Nearly a quarter of Halloween shoppers now say they buy at least some of their decorations secondhand rather than pulling a fresh haul off a big-box shelf, and the number climbs even higher among younger buyers. That shift shows up in survey data, not just anecdotes traded in a neighborhood group chat, and it lines … Read more
Walk into almost any appliance showroom this year and the salesperson’s first question about a new range isn’t gas or electric anymore. It’s whether you’ve ever cooked on induction. Two-thirds of kitchen designers surveyed for the National Kitchen and Bath Association’s 2025 Kitchen Trends Report now expect induction to be the most popular cooking type … Read more
Most homeowners never think about their garbage disposal until the exact moment it stops grinding, usually while running late for work with a sink full of scraps and no plan B. That timing isn’t bad luck. Plumbers say disposals rarely announce their decline gradually and evenly; they run fine for years and then jam completely, … Read more
A homeowner who just spent $6,000 on a backyard hot tub, plus another few hundred a month keeping it running, tends to assume that money is at least partially coming back at closing. Appraisers say it usually isn’t. Cleveland-area appraiser Jamie Owen told HomeLight that after appraising many homes with built-in hot tubs, “I really … Read more
The pergola in a homeowner’s Pinterest board and the pergola quoted by an actual contractor rarely turn out to be the same structure. A basic prefabricated kit for a 12-by-12-foot pergola runs $700 to $4,000, according to HomeGuide, well within the range most people picture when they start browsing shade structures online. The motorized, louvered … Read more
Twenty-seven percent of existing-home sales in August 2026 closed as all-cash transactions, according to the National Association of Realtors, while another 15% of buyers were individual investors or second-home purchasers who often skip financing entirely or move fast enough to beat a mortgage-backed offer. That leaves a shrinking pool of sales going to buyers who … Read more
Shallot sets are supposed to go into the ground right after the first frost, not before it and not weeks after, according to planting guidance from Utah State University Extension. Miss that window on either side and the bulbs either rot in soil that’s still too warm and wet or never get established before the … Read more
Most coffee makers in America are quietly filling up with limescale, and most owners have no idea it’s happening. Hard water, meaning water carrying higher levels of dissolved calcium and magnesium, covers a large share of U.S. households, and every time that water heats up inside a coffee maker’s internal tank, some of those minerals … Read more
Illinois grows roughly a third of the nation’s pumpkin supply, and its production fell by about 30% in a single recent season, according to USDA figures reported by Investigate Midwest. That’s on top of acreage nationwide that had already contracted nearly 18% the year before it. Total U.S. pumpkin production came in at 1.44 billion … Read more
A backyard that’s done nothing but grow weeds for a decade is turning into one of the more reliable side incomes in American real estate, and the permit data backs it up. Nationwide, Shovels’ permit database has tracked 2.8 million accessory dwelling unit permits, with annual volume settling above 200,000 a year since 2022, a … Read more