REDESIGN - Don't You Just Love When Your Clients "GET IT" and Work WITH You?

I just finished a redesign for the most delightful clients. They asked that I use their furnishings as much as possible. I was able to keep my rental furnishing costs under $200. A few pillows, lamps, chairs, small office desk and some silk plants were all that I brought in. The rest belonged to my clients.

Before I first came to view the home, these homeowners evidently had several people - including their realtor (THANK YOU!!!) - comment on how they would have to SWAP the formal living room and office before putting the home on the market. Because of their jobs, both husband and wife did a lot of reading and research. They had swapped their living room and office space (which are the first 2 rooms you see when you enter their home) in order to accomodate a wall unit bookshelf that must have been 15-18 feet long.  Since they had already been prompted by several people to swap rooms, I didn't experience the uphill struggle that could have ensued, had I been the first to recommend this!

LIVING ROOM BEFORE:
 

The result - a much more predictable living arrangement for potential buyers to see. (We'll be dealing the the furniture indentations in the rug after the professional carpet cleaners are finished. My mentor (a former builder) showed me how to use ice cubes to bring up the pile in the carpet as well as the rug pad underneath - you just let the ice cubes melt on the flattened spots on the rug and it "reconstitutes " the pile.

LIVING ROOM AFTER (I brought in a few accent pillows to break up the floral pattern in the sofa. Its a little Christmasy, but ...:

OFFICE BEFORE (the rug and the sofa were fighting so I separated the two of them: "rug, stay where you are"; sofa, go to the living room!" Consequently, they both behaved better in their respective rooms!:

OFFICE AFTER:

On redesign day, we packed a 26 foot UHaul FULL and still had plenty of furniture to fully stage the entire home. Here are some more befores and afters.

DINING ROOM: We decluttered, brought in more contemporary chairs, repositioned some wine cabinets and raised the dated chandelier so that it wasn't as noticeable. 

KITCHEN/FAMILY ROOM: The clients asked that we leave their TV in the family room. We removed their two recliners along with two bookshelves and a large DVD storage cabinet and brought in their more compact loveseat so that the room remained functional with LESS to distract from this room's features, the windows and fireplace.

MASTER BEDROOM: The master bedroom had utilitarian bedding (cat lovers) and needed to be upgraded. We found a crisp new bed in a bag set in one of their closets that we used for Staging purposes. We also brought in a smaller scale chair, separated their two large dressers, and took out two more chairs, a trunk and a card table. I also brought in two bedside lamps to replace their small scale reading lamps.

GUEST BEDROOM: The guest room looked crowded with too much furniture. It was actually a great space and quite roomy once we removed the bookshelves and coffee table. 

UPSTAIRS HALL BATH: You cant see it in this picture, but the linoleum was dated with a pink and grey-green floral pattern. We played down the pink by bringing in sage green as the predominant decor color.

At the end of the project, my clients were VERY TIRED because they had spent 5 LONG days executing 4-5 pages of tasks on my preliminary Written Report before I came in for the redesign. HUGH KUDOS are in order for them as well as my FANTASTIC ASSOCIATE, Sue, who helped me power through this redesign in one day.