Joanne O'Donnell

When we first saw this home with the orange carpet and old wooden paneling, it seemed like we'd gone into a time machine. Unfortunately I didn't look like I did in the 70's, only the room did. With such dated décor, a price reduction couldn't be far behind. The room was underutilized and depressing. Not the kind of room that would create that emotional connection that leads to an offer. When a potential buyer views a home this dated and in this poor condition, they are going to begin to wonder how well cared for the whole property could be and what kind of hidden problems might be there.

We always try to use as much of the homeowners things as possible, but every now and then, we have to start pretty much from scratch - this was one of those situations...

So first the carpet was ripped up and replaced with eco-friendly bamboo flooring. Next the drapes and dated wooden valance were removed and the entire room painted (including the dated paneling). We then strategically placed the furniture to change the focus and feel of the room. If you're selling your house in this decade, you don't want the mark of another all over it.

Chic Home Interiors does Home Staging, Interior Redesign and Training in Staging, Color and Green Build Science. Our training arena is all of North America, while our design and staging is in the San Francisco Bay Area only.

Chic Home Interiors

www.chichomeinteriors.com

510-STAGING

510-(782-4464)

California dreaming - I am constantly amazed and overjoyed by this wonderful area we live in. There are surprises around every corner - beautiful vistas, incredible hikes through redwood forests or coastal wetlands or around lakes hidden away - private and beautiful and often only 5-10 minutes from a shopping area. Tilden Lake, Lake Chabot, Lake Temescal... and of course, the ocean. I am just waxing on because I spent the day taking Spot (a handsome 7 year old Sharpe mix (1/4 Labrador - a bit less wrinkled and not quite as stubborn) to various venues where he could explore and run and sniff the vegetation and other canines.

We started out to go to Muir beach - one of our favorite places, but got sidetracked. Never know how it happens, we start out with one thing in mind, make a pitstop somewhere and then go on in another, unintended direction. We checked out the park behind the Piedmont High School first. I live maybe ten minutes from there and had never walked it - fabulous, check out the pictures. Spot loved the waterfalls, I loved the towering trees to - he liked their bases but never deigned to look up... typical Spot.

Then we went to a dog park in Alameda in the shadow of the infamous cranes that inspired (according to local legend anyway)the Star Wars AT-AT walkers in "The Empire Strikes Back". Great park and setting but my hands were so cold here I couldn't take them out of my pockets to take any pictures - maybe next time..

Happy 2009, Bay Area!

Chic Home Interiors does Home Staging, Interior Redesign and Training in Staging, Color and Green Build Science. Our training arena is all of North America, while our design and staging is in the San Francisco Bay Area only.

Joanne O'Donnell

Chic Home Interiors

www.chichomeinteriors.com

510-STAGING

510-(782-4464)

October 17, 1989 I am working a new job in the financial district of San Francisco (back then I was a recruiter, placing finance and accounting professionals) and I leave a few minutes before five to go to an event in the East Bay with a friend. We get in her car and join the mass of fellow East Bayers swarming in cars to get on the bridge. We were on an on ramp when the first tremors of the Loma Prieta Earthquake began. Of course, we didn't know what was happening, never having felt anything like it before or since. We could see what looked like smoke at various places in the city, and we realized later that must have been masonry collapsing. We and everyone in cars around us were nervous - trying to make sense of what we were feeling, but continued to drive. We were almost to Yerba Buena when the traffic halted and we began seeing people running back towards us between the lanes of cars. Scary. We were lucky - we were able to maneuver to one of the on ramps from the island and get to the upper deck - which was completely deserted by this time. We picked up as many passengers as would fit in the car - people who had abandoned their own cars when the bridge collapsed - and returned to the city going the wrong way on the upper deck. We wanted so to get out of that car that we went into an underground parking lot in the financial district and once we were there suddenly thought "Are we nuts? Why did we just go underground?" We left the car and didn't go back for it for several days...The story of the rest of that night and the next day will have to wait until a later blog, after all I am new here (at least new to actually doing anything here - a blogging novice, shall we say) and we hardly know one another so I can't reveal all my secrets.

Anyway, the whole point of this post is that I wanted to share some pictures of the new Eastern span being built that a construction worker friend gave me... But thinking about the bridge always brings back these memories and I just couldn't resist sharing them with the community. Every time I cross the Bay I try to see what is going on with the new bridge. Even when traffic is slow it is hard to see from the current bridge, so I was really glad when my friend, who has done some work on the bridge gave me some pictures of the actual work. These are some months old, but still fun.

There is a lot of controversy over the design, but I am hopeful. I have always loved the Western span; I used to live on Embarcadero in San Francisco and just loved looking at it at night. But the Eastern span has always been somewhat of a poor, ugly stepsister. The new span "will feature the world's largest Self-Anchored Suspension Bridge, which will also be the first bridge of its kind constructed with a single tower. The innovative design features state-of-the-art seismic safety elements and will provide the East Span with a modern, streamlined appearance and a graceful tower that will be right at home in a region recognized and celebrated for its breathtaking bridges." So, like I say, I am hopeful, it has to be better then what we had.

Hope you enjoy the pics.

The personal side - my friend Ben who gave me the pictures!

Chic Home Interiors does Home Staging, Interior Redesign and Training in Staging, Color and Green Build Science. Our training arena is all of North America, while our design and staging is in the San Francisco Bay Area only.

