Edna Project Finale

Welcome back to Edna's house! It's been a month since Edna decided to put her house on the market. For a reminder of where we started, take a look back at Part I. Since then, the whole house has received a fresh coat of paint and new flooring—two major selling points for buyers. That alone would help to sell the house, but we didn't stop there. It's always important to appeal to the most buyers, and in this case, that buyer is most likely younger than the home seller. In fact, the average buyer age is 30, so our objective during this whole process was to make the house a place we'd feel like moving into (since some of us working on the project may or may not be around that age). Okay—without further ado, here are the before and afters!!!

Less is more! A buyer will feel drawn in the different living spaces and begin imagining themselves as the owner.

Here's the same room from some different vantage points:

Plenty of space for entertaining!

Now that the great room is revealed, let's start from the beginning. Do you remember the entry?

The entry is the first impression and therefore, very important. Taking away some of the visual distractions is is key. You don't want your buyer to stop here but rather be guided into the rest of the house. We used colors in the hallway that would be repeated in the kitchen and the great room. This helps to draw the buyer in.

The entry is not the only thing a buyer sees when they first walk in. Typically, from the front door, one can see up to five different spaces at once. Make sure all these spaces work together and create a cohesive feel. For example, the powder room off the entry was one of those spaces. It needed to look fresh and modern (and not to mention, never used).

On the way to the great room, the kitchen is on the right. This kitchen had many different color themes and may have been distracting to a new buyer. It was important to connect the kitchen not only to itself but the rest of the house as well. A new tile back splash gives the kitchen a modern edge...tiling tutorial coming soon.

Bedrooms are the place where people spend most their time. The last thing a buyer wants when walking into this room is to be reminded of the previous owner. It should feel as welcoming as a hotel, but less sterile. Take a look at the new bedrooms:

What was once a guest room officially became the master due to it's walk-in closet. Mission: turn guest/craft room into a relaxing master:

These two rooms shared a bath that previously had been wall papered. After paper removal and a fresh coat of paint, the bathroom is now part of a unified space that feels more like a suite than three separate rooms. 

 Staging is about highlighting the positive elements of a house and making a buyer want to spend more time in the space. We do this by suggesting what they might do there.  If we've done our job, this place will sell quickly!!

DIY Antique Chair Makeover

      One thing that makes stagers unique is that they have to be very creative on a job due to small budgets. We try as often as we can to work with the homeowner's furniture and accessories. Some cases where this can be difficult is when the the furniture is needed in a new home (as is the case in this project) or is so outdated, using it defeats the whole purpose of staging. Now there are a few options in these cases. One can rent from a local furniture rental shop, buy on Craigslist or garage sales (this is more time consuming than one might think) or re-purpose existing pieces. 

One of the chairs that was being left behind on this project had great bones but just needed a little TLC. It was a Louis XVI chair that had already been reupholstered at one point by the owner. No one was taking claim to the chair so it seemed like a great DIY project just waiting for me.

Step 1: Choose great fabric for inspiration

Step 2: Take chair outside for a light sanding

Step 3. Wash chair and prep for paint

Step 4: Paint. (Note: I'm not usually a huge fan of painting wood but we were already painting the garage door this gorgeous color and it worked so well with the fabric I had picked out—so love it or hate it, here we are.)

Step 5: Once paint has dried (it was so humid it took a few days to really set) begin to pull off existing fabric. This will teach you a lot about how to put your new fabric back on. You will need to remove all staples or nails as well.

Step 6. Lay old fabric pieces on new fabric and use as patterns. Also, if you fabric has a pattern make sure you match it so all your pieces are headed the same direction—ex: vines or flowers

Step 7: Cut! (always give yourself extra—you can always cut back  later)

Step 8: Place new fabric on chair and begin to secure (I used staples because their fast). Start in the center and work your way out, smoothing as you go.

Step 9: Cut any excess fabric

Step 10: Glue trim cord onto edges to cover staples—I bought five yards of light brown trim. I had a little extra but that was better than driving back to the store:)

                                                                       

Voila!

