Spirit of Kindred - January 2025

Color Your Attitude for 2025

“Pink isn’t just a color, it’s an attitude!” ~ Miley Cyrus

If indeed a color can be an attitude, I hope and pray that Pantone’s color of the year, “Mocha Mousse,” isn’t the attitude that 2025 is going to adopt. Crappy Brown by any other name would smell as rotten.

Same goes for Benjamin Moore’s “Deer Trail,” Dunn-Edward’s “Saddle Up,” or Pittsburgh Paint’s “Hat Box.” Brown, brown and brown again. (Color namers may as well go French, Spanish and Italian and call them Merde, Mierda and Merda.)

Nobody’s color of the year seems to be in the yellow, green or pink families – all of which seem more encouraging and optimistic to me. But I rather like Valspar’s 2025 pick. It’s called “Epic Adventure” AKA “blue,” it’s billed as “an anchoring shade that embodies constancy and confidence to let you create a joyful respite from the ebbs and flows of life.” Says Valspar’s Director of Color Marketing, “As we seek a joy-filled life, this approachable and livable ultramarine creates a perfect backdrop for happiness in the home.”

I vote for happiness, joy, constancy, livability, approachability and confidence. May all your days in 2025 be full of Epic Adventure and may you be spared any unpleasant encounters with any iteration of Mocha Mousse.

Q4 of 24 Roundup

We’re starting 2025 with two sales closing in the first two weeks (more about that next month). And Q4 of 2024 was busy and brisk for our Kindred team. Here’s a short list of closings (in reverse chronological order):

560 Vienna | $920,000 | Susan Dakdduk

54 Cook | $1,400,000 | Lisa Riddle & Cynthia Cummins

2347-2351 Bay St | $2,850,000 | Lisa Auer

344 3rd Ave | $2,400,000 | Shelly Sutherland

1565 16th Ave | $3,810,000 | Cynthia Cummins & Lisa Riddle

1754 8th Ave | $2,380,000| Cynthia Cummins & Lisa Riddle

2178 28th Ave | $1,300,000 | Lisa Auer

4526-4528 Fulton | $2,100,000 | Shelly Sutherland

445 Diamond | $2,420,000 | Shelly Sutherland

315 Rutland | $934,000 | Susan Dakdduk

428 Ulloa | $1,680,000 | Cynthia Cummins & Lisa Riddle

I’m Your All-Things-Home Concierge!

“I saw a bank that said ‘24 Hour Banking', but I don't have that much time.”

~ Steven Wright

Like Mr. Wright, not only do you not have time to spend 24 hours at the bank, you probably also don’t have time to spend even 24 minutes looking for a new bank, a plumber, a landlord attorney, or someone who can help your daughter find a rental in Kansas City, Missouri.

But not to worry! Clients ask me all the time for real-estate-adjacent referrals (as well as for recommendations that have nothing to do with real estate), and I help any way I can. If I don’t know something or someone, I probably know someone who knows someone or something. Here are a few of the most recent recommendation requests I’ve responded to: