Update

It has been a while since I last posted on my blog so I thought I would let you all know what I've been up to.
As you know I just finished the Dewey certification. I plan on taking the interior decorating core program with QC Design School (I portfolio will soon have more diplomas than before and after photos) in the fall.
I just listed my own house for sale with one of my favorite Real Estate Agents, Scott Graham(Royal Lepage, Atlantic Homestead). Which as you can imagine included a lot of painting, packing, rearranging, junk removal, donating, shopping for accessories and so forth!
I was also interviewed for a staging article in East Coast Magazine, Summer edition.
Article- All The Homes A Stage.
And I have been extremely busy staging and decorating this summer with many returning and new clients!
I also have some new and exciting things coming up and will update on them at a later date.

Certified Dewey Color Consultant

As of last week I am Certified Dewey Color Consultant!
To all you decorators, stagers, redesigners and anyone one else who would like to finally get what color is all about I highly recommend this course!
The Dewey system takes all the guess work out of color to achieve perfect color schemes every time.
Which means happy clients!!!!

Dream clients and perfect sales

So sorry I haven't been around here much lately. I have been busy! My new website is finally up and running, it's still a little rough but it's up and that's what counts! However, I am having email issues because of it that I am working on straightening out. I am getting over a cold that attacked me last week and I have been staging. Which brings me to today's topic.
Dream clients and perfect sales! As a stager the perfect client is usually a Realtor (Realtors always have properties in need of staging whereas home owners only sell a house occassionally) who offers our staging services to his clients for free and the perfect sale is when a property that you stage sells really fast for top dollar!
Monday I worked with an up and coming agent who fits into the dream client catagory. He sent me this email and I thought I would share it with you all. I am sure today's topic will be perfectly explained.....

Just wanted to touch base with you to let you know that 13 Cumberland has

an accepted offer in place. I am currently working on finalizing the

financing,at which point it is all but a done deal.
Just wanted to let you know once again that the work you did was fabulous.
We got two offers on the house within 48 hours and the one that was accepted
was well OVER asking price!
So thanks again. I think this was a well spent $200 and look forward to
doing more business with you again in the future.
Andrew Duggan, Remax Realty Specialists, St. John's, NL

This is what's it's all about! Properties that move fast and happy clients!
If anyone is in need of a great Real Estate agent who will have your property staged AND get it sold, give Andrew a call.
To all my other great clients, send me a testimonial and I'll give you a shout out here.

Give Away portfolios

I recently had an idea that I would like to leave copies of my portfolios in Real Estate office waiting rooms and also with my repeat agents. My sister has been creating scrapbooks this way for some time. This will give you greater exposure and give you a professional, polished look. If you want to get ahead of the pack, this is a great way to do it.
So I found a site that allowed me to do just that. Actually I found a few sites but some were so complicated I couldn't figure them out. Then I found www.picaboo.com. You can download the program for free, create your portfolio and then order them. As simple as that! And as an added bonus, your first order is 50% off!! (coupon code for this is; 1P50PO).
http://preview.picaboo.com/Webview/CoverPage.aspx?user=000000000005F42302&album=0000000000060C1E7D Here's the link to my first picaboo portfolio.
My sisters advice is to get the medium soft covers (the ones that you can customize the covers with your logos or photos.) The hardcovers are more expensive and fall apart after a while. The soft covers are lighter and look better, and best of all, cheaper than the hard covers!

Photography

Here's another idea for all you budding stagers to consider adding to your services.
When I go in to stage a house I always take before and after photos for my own portfolio, and because I stage for Haverhill I have to take these pictures because all the houses I stage are showcased on HGTV and www.stagers-studio.com.
I also offer these photos to my client (usually a real estate agent)full use for advertising purposes. This is a great marketing tool because I am taking the photos anyway so it's very little effort on my part to offer them to the client, but is a big deal to them.
If you ever surfed the MLS system you will have seen many photos of homes for sale that are just gross! Many prospective buyers cut these from their short list and have no interest in seeing that listing because the photos are so bad. (because the rooms are unstaged).
What many of you might not realize is that many real estate agents actually pay photographers to go in and take these terrible pictures which only turn people off.
By offering the photos for advertising, I am saving them money they would have spent on a photographer. I am offering 2 services in one which means less calls and time. and I am providing them with photos of beqautifully staged rooms which will in turn attract potential buyers instead of turning them off.
And that's just photography, They also get the staging! How great is that!

Gift baskets

A friend of mine, who happens to be another stager. Some of you may know her. Jacqueline Forde had a brilliant idea that she shared with me a few months ago. That brilliant idea is to add the service of house warming & thank you gift baskets along with our staging services.
You see, real estate agents are very busy people who deal with very stressed clients on a daily basis, so anything that we can do to make their lives easier also helps us build our businesses!.
Agents want to make a good impression on their clients and word of mouth means a lot in their business, so if they have clients that are impressed with their service they will tell others and that agent will get busy.
An agent that is already offering staging to their clients is obviously interested in making that all important good impression. Enter the gift basket! Good agents always have a gift for their clients after a sale so why not get it from us!
The more details we can take care of, the more the agent will depend on us.
So how do I do this? Well, there are many cheesy gift baskets out there and every one has "been there, done that" at one time or another, and they are readily available. Discerning agents will want to impress with something a bit better than that.
I signed up to sell Everyday Style (signed under Jacqueline actually). For those of you who don't know Everyday Style, well it is one of those home party companies. They offer beautiful home decor and entertaining items. I don't do home parties but I do get a great discount and often free stuff. I create unique and beautiful gift baskets using Everyday Style products.
My favorite gift basket to make is using a dip chiller with one of the dip mixes. I put them in a basket or tin or any other non tacky container, cello wrap it and tie a bamboo dip spoon into the ribbon. It looks great and is very affordable to for any agent. Of course the ideas are limitless and I have many other baskets to choose from.
This, like staging is not like work to me. It allows me another creative outlet and make money at the same time!
If any of you are interested in Everyday Style let me know.
I'll have more ideas on this topic from time to time and welcome any questions.

Welcome to My New Blog!!

Hello there!
This is my maiden voyage for my brand new blog, actually this is my first and only blog ever so bare with me, I'm sure I'll get better with time.
I am an accredited Home Stager/Interior Decorator/Interior Redesigner. That's right, I have diplomas in all 3. So I'm still not sure what my title should be and I plan on adding more courses to the list!
This blog will cover many topics in the fields of staging/decorating/redesign and feel free to ask questions and I will cover them here.