I’ve been trying to start this newsletter for the last forty-five minutes and all I have to show for it is a blank page and forty-five minutes of my life that have been spent alternately staring at a blinking cursor, checking Twitter to see if the person who’s trying to hack into my account has succeeded, and watching old footage of the Perseid Meteor shower from the Canary Islands.
Yes, its been one of those exhilarating days going up and down three flights of stairs for four hours transforming A Scary Closet (including dismissing said scary items to a lower rank…i.e. the basement) into one that looks like it’s off the pages of House and Home, but with a lot more clothes and personality. So I’m a little tired, and when I’m tired, it’s easy to get a little down and out.
Maybe by the day after tomorrow, which happens to be the third day of the rest of my life, I’ll wake up feeling as fresh as a daisy. Assuming you’re thinking of a daisy that has been run over by a lawnmower. Twice.
Now getting to the topic at hand…seeds of virtue. Because that’s what I wrote at the top of the page.
Being virtuous may sound old-fashioned nowadays. Yet we all need to develop positive qualities like dutifulness, prudence, industriousness, humour and trustworthiness in order to better connect to all those we care about.
It’s the same with preparing a home for sale. There needs to be positive preparation techniques in order that each home connects quickly to a buyer; positive virtues such as cleanliness, order, comfort, delight, and interest.
Staging a home for sale is setting it up so a buyer immediately falls in love with it. Effective staging entails arranging the furniture appropriately and then styling it with grace and finesse, bringing in feelings of comfort, care, harmony and organization, thus giving the house the good attention it deserves by showcasing it’s full potential.
Putting a house on the market without first professionally staging it, is like a novice pilot assuming they can fly after sending a paper plane successfully around the room.
They say insanity is doing the same old thing while expecting different results.
Or maybe what you are doing is working, but maybe it could be working better.
… to commit to something different. Something new. Not to a result, but commit to the process of ever-improving results.
If anyone has lived on this planet as an adult for more than two decades, then it is highly probable they have quite the accumulation.
Nowadays people are bit more aware of how much stuff they have because it is beginning to be a bit of social stigma if you have too much stuff.
There’s now a name for these people. Hoarders. Back in the day, they were just called grandmothers.
DE-CLUTTERING alone, can be worth a mint before putting a house on the market.
I think a lot of us wish that if we bought every organizing book on Amazon and put them under our pillow for ten nights in a row, we would be completely organized, but it doesn’t seem to work that way. And then again, most organizing books would be vastly improved by reading them aloud pairing them with interpretive dance.
Now that would be an unholy union.
Getting rid of such things is easy for me while staging. I have no emotional attachment to them, but sometimes it’s not so easy for the seller.
It can be difficult to convince them to admit to the logic of saying goodbye to 3 colanders, 4 bags of stuffed toys, a forest of brooms, 12 glass canisters of varying heights, a one-hole punch, a VHS tape of Saturday Night Fever, a rusty sifter, a candy dish decorated with squirrels around the rim, a pogo stick, a tweed bowler hat, a wine-making kit, beeswax candle stubs, a framed paint-by-number picture of Canada geese, 12 different sets of paper napkins, tattered bathrobes, a broken typewriter, nesting baby blue Samsonsite luggage, blankets that hadn’t been unfolded in 23 years, fly swatters, lobster bisque stockings, paper fans from Chinatown, Thai take-out menus, styrofoam egg cartons, purses with one handle, singleton rubber boots, a potholder which more holes than fabric, several dozen records without covers, a sixth-grade autograph book, a unopened set of pansy dessert plates, and three Bocce balls.
You can have too much of a good thing.
Tips for sellers:
Weed out anything you wouldn’t want to get caught wearing in public.
Hold on to what you need to hold on to. But if you haven’t used it or it’s a surprise to you that you even own it, let it go.
If you can’t remove the stains, remove what the stains are staining.
Never get rid of love letters. Or anything that makes you smile.
If it’s made of newsprint, get rid of it.
If the best thing you can say about it that it was cheap, toss it.
No buyer is interested in how many moisturizers you own. That’s what bathroom cabinets are for.
Keep in mind that clutter-free does not mean compulsive; you want to organize your home for selling, not hide all signs of it.
First, double check that you have thrown out all that you can.
Ask yourself – Do you truly need all this stuff?
The 70’s have come and gone, so it may be time to let go of the KC and the Sunshine Band tapes and your comprehensive Chicago LP collection. And by the way, how many times have you actually used that bread-maker?
Some storage deserves to be closed.
Like your first report card, or that unfortunate snapshot of you taken the day you got braces.
Access is more important than quantity.
Closets and storage are not effective and do not show well if you can’t see everything at a glance.
A good rule of thumb is to store objects one-deep in appropriately sized storage units. Two feet is ideal for blankets; two inches is perfect for Q-Tips.
Covering up things can work, but only if the cover is a lot better than what it hides. For example, a huge armoire in the living room holding the TV-on-steroids makes the problem bigger. Don’t make it the focal point of a room and then pretend nobody won’t notice the TV because it is behind cabinet doors. Likewise a speaker with a plant on top. It doesn’t mask the speaker; it draws attention to it.
The secret to a fruitful sale? Staging it well to sow the seeds for success.
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