Little Surprises

"Reach for the high apples first, you can get the low ones anytime"
....
What does that mean to you? What does it mean when life doesn't turn out quite like you had scripted it?
...
For me, today, it means that life is tough enough, confusing enough, and risky enough...
...don't play it safe,
...don't muddle through with ordinary and expected,
...reach higher!























Don't get lost in the routines of life, in the "have to's" and "must do's", all the while leaving the exceptional for some future date.

Forget the ordinary for a moment, toss in a little surprise here and there...and toss them in for no other reason than they make you smile on an otherwise ordinary, dreary, rainy-with-no-puddles-to-jump-in kind of day....


















And while you're tossing in surprises, surround yourself with EXCEPTIONAL.

There is no need to attach a price tag, and no need to offer any explainations, just knowing that they touch your heart is reason enough.

Once you have finished "tossing in" and "surrounding yourself" with exceptional, take some time to enjoy the simple design of how your life really is fitting all together in ways you may not have anticipated.

You may not appreaciate it yet, but one day you will see how all these unplanned moments have played their role.

A bit from here and a bit from there can make the entire production a beautiful experience.

The dark days, the lonely days and the difficult days can become the standard that you will one day measure against the bright day, the packed day and the effortless, carefree day...


















Take some time to enjoy the still quiet voice inside of you that in the middle of all the clatter around you whispers what your heart longs to hear.

Realize that it's not the absence of clattering that allows you to hear, but rather it's the clattering that makes it possible for you to hear.

Your heart leans in to hear, all the while knowing that risk is there, and the risk of knowing is worth taking.























Whatever risk you are reaching beyond....know that we are standing and cheering you on.

When life gets beyond you, when life happens too fast and slides beyond the reach of your control...

Reach higher than you thought possible.

See beyond the pain of today and reach into your dream of tomorrow.

And by all means,

definately,

Reach for the high apples first!

This sweet deal takes the cake!

It's time for Back-to-School and Fall Fix up projects! Wouldn't it be great to save 10% on supplies from Lowe's?

Lowe's has been helping customers improve the places they call home for more than 60 years. Lowe's operates more than 1,700 stores in the United States. Lowe's is here to help you with all of your Home Improvement and ASP Staging Needs.

Call me if you would like to learn more about staging your home or saving 10% at Lowe's...Lowe's offer ends September 30, 2010..Blue Ribbon Home Staging offer good indefinitely:)...any way you slice it, that's a sweet deal!

This and That for Here and There

Some of the best lessons learned are those we go into somewhat dragging our feet. It's not that we want to be difficult, it's just that we don't seem to know any other way to go about it.

This is proving to be one of those weeks...and these are sure to be some of those lessons.

I have no doubt but that when I get to the other side, these lessons learned will be of great value. How do I know that? It's really quite simple...though I am no longer silently screaming inside, I am quietly dragging my feet at the thought of the task that now lies ahead.

Years of gathering and storing, collecting and reorganizing adds up to a fair amount of inventory. Don't get me wrong, they are all useful things, they are just no longer particularly useful in my life.

I understand when you tell me the same thing of your life as we set about to make our Staging plan to prepare your home for sale. No one said it was going to be easy...but few things in life that are worthwhile are ever easy.

One day we will downsize, the reasons "why" won't matter. The reality is that letting go must happen. In that moment of letting go, the heritage of being my father's daughter and a keeper-of-all-things-that-may-one-day-be-useful, will meld with the sensibility of being my mother's daughter and keeping-only-the-practical.

This is the week that I get a jump start on that day. Closets, cupboards, bookshelves and drawers...there is no longer a safe hiding place.

And so it goes with preparing a home for sale. It doesn't matter why you are moving...by personal or professional choice, or by a force of some financial hand that has been dealt you...the art of Staging can move in and take over where we are paralyzed to move.

We are faced with questions at every turn: Where do we begin?...What do we keep?...What do we pack away?... How can this emptiness feel like home?

With a deep breath, some boxes and a plan, the moving dance can begin. We may find that it's not altogether an unpleasant tune we are moving to as we learn to trust the process.

