Naperville Real Estate – West Suburban Blog Naperville Real Estate and Aurora Real Estate, Homes for sale in the Naperville and Aurora Areas

A handy product for homeowners #2- Greasy – Sticky stuff

Written by Angus on December 12th, 2011

Another product that I have had great success with is Krud Kutter Cleaner/Degreaser. As a bonus.. it’s an Krud Kutter Cleaner Degreaser - A great product when you are getting your home ready to sell eco-friendly product that is non-toxic.

I first heard about Krud Kutter when I was getting my accreditation as a Home Stager (AHS). This is a great all around product for homeowners that does things that your average antiseptic/window cleaner/pine stuff don’t neccessarily do well.

It’s great for cleaning around your stove/oven and range hood… it made quick work of our Thanksgiving mess…

My favorite thing about Krud Kutter is using it to clean woodwork (not the painted kind) If you have wood railings in your home… you might notice that as the humidity rises that the railings might get “sticky” (especially if you have children) or your wood doors might have some fingerprint “grime” on them. We use a rag and Krud Kutter to clean the wood and then some Old English to bring the luster back.

Posted in Buying Tips, Home Staging, selling tips | 2 Responses »

Thinking of buying a home in Naperville District 203? Get Educated!

Written by Angus on December 12th, 2011

There is potential that if you buy a home in Naperville School District 203, that the schools that your children would attend could change. Stay “in the loop” by following their website at:

Naperville School District 203 Attendance Boundaries Updates

You can also view the updated State School Report Card for the district at:

Naperville School District 203 State Report Card

Posted in Naperville, School District 203, Schools | No Responses »

Grocery shopping in Naperville

Written by Angus on December 12th, 2011

Grocery shopping is not just a quick trip to one store anymore.

Growing up in Chicago, my mom would “let” me do the grocery shopping. Depending on where we were living… this was a trip to the local Jewel, A&P or Potash Brothers. I loved shopping then, and I still love grocery shopping now.

However, the shopping has gotten more complicated because none of the stores are good at everything.

I regularly shop at Caputo’s, Casey’s, Costco, Dominicks, Jewel, Michaels Fresh Market, Sam’s Club, Trader Joe’s, World Market and Whole Foods.

Michaels and Caputo’s have great produce sections. Large open areas and bins piled high with fresh produce at great prices. These two stores also have great, reasonably priced deli counters. A pound of meat might cost 1/2 what it costs at the big name supermarkets. But Caputo’s (111th and rt59) is special.. the deli looms large, premade dishes and an extensive selection are just the tip of the iceberg at this place. As Grocery Shopping in Naperville IL - Michael's Fresh Market much as I love Michaels (next to Sam’s at rt 59 and Ogden) I would have to rate Caputo’s as a Naperville business that you need to know… also the best fresh bread department in town… Yum!

For your staples: cereal, milk, soda etc… Jewel, Dominicks and Meijer are the places to go and while they are pleasant places to shop, they are missing the boat in produce, meat and deli. Dominick’s has a very good web site where you attach coupons to your phone number (or card) so that you don’t have to worry about forgetting them.

Grocery Shopping in Naperville - Casey's If you like meat or quality prepared foods try Casey’s Food Market at Gartner and Washington (right by Trader Joe’s.. yum!) Casey’s always has a staff of butchers working, these guy’s know what they are doing… it’s pricey, so I save it for special occasions (love their heart of rib eye steaks – like Filet Mignon except with texture, flavor and richness)

Grocery Shopping in Naperville IL - Trader Joes and Whole Foods Whole Foods is conveniently located in the same mall as World Market (the BEST place to buy coffee) just across the street from Costco, this is like the one-two-three punch of greatness… the only problem is deciding where to go first….

Posted in Best places to live, Just for fun, Naperville, Observations, quality of life | No Responses »

A handy product for homeowners #1- Wood Scratches

Written by Angus on December 8th, 2011

Old English Wood Scratch Cover If you have natural /stained woodwork, cabinets or furniture you’ve probably been subject to some of the same things that we have… scratches and other blemishes. We could blame it on the kids, the dog, the carpet installers.. but, wherever the fault lay… sometimes the finish just gets scratched.

For heavy duty blemishes, you may have to resort to using a stain. We’ve done this and also used stain to make small scratches disappear. This takes a bit of commitment and some preparation.

A couple of years ago our flooring guy (Rob at Exploring Flooring (630) 393-2020) told us about Old English Scratch Cover and it was a game changer. Light and medium scratches just disappear with a rag and a swipe.

We also use Old English to wipe down and refresh our oak cabinets… the product comes in two different shades (test on a small area first) but we’ve found that we usually use the darker one, even on our medium toned cabinets. We gave all of our cabinets a good going over as we were replacing the hardware (think of those handles as “jewelry”) and then everything was just so fresh.

