10 steps closer to selling your house

The real estate market, ugh...if you are trying to sell.

Here's a suggestion from a real estate stager (me): If your house is on the market, take advantage of the slow-down in showings to do some extra prep.

Here are 10 ideas to get you going:

• Pack away your collections. Buyers want to see your house, not your hobbies. Give them a clear view by visually editing your space.
  
• While you're at it, pack away all personal photos. That's right, all of them. Buyers need to imagine themselves living in your house - not you and your family.
  
• Declutter your kitchen cabinets by packing away pots, pans and dishes you do not use often. Cluttered cabinets will give buyers the impression your kitchen is too small.
  
• Clean areas we overlook on a day-to-day basis, like under the kitchen sink. It's amazing how quickly we can accumulate dirt and spills. Leave this area clean and decluttered so buyers know they are looking at a well-cared for home.
  
• Tackle the linen closet by packing away items you don't absolutely need. Buyers need to know there's plenty of room for their blankets, towels and sheets. If your closet is overflowing, they will imagine theirs will be, too.
  
• Give the laundry room, including the washer and dryer, a good scrubbing. It's easy to overlook clutter and dirt in areas we are used to seeing every day.
  
• Now's the time to look at your bedroom closets and weed out items you aren't using and pack away out-of-season clothes to show the closets to their best advantage.
  
• Tackle the basement - or garage - or attic - or shed - or all of them! Pack, give away or sell what you don't need daily. And once you are done, don't allow anyone to refill them before the house goes on the market.
  
• Clean litter and debris from around the yard that might have accumulated over the winter.
  
• What to do with all you've decluttered? Hold a yard sale, sell items on craigslist, give away usable items to charitable organizations and toss what is no longer usable.

We take turns reading to each other and snickering at the decorating missteps

I've got to tell you there's no better way to shop these days than at consignment stores...

I found this chaise for $150 (I happened to know who consigned this item, so I felt good about buying it; I don't usually buy second-hand upholstered items...worry about possible smoke or pet smells or maybe someone who owned it didn't like The Office and I love The Office...).

Also got the print on the left and the one on the right of the girl with white hat for about $12 each. I decided to put all these items in my home office, giving it a little rehab. I really likely how this arrangement on the wall is turning out.

I placed this "I love you" American Sign Language sculpture in there, too. I originally bought it for the living room, until my 6-year-old son admitted he didn't really like it after he said he really liked it. He was just afraid he would hurt its feelings if he told the truth...and who needs a creepy hand on a stick holding a grudge? It's better contained in my office.

That's what the office looked like before I shoved those magazines out of the frame. I plan to read all of those...but there is a protocol.

You read them once, let them rest, and then go back and read again, this time ripping out the pages you like. But sometimes new magazines come in while the old ones are resting and you have to read those fast, so you don't mess up the order of things, but then the new magazines need a third read because they were not given proper respect the first time around and then the pile grows and grows and grows...and the kitten is staring at me...why is the kitten staring at me???

Be the first to vote...

...on a poll I'm taking over at my other blog, Dispatches from Suburbia...

Inaugurating a new blog; formal wear optional

Since some of my recent posts have veered off the topic of design and staging, I've decided to tart another blog, Dispatches from Suburbia, for those. It's meant to be a (hopefully) humorous look at life.

If that interests you, I'd love to see you there. If not, please keep checking back here for future decorating posts.

2 women, 1 lady in a hot city

I'm back and refreshed for the new year.

Just returned from a mini-vacation with my sisters in Miami.

Because my sisters begged me to join them. The sun won't shine as brightly without you there, they said. The soothing waterfall in the spa, not so soothing. The fruit smoothies by the pool, not that smoothy, they intoned.

I feigned modesty, but knowing that was all true, I decided to leave frigid Rhode Island and join them in their vacation-already-in-progress that they had accidentally forgotten to invite me along on when they made plans months ago.

(But, you are so important, we didn't think your family could survive without you. Your work so critical, and what with the economy already struggling, we didn't want to interfere with the global recovery. Your bank account so skinny given your propensity for charitable giving... So true, so true, I said, and forgave them for the inability to see what I can pull off to save my sisters from the dullness of a vacation without me.)

My sisters are both quite attractive, if you judge beauty in the conventional sense, of course. One has curly locks and is tone and muscular, clear to all thanks to her insistence on wearing a bathing suit in the pool. Truth be told, it's only the hours in the gym that make her that way. But is that natural beauty? I'm not sure...

The other is tall and thin with a mane of thick hair. You hear whispering about "Super Model" when she's around. True, it is she who is whispering, but still others get the point. But is beauty like that without work truly beautiful? I'm not sure...

From time to time, probably because I am generous enough to talk to people whatever their mental capabilities, people mistake me for their mother. I know what you are thinking: While you are the oldest of the three, aren't there only two and a half years between you and the youngest?

Yes, that is true. But I don't think people are judging physical attributes here. Take for instance, the massage therapist at the spa where we stayed in Miami. After appointments with my two sisters (who, as I mentioned, started the vacation earlier than me by mistake), it was my turn.

Another Harrington? he asked. Are you the mother? My initial reaction: I asked him to pinch himself - hard, on his upper arm, on the fleshy part where it really hurts. I was on vacation after all, and wasn't about to do that myself.

But, after that, I realized several things: One, he was clearly looking into my eyes and not at my body that has, after all, given birth. He could see the maturity, I am sure. He could see the way I have counseled my sisters throughout the years, guided them so well that one now owns a successful business and the other manages accounts worth millions. He could see that without me, they would stumble their way through life, accidentally taking dull vacations together.

And then there's the language barrier. "Mother" in his culture probably means "most kind of the three" or perhaps "willing to talk to the mentally deficient." In the end, we had a laugh. Well, actually, he may have been whimpering from the pain in his arm, but he saw the folly of it all.

We're home now, relaxed and ready for whatever '09 brings. I'm still keeping tabs on my sisters, with a maternal instinct of sorts. I have their travel agent on speed dial, for instance, checking in every few hours, keeping a close eye on their plans.

What's better than eating candy? Decorating with it, of course

Two purposes for this post:

• To verify that I am still alive. (Just been very busy, so sorry...)
• And to make you hungry.

A local real estate firm hired me and my friend Marianne from Consignments Ltd. to decorate their window for a Holiday Stroll on Main Street (East Greenwich, RI).

The company didn't have a window so much as an entire room, a corner conference room with floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides.

We settled on a red and white theme, with candy, lots and lots of candy. Our theme was Home Sweet Home (get it, real estate company and candy...)

Two reasons to be bummed about this post:

• I don't think the photos do the window justice.
• You can't really drink those candy martinis...

I can move a fridge in like, seconds

A long-distance client needed help figuring the layout of a large room with a few twists and turns in it. (That's the kitchen in the lower right corner. In the sitting area across from it, there's a fireplace.)

She gave me the dimensions of the room and of a few furniture pieces that she wanted to use (the large china cabinet, the dining table and chairs, a curio cabinet, the desk tucked in the lower left and a TV). She also emailed me a video of the room she shot on her cell phone.

The client wanted to imagine ways to lay out the room before she bought some new pieces.

When I re-arrange furniture, I always try a couple of options. You can never truly tell what will look best until you try. For this client, I drew up four options... cause moving furniture online is so much easier than in real life...

I have a favorite plan... but I think any one could work. (By the way, if you'd like an online consultation with a certain interior redesigner you could find out more here.)

Room makeover, a before & after: Making the inside as lovely as the outside

A client recently called me with a challenge: She was tired of the layout of her family room/dining room, which had essentially been the same for 20 years.

The challenge: The room was already quite nice, with beautiful furniture and a fine layout. Its water view along an entire wall didn't hurt either.

But I did see a few ways to improve the room. Notice how boxy and square the furniture arrangements were, both in the living area and the dining area in the "before" photo? I put the dining table at an angle to add some interest.

And I place the sofas opposite one another. This not only adds furniture on the water side (the room was a bit furniture heavy on the non-water side before), but now you get a direct view of the fireplace as you walk in the room.

Overall, the arrangement really opens up the room, giving you an expansive feeling, similar to what you get when you look out the windows at all that water.

The room also felt too brown before. I borrowed red accents and accessories from other rooms to add splashes of color.

Finally, I created a third use for the large room. The table that used to be behind the sofa is now in a corner, where it can serve as a desk or a spot to play a game...or stare at that view...

And she has impeccable fashion sense

There's a new kitten at Casa At Home Redesigns. Her name is Clare and she's about 8 weeks old, a pound kitten with a feisty personality and a need to snuggle.

But how to nuzzle Clare and type? I created the Kitty Sling, using a generous scarf. So I can work at my computer. And it makes breast-feeding easier, too.

