Apparently….. When Linda was at the RESA convention earlier this month, she accepted an award on my behalf and promised the crowd that I would be filming a video acceptance when she got back home.  Seems as though when you have surgery on your eyes, which happened to me, they don’t want you to fly for a while because of the pressure, so I could not make the trip.  So as promised here is my acceptance of the RESA Spouse of the year award.  I also understand that a new nick-name was bestowed upon me by Shell Brodnax upon giving the award to Linda, “The Godfather of Staging” Thank you Shell and here’s to hoping that you are always the one “Making offers that they can’t refuse”.  Before you watch the video, I would like to say a few words about the other two competitors for spouse of the year.  John Marro, which I have known for some years now and Howard Morgan who I meet last year, are just like me in that they are very supportive of their wives and their businesses.  It was a real thrill for me to be named part of this group.  All of us are very devoted to our spouses and take on whatever tasks we can so that our wives have more time to go out and do the magic that they do best.  To our wives, Linda Barnett, Melissa Marro and Carol Morgan, on all of our behalves, Happy Valentine’s day. 

Watch the Video

Gary accepting his spouse of the year award from the Real Estate Staging Association, 2012 Conference, Las Vegas.

As many of you know we use the Darby Inventory Management system here at Home Matters to Manage and Track our inventory.  When we started using Darby several years ago we had around 8,000 items of accessories in our inventory and another 400 furniture items. Linda and I discussed it and decided that we wanted to track everything by the individual item.   I knew it would be quite a task to get everything entered individually so I set about diligently creating my items in Darby along with uploading photos and attaching bar codes to every item. 8,000 items seemed like one heck of a bunch of stuff and I just thought to myself, “If I can just get them all entered into Darby, then It would be a snap to keep up as we added more” I mean how much more could we possibly be adding, Right?  So it took me about 6 weeks, but with the guidance of Tammie O’Brien (Darby’s mom) I got it all done.  Well as the months and years clicked by, we did add more inventory, Much, Much more inventory.  Shortly after we started using Darby, Home Matters business really exploded.  Just this last October I reviewed our inventory again and realized that our item count had swollen to around 16,000 items.  Our inventory had doubled in just a short few years.  Looking back, the increase in inventory closely followed the increase in our volume, DUH!  I’m thinking I should have seen that coming! The simple task of managing additions to our inventory was not so simple any more.  We had also learned over the last few years that every item may seem like a good candidate to affix a bar code too, but time being the best judge of that had proven us wrong.  Some materials just don’t hold the labels very well, for a long period of time and when you have this many items, it is impossible to find that item in the system that is missing a bar code so you can simply reprint it and replace it on the item.  I would find myself with a vase for example, that was missing a label and because we have somewhere around 600 vases in inventory I would pull up and look at photos for what seemed like forever trying to find this item so I could get the right number back on it. 

It did not take long for us to figure out that we could continue to track our furniture items individually but we desperately needed to establish tracking and labeling our accessory items by category, rather than by individual item.  Well, that’s great, but how the heck do I pull that off?  Building new item numbers, killing the old item numbers, relabeling every item.  All I could vision was months of work with little hope of it ever being right again!  Once again, Tammie O’Brien (Darby’s mom) to the rescue. 

I created a new “Accessory Items” category with 63 new sub-categories, ie.  “Art Pieces Small, Art Pieces Medium, Books, Bowls, Candle Holders, Finials, Vases” etc.  I then entered the inventory counts for each item and printed new labels.  When I was complete, Tammie was able to remove the inventory counts for the old individual item numbers and then deactivate all of those items.  Tammie’s then deactivated and removed the old item numbers and inventory from the system.  In total it took about 3 days to make the switch, all because of Tammie’s help. 

I already loved using the Darby system before the big change.  Everything about the speed, accuracy and ability to track items has always been just great.  But needless to say, now I just can’t imagine life without it.

Thank you Tammie for being such a big help to the end users of your system and thank you for creating such a great system to work with.  Anyone going to the RESA convention, be sure and look Tammie up and see the system for yourself.

Just thinking the other day about what a good time Stanley had here in Indianapolis.  Where has he gone?

If you listed your home for sale this winter or are thinking about listing it yet this spring, consider the impact of a thorough outdoor cleaning on your marketing photos, open house presentation and overall curb appeal. After nearly three feet of total snow, not to mention several inches of ice, this winter has taken its toll on Indianapolis' landscape. There are some effective ways homeowners can revive their home's exterior from the dead of winter and warm-up potential buyers during this spring season!

According to Aaron Padgett owner of Ground Affects Landscaping of central Indiana, The first thing to ask yourself is, "Are my shrubs overgrown?" Do the shrubs accent the house or do they completely obscure the view of the home from the street? Are there far too many shrubs? Many well intentioned homeowners buy a plethora of cute, little bushes from one of the big box stores that have turned into an overgrown mass of shrubbery in a few years. So, start in early Spring by trimming back the overgrown shrubs and thinning out the masses to give prospective buyers a peek at the house that's been hiding behind the foliage.

After such a harsh winter, often times you'll find dead or sickly looking plants. Since you are wanting to sell as quickly as possible, this is not the time to try to nurse a plant back to health. It's best to simply remove any unsightly greens, by digging up the plant altogether or trimming out the dead branches. Many flowers, both perennials and annuals, will have died back, leaving last year's foliage and flower stalks. Simply rake out this plant debris and throw into the compost heap.

Next you'll need to define the border where your lawn starts and your landscape beds stop. You'll want to imagine connecting your beds with soft curves that a riding lawn mower could easily navigate and re-edge these bed lines with a straight spade. Dig straight down on the lawn side and at a 60 degree angle from the bed-side so that these cuts meet about six inches deep and create a V-shaped trough.

Lastly, apply premium hardwood bark mulch, 3-4″ thick over all the landscape beds, being sure to keep the same thickness into the V-shaped edging trough you created in the step above. The lawn side of the "V" should keep the mulch from spilling into the grass. Spend a little extra time feathering the mulch smooth and you'll get a much better overall look and feel.  We recently found this local business named The Mulch Monkey that makes the ordering and delivery of Mulch around the Indianapolis area fast and easy! Check it out!  And you'll just love the video!