When we put our last home on the market we used Krud Kutter To get rid of finger/handprints on the doors and stairway railings and then wiped everything down with Old English, it made us wish that we had done it sooner… when we moved into the new place we did it all immediately.

While I am sure that there are other products out there that will do similar things, I’ve had great success with this little (less than $5.00) bottle of magic for homeowners.

I’ve found it available for sale at local grocery and hardware stores.

Posted in Buying Tips, Home Staging, selling tips | 1 Response »

Looking for a Naperville swim club?

Written by Angus on March 14th, 2011

Naperville Swim Conference - A league of 23 Naperville Swim Teams Competitive swimming?

If you are looking for resources for children (5-18) swim clubs in Naperville you will find a comprehensive list here at the Naperville Swim Conference (NSC) website. The NSC is a league of 23 local teams and more than 3000 swimmers. You can find some of the pool communities here and you often do not need to live in the community to join the pool.

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Another option for swimmers is the fine Heritage (FRY and Koehler in Naperville) YMCA Porpoise’s Swim Team

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For Adults; Naperville is also home to the competitive swim team: The Naperville Waves.

Naperville Waves - Swim Team - Masters and Triathalon - Swimmers over 18

The Waves are an Adult (over 18) team, a competitive Masters Swim club featuring practices for several different levels of experience, from beginner to advanced. Masters Swimming and Triathalon competitions are encouraged, but not required.

Posted in Naperville, Swim Club | No Responses »

An unwelcome visitor in the white house

Written by Angus on March 8th, 2011

Ironically, it was house number thirteen on our tour of Wheaton and Glen Ellyn. A white clapboard house on a large lot, standing alone on a dead end street on the western edge of Glen Ellyn.

Not a big house, but the buyer was attracted to the spacious front porch and the list of updates the MLS listing revealed. We had an appointment, rang the bell, and waited an appropriate amount of time before accessing the Sentrilock lockbox.

A shotgun style floor plan so that when we opened the door we were able to see all the way to the back of the house …. our initial impression was that the home was nicely staged. We stepped inside and got that skin crawly feeling that something was wrong. My eye was drawn to the back of the home where I noticed something on the floor by the back door, as I looked more closely, it appeared to be half of the blinds from the door and I also noticed that the door appeared to be chewed/scratched up…

Starting to get concerned about what kind of animal was big enough to cause that kind of damage several feet off the ground, I headed back toward the front… and started to notice what I had missed before… lamp on the floor, pictures askew and more window damage near the fireplace (even higher off the ground!) I’m starting to wonder… Raccoon? Rabid dog? Tasmanian Devil? Whatever it was, it was scared or cranky (or both)… I was just hoping it was gone!

The buyer was torn, she wanted to see the house, but also wanted to get the heck out of there. Needless to say, she’d feel more comfortable if I were leading the way. Being the brave soul that I am; I grabbed the nearest weapon that I could find (a piece of wooden statuary) and started up the stairs. The buyer following close behind; I reached the top of the stairs and went to the left towards the master bedroom (more window damage) when I noticed that the buyer had emboldened herself and had gone right toward the bathroom.

Between us lay the 2nd bedroom, I approached cautiously (not feeling emboldened at all) the room appeared normal with a bed sitting high on the floor… just outside the doorway I kneel down and look under the bed… when something came flying out at me! Completely forgetting my awesome weapon, I couldn’t process what was happening fast enough, when suddenly it flew past me and down the stairs… yes, that’s when things got squirrely.

Recovering from my surprise, I notice the buyer is cowering in the bathroom (could I have let some sort of inadvertent sound escape from me?) apparently, she hadn’t seen the beast (maybe I gasped when startled) and so I told her “it’s just a squirrel”

Unfortunately, the panicked squirrel is now downstairs where we have to go. We head down a Be careful of dangerous tenants! nd don’t see the little guy anywhere… we had decided to leave when the squirrel jumped out of the fireplace and ran right at us. He stopped two feet from us, gave us the pounce look, skittered left… skittered right… gave us a little more pounce attitude and took off back up the fireplace.

The bedroom sizes weren’t going to work for the buyer (for this we risk life and limb?) so I called the listing agent with that information and let him know that he had an unwanted tenant.

Posted in Glen Ellyn, Housing Adventures, Just for fun, Wheaton | No Responses »

New single from Naperville’s own Gina Glocksen

Written by Angus on March 4th, 2011

Season 6 American Idol finalist (Naperville’s own) Gina Glocksen has just released her first original single and it’s available on Itunes.

