Insights & Highlights

DECORATING DEN INTERIORS

Natural evergreen foliage preserved while freshly picked looks and feels like living boxwood. Supported by natural willow branches, two square topiaries are potted in contemporary ball footed planters finished in satin black. For indoor use only. Available at Decorating Den Interiors | Kozar Design Team, 521 Lovell Road, Suite 205 in Knoxville, 865.392.6222, SandyKozar.DecoratingDen.com.

THE LILY PAD BOUTIQUE

Wedding season is approaching! Find everything from mother of the bride gowns to wedding guest attire at The Lily Pad Boutique, 209 N. Main Street in Sweetwater, 423.337.5537, LilyPadBoutiqueOnline.com. TOWNS TOFFEE

All the classic Towns Toffee flavors in one place. Now you don’t have to choose between toffees - enjoy a blissful smattering of our classic flavors in one sweet box. This sampler is available year-round and includes 6 Mini Bags of our hand-crafted toffees. Available at Copper Cellar Marketplace, Elder’s Ace Hardware in Knoxville and surrounding areas, HomeSpun Shops in Farragut, and Towns Toffee, 1006 N. Main Street in Sweetwater, 865.684.0287, TownsToffee.com.

THE TOWN FRAMERY & GIFTS

Just in time for spring showers, these amazing reverse umbrellas in a variety of designs and solids! Never get soaked again getting in and out of your car, and don’t leave a trail of slick water behind you when you enter your building. Available at The Town Framery & Gifts, 12814 Kingston Pike in Farragut, 865.671.6627, TheTownFramery.com. Every garden needs a gnome, and these little pothat guys will make a great addition to yours! The small ones are adorable tucked into containers, and larger ones can hide in gardens or beds. Historically, gnomes have been used for hundreds of years to ward off evil and protect treasures. Stop by and pick one up before they are gone! Available at Meadow View Greenhouses & Garden Center, 9885 Highway 11E in Lenoir City, 865.986.7229, MeadowViewGreenhouse.com.

SOUTHEASTERN DERMATOLOGY

Looking for a sunscreen that you can take with you on-the-go, wherever you go? We’ve got you covered. EltaMD UV Stick is easy-to-apply, mess-free, residuefree sun protection that’s dermatologist tested and formulated for the whole family and all skin types. Available at Southeastern Dermatology, 1930 Pinnacle Pointe Way in Knoxville, 865.474.8800, DrDoppelt.com. DESIGN DECOR

Bunny planters can easily make the hop from Easter to spring décor. Add your favorite flowers or greenery to make the look your own. Available at Design Decor, 627 American Glass Way in Knoxville, 865.769.0039, DesignDecorKnoxville.com.

NO, IT’S NOT just you. Some of the mess and mounds of stuff in your garage is often just the busyness of life. However, without efficient storage and organization solutions, clutter and chaos will continue to plague you.

If your garage looks chaotic, you can quickly gain control with custom garage storage cabinets from PremierGarage. PremierGarage, serving the Knoxville area for more than 15 years, will help you find storage space for just about everything. One of the biggest advantages of custom garage cabinets is they are tailored to your specific space so you can maximize the available storage space. Cabinets are designed to fit around water heaters, electrical panels, doorways, and windows. You’ll get a clean, uniform look throughout your garage without having to piece together ready-made, do-it-yourself storage pieces.

Styles include traditional cabinet doors or siding doors for enclosed cabinets in narrow spaces. Cabinets can be integrated with countertops, drawers, and wall-hanging storage systems to maximize your storage space. Sturdy one-inch-thick adjustable shelves inside the cabinets are 25% thicker than the industry standard and have a load-bearing capacity of 100 pounds. Other cabinet and storage options: • Utilize unused garage ceiling space by having overhead racks installed. The heavy duty ceiling storage is perfect for seasonal or occasional use items. Overhead racks help keep wall and floor space clear so cars, bicycles, and gardening tools don’t have to compete for space. • Adding locks to doors or drawers provides additional safety precautions to keep tools or toxic products like paint thinner, radiator coolant, and fertilizer out of reach of children. • Slatwall, with its various hooks and baskets, is ideal for sports equipment and large tools like rakes, shovels, and hoses.

Slatwall helps keep everything off the floor and close to the wall for easy accessibility. • A wide range of styles, finishes, and colors let you coordinate your garage cabinets with your home’s existing décor, or you can create a whole new look for the garage.

The perfect foundation for your garage cabinets is a durable custom garage floor. PremierGarage can transform an oil-stained, pitted, or peeling epoxy-coated garage floor into a showroom quality look. PremierGarage uses a proprietary hybrid polymer technology with their extensive industry knowledge and experience to provide a high-quality finish that is chemical, stain, and slip resistant. The warranted coating comes in multiple colors that coordinate with your cabinets.

