Brandon Tran

Creative technologist and DIY builder passionate about bringing innovative products to life

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Cool Season Lawn Calendar   Front Yard Landscape Makeover   Flagstone Patio Project

About Me

Brandon Tran I'm a creative technologist and web engineer working at The Walt Disney Company along side incredibly talented people. Every day I get to help bring next generation products to life working on Disney+. In my free time I enjoy investing into the stock market and vacation homes for long term growth and passive income. Stay tuned as I share my journey.

Latest Updates

Cool Season Grass Lawn Calendar for a Healthy Green Lawn - Check out my top 4 steps and my simple lawn calendar to achieve the healthiest and greenest lawn possible

How to Build A Small Tree House for Kids on a $160 Budget - Here's how we built a small and simple DIY tree house for our kids.

DIY Simple Office Desk Build How-to - How to build a small and simple DIY office desk from affordable simple wood. No screws or nails needed.

Our Vacation Cottage Grand Tour - Check out the grand tour of our vacation cottage which is now interior designed and fully furnished. Welcome to Merlot on the Mountain our vacation cottage in Asheville, NC.

DIY Landscaping - Front Yard Makeover on a Budget - Learn step by step how to design, layout your plants and increase your landscape curb appeal on a budget.

Our Little Cottage Build is Complete! - Finally, after 8 months of construction, take a look at the finished cottage which turned out better then we could have ever imagined.

Tiny Backyard Garden Office Project - If you need a serene back yard garden office to step out to do work, here is a great 12' x 10' floor plan and design you can consider.

House Insulation, Sheetrock Install and Walls Painted - In this update the cottage insulation and sheetrock is installed. Also the walls get painted white. And the lot get's early grading.

The Cottage Is Painted Merlot Red - We drove out to the cottage to check in on the progress and we were surprised that they painted the entire exterior Merlot Red!

Cottage Walls and Roof Construction, Dry-In - If you don't know what Dry-In for a house, read this. The construction crew is moving right along with getting the house to the Dry-In phase.

Ground Breaking at the Vacation Cottage - March 20, 2021 marks the day where we hit another key milestone for our vacation cottage journey and we now have a foundation wall and floors for the house.

Our First Short Term Rental Investment Property - Introducing our new mountain cottage project right outside Asheville, NC. We've been planning, dreaming and saving for the last 2 years to build this cottage.

Kid Zip, America's First Zip Line Park for Kids - KidZip is an incredible and exciting activity for the whole family. This is America's first zipline adventure for kids 4-10.

Asheville NC Treetops Adventure Park - The Tretops Adventure Park is an exciting obstacle course activity that has over 77 challenging obstacles that are fun for all ages. This includes ziplines, climbing, swinging and more.

Top 5 Reasons Why We Love Asheville, NC - Here are our top 5 things that Wendy and I love about Asheville, NC and also why so many have decided to call this place home.

Top 5 Tips for Stock Market Investing - Starting to invest can be intense. There are so many things to learn. Here are some quick principles I've learned growing my portfolio.

Why I Invest into a Dividend Stock Portfolio - Dividend stocks offer 2 forms of growth, capital appreciation and dividend payments. Dividend payments are predictable which make them a great passive income strategy.

15 Year Mortgage VS 30 Year and Invest - Instead of paying off your house in 7-15 years, what will happen if you invest that extra money into a stock portfolio or cash flow rental property?

Wildflower House of Tea - Georgetown Texas - Everyone loves a good glass or cup of tea. My wife, Wendy is kicking off on a new venture to open a tea shop in Georgetown, Texas.

Custom Backyard Tree House Play Set - It took us 2 weekends to build this custom tree house for the kiddos. They love it and are playing in it often.

A Kid's Dream Cardboard Castle Made Out of Boxes - This is my second cardboard castle to build for my kids. The first castle I built was a hit, but after having another child it was time to expand.

Cardboard Castle Construction Fun - When I was a child I would build forts out of boxes, baskets, couch pillows, blankets, anything I could get my hands on.

Customize and Build Your Jeep - The Build-A-Jeep app is now live! Being an avid Jeep fan, currently I own a Jeep Liberty. In the near future I hope to upgrade to a customized Wrangler.

My guitar cover songs on youtube - My mom bought me my first acoustic guitar when I was eight years old. I picked it up, and haven't put it down since.

Some of My Oil Paintings - Over the years I have explored various modalities in which I could express my creativity. Oil painting is one of them.

Top 10 Tools To Increase Website Performance - You just built the most pixel perfect website / web application ever! Ensure you use some of these tools to get the best out of your site performance.

Building My Dream Home - Building a large luxury home with a gorgeous mountain view in Asheville, NC. designed and constructed by Brandon and Wendy Tran.