On the Move

Each Friday we feature homes for sale by our clients and/or Realtor partners as a way to add value to their Seamless Moves moving experience. Enjoy!

Today’s Friday Featured Property is a new listing in the gated community of Brookside Court in Kirkland, WA. Live the Dream in this 4,216 sq. ft. traditionally-designed home with 4 bedrooms and 4 baths on a quiet cul-de-sac with a partial lake view. Entertain in comfort in the spacious great room with a 2-story stone fireplace and Chef’s kitchen with rich finishes of granite, warm cabinetry & African Pear hardwoods. There are also a walk-in pantry and a unique butler pantry/wine room. This home was very recently listed and the selling price as of today’s date is $1,275,000.

We understand the current owner spends quality time in his well-appointed 3-car garage with floor coating and storage cupboards. I can’t decide whether my favorite amenity in this home is the built-in vacuum or the wine pantry. I’m sure that in August it would be the central air conditioning!

If you or your Luxury Home buyer are interested in this property, you may view it at http://bit.ly/RVogel or MLS# 206826 or by contacting the seller’s agent, Robin Vogel, at (206) 406-2752.

Each Friday we feature homes for sale by our clients and/or Realtor partners as a way to add value to their Seamless Moves moving experience. Enjoy!

Today’s Friday Featured Property is a stunning new 3-story, 5,599 sq ft. home nestled in the heart of charming west Bellevue, just minutes away from downtown and beautiful Medina Park. It has 5 bedrooms, 5.5 baths, a movie theater, wine cellar, 3-car garage and, one of my favorite features: a fireplace in the master suite. As of today’s date, the listing price of the home is $2,895,000.

Lochwood-Lozier Custom Homes builds and remodels homes in the greater Seattle area with an emphasis on Bellevue, Yarrow Point, Clyde Hill, Medina, and Hunts Point. Their customers regularly cite their attention to detail, integrity, quality and passion for excellence when describing a home purchase or remodel experience. We would add that in our experience, they are genuinely nice people and easy to work with.

This home is located on a cul-de-sac with only 3 other homes and is in the Bellevue School District.

If you are a Luxury Home Realtor or home buyer interested in this property, you may view it at http://bit.ly/Lozier or MLS# 104844 or by contacting the seller’s agent, Steven Erickson, at 206-295-8485.

Each Friday we feature homes for sale by our clients and/or Realtor partners as a way to add value to their Seamless Moves moving experience. Enjoy!

Today’s Friday Featured Property is a
pre-sale offering by Madrona Custom Homes, an Eastside specialty builder constructing a handful of new custom homes per year. The company is focused on thoughtful design, attention to detail, and creating exceptionally well-built homes for its clients. The selling price of this 3,530 sq. ft. home as of the date of this post is $965,000.

This home will be located in Enatai, a very popular neighborhood close to Lake Washington, known for its casual lifestyle and well-established groves of tall fir trees. Your custom home will include four bedrooms and 2.5 baths with granite slab counters, painted millwork, stainless appliances, butler’s pantry, tile accents, upgraded carpets, hardwoods, and cherry cabinets. It could also be constructed as a five bedroom, 3.5 bath home utilizing the third level, should the buyer wish, and the price would be adjusted accordingly. It is located in the Bellevue school district, a plus for families with school-age children.

Normally, we try to preview our featured homes; of course this one hasn’t been built yet, which means you can build your dream home your way! And for under $1M in this sought-after location in Bellevue!

If you are interested in this property , you may view it at http://bit.ly/EnataiHome or MLS# 190269 or by contacting the seller’s agents, Rich Willard at 206-200-8100 or Randy Ginn at 425-417-3515. The builder also has a couple of other available projects nearby.

This week I got to be my own client as our remodeled bathroom and kitchen became “done enough” for us to move back into our home. After living with friends for 8 months (yes, they are GOOD friends!), my beau and I have a renewed appreciation for our little corner of the world and couldn’t wait to resume our “real lives” back in our own home. In spite of our friends’ over-the-top hospitality, I have felt a bit discombobulated regarding my normal home and business routines.