Never dread going into the garage again. Call PremierGarage of Knoxville to schedule a free, in-home consultation to help clear the clutter.

PremierGarage uses the latest concrete coating technology, making them the toughest in the industry.

PremierGarage

865.947.8686 PremierGarage.com

Dedicated to Distinctive Decorating

LEASE a complete look we design and install PURCHASE a complete look we design and install SHOP our showroom and create your own look 627 American Glass Way, Knoxville, TN 37932 865.769.0039 DesignDecorKnoxville.com

Is Your House Ready to Sell?

Surface Doc also offers “Soft Washing” of siding and roofs for both businesses and homeowners, including stucco, cedar, vinyl, aluminum, stone, brick, slate, clay, asphalt, etc. We will safely clean your siding and roof without the use of high pressure. Get rid of the green and black algae on your home.

IF YOUR HOME is for sale, you probably know that the first impression you give to potential buyers is priceless. To get top dollar, your home must sparkle inside and out. In particular, bathrooms and kitchens must be immaculate. Exterior hardscapes (pool decks, walkways, etc.) need to look like the backdrop for future memories, and the siding to your home needs to look like it has 20 more years of service before maintenance is needed. Even if your home is in decent shape and repair, going the extra mile to make it sparkle will boost your sale price and attract more buyers. You only get one chance to make a first impression, so make sure it’s one they won’t forget.

Surface Doc specializes in getting sellers top dollar for their property. Owners John and Christina Fitzwilliam and their crew can deep clean almost any surface, inside and out. One particular client, Kimberly Thomas, was especially thankful for the job Surface Doc did in her previous home.

“Our home was for sale for 16 months, with little interest from buyers,” said Kimberly. “Once we hired Surface Doc to come in and deep clean, we sold our property in just a few weeks!”

What makes Surface Doc unique is their ability to clean most hard surfaces AND carpet, so you don’t need to call a separate specialist for each area. Unlike their competitor’s use of traditional carpet shampoo that simply drives dirt and bacteria into the carpet, Surface Doc has an entirely different process that uses eco-friendly emulsifiers, purified steam, and powerful suction - guaranteeing that your entire carpet structure is both cleaned and sanitized.

“John and his crew cleaned my carpet, linoleum, walkways, bathrooms, kitchen, and the oil stains in the driveway,” said Kimberly. “I thought my carpet was fairly clean, although I knew there were some problem stains. I was very surprised to see how dirty it really was and the difference a restoration cleaning made. And my back patio and walkways literally glowed white after they were cleaned.” Kimberly was thrilled with the results and credits Surface Doc for the quick sale of her home.

By offering cleaning and sealing of all tiled surfaces and cleaning and sealing of all exterior hardscapes and concrete, as well as soft washing siding and roofs, Surface Doc really does do it all! If your house is on the market or soon will be, call Surface Doc to deep clean your interior and exterior surfaces to give buyers an overall great first impression. Their four-step restoration process and attention to detail that John personally provides ensures amazing results every time! CALL TODAY FOR A FREE ESTIMATE.

Have You Heard of These Tax Saving Ideas?

BY YVONNE MARSH, CFP ®, CPA

ARE YOU STARING at your tax return, wondering how you could pay less tax? Sometimes you have more control over your tax bill than you realize, especially if you’re retired. Yvonne Marsh, Here are a few key concepts CFP®, CPA that could help you keep more and pay less.

For brokerage accounts that report taxable investment income each year on a 1099, keep an eye not just on the investment returns, but on the taxable nature of the holdings. After all, it’s not just what you earn that matters, it’s what you keep.

For example, ordinary dividends are taxed at a higher rate than qualified dividends, and short-term gains are taxed at a higher rate than long-term gains. Some mutual funds generate capital gain distributions that you don’t even know about until very late in the tax year, compared to tax-managed mutual funds that are tasked with NOT adversely impacting your tax return. So choose to hold tax-inefficient, ordinary income assets in your tax-deferred retirement accounts and hold tax-efficient qualified dividend investments and tax-managed mutual funds in your brokerage accounts. Additionally, your advisor should be working with you to avoid short-term sales and wait for the preferential long-term tax treatment.

Here’s a tip if you’re taking annual IRA Required Minimum Distributions and give money to charities during the year. Tell your IRA custodian to make a Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD) and they will disburse the gift straight to your charity on your behalf. Now, you can reduce the amount of your taxable RMD by the amount of the gift - plus take the full standard deduction. A winning strategy!