The process of creating order out of chaos is about making one decision at a time. Do we keep, toss, or donate? With each decision made comes a bit of cleansing until the last decision has been made...the last counter cleared...the last box has been packed...and the last sigh released. In the end of it all we look about us and realize that clutter has been replaced by order.

We may have kicked and screamed at placing away our treasures so that buyers could walk through our rooms and see themselves living here. We may have silently revolted at the idea of living in cold and vacant rooms. We may have thought we were giving away too much of ourselves.

Yet we find that with our "things" now distributed to appropriate places, we haven't lost the memory of the moments we had been displaying. The memory remains safely stored in our heart. The Staged rooms we now occupy are warm and inviting, not only for the buyer, but for us as well.

And though we thought our life was tied up with the wonderful things that surround us, in the end we realize that the important things in life aren't things at all.

Sweet Give Aways

July: Chapter, Realtor, Homeowner....sweet give-away...Saltwater Kisses!

Nothing says "summer" like cotton candy and watermelon kisses...fresh from the shore!

NARdiGras 2010

Stagedhomes.com is proud to announce that Barb Schwarz, CEO and Creator of Staging®, once again will be a featured speaker at the annual convention of the National Association of REALTORS®. NAR’s annual convention, NARdiGras 2010, is scheduled for November 5 through 8, 2010, and Schwarz’ presentation will take place on Sunday Nov 7, 2010, from 3:30 p.m.to 5 p.m.

During her presentation From Staging to Pricing to Getting it Sold!, Schwarz will share hot Staging ideas and tips, listing presentation key points and how to better price a Staged Listing to sell too. She will discuss how REALTORS® can handle sellers’ objections and how to positively educate sellers on what agent and Stagers really do as they work for the seller. “Too many agents assume the sellers know, but the truth is that the public does not know what we do,” said Schwarz. “It has to be verbal and very visual.”

This year, Schwarz celebrates 25 years as Certified Professional Speaker. Since 1972, Schwarz has educated Realtors®, Home Stagers® and the public on Home Staging®.

As a seasoned speaker and top real estate producer, Schwarz has logged over 18,000 hours on the speaker’s platform. To date, over a million REALTORS® have attended her various programs, including her one-day program How to List and Sell Residential Real Estate Successfully. Having traveled 40 weeks each year, she’s been a featured speaker at almost all National Association of Realtors® conventions, state Realtor® conventions as well as all major real estate franchise conventions.

Her gift for speaking and ability to educate, motivate and entertain was recognized by the National Speakers Association in 1990 when they awarded her the coveted designation of Certified Speaking Professional (CSP), earned by less than 250 speakers worldwide. Barb Schwarz is a leader, an innovator, and a truly gifted speaker who shares the wisdom of her personal triumphs. Those who experience Schwarz are always struck by her incredible energy as well as the practical substance of her programs. Schwarz is also the author of seven books, including the recently published Staging To Sell: The Secret To Selling Homes In A Down Market.

Barb is the creator of “Staging To Sell and Staging To Live” ® concepts and she holds the Federally Registered Trademark from the US and Canadian Governments on Stage®. Barb invented the Home Staging concept and industry when she entered the world of real estate as an agent in Bellevue, WA, in the early 70’s. Nearly 40 years later, Schwarz has repeatedly been acknowledged as being among the top 50 most influential women in the real estate industry. To date over 21,000 have participated in the accredited ASP® Course and Designation for Realtors® and Stagers. Schwarz is the Founder and Chairwoman of ‘The International Association of Home Staging Professionals®,” and the Founder and Director of ‘The Staging University®.”

Schwarz is also the founder and CEO of Stagedhomes.com, the internationally recognized leader in the Home Staging Industry because of the Home Staging educational trainings of the ASP® Course and Designation, the Stagedhomes.com Home Staging Directory where the public finds ASP® Real Estate Agents and ASP® Stagers to list and Stage® their homes, and the Stagedhomes.com Staged Homes portal which lists homes that are Staged for sale.

As I reflect on the events of the day, I am humbled on just how blessed I am:

• It was just about a year ago that I was re-introduced to professional Home Staging. I was having lunch with my dear friend, Eleanor. Among other topics of conversation, she asked if I had ever considered a career in Home Staging. I had remembered seeing something about that in the paper years ago. It had caught my eye then, but at the time life circumstances were such that a career was out of the question. But now the time was right!
  
