Monday, August 24, 2009

Wish Granted

Today I'm repeating part of a post from April where I featured Lily's Wish. Lily has osteosarcoma, a cancer affecting her bones, and was matched with Wayne Visbeen through theMake-A-Wish Foundation. Wayne sat with Lily back in January and designed her playhouse with her (she had a lot of ideas!) I just saw a photo of the finished house & thought you would like to see it too! Please continue to keep Lily & her family in your thoughts and prayers.




Thursday, August 20, 2009

Horizon View

Check out this lovely, little cottage on Lake Michigan designed by Visbeen Associates and built by Bouwkamp Builders. And, here's the write up:

Designed to fit easily into compact spaces, Horizon View combines yesterday's cottage charm with today's open floor plan. A beadboard and gabled exterior leads into a modern interior, with a light-filled great room that encompasses the living room, kitchen and dining area. A handy master bedroom suite rounds out the first-floor offerings. Upstairs are two additional family or guest bedrooms as well as a full bath.




Thursday, August 13, 2009

Maximize our website!

When you first visit www.visbeen.biz you may be mesmerized by the pretty pictures scrolling on your screen. They are pretty, but keep going! Click on Gallery and choose a category, like "Residential."

After that, choose another category, like "estates."

Once you've done that, scroll down to view all of the homes we've presented in that category. If one piques your interest, click on it (the Westchester, for example.)

And, once you're there, click on the first image (in this case a sketch) and then use the arrows at the bottom of the image to scroll thru the numerous images of that one house. Once you've made it through them all it will show you the next house in line.


Happy surfing!

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Room Design

Room Design Attractive Home room design  While deciding the room layout, first account for all the furniture you want to place in it. Beds and nightstands are basic to a master bedroom. You may want to place a television with a cabinet at a viewing distance from the bed. Perhaps a love seat could be accommodated in the room. 
Room Design



Contemporary furniture

Home Contemporary furniture Many shopping websites offer furniture pieces in latest designs at discount prices and also have special offers on combo sales throughout the year. End of the season sale is the best time to hit the furniture stores and brand outlets to find inexpensive contemporary furniture
Contemporary furniture 2011

Patio Design

Modern Patio Design and Pictures Gallery Well if you are an artist and want to turn your patio into an art area, then this is the idea for you. You can indulge in your favorite art like sketching, painting or even sculpting. Make sure your patio has a shelter to protect the area from extreme weather conditions. Adorn the walls with your favorite paintings. You can add multistoried racks to hold your paintbrushes, thinners, colors, oils, pencils, sculpting tools or any other equipment required for your art work. 
Make sure there is enough seating space for people who would just like to enjoy sitting in this artistic haven and watch you work. 


Modern Living Room Interior Design

Modern Living Room Interior Design Buy Have a theme of lights for your living room. Have lamp shades, chandeliers, and other light fixtures, in the room! Place them at strategic points, so that the room does not end up looking like a lights shop!


One more idea, is to have a Feng Shui living room. Get all the items that Feng Shui recommends, and have a gorgeous room, with loads of positive vibes, and energy!

Modern Living Room Furniture

Modern Living Room Furniture from Compar for its clean design. Modern style dining room furniture often looks like a work of art itself. You can find some exceptionally unique table and chair designs for a modern dining room. A dining set made of steel covered with espresso colored leather would be an excellent choice.

Modern Living Room Furniture

Bedroom Designs

Bedroom Designs 200 Plus more Bedroom Designs Most parents are at a loss for ideas when it comes to a problem like how to decorate a bedroom for their child, especially because the interests and choices of the kid is going to change as fast as the changes in seasons. Every phase in the child's life is going to bring with it a demand for change in the interiors of the rooms, so while as a young boy or girl, they would have been more than pleased with a Sponge Bob Square Pants theme or a Barbie theme, as they move into their teenage phase, there are probably going to want black walls and death metal bands posters all over the room. 



Kids Bedroom

Kids Bedroom Modern Kids Bedroom design  first consider the nature of your child before embarking upon any new ventures for your kids’ bedroom decor. Your tween would probably have the best solution for this. The decor has to be fun giving a flow to his creativity. 
For a kid who loves sports, you can use some equipment within his bedroom in a creative way. 

Bedroom Design

Modern Bedroom Design and Pictures One of the most important features of a bedroom is that it should make you feel completely at home. The warmth and peaceful atmosphere within the bedroom should be reflected in the colors that you use to decorate the bedroom. In this section, we'll guide you towards what are the best warm colors that you can use in your bedroom.
 Remember, warm colors are members of the gold, red and yellow family. So, you'll have varying hues and combinations of these colors to give your bedroom a welcoming look and feel. 

Virtual Room Decorating

Virtual Room Decorating Virtual interior painting is done with the help of websites that allow you to upload the photographs of your interior or you can use a photograph available on the website and choose the colors for the same. There are a number of websites available on Internet that help you decide the colors for your interior.


Virtual Room Decorating

Online Room Design

Online Room Design Better Homes and Gardens has a free online Virtual interior designing software is a boon to all the homeowners who are planning a major home improvement project in near future. The main purpose of this software is to demonstrate the effects of various interior aspects on your room, when you actually implement them.



Online Room Design Moreover, if you wish to combine certain colors, then you cannot preview the actual combination. Thus, you largely have to depend upon your imagination. Same goes for other interior decorating aspects such as flooring, furniture, lighting and accessories. 

Monday, August 10, 2009

A Day at the Cottage

On Saturday Wayne & Marcia Visbeen graciously invited all of the Visbeen Associates employees and families over to their beautiful cottage and we had a wonderful time. We boated, played volleyball and ate a ton!
Angela Mulder and her family (Jonathan; Isaac & Charlotte)

David Lorenz's wife & daughter (Emily; Elena)

Megan TerVeen and her husband (Chris)

Wayne Visbeen, the grill master

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Tutorial Thursday: What is a quoin?

Welcome to Tutorial Thursday! Today we're learning about quoins (pronounced "coins.") Below are some of Visbeen Associates homes which feature quoins. (Please excuse the construction mess. Falcon Custom Homes is doing a fantastic job!)

"Stone [or brick] quoins dress and frame the corners of buildings." Cole, Emily. The Grammar of Architecture. East Sussex, UK: The Ivy Press Limited, 2002.


"Quoins are rusticated blocks of stone [or brick] alternating in size, which run in strips up the corners of a building..." Cole, Emily. The Grammar of Architecture. East Sussex, UK: The Ivy Press Limited, 2002.

And, here are some homes with quoins designed in: