YAY! Summer is officially here! St. Joe will be busy this summer helping folks sell their homes, but as summer starts this week, we want to share some tips to stay green this season!

Bamboo Dinner Plates ~ Say goodbye to paper-plates for those summer BBQ's, these disposable bamboo plates are disposable and biodegrade within six months of use.

Find alternatives to staying cool ~ Give your air conditioner (and electricity bill) a break by opening your windows at night and letting the evening breeze cool your home!   Buy a Deluxe Misting fan.  These are really inexpensive and can give you a nice splash of energy when you're feeling hot and lethargic.

Be conservative with your water ~ Water usage is a big deal throughout the US, especially during the summer.  Watch what you use, only water plants when necessary, and use a rain barrel to collect water for extra watering.

Read more tips on staying green this summer by visiting EcoJoe's blog!

Warm weather inspires warm tones - and there isn't a better or brighter one than orange.  If I could pull orange lipstick off, Nars Outsider would be my choice.  Unfortunately, it doesn't complement my skin tone and I might resemble an Oompa Loompa.

Until there's a hue that make me look as bright as I feel on most summer days, I'll stick to home styling. Check out these Outsider inspired accents from HGTV:

For more inspirational stye tips, visit our fresh new page at www.staged4more.com !

We at EcoJoe's are always fascinated to find references to St. Joseph all around the world.  This is an interesting one, integrating traditional Catholicism with New Age holistic treatment.

The Society of Jesus, Mary & Joseph is one of the International Congregations in the Roman Catholic Church, founded by Rev. Fr. Mathias Wolff, S.J in 1822 in Holland, with a view to furthering the cause of women's education in the world. Seven sisters of the Society of JMJ came to India in in 1904 and started their services in the Educational, Health and Social Sectors.

Want to know more? Read the rest of the post here!

I sometimes cringe when I see white furniture. Not because it isn't stylish or trendy, but because the absence of color makes me think of all the things that might find their way onto their surface, marring it's perfect complexion. But it may be that same quality that makes white perfect for styling a bare room - it serves as a blank canvas for your own distinct and personal touches.

Want to see if you can pull it off? Stick to these simple style tips, borrowed from Janice Lindsay's "All About Colour" and Maria Killam's "White is a Snob" and you just might.

1) Make sure you have good light. 

 2) Pay attention to harmonized proportions.

Read the rest of our tips here!

Wondering where the practice of burying a St. Joe to sell your home originated?

One legend says that European nuns in the Middle Ages buried a St. Joseph medal when asking the saint to intercede on their quest for a convent.  Others claim that it started when German carpenters buried small statues in the foundations of houses they built and then said a prayer to St. Joseph.  There are many who trace he connection to a chapel building effort in Montreal in the late 1800s.  A monk named Brother Andre Bessette wanted to buy land on  Mount Royal to build an oratory.  When the landowners refused to sell Bessette began to plan St. Joseph medals on the property.  In 1896, the owners suddenly relented and sold.  Brother Andre was then able to build the small chapel.

The practice dates back at least to 1984 in the United States.  In 1990, it was very popular as realtors started to buy St. Joseph statues in bulk.  The standard practice is for the statue to be dug up once the property has sold and placed on the grateful seller's mantle, or in another place of honor.  Some may have trouble remembering where their statue is buried, choose to leave them behind to protect the property for the new owners.

Read more about about this unique tradition by visiting our webpage here!

Are you afraid of your garage or basement? Every time you walk near it, you *sigh* or *cringe* because of the clutter and things that you no longer use are eating up all the space. Now your storage is limited. This is why when I am out with clients at consultations, I always say:

If it is Staging to Sell "Clutter Eats Equity!" which is very true since buyers usually get so blindsided by your stuff, they can not see anything else, including their own belongings in your space. If they cannot visualize themselves living in that space, you can kiss that offer goodbye. So yes, clutter does eat your equity.

If it is Staging to Live "Clutter eats Tranquility!" You get annoyed when you can't find your papers, checkbooks, keys, due bills, the list goes on, because they are all buried underneath your junk. It puts you in a bad mood and you feel annoyed and cannot concentrate in your space. Your mind feels cluttered as well. And then you get drawn into this vicious cycle where you just dump everything on top of every other thing. Then your room looks like pecks and valleys - a pile then a pile then another pile then.... It bothers you and you can't get things done.

Everyone wants to declutter (I have to smile because a lot of homes that I have worked on to Redesign to Live, I generally find a book on their bookshelves talking about decluttering ). It's really not difficult to do, but the biggest obstacle is you.

There are 4 golden rules.  Read about them here!

Yes, the magical people at SayNoMore! Promotions have signed on to be our exclusive partners in making EcoJoe a SUPER PURPLE COW in your real estate marketing. As you know, EcoJoe is gift ready and everyone/earth/pet friendly, but getting your logo on there is even better!

The available areas for imprints include:

-Front of the box
-Back of the box
-Top of the box
-On either side of the box

Check out more examples of 1-color and 2-color imprints here. 