Dozens of little kids at my house: Now that's scary

We had a Halloween party this weekend that culminated with a parade down the street. So I thought I'd salute this most entertaining of holidays with another parade of sorts here:

Room makeover, a before & after: Creating a cozy living room

A client of mine recently moved into a home that the family had previously used only for vacations. She needed to incorporate some pieces from both homes and start to think of this house in terms of year-round use.

I thought the living room redesign was a good way to illustrate a few decorating tips. In the before photo above, you can see that the furniture was essentially pushed up against the walls.

In the makeover, I positioned the furniture in the center of the room, creating a cozy sitting area with the fireplace as the focus. There's still plenty of room behind that sofa to make your way to another part of the house.

If your furniture is up against the walls at your house, try moving some pieces into the middle. You may be surprised at how that transforms the room. Just leave yourself obvious paths through the room and into other spaces.

This room was also helped by the addition of lamps. Even if there are lots of overhead lights or sconces, nothing warms up a room like lamps. And, we used small wicker boxes that the home owner's daughter was storing toys in as end tables.

It's always a good idea to have somewhere to place a cup of coffee or a glass of wine while you sit and admire your new room.

We should have named him Luke instead

As soon as he's off the school bus every afternoon from kindergarten, Jude wants to know if I think Max is home. Can Max come over to play? Or maybe he could go over Max's?

Max lives across the street. They are two boys who are only children. They are in the yard playing Star Wars, with Jude a Jedi Knight and Max, Darth Vader. The Jedi is saying this is the end for Darth.

I think he's pretending. I hope he is. We need Max.

Putting art to work

Have you priced really large chalkboards? They can get expensive. I love this idea I spotted at an antiques show this year.

Just get an old frame (and old frames without pictures are pretty cheap). Spray paint a piece of board with chalkboard paint and attach. Or even better, first with magnetic paint and then chalkboard paint. That way you can use it as a magnetic memo board, too. Easy. And good-looking. (Just like my friends. Yea, I'm talking about you.)

I bet I could get a government grant to study this

A corn maze might make a good test for determining personality type.

My husband buys the map and resists suggestions to wing it.

Our son wants one of us in front of him, one in the back, so he is safe to impersonate Darth Vader, killing the corn stalks with an imaginary laser as we go.

I hang back, take a few false turns, hoping to make them think they've lost me. No one is riled. Mom is always doing stuff like that.

Jude and I decide to imitate Dad as he walks and he obliges by spinning and wiggling his rear.

Finally, I'm hungry and need to use the restroom. Glad someone has been paying attention to that map after all.

Where's Mary been? I dunno, Alaska

I spent the last week in Alaska on business. Even though it's off-season there, not summer, but not yet enough snow for fun, it's a great place to visit. (I spotted that black bear at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center.)

Here's what I loved about Alaska:

• The people: Very friendly, helpful and down to earth.

• The drinking water: Fresh, crisp. Same for the air.

• The mountains: This is what was going through my mind on the flight out when I got a clear view of them: "Wow. Wow. Wow."

• Art by Alaskan Natives: Gorgeous. I was especially intrigued by the jewelry made with the fossilized tusks of woolly mammoths.

• The scenery: We took a drive about about an hour out of Anchorage and it was as if we entered a whole new world: Pristine and snowy.

• The food: Every meal I had was delicious. I live in Rhode Island, so I like to think I know what good seafood is. But the cod, halibut and salmon I had in Alaska were among the freshest fish I've ever eaten.

• The beer: The Alaskan Brewing Co.'s Amber. Must be because of the great water.

• Exhibits on indigenous cultures in Alaska: I loved checking out the tools, watercraft, and clothing created with only what was available on the land. Think you know something about surviving in this world? These exhibits remind you that you know nothing.

Coffee Heath Bar Crunch is actually my favorite, but the store was out

I was just reading the online real estate section over at The New York Times. I eat up photos of homes for sale, which would be a pretty low-cal hobby if I wasn't also chowing down on Ben & Jerry's New York Super Fudge Chunk ice-cream.

I had to share this townhouse with you. It's on Manhattan's Upper East Side and is for sale for just under $15 million. I know what you're thinking: Why not Chunky Monkey? That's good too, but banana isn't my favorite flavor.

