Decisions, Decisions

Recently I was at a table with four very accomplished women. Each had graduated from college and each had her Master’s Degree. Bravo!! We have come a long way, baby and I am a big fan of education but sitting amongst the lettered, I began to feel like I was shrinking. I wondered briefly if I looked like Dobby, the house elf of Harry Potter fame.

I dreaded the question of my college affiliation and carefully weighed the merits of “Gryffindor” or “Slytherin” before coming clean with the awful truth…I don’t have my college degree! Oh, impetuous youth! Oh, High School Musical subplot! If only the Invisibility Cloak were hanging on the back of my chair!

Sometimes a simple decision can make all the difference! And don’t we all wrestle with decisions every day?

Decisions like:

Should I Spock or should I Ferberize?

Should I work at an office or work at home?

Should I choose to eat the earwax or the vomit jellybean?

I mean, really, there are so many decisions!

So, I posed the question to myself, “What would make someone decide to stage their home?”

Here’s some statistics from the Staged Homes (www.stagedhomes.com) website:

• Homes that are not staged are on the market for an average of 161 days.
• Homes that are staged by an ASP are on the market for about 31 days.
• AND 93% of ASP Staged Homes sell in 1 month or less!

Abracadabra and Shazam! The simple decision to stage your home can make all the difference – it’s almost magic!!

It’s kind of like biting into that jellybean and finding out it is chocolate mint!

Go Gryffindor!

Monica

Of Paula Dean & Chili Beans…

If you’re a woman over the age of twenty, you have a pact with your sister, your mother, or your best friend. If you don’t already, trust me, you WILL.

Imagine Paula Dean, in her sweet southern accent, saying something like this:

“Why Sugar, you have a great long hair on your chin.”

Wha-wha-what? A hair? My chin? NOOOOO!! This is as close to a near-death experience as most women have. We suddenly go through the dark tunnel of our DayTimer and review our entire work and social schedule in horrification (I made that up) wondering who else has seen the GLH? Why didn’t someone say something before now?

And that, dear heart, is when we decide we need to make a pact. And the pact goes something like this:

“On my honor, I promise to resolutely report the appearance of a whisker dangling from your chin or shimmering on your upper-lip no matter what, no matter where, no matter when, in perpetuity, forever and ever, as long as we both shall live. And furthermore, I promise to pluck the aforementioned offending chin whiskers or wily mustache hairs from your lifeless body as a final token of our true and unending devotion to vanity, should you meet your demise first. Amen”

It reminds me of when I was in fifth grade. I had a boyfriend named Stanley. I knew he was my boyfriend because he would make faces at me in the hallway as we changed classes – high romance in my 10-year-old mind. One day after my favorite school lunch of chili and homemade cinnamon rolls – I went outside to work my womanly wiles on Stanley by playing a raucous game of Red Rover. Had it been an Olympic sport, I would have won a gold medal in Red Rovering…I was nothing short of world-class at breaking through the defenders line! I’m telling you; I was spectacular.

But that day a funny thing happened – every time I tried to get Stanley’s attention so he’d call me over, he would turn away. Not once did I hear, “Red Rover, Red Rover, send Monica right over.” Oh, heartache!! Had Stanley fallen for someone who actually needed a training bra? Was my RR prowess passé? I was confused. I was devastated! After school, I was walking home with my best friend, Suzanne, lamenting my crushing sadness over Stanley’s cold-shoulder and even colder heart when she stopped, looked me straight in the eye and said, “Monica, you have a bean stuck on your front tooth.”

Wha-wha-what? A bean? Front tooth? NOOOOO!! It was a George Sanford moment, “Elizabeth, I’m coming!” Why didn’t someone say something?

Why hadn’t someone told me the truth and yes, Jack Nicholson, I COULD HAVE HANDLED THE TRUTH. Pretending it wasn’t there did NOT make it go away!! No, no, no, no, no!!

Okay, a little overly dramatic, but I tell you all that, to tell you this….

“Sugar, it’s time to take down the dusty pink Priscilla’s.”

Wha-wha-what? Yes, yes, I know. It hurts. It seems like you just put them up. But alas, not true, it’s not 1983 and it’s time you let the Priscilla’s “go quietly into that good night”.

ASP Home Stagers spend countless hours in study, planning and preparation to help you present your home at its finest. And in bringing forth the reality of what your home needs to be in order to be its most attractive to buyers; sometimes we have to hold a mirror up to your chin whiskers and get the floss after those beans. Initially, it might be a little embarrassing but in the long run, you really need to be told.

So here’s my pact to you:

“On my honor, I promise that I will absolutely no matter where, no matter what, no matter when, in perpetuity, forever and ever, tell you the truth about what needs to be done in your home until such time as you have a SOLD sign in your front yard.”

No mas frijoles!
Monica

How does that spell DIRC?

Have you ever had someone drag you to one of those excruciatingly loathsome meetings with a group of people that sell something? I detest those meetings.

Something about all that rah-rah, at-a-boy, bug your friends, bogus cheerleading, creeps me out. As “W” says, “It sticks in my craw.”