As I was wiping off construction dust, putting away dishes and hanging the shower curtain, I realized just HOW important having a comfortable and functional “nest” is for my physical and emotional health. I got to thinking that whether old or young, rich or poor, 900 square feet or 9,000, we are all alike in that need.

I realized that daily I get to help people who are moving THEIR nests and that it is my and my team’s passion for doing this work that keeps us going. I understood why our clients sometimes focus on what might seem minor details to an outsider, but are of utmost importance in their lives and why our inclusion of any detail that is paramount to them sets a Seamless Move apart from a routine one.

Why do we take a picture of a senior’s family photo wall or of papers and items on the table next to their TV chair? Because those are the important things for us to replicate to maintain continuity from one home to the next. Why do we unpack and set up the bedroom for a special needs child before any other room in his new home? So he and his mother can watch videos while we unpack the kitchen. Why do we visit The Container Store so often? So we can better advise our clients regarding organizing solutions. (OK, you caught me–The Container Store is fun!)

One of the things I particularly remember about my friends’ and my military relocations was how important it was to set up our new homes as quickly as possible to lessen the stress on children and spouses whose routines have been disrupted by moving across the U.S. or to a foreign country.

My mother jokes that when I was a child she could never punish me by sending me to my room because I would happily rearrange the furniture, reorganize my bookshelves or clean out my closet. After 13 years in this business, it surprised me to have an “aha moment” this week when I realized that the reason I founded the precursor to today’s Seamless Moves was because having a comfortable, cozy, functional nest is SO important to me that I wanted to help others to have the same.

How about you? How important is YOUR nest?

photo courtesy of Mike Nakamura Photography

Laurie Lamoureux, Founder and Chief Box Opener of Seamless Moves, will present a Downsizing Seminar Saturday, June 12, 2010 from 2:00 – 3:00 pm in the Lakeview Dining Room at The Lakeshore, an ERA Living community located at 11448 Rainier Ave. S., Seattle, WA 98178 (near the Renton airport). The information presented will be helpful to people moving right away, those who want to be ready for a future move as well as individuals helping friends or family with their moves.

• Learn how to begin the downsizing process
• Hear tips on how to find and interview movers
• Learn more about organizing, packing and more
• Dessert, coffee and lots of useful information about beginning the process for a seamless move

Feel free to invite a friend! No cost to attend, but please RSVP to The Lakeshore 206.772.1200 by June 10th.

Printable flyer (.pdf) here: LKS Downsizing Seminar_061210

Well, it’s official. You’ve 1) bought a new home; 2) been hired for a new job; 3) gotten married/merged households; 4) kids have left home and you’d like to downsize, or 5) many, many other reasons (some happy; some, unfortunately–not so much). And now you have to M-O-V-E. Uggghhh! All of your precious, favorite, special belongings now have to be shoved into boxes and trucked across town or across the country. Could anything be worse?! Remember what a horror it was LAST TIME? Why can’t you just snap your fingers and it would all be done? (Actually, you can if you have a Project Manager such as Seamless Moves, but that’s not the point of this post.)

I was surprised to find that the often-cited Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale lists ‘change of residence’ at only 20 points out of 100. Of course changing your residence, as noted above, is usually the result of another life-event. For instance, a marriage is assessed at 50 stress points, a major mortgage is 32 points and retirement is 45 points. And those are considered ‘good stress.’ ‘Bad stress’ such as death of a spouse (100 points) or divorce (73 points) are assigned significantly more stress points. Added together, you can see why moving can be a major headache for most people.

Pour yourself a cup of peppermint tea, sit down and take a breath; you’ve come to the right place. In the next few weeks, we’ll share some tips that we’ve acquired/developed over the last dozen or so years that you’ll be able to use when you move (or when your friends or family co-opt you into helping with their moves!). We hope you’ll add your tips to ours so we can all help each other to have a more Seamless Move!