In today’s competitive market, it’s important as a home seller to find cost effective ways to add value to your home and make it stand out to home shoppers.  Many sellers will take time to research their real estate agents with great detail.  When building your team of home selling professionals, shopping for and hiring a stager for your home is just as important.

If you run a search on Craigslist for “staging” under real estate services, several pages worth of stagers pop out.  All of them promise to sell your home faster and for more. Good or bad, how do you know? Do you dare to use your equity to gamble on a stager you randomly found on the web?

Here are 5 tips to important tips when on how to hire a qualified stager:

1.  Ask for qualifications. But don’t mistake this with the letters behind this person’s name on his/her business card as qualifications. When I was working as a Realtor, although I had passed my exams, it didn’t mean anything until I was out on the field.

Qualifications = how much work has this person done in the staging industry?

 Ask to see resume, portfolio, past before & after pictures and certifications and continue education if this is important to you.  Ask questions about their work when reviewing their portfolio to generate a conversation about how they might work for you.  A nice starter can be, “Oh, tell me about the story behind this picture!”)

2.   Ask for their professional policies. As a professional, for example, if you are a bank teller, there are certain procedures to follow when a customer shows up at your window with a wad of cash in their hands, right? If a customer is doing something inappropriate, such as depositing someone else’s check into his/her account, there are certain protocols to follow, correct? Similarly with running a small business, which most of the stagers are. You want to do business with someone who has strong ethics and professional policies because this reflects their professionalism. When your potential stager comes over for a consultation (many>>> Read more on Staged4more's blog!

Note:  Staged4more is an eco-friendly company and we believe in recycling everything, including blogposts.  This is the first in a weekly series of refreshed posts we’re calling “Restyled” from our earlier blogging years.  This post was originally written in October, 2006 and has been “Restyled” for your reading pleasure.  Let us know what you think!

So I don't know if you caught this past Sunday's episode, but the two teams of celeb apprentices had to makeover and furnish these vacant condos in a short span of time to show as model homes. (Hmm, sounds awfully familiar...) It was interesting to watch for sure to see the transformations and the processes that both team went through. Both teams were given the same exact condo and below are the side-by-side comparisons from the teams. The photos on the left were from Tenacity, the photos on the right were from Rock Solid:

"Living Rooms" from Celebrity Apprentice. Tenacity is on the left, Rock Solid is on the right. (Photo courtesy of NBC.com)

"Bedrooms" rom Celebrity Apprentice. Tenacity is on the left, Rock Solid is on the right. (Photo courtesy of NBC.com)

Who do you think won the challenge? Rock Solid won!

The Rock Solid team won largely because:

• The judges felt there were too much going on in the space for Tenacity and all of it actually made the apartment look and feel smaller
• The seafoam green color that Tenacity picked was too strong for most people's taste. Something neutral and soft is the key when it comes to staging spaces, especially the small spaces.
• The props and decor that Tenacity used made the space feel cheap.

So.. How does this translate into staging homes for sale?

Do:

• Use pieces that are appropriate to scale
• Less is more. I see very often that the home owners feel like staged homes are missing a lot of accessories and they will go back and add more stuff. Realize that we are not in the business of selling stuff, we are in the business of selling space. And buyers can't see the space with all this stuff in the space! Accessories are, after all, accent pieces: use sparingly.
• Pick neutral colors that are pleasing to the eyes. This does not mean the staged homes have to look boring, there are definitely color choices that can add color and brightness to your space.

Don't:

• follow what the Tenacity celebs did!

This post kicks off a Weekly Style Tip we will be running on our blog. We will cover latest trends, colors, and style tips in this series. So stay tuned!

Hey Active Rainers

We are doing a SUPER special deal for EcoJoe for Halloween!

**Who is EcoJoe?

In real estate, there is a popular custom of burying St. Joseph statues and pray to him for having good luck in selling the homes quickly. However, most products on the market are made from plastic, which are toxic to produce and toxic for the environment to be left buried in the ground. EcoJoe is a GREEN alternative to those plastic St Joseph statues. He is bio-degradable and eco-friendly!

EcoJoe is also a great green marketing tool and promotional product for real estate professionals to break the ice and get the conversations going. Better yet, instead of burying plastic Joes and increase demands on plastic, you can now have an eco-friendly alternative!

To thank our awesome fans on Facebook and their amazing support during our first 3-month launch (can you believe it’s almost 3 months???), we are running an ONE DAY ONLY special promotion on Halloween for our Facebook Fans!

(If you are not a fan yet, no worries, just head on over www.facebook.com/ecojoe to join!)

Here is the juicy 411:

On Halloween morning 12am EST (or 9pm PST on 10/30/2009), we will send out a Facebook page update to all our fans with the special Halloween only promotional code for you to use at check-out. This code allows you to buy an 10-pack of EcoJoes for $31. That’s $3.1 per EcoJoe!

If you are already a fan, pass on this great deal to your friends!

If you are not yet a fan, no worries, just become a fan at www.facebook.com/ecojoe

*please note, shipping will be calculated separately.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!