• Jump ahead a year..I am a professional ASP Home Stager. I have been personally trained by Barb Schwarz, the creator of Home Staging. Barb's tireless energy and enthusiasm is nothing less than inspirational.
  
• I am on the Board of the Seattle Chapter of International Association of Home Staging Professionals (IAHSP)...Patty Bonnell, President, and Ede Bookstein, Ethic and Education Chair, have mentored and encouraged me...and I am privileged to call these talented women not only colleagues, but friends.
  
• I am involved in a profession I love! Home Staging completes me in so many areas of my life while providing an opening for hope for the unknowns of tomorrow...Blue Ribbon Staging Auburn, WA .

On so many levels, ASP Home Staging found me just when I needed it most! If you are a realtor, or a home owner in the market to list your home for sale, Home Staging may very well be just what YOU are looking for!

If you want to sell your home for the highest dollar amount possible while being on the market for the shortest amount of time possible, let ASP Home Staging find YOU, just when you need it most!

I welcome the opportunity to ASP Stage your home and help move you closer to your dream:

Visit me : https://www.stagedhomes.com/featured/featured_old.php?asp=27308

"After" Photos

Summer has come to Washington!

Along with fields of ripe berries, ice cream trucks joyfully ringing the bells as they tour our neighborhood, and the smell of sun tan lotion...it's legitimately sandal season!

Sandal season is so much prettier with a pedicure!

It's Saturday morning, and the first order of my day is a trip to the salon.


On my drive home, I pondered my situation:

In a basket under the sink in my bathroom, I have my own nail care station complete with bottles of polish, cuticle cream, brushes, files and toe separators. I already own everything I need to apply polish to nails...and if polish on the nails is the intent, then why would I choose to spend three hours in a salon on a beautiful Saturday morning to pay someone else to paint my nails?

I have an artistic eye for these kinds of things. I know my way around a color wheel and a beauty counter. I know good work when I see it. In the end I come to the conclusion that I am able to do them "good enough". While they may be "good enough" for me, any one looking at my "polished" nails would have quite a different opinion of my results.

How can I get such drastically different results? It's a basic reality that though I use the same tools, read articles and own books on nail techniques, and even work from the same expert hints...I lack the expertise to gain the same results.

These comments are not so different from the comments we hear from Sellers / Realtors who opt not to have a professional ASP Staging of a home before listing on the market. There seems to often be a wife, sister, or girlfriend who has an "eye" for this kind of thing, afterall they watch all the HGTV shows on home staging. What they are really saying is they believe they can present the house "good enough", but just like my toes..."good enough" isn't necessarily "Good!"

The investment in having your house professionally staged by an ASP Home Staging Professional prior to listing with your agent is always going to be less than the first reduction on your listing when it sits in the market...days, weeks, or months. It may help you to make your decision to Stage or not to Stage when you ask your agent when and how much the initial reduction will be. (Yiikes...How much?)

Since "a picture is worth a thousand words", it's really the "AFTER" photos that will be your Buyers first impression of your house. They don't care what it looked like "before," they are here NOW.

When it comes to making the offer, buyers won't care how much "stuff" you took out, or how much time you spent getting your product ready for sale.

It won't matter to buyers how long this has been your home, or how difficult it may be for you to be selling this chapter of your life.

Buyers are in the market to buy their "home". If your house doesn't capture their hearts, they will move on down the aisle to find one that does.

Price is generally the first filter for the buyer. Price is the ingredient that will get them to your door step. In today's virtual market, that "door step" may very well be a visit to the web listing via a googled address and not through your agent at all.

The buyer's first visual, emotional impression will be the "After" photos on your web listing and posted brochure.

The second emotional impression will be the "feeling" that they get when they tour through the house.

Buying a home is an emotional decision. You want buyers to fall in love with your house and see it as their home.

You will never know how many Would-have-been Buyers walked away from your house without ever opening your front door because "good enough" wasn't "GOOD!"

Give yourself every benefit possible! You are selling every room in your house, be sure to maximize every viewing and ASP Stage EVERY room!

...As for my morning at the salon, yes, I staged all my nails and had a manicure too!

You'll have to trust me on this one, no one wants to see my "before" shots!