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Condo Renovations

As sales of condominiums grow, so does demand for luxury renovations.

More people are moving from leafy, sprawling suburbs to more urban areas, neighborhoods both in the city and in Northern Virginia that offer close proximity to restaurants, jobs, cultural activities and Metro.

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Big Ideas for Small Spaces

Local designers offer ideas for decorating small rooms.

Whether one is sprucing up a small powder room or decorating a studio apartment, space limitations often pose a design challenge. However, local designers say that no matter how a small space’s square footage or how awkward the layout, there are plenty of decorative cures for small spaces. Whether one is sprucing up a small powder room or decorating a studio apartment, space limitations often pose a design challenge. However, local designers say that no matter how a small space’s square footage or how awkward the layout, there are plenty of decorative cures for small spaces.

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Top-to-Bottom Makeover Embraces Longterm Horizons

The Hollis family wanted a house that would work better today — and long into the future.

Sometimes it’s not limited square footage that makes a house feel inadequate — it’s how that square footage is configured.


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Like Magic

New plan in built-out 1940s colonial gains vital square footage as young family looks ahead.

In the end, a skillful spatial reconfiguration is like a deft magician's trick — you've seen it with your own eyes, but you still can't figure out how they did it. “Really, I don't know how this plan created so much more usable space,” Alexandria resident Alice Goulet said, discussing a recent reconfiguration to several rooms in the family's 1,800-square-foot center-hall Colonial.

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Northern Virginia Designers Awarded Rooms in Showhouse Event

Northern Virginia/metro area interior designers Kelley Proxmire of Kelley Interior Design and Wayne Breeden of E. Wayne Breeden Design are among 17 designers awarded rooms at the benefit Winchester Showhouse & Gardens, open to the public through Sept. 29.

Sun Design Named One of U.S.’s Fastest Growing Private Companies

Sun Design Remodeling Specialists, Inc., of Fairfax, was named by Inc. Magazine as one of America’s fastest-growing private companies. This is the fourth time the magazine has included Sun Design on its annual Inc. 5000 list.


Editorial: Small Steps to Fight Homelessness

Efficiency apartments would serve 20-somethings, service workers, retirees and more.

One way to prevent homelessness is to think small. It doesn’t take much space to house one person. Sure, many houses in our area have 1,000 square feet and sometimes two or three times that much per person, but that’s really not necessary.

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Celebrating Diversity Through Music

The Fairfax Symphony Orchestra (FSO) will be presenting bilingual master classes and outreach presentations at various Fairfax County venues.

With grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Arts Council of Fairfax County, the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra (FSO) will be presenting bi-lingual master classes and outreach presentations at various Fairfax County venues in the coming weeks.

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Inspired to Give

Local teens positively impact youth on a global scale.

Picture this: An impoverished young teenager sits in a hospital bed in rural India, suffering from a life-threatening cancer, opens up a tablet device filled with educational tools and apps to distract them from their daily struggles. You would probably expect the tablet to have been shipped there by a large, national non-profit run by paid staff members. Not so. It was delivered to this teen by other teens, all working toward the same goal: to connect with pediatric cancer patients around the world in order to provide them with encouragement, support and education.


Starshine Theater to Host “How to Audition” Event

On Tuesday, Sept. 17, 4:30-6:30 p.m. the Starshine Theater will host a free event: "How to audition for a show—TV ‘Talent’ or ‘Live Stage,’” for ages 3 through adults. Those younger than 18 should attend with a parent. Duets, groups welcome.

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Riverbend Park Hosts Virginia Indian Festival

At Riverbend Park in Great Falls thousands of visitors stopped by to attend the annual Virginia Indian Festival. Mixing with the crowds and greeting visitors was Park Manager Marty Smith. “I have been working at Riverbend Park for 20 years, and manager for 10 years,” said Smith. It was Smith who organized and developed the concept of an educational event about the indigenous people of Northern Virginia for the general public.

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Weaving Community and Lifelong Learning

Great Falls Library brings threads together.

Concerns about the strength and condition of “the fabric of our society” abound, but how is that fabric woven in the first instance, and how is it used and enjoyed and rewoven into the modern tapestry of community? Spend just one day (or two) with the librarians, volunteers and patrons of the Fairfax County Public Library in Great Falls and you will see. The library opens its doors on Wednesday at 10 a.m.


Pat Neuman Exhibits at Great Falls Library

Pat Neuman’s “Annuals and Perennials,” pastel on paper exhibit is on display in the Small Conference Room at the Great Falls Community Library, 9830 Georgetown Pike, Great Falls.

Classified Advertising September 11, 2013

Read the latest ads here!

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Author Turns Words Into Film

Suzi Weinert’s first novel becomes Hallmark Channel original movie.

Four years ago, McLean resident Suzi Weinert wasn’t sure she was capable of finishing her first book. Now she’s preparing to watch that very same book premiere as a Hallmark Channel original movie and has released its sequel.


Opinion: Dangers of Failure To Act

Our current and future standing in the international community is on the line.

President Obama has sought Congressional approval to carry out limited surgical strikes in Syria against the regime of Bashar al Assad in response to his use of chemical weapons to attack Syrian civilians, which killed 1,429 people, including 426 children.

Editorial: Later Start Times for High School

It’s past time to act; let this year be the year.

Tuesday morning, Sept. 3, the first day of school in Fairfax County, Dr. Karen Garza began her official day at 6:30 a.m. at Chantilly High School. While Garza was making herself available for interviews before the first class started at 7:20 a.m., many students were already on the school bus.

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Wellbeing: How To Set Realistic Goals

Local experts say the key to success is setting achievable goals.

Laura Wheeler Poms, of Fairfax, set out to earn a doctorate degree and make a career change. As a wife, mother and working professional, the goal, she said, often felt lofty. “Writing my dissertation at times felt overwhelming, especially if I looked at it as one huge project,” said Poms, who now holds a Ph.D. in industrial/organizational psychology and is an assistant professor of global and community health at George Mason University in Fairfax. “I set goals like writing one page or doing one analysis each day and I was able to get it done. I also gave myself little rewards along the way.”


Column: Indeterminate Sentence

And no, that’s not another made-up phrase by yours truly describing my occasionally cluttered/run-on prose with which many of you extremely patient regular readers are all too familiar. No, it has to do with how I perceive my future now that I’m post-hospital and sleeping in my own bed. Instead of nurses, respiratory therapists, X-ray technicians, doctors and miscellaneous other hospital staff too numerous to list, I have one wife and five cats to do my bidding. And though they’re not nearly as attentive as the hospital staff, I know that they all have my best interests at heart.

Saving Jobs in Hard Times

Virginia lawmakers will push work sharing legislation this session.

“Having been through the recession and recent slight increases in Virginia unemployment rates as federal sequestration takes effect, it is important that we give Virginia businesses all the tools we can to help them and their employees get through challenging times. This bill does that.” —State Sen. George Barker (D-39)