Breaking Down the Benefits of Home Staging for the Buyer, Seller, and Realtor

Breaking Down the Benefits of Home Staging for the Buyer, Seller, and Realtor
The most buyer traffic will come through a home the first two weeks it is on the market than any other time period. No one gets a second chance to make a first impression and when you are talking about real estate, the only way to generate new interest in your home is to drop your price to attract a different group of potential buyers. With buyers expecting move-in ready homes and becoming more aware of what to expect in a home, more Realtors and sellers are turning to home staging to help them differentiate their homes from the competition.

Home staging is the process of de-personalizing a home and making it "buyer ready" so it appeals to the largest potential buyer audience possible using proven design techniques that highlight the home's best architectural features.  Home staging, also know as real estate staging, is not home decorating but rather an art that utilizes a home owners existing furniture, lighting, and art work to draw a potential buyers eye to the positive aspects of your home.  Home staging will address furniture layouts, paint schemes, clutter, traffic flows, focal points, lighting, accent colors, and creating that WOW factor.

The potential benefits of home staging for the sellers are:

• Sellers who stage their properties first, also end up packing most of their belonging before the home goes on the market; this makes the move less stressful.
• All the clutter is removed from your home prior to your first Open House.
• The statistics show your home will sell faster because it will show better.

Read the rest of this article at Breaking Down the Benefits of Home Staging for the Buyer, Seller, and Realtor

Joelle Benson | JM Staging Solutions - Wall Paper Removal

The Edna Project--Part II (Diary of a Stager)

Click here to read Part I  http://arrangeforchangemn.blogspot.com/2011/07/edna-project-part-i.html

 Edna needs to stay in the house another night. I know this transition must be hard and this is very normal with a senior move, but it pushes our project back another day. I can't get any work done with her in the house. I imagine the smell of oil based primer, Edna pushing down the hallway with her walker, knocking over paint cans and getting primer on her elbows. I really can't imagine she'll appreciate me rubbing her down with paint thinner to get that stuff off—so I don't. I'm stressed in a 'calm before the storm' kind of way. Ok—so maybe I'll get a pedicure. I need to relax now, because once Edna moves I know I'll be there every day, in a rush to meet the deadline—the open house.

So I go into the salon and it's almost completely full—maybe a wedding party of some sort. They all know each other and are talking across the room. I follow the manicurist’s nod to the chair in the middle of the group—I hope I won't be interfering with their conversation here. I roll up my jeans and stick my feet into the little tub on end of the massage chair. Ahh—any minute, I know warm water will soon fill the basin and begin its work—just what I need on this rainy, Friday afternoon. I pick up my magazine, waiting, trying my hardest to relax. Chit chat chit chat chit chat over my head. Ignore it—read your magazine. Try to relax. Hmm. The water isn't getting warm. Ignore it—read your magazine. Try to relax. I do—I bury my head in my US Weekly and pursue relaxation. Then, “EEEEK!”, screams the manicurist. I look down. The floor around me is covered in water. It seems as though my chair has malfunctioned (which might explain the cold water) and has begun to flood the salon. Panic all around. Every employee abandons their customer and is working together on job number one—stop the water and clean the floor. Annoyed looks dart my way. I shrug and try to duck further into my magazine. From what I can hear (I'm avoiding all eye contact at this point), it seems the water has reached the plug-ins for the massage chairs and the well paying patrons of the salon are not getting the pampering they paid for. My phone rings. I reach precariously behind me to dig it out of my purse all the while trying to ignore my neighbor's glare. It's Pat. “Hi Pat....Uh huh....No—I'm not busy. I'm in the middle of a pedicure, but it's not going well..... Uh huh. Ok.... That's bad.....Yep...I'll head over now.” I need to run off to the job site to let in delivery men, and the call couldn't have come at a better time. I grab my bag, slip on my shoes and slosh out of the salon and I can feel the eyes. Well—so much for relaxation.