IF this doesn't sell you on staging, nothing will - 05/31/09 05:15 PM
I had to share this with everyone.  
Via Kym Hough, Home Staging Professional Green Trainer, CSP, RESA, Danville, CA (www.Staged to Sell & www.StagersLIST.com):
I was at a property yesterday and chatting with a Realtor about the value of staging. He started to chuckle when I said "It's hard to believe anyone in their right mind would put a house on the market without staging."  Of course, it helped that we were standing in a listing that my crew and I had recently staged and put on the market so the evidence was right in his face.
He told me that some people … (1 comments)

Painting the frame made the painting POP - 05/27/09 09:58 PM
I love finding neat inexpensive pieces of art and tweaking them.  This piece is an original and dated 1941.  That's pretty cool I think.
This picture was used in a staging a few months back

 

 
 
 
I used it here because the gold frame complimented the brass on the fireplace and the ceiling lights.
 
This is what it looks like after painting the frame a very soft white.
 
 

 
Stage-Show-Sell, offers affordable home staging solutions in the Birmingham – Bloomfield and surrounding areas in getting your home ready for the market. We … (7 comments)

advice on refinishing hard wood floors and decks - 05/25/09 10:42 AM
Seems like every house I work on now has hardwood floors that need work.  Yesterday I posted a blog on how Murphy Oil Soap saved the day for me for one room.  Today, I'm interested in how to refinish the floors.
The reason behind this is decks.  My logic is that refinishing a hard wood floor is not that much different from cleaning up a really bad deck.   This deck below, from my last job, had a wheelchair ramp up to the house.  This will put 99.9% of buyers off.

The ramp before the handyman attacked it.
We used $50 … (10 comments)

Murphy's Oil Soap Saved the day - 05/24/09 02:13 PM
I was recently working an Estate in Warren Michigan.  The owners had passed and it was time to sell.  Those who follow me know that this is my forte.  I love it.
This last home had carpet in one room that had to be torn out.  No if and or buts it had to go.
Tearing it out was easy.  The hardwood floor underneath had a few issues that were difficult to deal with.  Do you remember the yellow padding that be used to have under carpets?   The kind that turned to dust when it was old?  Well that the problem.  … (14 comments)

For less than a cup of coffee a day - 05/24/09 06:46 AM
For less than a cup of coffee a day
April I was rejoicing that a home that I staged went pending. Every listing agents and stagers dream is to have gone pending within 3 weeks.
Things started sounding fishy when the buyer needed an extension on his inspection period.
Then they dragged out the renegotiating. This dragged out for weeks!!!!!!!!!!! And a closing date was finally set.
The seller told me to de-stage the property because it would save her money on the extra month rent. I acknowledged her desire to do this and said that the rent until a couple … (16 comments)