Trip Memories, Part 1

We recently returned from our wonderful 15 days San Diego - Panama Canal - San Juan cruise vacation (please no comments on the wastefulness of cruising - we enjoy it and are not making a political statement) and I wanted to share some of our favorite photographs.

Let's start with San Diego:


You all know that I love to take shots of architecture and I found this building really interesting - the outdoor space is incorporated in an way you don't see here in the Northeast.




This was a morning visitor each of the two days in San Diego. The gulls would sit on our deck and smile for the camera. I thought it was just neat that they were so mellow. We did not leave out any food, so it seemed like a social call...lol.

This is the San Diego Bay, you can see towards the downtown area which was very nice. We walked around a lot on Saturday and while I had hoped to get out to Coronado, we just did not have the time.

I just love this photograph! This was about 6:30 am off of our room balcony. The water was so still, the shadows and light so beautiful and the reflection of the sailboats waiting for the day to begin. This will definitely be made larger for a decorating project!

The Wyatt Earp Hotel is one (or the one) oldest buildings in San Diego. It's been restored and is in beautiful shape. The colors were amazing bright at this time of day. We stopped at a bar across the street and just hung out for a few hours. It was so sunny and pleasant and I understood why people rave about the area.

Next up, the Mexican Rivera....

Greetings from Mexico!

One of the great joys of taking a vacation is the opportunity to see other cultures and to find out how other people live their lives.

As you can see from my blog, I love to take photographs of many things, but I especially enjoy taking photos of architecture, in all different forms. Balconies, windows, the shapes of trim, photos both close up and far away.

These things inspire me. They also afford me the opportunity to work on my eye - for lovely vignettes, for details, etc. I also like to use the photographs for art in some of my staging or decorating work. Blowing up details of a balcony or using three similar vignettes in matching frames can set the mood for a room.

So we are now on the Mexico portion of our trip, soon to go through the Panama Canal and I cannot wait to get home (well, I can but I wanted to be polite) and post some of my photographs for you.

In the meantime, I'll keep taking them.

Shabby Chic Redefined

I have always been the anti-Shabby Chic gal.

While I certainly understood how it would appeal to so many people, I just always felt it was messy and too casual for so many styles of homes. I don't think anything was more shocking then walking into someones home and seeing the formal spaces turned into shabby chic without a real thought into how it fit your "modern" home.....

But it still shocked me when in January I had heard that Rachel Ashwell and the "Shabby Chic" brand had filed for bankruptcy. She had stores, lines in other stores, web sites and many, many books. So what happened?

Apparently, she was trying to expand (due to a deal) at the same time the economy was going down the dirt. This led to the downfall of the company and the eventual Chapter 11 filing.

Bus Rachel and Shabby Chic are making a comeback according to this article in the New York Times. "The business plan, he and Ms. Ashwell said, describes a line of lower-price upholstered pieces that will appear in furniture stores sometime next year. Her new flagship stores in Manhattan and Santa Monica (a third is to open in London early next year) have been conspicuously named Shabby Chic Couture, to differentiate their higher price point — the new $3,500 sofa, versus one that might sell for $1,500 — from the new line for other stores."

While I applaud the "lower priced" line, I do wish there was not a disconnect between that and the higher priced "Couture" line. Does it make that much of a difference if your sofa is $2,000 as long as it has that Shabby Chic title?

Just asking....

Anyway, it's great to see a decorating icon make it back after a difficult time. Let's look for more of those decorating icons to return...like some of those magazines we have lost.....

Shabby Chic....redefined for the better, I hope.

Home Staging Cheat Sheet

While I don't agree with everything Barb touts, I thought this was a good article to share.

The Home-Staging Cheat Sheet
6 easy ways to make your property more appealing to buyers
Posted: July 3, 2008

Faced with a massive glut of unsold homes, many would-be sellers are struggling to make their properties stand out in today's downtrodden real estate market. But while the economic head winds are beyond property owners' control, author Barb Schwarz says they can dramatically improve their chances of making a sale by devoting attention to an often-overlooked corner of real estate marketing: home staging.

