MARY LOU TEAGUE HOME STYLE AND STAGING KNOXVILLE, TN

As a stager, I get asked to do a lot of different things, however, yesterday it was not all about the accessories and the furniture and where I should place what and where. I was working with a good friend who is a Realtor ( actually I was trying to set her up on Active Rain, never could get it to work, but that is another story )... She wanted to show me some of her listings that were on her website, one of the vacant homes had many photos and she had written captions below each one.

Since she is a really good friend, I suggested that we change some of the wording, to pick it up a notch or two. She was all for the idea, some of the words that she had used were used over and over for the same listing. So we huddled over the computer and made the changes. Here is some of the wordings and the changes I made.

"Open floor plan" went to " Wide spacious plan suitable for entertaing friends and family"

"Kitchen window lets the sun shine in" went to " Looking through the kitchen window allows you to see the vast flat back yard"

"Family room has cozy fireplace" went to " Family room is highlighted by corner fireplace"

We went over several of her listings and changed the wording to make the buyer visualize what the room was. Now in defense of my friend, she does these day after day and I know it has to get a little boring. So now all she has to do is call me and let me know what the photo is trying to say and I will come up with a quote for her !!!

NOW EVERYONE IS HAPPY !!!!

I have a problem on my hands...or rather should I say over my head ?

Home Style and Staging recently did a "Walk Thu" and one of the recommendations that I made was to paint the trey ceiling in the kitchen and eat in kitchen. The ceiling is very low and needs to show some height. Well, now I need to know just how to make that work. I am thinking, that painting the inside of the ceiling a shade or two darker will do the trick. Need some help here, what have you done in the past to give the ceiling height?

Here are the actual photos of the ceiling and also of the tile that is in the kitchen so that you may help in the colors.

Looking into the eat-in kitchen

same type ceiling is in the kitchen. Kitchen Tile

Give me your thoughts and hopefully I have the right idea on how to handle this.

Rerecently I read a blog post about homes giving off a "VIBE". ( Sorry to say I did not bookmark, so if anyone knows where I saw it or who wrote it please let me know, it was full of great information ) I was so impressed, as I have been trying to come up with this for a couple of years now. The main "VIBE" that I seem to run into a lot is "an older person lives or lived here". Actually, the first home that I did a "Walk Thru" with a Realtor. I said walking up to the front door, an older person lived here, right ? She was amazed that I said that, even more so that I was correct.

The front door had two side windows, the windows had lace sheers covering the small glass inserts. What a dead give-a-way, that someone older lived there. Last week, I did a "Walk Thru" and hanging over every window, that even had beautiful wooden blinds covering them..was..you guessed it lace sheers. My report ?

Take down the lace sheers.

In the same house last week, even if they had tried to trick me by taking down the lace sheers, there were small collections of figurines everywhere...dusty, small and just said to anyone..yes an older person lives here.

Collections of things, old lace curtains, etc are signs that an older person lives there or has lived there and need to be removed and brought up to date.

What are your experiences with "VIBES" that houses have ?

HOME STYLE AND STAGING does its share of moving, lifting, packing and unpacking !!!

However, when given the chance I will jump at the chance to be turned loose in a store with $5,000 !! Well who wouldn't?? But if that doesn't happen, I will be just as happy ( well almost ) as being able to stage a home where the owner is moving out, and leaves some things for me to stage with.

That means, all I have to do is show up and go from room to room moving things around and staging to my hearts content...A stager's dream....

Here are some photos of my recent staging on Saturday, the before and after. I was a lucky girl, no packing and unpacking....

BEFORE AFTER

BEFORE AFTER

Here are so me more "AFTER" shots...

The budget was tight on this one, so had to use what the seller had on hand, however, I think that HOME STYLE AND STAGING did a great job and had a great time doing it...

Oh before you ask...the white cards on the bed in photo # 2 are Tarot Cards as she is into reading cards and thought that it would be good Karma to have the cards in the photo...

I have a link to FACEBOOK and TWITTER on my website,

however, I have no idea if this is pulling customers to my site.

I have a FACEBOOK page for HOME STYLE AND STAGING and have over 250 friends. I have found that most of the "Friends" are other stagers from other cities. So how is this getting my name out there to future customers ?

Do you use FACEBOOK AND TWITTER to help market your business ? If so, what results have you found?

What other sites ( besides Active Rain ) do you use to drive customers to your site ? I do write outside blogs through Google, what are other ways to pull the customers ? And how have they worked for you ?