Breakfast Room - Before

10. You applied for a makeover on Clean House, but they wouldn’t touch it.

 9. You want to sell your home quickly and for top dollar!

 8. You have money to burn and can’t think of any other way to spend it.

7. Only an Accredited Staging Professional can clear out your clutter.

 6. It has been 15 years since you’ve seen your countertops.

 5. Your neighbor’s home was Staged and sold for the Staged list price!

 4. You lost an expensive piece of jewelry and need someone to help you find it.

 3. You’ve seen all the Staging shows on TV but still can’t do it yourself.

 2. You want to get back at the decorator who brought all this stuff into your home to begin with.

 1. You know that Staging doesn’t cost… it pays!!!

Breakfast Room After Home Staging

As I walked through the front door I couldn’t help but notice a sturdy pool table in the living room.  How could I help but notice, as I bumped right into it?  As the homeowner and I got to know one another and began to discuss why her home had not sold, I said, “I think I’ve got a pretty good idea without even seeing the rest of the home.  Have you thought about removing the pool table?  It absolutely eats up the living room leaving no space for ‘living.’  You are definitely narrowing your market, as the only people who will walk through the front door and tell themselves ‘This is the house for me!’ are (bachelor) pool sharks.”  She understood my comments and agreed with me, but said her husband plays pool on the table regularly and was not interested in moving it while they were still living there.

We continued the staging consultation as we walked throughout the house.  In the kitchen we removed cereal boxes from the top of the fridge and created a “pantry” to the side that was not in the site line.  In the bedroom we discussed putting away all personal photos and packing up clutter that was stacked on the dresser.  In the office we packed away miscellaneous books and discussed turning the room into either an office or bedroom, but not both.  But there was still the matter of the pool table in the living room.

As the consultation was coming to an end, the homeowner and I found that we shared a common faith and we had a glorious time sharing with one another.  She was a precious woman whose company I enjoyed immensely.  When it was all said and done, I couldn’t even bring myself to charge her for the consultation; but there was still the matter of the pool table in the living room.

As I departed that day I explained, “No matter what sort of staging we do in the rest of your home, if you can’t remove the pool table from the living room your chances of selling this house are very slim.  Potential buyers will make their first impression of your home in 8 seconds as they walk through the front door.  If they are not specifically looking for a home that would make a great pool hall, then they will go on to the next property.  Please reconsider removing the pool table from the living room.”

I didn’t take a photo of that property, but do have a shot of a pool table properly placed in the basement of another staged home.

Pool Table Properly Placed

The moral of the story is this:  when staging your home, don’t overlook the pool table in the living room.  The potential buyers certainly won’t.

Shown below are a couple of photos from my own home.  The first picture shows the red & green “traditional” theme beginning in the foyer on the staircase and continuing into the living room with the tree.  The second photo shows (although not very clearly) the theme and colors going from foyer to family room.

While decorations in the living room are more formal than those in the family room, they are still tied together by color and design.  Another thing to keep in mind is to keep it simple.  Less is ALWAYS more when it comes to decorating.

Now, for no extra charge whatsoever, I’m going to give you a second holiday tip that just popped into my head.  Do you have a set of Christmas dishes that you paid big bucks for, but can’t ever seem to get around to using?  Many years ago a friend told me that she gets hers out the day after Thanksgiving and uses them as her “everyday” dishes throughout the holiday season until New Year’s day.  I thought that was an outstanding idea and have been doing it ever since!  It’s simply too much trouble to unpack dishes for a special meal or two, plus you’re not getting enough use out of them.  Why not use them throughout the month of December and get your money’s worth?

• I purchased red envelopes.  (Yes, I should’ve bought these last year after Christmas when they were half off, but somehow didn’t get around to it.)
• Because the envelopes were red and dark, I thought I should add address labels in white so that the addresses would be clearly visible.
• I purchased labels when I bought the envelopes.  The backgroud was white, but they had a busy red & green border.  (Mistake #1.)
• In the meantime, I sent my husband to the post office to purchase Christmas stamps.  I told him I didn’t care what they looked like, as long as they were “Christmasy.”  (Mistake #2.)  He came home with cute little stamps in red, green, blue and purple, all in different patterns.
• My return labels had yet another design on them in all sorts of color combinations.  (I used several labels I had leftover from years past.  Mistake #3.)

Once I put it all together, here is what my envelope looked like:

How NOT to dress a Christmas card envelope

 As you can see, this is a complete hodgepodge of styles and colors with three different designs and three different color schemes.  Now who would want to open that envelope?

Now, see below for a better look:

The first change was to use a plain white address label.  (Now why didn’t I think of that BEFORE I covered all my envelopes with an impossible design to work with?)  After that, all I had to do was to insure the colors on the return address label and those on the stamp coordinated.  Yes, coordinating designs would’ve been nice too, but we don’t live in a perfect world.  Again, the problem began when I chose to use the address labels with the busy design and attached them FIRST before coming up with a synchronized plan.

Needless to say, if your (and my) greatest problem is trying to come up with a coordinated design for your Christmas card envelope, I’d say we are very blessed.  Stay tuned for tomorrow’s riviting blog on coordinating your paper product lines.  (Not!)