The house that is our competition has been reduced $35,000.   In my books that mean the realtor has lost $1050 in commissions.   Wouldn't it have been cheaper and smarter to pay for a consultation with a stager?

 

The presentation of rooms is so important. Little things mean a lot.  Fresh color on the walls.  Bold colors in the rooms and the correct placement of furniture.

We can call it de-cluttering, re-designing or staging.  What matters is that it's done.

Marianne and I finished staging a home this past week. The sellers know when they put it on the market that they wanted it sold.

They wanted to purchase a new home then put the old one on the market.  The did not want to be living in it while is was on the market.

We realize that not everyone can do this esp. in this economy.  They are lucky and smart.

I started working with them last June so they had the time to do all of my little "honey do" projects.

They painted and cleaned and tweaked here and there.

 

Yellow paint is now gone.  Bed direction is changed.

Draperies are open and clutter removed.

 

We used their furniture and used our bedding and extras.

 

This is what their small bedroom looks like now.   This will be their MLS photo

 

This is one of their competitions MLS photo.

This is the 2nd bedroom in the house we just staged. 

Before

 

 

 

After

The walls were painted.  It's difficult to see with the afternoon sun streaming in.

Exercise equipment was removed and the bed was moved to another wall.

 

 

 

Our competition MLS photo and they have just reduced their price by $35,000 and are going for a short sale.

I know that if they had called in a stager first the house would have sold and they wouldn't be in this short sale situation.

 

What do you think??

Our living room   before

 

 

 

 

After.  The walls were painted.  The couch from the FR was moved to the LR and slip covered.

 

Competition Living Room

 

Why aren't the realtors working with a stager to have the homes sell faster and for more money?

 

Sellers.   Don't wait for your agent to bring up staging.  Call a stager today

 

 

 

This adorable Birmingham home was on the market for two years without an offer.   Two weeks after staging with Stage-Show-Sell., LLC it had an offer.

The cape cod had a bedroom and sitting area on the upper level with a beautiful bathroom.

The entry level had a bedroom and a full bath.

These were also staged.

Tha basement was confusing because it didn't have a purpose to the buyers eyes.  The seller  used it for a media room and that wasn't selling the house esp. with it vacant.

Having the basement staged gave the buyers the option of knowing that it could be used for a bedroom.  Please note the exit window.  The basement could also be used as an office or media room

 

 

 

I realize that many of you warm climate stagers don't understand the challenges that we go through.  Yes I do know that you are having a cold snap.  Gee what is it this week 60 degrees :-)

Last weekend we de-staged a home, during a snow storm, in Madison Heights.  That means getting the supplies damp, slipping and sliding on the ice walks and driveways.  Try loading your car when there is no purchase for your shoes on the ground.   Right after that we had to stage another vacant in Royal Oak.

Understand how complicated it is  by understanding that vacant house have to be winterized.  That means turning off the water and putting anti-freeze in all the pipes and TOILETS.  We women have to know where the nearest fast food restaurant, with facilities, is.

 

There are no utilities when the house is a foreclosure and there is no one to pay the utility bills.  That means no heat and no electricity.

This is like going back 100 years and staging a log cabin except there is no wood burning stove.

What damage can happen to our furniture and linens in this cold damp climate?

What happens to us trying to unpack boxes with gloves on our hands?

 

Oh, mother nature, please let this be a short winter.

 

 

Over a year ago I heard about the program called Photosynth and thought that I would play with it.

Well, I wasn't impressed and haven't done anything with it since.

Now that members have gone to camp and renewed my interest in it I thought, well, I just might try it again.

No way can I let them get ahead of me.

 

This is my winter back yard.  No flowers blooming and, much to my delight, there is no snow.

 

I have yet to figure out how I'm going to use this in my staging business.

There must be a way of uploading this to youtube.  I haven't figured that out yet either.   ANY help would be appreciated.

 

since I started this post I've figured out how to imbed it. I can't edit the post once it's done

 

<![endif]-->

Hi Virginia,

I work on the Photosynth team here at Microsoft and came across your blog this morning, great to see you trying out our product! To answer your question about YouTube, this is not supported functionality...Photosynth gives users a different kind of experience than video, so it's not something we support.

Feel free to ping me if you have other questions about the product that I can help with, we're very excited and interested in the possibilities of using Photosynth in the real estate market.

Bert

Wonderful Birmingham Cape Cod had offer two weeks after listing.

This Birmingham home was staged by Virginia Tatseos and  Stage-Show-Sell

 

Stage-Show-Sell, LLC is working on another Estate.  This one happens to be in my home town of Bloomfield Hills.