As for the townhouse: Love that red door. And these ebony floors and staircase:

And this ceiling:

And maybe, best of all, this view of the staircase. Wouldn't it be cool, standing there looking down at that? How many flights to the refrigerator do you figure?

Maybe you should let the kids color on the walls... for practice

Check out this family room in Lexington, Kentucky, where a guy decorated the walls using Magic Markers and Sharpies. Among other people featured: Hercule Poirot, Sherlock Holmes, Winston Churchill, George Bernard Shaw and Rocky and Bullwinkle.

Talk about a low-cost redesign... You can read the full story and see panoramic views at Kentucky.com.

A few more details about a few vintage items

I got a few questions about some items that showed up in yesterday's post regarding my purchases at the Brimfield Antiques Show.

Carrie of Buzzings of a Queen Bee wanted to know more about the Memory Lane plates I bought. She wrote: "I am in love with that Memory Lane pattern (from a distance). Can you show us a close up? I have been hunting for a pretty cranberry and white pattern for Christmas for years and can never find it, but maybe I don't know what to look for?"

They're actually a little more on the red/pink side in person but I do think they would be pretty at Christmastime.

It's transfer ware stamped Royal Ironstone. It was made in the 1950s and 1960s.

The pattern is pretty easy to find, although I think the prices tend to vary. I hope that helps, Carrie.

Cher from The Texas Woman was wondering about the printing tray on my mantel. "Please show us a close-up of the collectibles in the case on the mantel. Looks interesting."

I'm glad you like it, Cher. It's holds a little shell collection, as you can see in this closeup. I bought this one, but I've made them as well.

I really like this one because all the shells are different, with no repeats. It feels like someone was collecting specimens. Thanks for your interest, Cher.

Brimfield stole my heart, but not a lot of my cash (this time)

It's been crazy busy here at At Home Redesigns... lots of projects under way. But I thought I'd take a little breather and show you (finally) what I bought (for my personal consumption anyway) at the Brimfield Antiques Show earlier this month.

It was definitely one of the less expensive trips for me. No big purchases. I did get:

• Three Santa ornaments. I'm not clear if they are vintage, but they have the look. Just $2 each.
  
• The animal skin (faux) covered cocktail shaker ($10) as a little gift for my sister Kat. Unless she is reading this, then it cost a LOT more than that.
  
• Three plates in the Memory Lane pattern. I picked up a huge set at an auction a few years ago for a song. So I add plates whenever I see them at a good price. These were $2 each.
  
• The wooden box ($5) will go in my bathroom to hold toiletries on the counter.
  
• A vintage Star Wars lunchbox for my son ($20). It's not in the photo cause he was already playing with it, storing his Star Wars action figures in this much-loved, a-little-dented and a-little-rusty lunch box.
  
• And the vintage wooden pins (juggling? a game?) are now on my fireplace mantel.

They were $40 for the three, which I thought was a good deal.

I know, a shockingly small pile, huh? But I had a great time checking stuff out, seeing what's popular and getting a feel for prices. Not again until May...sigh...

I Love These Ideas! Sunday

Have you ever found a vintage item you just love, but can't figure out how to display it so you actually get to look at it often? These ladies present a few solutions:

Jan Ely of Little Pink Houses put these aprons to work as curtains in her kitchen.

And Sherry Williams of Sherry's Rose Cottage displays this vintage prom dress in her dining room. It's on a wire dress form and she's added matching vintage gloves and a hat.

Isn't this better than stashing these finds in a closet or in drawers? Aprons and prom dresses may not be your thing, but there might just be something that you've got tucked away that would make a great "statement piece" - that that says something about you in your home.

Anyone got any other ideas out there for displaying favorite finds?

I'd love to hear more ideas for future I Love These Ideas! Sunday columns.

Drop me an email at: Mary@AtHomeRedesigns.com if you've got an idea of yours or someone else's to share.

Featured bloggers, grab a badge if you'd like:

Here's the code:

<a href="http://athomeredesigns.blogspot.com/2008/09/i-love-these-ideas-sunday.html"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5248491575356683218" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyRKpQMaZ3GYgqV9ZSgsPSsG42fuI_lMz17LR0B0frptyKc27xJz4kH_B9gOzDQ8wtoob56rarVBCA7jWG6wCYoegj2iCWSxjaytWrCk8363xBMHxVrnhgeds905jEfsm3hr1dmbGIN-U/s400/At+Home+Redesigns+Loved+My+Idea+badge.gif" border="0" /></a> <br/><br />