The absolute worst part is sitting by an ultra-super-platinum-diamond-emerald- I’m-so-impressed-with-myself guy who brags that he earns sixty bazillion dollars a month and then gives you that look…..you know, that look that tells you what a sad, sad person you are because you don’t even have the synthetic stone pin ---- which, of course, everyone knows, is the lowest rung on the way to ultra-super-diamond-emerald fabulousness!

Any time I’ve been dragged to one of those meetings I’ve needed a shower immediately upon adjournment to get the eewww off me.

So, with much trepidation and a feeling of dread in my stomach, I attended my first meeting of the Dallas Chapter of the International Association of Home Staging Professionals (DIRC) last week. Mainly I went because I was hoping to see Jimmye and Fern, two women that were in the September ASP class with me.

I’d already prepared a host of reasons for leaving early if they weren’t there – my Mom’s having her bat mitzvah, Tom Cruise is coming over and I have to hide my sofa, I have a hunting date with Dick Cheney….I would say anything if my ick factor got overwhelmed.

So I took a deep breath and….

I walked into a room full of….

drum roll, please….

absolutely normal people!

I could not believe it!!

There was no rah-rah, ookie, one-ups-manship, craw sticking here! There were actually ASP’s, (that in a parallel universe, would be ultra-super diamond emeralds) who were warm and welcoming souls! And guess what?

Not one condescending word.

Not one look.

Not even a glance to check my stone pin status.

Nope….to my utter surprise, they were full of remarkable, helpful advice and good wishes and kindness and charity. There was nothing but encouragement for the new Stagers. Sincere encouragement. They were genuinely trying to help!

You could tell that these are the kind of people who have ick-factors for bogus cheerleading gatherings too! It was almost too good to be true!

I tried to thank everyone (especially Karen Otto of Home Star Staging, who very generously explained tons of stuff to me that I just didn’t understand!) and I got to see Jimmye and visit with lots of other amazing supportive people!! (Sadly, no Fern).

I felt ashamed of myself for dreading that meeting. It was kind of like when the Grinch looked down at Whoville on Christmas and discovered..

“It came without ribbons! It came without tags!

It came without packages, boxes, or bags!”

Or in my case:

It came without cheering. It came without “ick”.

It came without sofas, bat mitzvahs and Dick!

Thank you, DIRC!

You’re one group of fabulousness!

Monica

Left, Right, Left, Right, Left, Right

I saw George Carlin the other night talking about American's over-consumerism and how obedient we've become to the incessant lure of the mall and the shiny things that we're told will make us better people. Could he be on to something?

I'm not sure how that glamorous Cindy Crawford sofa helps promote self-actualization or how having the perfect collection of Vera Wang's latest fashions from Kohl's will make my life complete but I know it has to have something to do with it, right? It wouldn't be on TV if it weren't true.

Have I been hood-winked?
Sold a bill of goods?
Bamboozled?
Could I be one of the obedient herd marching mindlessly to the mall every week?

Looking around at my bulging closets, drawers stuffed with things I never wear and three attics full of sentimentality, I'm afraid the answer is all too clear...I'm a bamboozled-hood-winked-bill-of-goods-owning- mindless-herd-marcher. Oh no!!

So how do I live my life "above the influence"? I'm pledging to try something old-fashioned. It's something that is stressed over and over again in Home Staging; living with less and getting rid of the clutter. Novel idea!

There is an interesting chapter about this very subject in a book called, "Professional Dreamer" by ghalil (www.professionaldreamer.com). She calls the process clearing and here is what she says, "Think of this act of clearing as your ritual of commitment, a commitment to welcome something new and better into your life. Here, you're taking a small step of letting go and burning the bridges that bind you to the same old way of being day in and day out."

I'm always ready to welcome something new and better into my life. Possibly freedom or joy or simplicity? I'm starting today and I'd love for you to add the ritual of clearing to your day too. Maybe the journey that begins with a single step doesn't need 30 pairs of shoes?

Dropping out of the parade....
Monica

coming soon....

Just a few of the things coming up this fall at center stage of plano:

• expanded website
  
• the launch of our quarterly e-newsletter: encore
  
• and of course, plenty of tips and inspiration you can use, right here on our blog

It's shaping up to be an exciting fall, with lots to introduce. But, most of all we're looking forward to meeting our neighbors and showing them the ways center stage of plano can stage, design, or redesign thier homes. - monica

our philosophy

I want to share a bit of our design philosophy here at center stage of plano, in order to give you a better idea of what the business of staging/design/redesign means to us:

• Our goal is to help people update, redesign, and stage their homes so they feel good knowing that they are giving the gift to another family of a home that is sound, updated, and worth the entire asking price.
• We want the seller of the home to be happy and the buyer to be happy too.
• We want to be an asset to the homeowner by making sure their home is worth every dollar of the asking price and that when they pass it along to the buyer, it is a home that the buyer will be proud of too.
• We want the staged home to show all of the possibilities of a warm, inviting sanctuary for the family that moves in.
• We want the sellers to know that every dollar they put into staging their home will be returned, not only in the amount that they sell the house for, but also in knowing they are helping someone else to achieve their dream.

-monica

welcome

I'm looking forward to sharing the work of center stage of plano with you. More to come....-monica