We specialise in homes where the families generally live out of state and can't do the work that's necessary to get the home on the market.

Many of the rooms look "normal" with tons of wallpaper and old paint.   These two rooms are a bit of a challenge.

 

This is the first floor laundry that's trapped in the 60s.   The wall paper is now gone and I'm working on a new laundry cabinet & sink and floor. The cabinets above are small and not really appealing.  We can paint the cabinets white or toss them out. My problem is that they are small.   The lower cabinet will hold a large can of soup.  The upper would hold two cans of soup back to back.  Am I better off painting them or tossing them and putting in two plain shelves to hold the cleaning supplies?

 

I've seen this kind of hording before with this generation of owners.  They have been through two recessions and several depressions and can't throw anything away.

The paper, flooring and cabinet have now been tossed out.  The room is next to the laundry and garage.  A door where I'm standing with the camera and one on the left going into the garage.

What do I put in there to show that it's a mud room?  A catchall for coats, boots and other outdoor gear? This house has 5 bedrooms so I'm assuming that buyers would need such a room.  The fix would have to be economical and most of it removable to keep the costs down.

 

My realtor is real happy with Stage-Show-Sell...Example #2 Birmingham  

This home has been on the market, priced was to high, for 18 months.  The realtor that chooses to work with me :-) had the seller stage the home with, of course, Stage-Show-Sell and priced the home where it needed to be.

Price, Location and Condition is a winning combination that resulted in an offer in the first two weeks.

The vacant empty bath looked cold.  It just didn't pop at all

 

 

 

Bath is very inviting now.   The separate glass shower was a real treat for the buyer

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is typical of Cape Cod homes in the Birmingham Area.

The space at the top of the stairs, if not defined, is hard to imagine

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just a few pieces of furniture gives the room a purpose

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Master Bedroom was painted blue and of course vacant

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's hard to imagine where the furniture would be placed in the room

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After with the right furniture placement facing the TV and fireplace

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What dining room??

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Very nice yard was easy and fun to stage.

We wanted to draw the eye to the back of the yard to show how deep it is.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't want to invest in a bunch of faux foods so I've been playing with my own creations.   Will my Jello pass the eye test?

I used a old receipe for finger jello and adapted it  a little.

Not everyone drinks coffee in bed

For those who would prefer the table

 

The Jello lasted two weeks before I had to toss it out.   Now I'm looking for other ways.

 

Stage-Show-Sell, offers affordable home staging solutions in the Birmingham – Bloomfield and surrounding areas in getting your home ready for the market. We service both home sellers and realtors. We have the experience, our own rental furniture and accessories to stage many homes. We specialize in Estate work. The house can be put into our hands for the whole process of getting the house on the market

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 worth of deck cleaners and brighteners and power washed to get it the best we could. Then we sealed it with Cabot clear.

It really looks good.

I'm thinking that I could have taken a sander for hardwood floors and sanded the deck.   That would have meant no chemicals and the look would have been more consistent.  The area that had a outdoor rug is lighter than the rest of the deck.

I'm definitely not trying to put the professionals out of work.   They would be called in at the drop of a hat for a large deck.  A deck of this size would be cost prohibitive on most of the Orchestrating Estate jobs that I do.

 

Has anyone used a floor sander on a deck?

The local Home Depot has a floor sander that it rents by the hour and day.

Will this work for the decks too!!

 

I've very curious about this because my son's deck needs to be re-done.   We are all do it yourselves :-)

We tried paint strippers and power washers and it still needed to be sanded.  The logical thing was for us to try sanding one section before stripping and amazing this worked.   We can now skip the process of paint removers and brighteners and just sand.  There are many really nice hand sanders on the market and I figure it would take us months of weekends to finish the job.

Will the hardwood floor machine work for this process?

 

Stage-Show-Sell, offers affordable home staging solutions in the Birmingham – Bloomfield and surrounding areas in getting your home ready for the market. We service both home sellers and realtors. We have the experience, our own rental furniture and accessories to stage many homes. We specialize in Estate work. The house can be put into our hands for the whole process of getting the house on the market

We really watn to thank IKEA  for allowing us to hold the event and making it so sucessful.  They were so generous with their time and location.

The Canton location has a great confrence room for holding public events.  We were the first meeting of business professionals.

 

We started with a 45 minute tour of the display floor which was just a sample of what there was to see.

My first visit to IKEA took 5 hours because there is so much to see.

The ideas presented, by the attendees, were great.  I can't wait to see the responses from the attendees.

Our sponsors were IKEA and Cort Furniture.

 

 

    Cort was very pleased to announce the New Location of their store in Warren on Mound Rd.

Additional Photos