Since creating the “to be continued” blog, I’ve been closing each post with the words “dwell in possibilities.” I must confess that I borrowed this phrase from the great poet, Emily Dickinson. I saw her quote and realized that it summed up what I am doing as a professional home stager and interior designer.

I am most grateful to Ms. Dickinson for her insightful and inspiring phrase.

Regardless of the size or price range of a house, my objective is to find the possibilities in that house. I am looking for those unique features of that house and finding possible ways to accentuate them for the potential buyer. I am analyzing those unusual spaces that buyers find difficult to understand upon first glance and finding possible functional uses for those spaces.

In the end, my mission is to help the potential buyer see how they could dwell in the possibilities of this house!


Friday, May 6, 2011

A Labor of Love

I really love staging houses and helping my clients sell their houses for the best price possible in the shortest period of time.  This week I was engaged in a labor of love helping my husband’s mother, Mary Gasior, transition into her next life adventure in an assisted living center.  We moved her to her new home and then painted, updated and staged her house which was placed on the market for sale. 

This labor of love also explains why I’ve been a bit spotty in posting to “to be continued”.  Without cable or internet access and with jam-packed days of work, it was tough to find the time for “to be continued”.

Mary lived for 10 years in a 55-plus community in the southwest suburbs of Chicago.  Due to health issues, she needed to move to the assisted living center and sell her house.  I must confess that it is one thing to tell a client her house needs to be painted and updated and quite another to tell your mother-in-law!   

We painted her house with top selling colors from Sherwin Williams (Ivorie – SW 6127 and Blonde – SW 6128) – and the colors were spectacular.  They were elegant and inviting.  We updated the bathroom light fixture and changed out all of the cabinet pulls.  For about $500 and a good bit of sweat equity from my husband and his sister’s family, we made her house look fresh and almost like new.

We filled our SUV to the brim with staging accessories and artwork for the staging side of this adventure.  We used a few pieces of furniture Mary was not taking to the assisted living center and picked up a table at Pier One.  It is often wonderful to see what can be accomplished with some basics and a whole lot of ingenuity.

There was a lot of pressure on this home stager who sets perfection as her standard.  Since this was for family, the end product needed to be perfection plus.  The accompanying photos tell the story better than I can so check them out.

The good news is that the family was very impressed with how we were able to transform her house. 

With the help of the statue of St. Joseph buried in the backyard, Mary’s horoscope about something good happening for her in real estate on May 9th and lot of hard work, we are hopeful that this house sells quickly in a tough real estate market. 


Dwell in possibilities


Cindy

PS – Happy Mother’s Day to every mother out there and especially to Kaye Stafford (my mom), Mary Gasior (my mother-in-law) and Florene Britt (my 95 year old grandmother!)
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