Many will remember Gina as the “rocker chick” from AI season 6, she demonstrated versatality on the show but has released a terrific song that starts slow (showcasing Gina’s vocals) and features a chorus with a rock anthem like vibe. You can visit her website at Gina Glocksen

My family has given it a big thumbs up. Take a listen to “Superhero” and let me know what you think in the comments section.

Locals might remember that Gina was married to her husband Joe on New Years eve (Dec 31, 2008) at the Naper Settlement.

Posted in Just for fun, Naperville, Observations | No Responses »

Naperville School District 203- Boundaries

Written by Angus on February 26th, 2011

Naperville School District 203 has released the new school boundary maps which you will find here:

Naperville District 203 School Boundary Map

In other news; reconstruction/renovation of Naperville Central High School appears to be ahead of schedule with hopes that the project might be finished in August of 2011. This is well ahead of the original timeline published in October of 2008 (December 2011) this is a nice surprise with last summers union work stoppage.

Posted in Naperville, quality of life, School District 203, Schools | No Responses »

Sold in two weeks!

Written by Angus on January 13th, 2011

You would think that with the preparation that we put into it, we would have been ready for the sale. Over the course of two weeks we had five different groups of people come through the house, four of which came back twice, one came back three times. We sold on the 14th day and didn’t know where we were going. I ascribe to the rule that if you have a good and reasonable buyer who is paying a good price… you take it and figure things out from there.

We started planning for our home sale early.. doing things to the house that we would enjoy but with an eye towards salability. While many of the working systems in the house were older (but well maintained) we were able to counter that by offering a home warranty because everything that you could readily see, looked so good.

Janet Kidston of Inspired to Sell™; Our Home Stager (A complimentary service that I offer to my home sellers in most cases) did a terrific job enhancing what we had and adding important touches to the home.

We were ready for her, but she cleaned and organized and rearranged. Here are just a few examples:

In the Family Room, Janet rearranged the furniture to showcase the huge yard and the fireplace she also rearranged the bookcases

In the Living Room Janet moved one of our wrought iron tables out and softened the room with one of our taller wood tables:

Living Room - 925 Burgess Hill Rd, Brighton Ridge- Naperville IL 60565

In the Upstairs Office, she added the lamp, the picture, the basket to hide sloppy papers and the pillows… she also re-purposed the twig wreath.

2nd floor office - 925 Burgess Hill Rd, Brighton Ridge- Naperville IL 60565

In the Kitchen, Janet picked out the large corner cabinet and said it needed to look big inside… she was in for a little disappointment when she discovered that was our nightmare Tupperware cabinet! We couldn’t find anything in there. She reorganized it and gave us some hints to keep it that way… so far… so good (even at the new place!) She also told me what to put away and what to keep out (it wasn’t until the walk through that the buyer asked where I kept my microwave) and then supplied a fall cookbook for our book holder and a bowl of green apples to accent the colors in the room

While Janet staged or organized all of the rooms in the house (except the storage room… but she kept checking on me) I’ll share just a couple more:

The Master Bath looked great after all the work had been done, but it was cold and impersonal. Janet supplied all of the wall hangings and a vase with twigs for the corner of the tub, she also brought in the color purple with the towels, brought in nesting baskets for height and to de-emphasize the corner, and used one of our vases to hold cuttings with red berries from a tree outside. It was a warm effect adding some drama and color.

Trevors room needed some work (as most teenagers rooms do…) We had the room painted in Shaker Beige (Sherwin Williams) in preparation for Home Staging. Janet moved the bed, reworked some posters, moved the desk, loaned us the office chair, cleaned the closet and showcased the things that were important to him… the XBOX was hiding as were the games.

The Basement Bedroom was really more of a storage area and while it connects to the full bath, it never got much use. Janet moved the bed and cleared things out, she pulled an unused poster from our storage and leaned it against the wall for color. Her changes made the room look large and inviting:

Lastly, for now… she didn’t forget about the front of the house… she added some mums for color:

If you are looking for a great Home Stager you can reach Janet at:

Janet Kidston
Inspired to Sell™
(630) 399-1484

And if all of this work seems daunting… call me and we can go through your property together to help you plan for the future. If you need to sell right away, I know some quality contractors and can supply Home Staging services

Posted in Home Staging, Marketing, Naperville, selling tips | 4 Responses »

Home Buyer University

Written by Angus on January 6th, 2011

Free, no-obligation home buying workshops covering a wide range of home buying topics… you decide what you want to learn. Do it from the comfort of your own home.

Here you will find a growing library of workshops that you may view completely free of charge which will provide valuable information that you will need as you prepare for your home purchase.

There is nothing being sold here so view them all at your earliest convenience.

and no, that’s not me in the video…

Click Here

Posted in Buying Tips, Finance, Home Search | No Responses »