Set your clocks forward on Saturday night!
Austin luxury home builders are prepping this week to “spring forward” into daylight saving time on Sunday morning at 2:00AM. Though Ben Franklin had alluded to an idea of daylight saving time in 1784, it was George Vernon Hudson in 1895 who first proposed a plan to extend the daylight hours of the day during the spring and summer months. Longer daylight benefits the sports, retail, travel, and tourism industries. Personally, daylight saving time tricks me into thinking that I have more hours in the day to get things accomplished (to bad that’s not the reality of it). There’s just something about the sun staying out and extra hour that brings a joy to us all. It might bring out our inner child a little because we all remember how we associated the time change with summer getting closer, meaning no more school!
Sterling Custom Homes would like to remind you to walk through your Austin custom homes on Saturday night before you go to sleep and set all your clocks forward one hour. We’ve all experienced at one time in our lives being an hour early to some appointment because we forgot to set our clocks forward. We also all know that self-loathing feeling when we find ourselves an hour early to said appointment. If you’re the forgetful type, set an alarm to go off Saturday night to remind you to move your clocks forward. I know that’s what I’ll be doing.
QR Codes Inside!
It can be hard to interact with Austin TX custom home builders when you visit their build sites, or model homes when they are not staffed. At Sterling Custom Homes, we constantly strive to make your visits more enjoyable and informational at the same time. We want to be able to interact with you, even if we can’t be there physically to answer your questions. This is why you’ll now see QR codes on our build-site flyers, as well as scattered around the inside of our home at 111 Escavera Cove.
As you explore one of our Austin custom homes at 111 Escavera, you’ll notice QR codes in certain areas of the home. When you scan a QR code with your smartphone, a video with appear. The video will highlight and explain particular features of the home. It might explain a specific room, living space, or feature that is unique in Sterling’s building processes.
March 9th - 24th, 2012
It’s that time of year again to pull those boots out of your Austin custom homes‘ closets, dust off the cowboy hat, jump in the horseless carriage and head east to Travis County Expo Center. On March 9th, Rodeo Austin will open its gates for the 75th time. It was back in 1938 when County Extension Agent T.H. Royder worked with the Austin Chamber of Commerce to organize the Travis County Baby Beef Show. The show took place across the street from the Capitol at West 11th St. and Congress Ave. Back then the show featured only 16 animals. It’s safe to say that Austin Rodeo has grown quite a bit over the years.
Nowadays the Rodeo features live musical performances from some of the biggest bands in the country music industry. This year when you go to Rodeo Austin you’ll be able to see Eli Young Band, Chris Young, Clay Walker, Demi Lovato, Jake Owen, The Band Perry, Sara Evans, Josh Abbott Band, Glen Campbell, Bellomy Brothers, Gavin Degraw, Josh Turner, Stoney LaRue, Brett Michaels, and Kevin Fowler. One name you may not be familiar with is Jonathan Fox. He’s a local, up and coming country artist mixed with a little southern rock. He will be playing a set on Thursday, March 15th. If you have not heard his music, you can check it out in the iTunes Store. I highly recommend him.
Is the housing market coming back?
Good news continues to emerge for those in the market for custom homes in Austin. The U.S. economy is showing evidence of an upturn. It’s not quite on the level increase we saw in the mid-90′s by any stretch of imagination, but even the slightest of upturn can give us hope for the near future. After all the Dow Jones did touch 13,000 points today for the first time since May 20, 2008.
It’s no secret that Texas has not been hit as hard as the rest of the nation during the recession. That being said, it’s not hard to believe that the Texas economy is bouncing back faster than other parts of the country as well. According to the monthly Economic Indicators report on the Central Texas region prepared by the Austin Chamber of Commerce, three of the top eleven U.S. metros that experienced growth in employment and growth in per capita GDP from 2010 to 2011 are from Texas (1 – Houston, 2 – Dallas, and 11 – Austin).
Sterling on Pinterest
If you have not been formally introduced, allow your Austin TX custom home builders to acquaint you with the quickest website to ever reach 10 million unique visits per month. Pinterest is a new social network that can be described as the largest brainstorm of all time. It allows you to connect with friends, share photos and ideas, and store them in organized categories within your profile. When you create your account, the categories (called “Boards”) that come stock in your profile include For the Home, Favorite Places & Spaces, My Style, Design & Fashion, among many others. You don’t have to stick with just those boards though. You can modify or delete them, or create your own.
Once you have your boards created, you can begin pinning pictures that are already on other people’s boards. On the Pinterest homepage you’ll see a feed of pictures that people are pinning in real time. Once you you get the hang of adding pins to your boards, you’ll want to begin to connect with friends. This is made simple by logging into Pinterest using Facebook. When you log in using Facebook, Pinterest will have a list of your Facebook friends and ask you to select the ones you’d like to follow. You can now share your pins with your friends and begin to build inspiration from them. Though there might be thousands upon thousands of pictures on Pinterest, pinning doesn’t just stop there. When you go to other websites and see pictures you like, you can use the Pinterest bookmark tool to save them and add them to your boards.