consultation. So, something to get together and talk about what your particular needs are as they pertain to real estate. This actual meeting will be broken down into a lot of phases. We have a timeline that we go through with our clients at that first initial consultation.

Some of those things that you're going to go over and phase one of that checklist is that buyers initial consultation. At that point, we're going to talk about agency relationship. This is required by state to actually review how agency relationship works and how people talk to each other through that process, and who's representing who through that process. So you're protected through that whole process.

The other things we're going to discuss at that actual meeting are what are you looking for? What are your needs as it pertains to a home? What is going to be important to you as a home buyer? We're also going to go through things like making sure that you know where you're going to get the money. It could be you're paying cash for the home. It could be you're getting a mortgage for the home.

We're going to introduce you to that process and make sure that you have the resources you need to actually move forward through that process. So those are some of the first steps. We're going to sit down and we're going to go through a huge sheet of questions, a questionnaire on per se to understand exactly what's going to be important to you as a home buyer to find you the perfect home.

Also, we're going to go through all of the things we're going to do as an actual home professional to help you find that home. So we're going to review our whole process of the things that we do that is unique to the process that we provide as a value or a service provider to our customers.

Not all real estate agents do the exact same thing. Each does their own individual thing. As a company we've decided to do as much as we can to provide value to our clients to make sure that you're picking a real estate company or agent that is doing a lot of things for you and not just going with the flow. So that is step one, module one. I'm going to come back and tell you about module two here in a minute. I hope you're finding this helpful.

Posted in Home Buyers
Jan. 12, 2021

Buying a Home - Step 3

Hey guys, step three. So I'm super excited about this step, because this is the most fun step. This is actually when you actually start going out and identifying properties that you love. So we're going to start that search obviously on the internet nowadays. We're going to dig into it and find out what is going to be an important property or important property features that are going to be important to you. Sometimes that can be driven by location, features, a particular need. It could be a second home that you're looking for waterfront properties that are easy to rent. So we're going to help you identify those things, and then we're going to help you sort and quantify those so that you're looking at only the stuff that's going to be really, really impactful to your needs so that you're not caught up in stuff that's not going to be.



These are things like going out to open houses. These are things like setting up showings with your agent. These are the things that... Or your agent bringing you to model homes, if you're looking at new construction. We also specialize in new construction here in the greater Rochester area. So make sure you're taking advantage of the things from your real estate agent to help you sort and quantify.


One other thing that we do review at that initial consultation that we were talking about, is we're going to talk about the current market temperature. So a buyer's market or a seller's market. What I mean by that is typically a buyer's market is going to be a market where there's six plus months worth of active inventory available, so meaning there's a lot of stock. When there's less stock, then it becomes what we call a seller's market. That's when a seller has the advantage on the market and there's going to be less to choose for, and you're going to have to pay a little bit of a premium for that. So that's the differences between the buyer's and the seller's market.


A balanced market is going to run somewhere between four and a half months and five months, six months, worth of inventory. Anything over that, it's going to go one way or the other. And it's very much like we've all learned supply and demand drives the price and drives your ability to negotiate. So we'll help you through all of that stuff and help you get the home that you love, which is the most important part of it. We're onto the next step four next. I hope you'll stick around for those videos. Talk to you soon.

 

Posted in Home Buyers
Jan. 11, 2021

Buying a Home - Step 2

So step two in the process of buying a home will be to actually meet with a loan professional and go through your actual particulars. Now, if you're paying cash, obviously you're going to be able to skip this step and go right to step three, but we're going to sit down and help you through that process, if needed. We have some great resources, some great companies that we work with and professionals that we've hand selected with our 20 plus years of experience here in this market. So we've particularly picked people that actually are really great at what they do, and aren't doing it as kind of a part-time thing. So we're going to help you find that or identify that perfect person for that and make sure that you're working with the best in Rochester or in your particular market to help you get a qualified loan and answer all the questions you have of the whole process.

 


They're going to be able to give you a very detailed number on what you're going to have to pay for the home and not only that monthly payment. So you actually live in the monthly payment, so that's the most important thing. There're two things when purchasing a home that are going to really make a big difference and that's number one, the actual monthly payment that you're making. And then number two, how much money do you actually need to bring to the table to actually purchase that home? So, as you can see, if you come down here and visit us, you're going to get to be able to spend some time with some of the police horses that we have down here and also taken some of the sites here, actually on Park Avenue. We hope that you'll come down and visit us. We'll walk you through every step of this process. Step number three is coming up. So I hope you'll stick it out with us.

Posted in Home Buyers
Dec. 28, 2020

Where To Go in Brighton, NY

Hey, I'm Nora from NORCHAR Real Estate, and today I'm going to show you around my hometown, Brighton in Rochester, NY! I've lived here practically my whole life, so let me show you around my favorite spots. Okay. Now we're headed to Bagel Land. Brighton has the best bagels, in my opinion, and Bagel Land is my favorite place to get them. Hi, so now we're at R's Market, it's my favorite local grocery store. I love the local ingredients, and it's just great to go in a pinch if you got to get eggs or something. Let's get our masks on and go in.

I didn't get any clips of me talking about it, but this is Cooks World. It's just a cute little place to get cooking stuff and it's fun to explore. Okay. Now we're walking through the Brighton Brickyard Trail. It's really fun to walk around, just escape for a moment, get some fresh air. It's pretty crazy that they have all this nature in the middle of Brighton.

Okay. That's all the places that I got clips of, but I want to give an honorable mention to Abbott's and then to the Brighton Farmer's Market on Sundays. We weren't able to go, but they're great places and I love them. Thank you so much for watching and if you have any questions or any other recommendations for Brighton, please leave them in the comments. Thank you.