Schwarz, the CEO of StagedHomes.com, was a pioneer in home staging back in the early 1970s and has used the techniques to sell properties ever since. "The goal [of home staging] is for the buyer to mentally move in," Schwarz says. "If they cannot mentally feel and see themselves living here, you've lost them." Schwarz offers six simple tips to help home sellers better position themselves in a sluggish market.
Get them inside. The first thing a prospective buyer notices about a home is not the living room but the front yard. "A lot of people think staging is the inside only," Schwarz says. "[But] we've got to stage the outside to get them inside." So cut the grass, trim the hedges, rake those leaves, sweep the sidewalks, and power-wash the driveway. And make sure you don't have too many potted plants scattered around the property.

Pretend you're camping. Schwarz says a cluttered room will appear too small to buyers. "Clutter eats equity," she says. Schwarz tells homeowners to go through each room of the house and divide their belongings into two piles: "keep" and "give up." Items in the "keep" pile will be used to stage the room, while those in the "give up" pile should be stored elsewhere. "Pretend you are camping," she says. "When you go camping, you are not taking all those books, right?"
The decluttered rooms may appear bare to the seller, but the buyer won't think so. Schwarz says. "And buyers cannot visualize when there is too much [stuff] in the room." Decluttering a home's outdoor spaces is important, too, she says.

Balance hard and soft surfaces. When staging a particular room, it's essential to have a good balance of hard surfaces, such as a coffee-table top, and soft surfaces, like a carpet, Schwarz says. For example, a room with a cushy, 7-foot-long sofa, a love seat, and four La-Z-Boy recliners has too many soft surfaces and not enough hard surfaces. "The room is sinking," she says. "It's all too heavy." "If you have hardwood floors but no rugs, it's too hard," Schwarz says. "So you want to add a rug."

Work in ones or threes. Schwarz recommends arranging items on top of hard surfaces in ones or threes.
You would place three items—say, a lamp, a plant, and a book—on top of a larger hard surface, like an end table. "You take away the plant and the book, it's too bare," she says. "[But if] you put 10 things on it, it's overdone." The three items should be closely grouped together in a triangle shape. "I draw a triangle for my clients," Schwarz says. "I say, 'Here is the end table—let's superimpose a triangle on top of it.' " For hard surfaces with less area, however, a single item will do.

Decide from the doorway. Since would-be buyers will get their first impression of each room from the doorway, homeowners should use that perspective to judge their staging work. "Do your work, go back to the doorway. Do some more, go back to the doorway," Schwarz says. That way, you'll be better able to ensure that each room appeals to buyers.

Make your place "Q-Tip clean." A properly staged home should be immaculate—"Q-Tip clean," as Schwarz puts it. "I mean Q-Tips getting dead flies out of your windowsill [and] going around the bottom of your toilet on the floor," she says. The purpose of ensuring the house is spotless is more than simply making it presentable. If a home is unkempt, a buyer will wonder what other, less visible problems may come with the property, Schwarz says. "They'll say, 'Gosh, if they live like this, what don't they take care of that I can't see?'"

How Home Staging can help Realtors

Being a home stager has many sides to it. There is the education side - where we are always looking at model homes, learning tricks and tips for making our clients homes look ready for sale. There is the client side - where we get to meet wonderful people and help them move to the next station in life. And there is the realtor side - which is where we can help build business for them.

So how do Stagers help Realtors? And how can we help each other?

Incorporating Professional Staging Into Your Listing Presentation….

Gives You More Control – That’s right. Here’s a common scenario for you, the seller may desire a certain dollar amount for the home but you know that unless some changes are made, the seller won’t get it. By incorporating the first step in the home staging process, a Staging Consultation, you are controlling more of the outcome of the sale.

Gives You Credibility and Differentiation- When you’re focused on your own field of interest and outsource to professionals it gives you added credibility in what you’re good at – selling homes!

Protects Your Relationship and Listing - You have to have a strong client relationship that gets you through the entire escrow process. Home staging is a form of constructive criticism that sometimes addresses hard, personal issues like smell and cleanliness. Your clients EXPECT a professional stager to instruct them on these issues but are not completely comfortable with you as their Realtor doing this.

Is A LOT Less Expensive Than You Think – We have Realtor Partner Packages that start as low as a simple Staging Consultation which will usually result in a day of staging (paid by the now engaged seller), gorgeous photos of prepared rooms for your online marketing campaign, and an Action Plan for the seller to do more to make their home desirable. The cost of staging is MUCH less than the first price reduction!