Cindy Garruba

Do You Need Help to Organize Your Home?

•1. Can you set your table without clearing it off first?

•2. Can you find your favorite blouse in your closet right away?

•3. Are your dirty clothes all in the hamper?

•4. Are your kitchen cabinets organized, can you find what you are looking for easily?

•5. Is your home office organized, bills paid, and filed?

•6. Are your kids' toys in every room of the house?

•7. Can you fit into all the clothes in your closet?

•8. Do you regularly search for lost items in your home?

•9. Are you able to park your car in the garage?

•10. Do you want some help organizing your home?

Call North Fork Home Staging and Get Organized!!!

http://northforkhomestaging.wordpress.com/

September always feels like the start of the year to me. After the summer, whether you have kids or not, September does seem like the start of the regular routine. There is something about seeing all the back to school supplies in the stores that makes me start to think about cleaning my office, reorganizing, de-cluttering, setting priorities and goals.

As a home stager I am always advising sellers to clean, reorganize, de-clutter, prioritize their projects, and work on the goal of selling their home. This is a great time of year for us to practice what we preach. Purge those items you have been using to stage that look old or tired. Clean up your files. Reorganize your priorities and set some goals. Think about your business, how can you find more clients, be more efficient and more creative? This has been such a tough market, how can we as home stagers work on our own business to promote what we do best? Make a business plan. Google business plan and lots come up. Some are free and work well.

Here are some simple fill in the blanks that can help your business:

Mission Statement - What is your business, what do you want to portray as a company, what sets you apart from the competition? I love Disney's mission statement "To make people happy." How simple, but really it works, making the customer happy, making the employees happy, that is Disney. Put your mission statement on your desk, on your bulletin board, internalize it.

What is your mission statement?________________________________________________
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Vision for your business - What will your business look like next year? In five years? How will you expand or enhance your business?

What is your vision for your business?_______________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________

Set your goals - Set specific goals, daily, weekly, monthly and yearly goals. They do not have to be how much revenue, it could be how many contacts you make each day, week, etc. How you network, how you market, etc.

What are your goals? ___________________________________________________________
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Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats (SWOT) - by analyzing these characteristics in your business, you will get a better idea of what it will take for you to not only to survive but also prosper. Include the changes in the industry, the marketplace social and economic conditions, competition, new technologies that can help or hurt your business.

Define your SWOT______________________________________________________________
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Financial Plan - Analyze your costs and your income, set up financial controls, and account for everything that goes in and out.

What is your financial plan?_______________________________________________________
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Measure and Evaluate - Set up a way to measure your progress on your goals and plans. Do it regularly, perhaps quarterly. This will help you refine and improve your plan and achieve your goals.

How will you measure and evaluate your business? ___________________________________
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I hope this helps you start out in September with a new successful plan to enhance your business! I know it is going help me get back on track as summer ends.

(A list for home sellers)

It is time to move on; you want to sell your house. Maybe you need a bigger house, or it is time to downsize, you want to move to a new school district, or a different part of the country. Whatever your reasons are for selling your home; don't just list it, prepare it first. It is so much better to spend a little time and money preparing your house for a sale than lowering your price because it isn't selling.

Step one - Think about why you bought the house. What were the features you fell in love with, are they still impressive?

Step two - Ask your friends and family what they like about your house, what they don't like. Tell them to be really honest. Don't take it personally!!

Step three - Check out the neighborhood competition. It is easy on MLS online.

Step four - Interview some realtors and home stagers. Don't pick the realtor that says your house is great just the way it is, pick the one that is realistic and offers some suggestions on how to make it better.

Step five - Make changes that improve your home as advised by the realtor and stager.

Step six - Hire a stager to make your home the most appealing it can be to buyers and give your home the wow factor.

Step seven - Hire a realtor who has a marketing plan for your home.

Step eight - Be realistic about your selling price, don't chase the market

Step nine - Keep your home clean, de-cluttered and available for showings.

Step ten - Entertain offers and listen to your realtor. Sell your house!

I love spending time at my beach house; I grew up on the North Fork of Long Island and spent every summer at my family's beach house on the Long Island Sound. When I was a child, the beach house was 2 bedrooms, a living and kitchen combo, and a screened in porch. We spent summers with no TV or phone, barefoot, in bathing suits until dark, then in PJs. We swam, played games, had bonfires, told ghost stories and spent long days surrounded by family. As I grew up we added onto the house, there were more bedrooms and bathrooms, the house was winterized, new windows, a new kitchen and gone was the screened in porch for more living space. I think the TV was added the year of the moon walk, a phone a few years before, but the beach house was always a special place for family and fun.

When I stage a beach house, I like to evoke the spirit of the summers I remember from my childhood. Colors reflect the easy summer feeling; beach sand beiges, blues for the sky and water, greens for grass, will all work well for beach houses. Add in some bursts of yellow for the summer sun and the mood is set. I like breezy curtains made from bleached muslin, slipcovers on couches, blue and yellow throw pillows for color and to rest your head for a lazy afternoon nap. Beach houses need lots of beds in simple bedrooms, places to curl up and read or relax with friends, a big table to eat with friends and family, and a game table for games and puzzles.

Decks are for a BBQs and cocktails, to sunbathe in the afternoon and to watch the sunset on a summer evening. I like to stage the deck for a casual summer party. A few candles and solar lights can create a romantic mood on a summer evening. A garden of hydrangeas and lilies and some pots of annuals are a must for any beach house.

Never highlight a TV, a computer, or any electronics. Yes in the modern world, we need them, but the focal point of any beach house is the view. Highlight the view, stage the furniture accordingly. Put up a mirror opposite a window looking over the water, and then the view is seen in the mirror as well. Add local art and flowers as accessories. Put a basket of beach towels by the door to the deck and a couple of beach chairs nearby to remind everyone the main attraction is the beach.

A beach house should be welcoming, relaxed, calm and family friendly. A buyer or renter should walk into a beach house, feel a sense of peace, want to entertain, to read a book, play a game, or take a walk on the beach. I don't want anyone to walk in and want to head for the computer or TV, I want them to gaze out on the view and fall in love. If a beach house I stage creates that feeling, I have done my job.

Fashion applies to home staging. Colors that appeal to buyers in fashion, can translate into home fashion as well. Did you ever wonder what colors to use in a room? Take a look in the closet. Basic colors usually are found in abundance, and the bright colors in smaller numbers. Neutral colors with pops of more intense colors also appeal to the home buyer. Build a wardrobe around basic clothing colors, a room around basic neutrals. Accessorize with the stronger colors in your wardrobe and do the same in a room.

Stagers go into homes and usually start by de-cluttering, depersonalizing and redefining what is already there. I think we need to take a look at what we bring in, too. Some of the fun of home staging is putting your signature on the room. Maybe you add a signature artist, or a color, a floral arrangement, or another accessory to the homes you stage. It is a good idea to analyze the accessories you use. Are you adding too much? Are they appropriate for the space?

Coco Chanel's advice on accessories was to" always take one thing off before leaving the house." Her mantra of "less is more" is important in home staging. When staging a room, accessories should be simple, add something meaningful to the room, and when you are done, take one away. Use the advice of Coco Chanel and apply it to the room you are staging. LESS USUALLY IS MORE!