Beyond the direct tax savings these ideas bring, it helps in other ways: (1) How much of your Social Security that is subject to tax (from 0% to 85%) depends on how much taxable income you have. The lower your taxable income, the greater the chance that not all 85% of your SS is taxed. (2) How much you pay for Medicare Part B and Part D is determined by your adjusted gross income. Being tax-smart can keep you under the threshold of paying the dreaded IRMAA – Medicare income adjustment – every year.

These strategies work year after year to save you taxes. As always, let me know if you have questions – because I have answers.

Marsh Wealth Management, LLC

Fiduciary Registered Investment Advisor 504 Ebenezer Road, Knoxville, TN 37923 865.622.2162 MarshWealth.com

Financial Planning & Investment Advisory Services are offered through Marsh Wealth Management, LLC (“MWM”), an independent investment advisor registered with the state of Tennessee. Yvonne Marsh is an Investment Advisor Representative of MWM in the state of Tennessee. Marsh Professional Group, LLC is a TN registered public accounting firm and a separate legal entity from MWM. For a detailed discussion of MWM and their investment advisory fees, see the firm’s Form ADV on file with the SEC at www.adviserinfo.sec.gov.

Don’t Guess About Your Financial Future, Plan For It

865.622.2162 | bethany@marshwealth.com 504 Ebenezer Road • Knoxville, TN 37923 • www.marshwealth.com

BY SHARA CASEY, KNOX HERITAGE INTERN

LOCATED ACROSS FROM St. John’s Lutheran Church, on the corner of Tyson Street and North Broadway, Old Gray Cemetery is a beautiful example of the rural cemetery movement that was at the forefront of public design when it was dedicated in June 1852. The cemetery is named for 18th century English poet Thomas Gray, and that connection is evident in the early spring flowers that create the ambiance of a park under a canopy of the more than 40 arboretum-registered trees.

This quiet downtown oasis was founded by a board of seven trustees led by William B. Reese, then president of East Tennessee University (today, University of Tennessee), with its original eight acres of land a mile northwest of the city proper bought at just $500. Though the first burial was of a Knoxville native named William Martin, who died after an accident during the city’s Fourth of July festivities in 1851, a design for the property as a whole wasn’t adopted until 1853, when local architect Frederick Douglass (not the abolitionist) proposed a layout that incorporated the natural topography of the area and allowed for walking and carriage paths that ran by each gravesite. Many of these paths were removed over the years to make space for additional graves, but the main paths still allow for cars, and all graves are accessible to pedestrians willing to stray just a little ways into the grass.

While Confederate troops were stations in Knoxville, the cemetery’s board of trustees attempted to gain funds from military authorities for a fence to protect plots from camping soldiers, and while a fence was ultimately constructed, no military funds were assigned for the project. Also problematic was the use of Confederate minted currency to purchase plots, in one case $1,765 was paid only to have the board members refuse the money due to the circumstances of the war.

Maintenance issues did not start or end with the advent of the Civil War. As early as 1854, the board decided to limit carriage traffic in the cemetery to prevent horses from damaging vegetation. By 1870, the cemetery had become such a popular gathering place that a police presence was requested and bylaws put in place stating that “all persons visiting the cemetery shall conduct themselves soberly and gravely.” The nature of many of the tombstones themselves also contributed to upkeep issues. While most markers were and are carved from granite, the majority of those in Old Gray are made of softer local marble, which allows for more intricate Victorian style statue carving but also deteriorates more quickly. In 1897, a Gothic Revival porter’s lodge was added just inside the Broadway entrance. Also constructed of Tennessee marble, it has a sloping roof covered in blue and green tiles that contributes to the late 19th century fairy-tale atmosphere. Under the watchful eyes of classically inspired Victorian angels and many stately white obelisks are interred some of Knoxville’s most prominent citizens. Famous pro-unionist and post-war Tennessee governor William G. “Parson” Brownlow’s obelisk rivals the height of the trees around it. Several members of the pioneering McClung family are buried under a variety of grand monuments, and the Crozier family, including Lizzie Crozier French, makes itself known as well. Among many, many other Knoxville notables, artist Lloyd Branson, WWI pilot Charles McGhee Tyson, and Joseph Alexander Mabry, Jr., who helped establish Market Square, are also buried at Old Gray.

Today, occasional burials take place in older family plots, but the yard is otherwise closed to additional interments. Old Gray Cemetery remains open throughout the week to the public and offers an interesting alternative jogging or picnic area to other, busier locations in the center of Knoxville, whilst also offering periodic community events.

Knox Heritage preserves structures and places of historic or cultural significance for our community. Established in 1974 as a non-profit educational corporation, our organization works to protect and raise awareness of what is beautiful and irreplaceable in East Tennessee.