Joanne O'Donnell

Chic Home Interiors

www.chichomeinteriors.com

510-STAGING

510-(782-4464)

I was just working today with a redesign client in Castro Valley and, like most people in our current reality; she is trying to save money wherever possible. Our current project is her master bath which is very dated, brown 70's tiles and linoleum combined with old, ugly wood cabinets that create almost a cave because the bath is so small. This is how it looked when we first saw it - it was a foreclosure sale and had been left in a state of disarray even I, as a stager, had never seen. To give you an idea of just how bad we are talking - when we drained the pool, we found a motorcycle at the bottom... (Wish I'd taken a picture of that).

One positive thing the current economic crisis has created is an upsurge in design business for stagers. As stagers, we are uniquely qualified to redesign our client's homes on a budget. With money being short, clients are more and more staying home and entertaining, rather than spending their more limited resources on restaurants, etc. Stagers are used to limited budgets and tight deadlines - we get the job done.

But I digress... back to my client... we have many projects in this house and have spent a huge amount on other aspects, but this bathroom, even though it is the Master, is small and my client just wants it to be more comfortable, less confining and is not really interested in a huge outlay of resources to make that happen. So I showed her some alternatives that she is really excited about - things I had done in staged houses previously where budget was the overriding issue. It may be months before I can share the actual after pictures from this project, we are still remodeling the kitchen and Master Bedroom (adding fireplaces to both - so cool!) so I want to share the pictures I showed her of past staging projects using the methods we are going to employ.

Here are two projects that illustrate these great methods that work in kitchens and bathrooms.

This galley kitchen in a 1984 condo in Oakland, California was owned by an elderly couple who were downsizing. We needed to keep the costs down while optimizing the return on their investment since, like many older people; the equity would support them in their retirement. The kitchen had old appliances that didn't match in style or color, old plywood cabinets that were in bad shape, unattractive and dated, a tile counter and linoleum flooring that were both very dated with busy patterns. There were many things that had to be done throughout the property on a tight budget so we looked for inexpensive solutions. We decided that careful color choices in the room could deemphasize the variation in color of the appliances so that we could avoid the cost of replacement or refinishing them. We painted the walls and cabinets, added inexpensive hardware from IKEA that really updated the look, replaced the dated vinyl with new vinyl flooring from a roll that had the appearance of tile squares and had the tile refinished by a bathtub refinishing company. They used the same process used by most bathtub refinishers. The limitation imposed by this method was that we only had two color choices - white or bisque, but it is widely available, easy to find by doing an internet search for "bathtub refinisher" in your geographic area and an inexpensive alternative to replacement.

The second example is a small 1940's home, also in Oakland that had a very dated kitchen which included counters that had large aqua seahorses, a theme usually reserved for bathrooms even during the era when the tiles were installed. The cost for replacing cabinets, flooring and counters would bring his project outside of the window of value and we didn't feel it would bring the kind of return on equity that would pay the client back for the investment. I suggested painting the cabinets and refinishing the counters using the process from the first example developed for refinishing bathtubs. The difference is this time we found someone who had taken this to the next level and now, instead of only two choices, we had 20 choices of finish. The process is extremely durable, costs a fraction of replacement, can be completed in a few hours and dries in 24 hours. The project was completed by painting the cabinets, updating the hardware, painting the walls and replacing the dated flooring with updated vinyl flooring. The entire project was completed in a few days, at a fraction of what it could have cost to do a more extensive remodel (new counters, etc) and in time for our company to come in and showcase before the open house on Sunday - tight budget, tight deadlines, the usual stager's life.

In the Bay Area, the company I use is JS Refinishers. , there is a national organization called Professional Bathtub Refinishers Association which can direct you to providers throughout North America.

Chic Home Interiors does Home Staging, Interior Redesign and Training in Staging, Color and Green Build Science. Our training arena is all of North America, while our design and staging is in the San Francisco Bay Area only.

DID YOU KNOW in a recent survey...
92% Of people surveyed said "Green" features are important when buying property
74% of consumers surveyed buy environmentally friendly products
60% are willing to pay more for such items
55% say they make a special effort to patronize retailers with a green reputation
50% is the forecasted rise in energy cost by 2010
40% of new homes are being built with green features

On Tuesday, January 20^th I will be teaching the first CSP/Live Green-Live Smart Green Building Science Training Course in Calgary, AB, Canada. I am very excited.

This course is for all Real Estate Staging Professionals, Home Inspectors, Design Professionals, Professional Organizers, and Business Owners... But for Certified Staging Professionals it is also the first step in achieving the coveted and long awaited EcoStaging designation!

This course is designed to educate anyone on the topics of sustainability, energy savings & green build science.

This one day certification will give you the understanding to initiate energy savings which will surpass the investment of this program

You will learn:

•· About building certification programs such as LEED

•· Green terminology and green building science best practices

•· About the state of the planet

•· How to access thousands of $$$ in special green tax credits, incentives and rebates

•· Marketing techniques to market your business green

•· To identify green features in your clients property and how to help them further their green efforts

You will receive:

•· A comprehensive green training program that you can use to differentiate yourself in the market

•· Designation as a Live Green, Live Smart Certified Professional

•· Membership in a network of Green Professionals throughout North America

•· Access to free green content for your website, newsletters and email program

•· Green evaluation materials for use with your clients

•· Logos, marketing material and updates

The small investment for this certification is $395.00 which includes course materials, text books and the LGLS Certified Professional designation to further your business. Joanne is the Director of Training for the CSP organization and will be in Calgary to teach the CSP course on January 17-19, this class immediately follows. If you haven't yet taken the CSP course, here is an opportunity to combine both. If you are already a CSP, this is the next step in your professional development, and the first step towards the EcoStaging designation that only CSPs can achieve. If you are a Real Estate Professional, this class will give you what you need to market yourself as a Green Realtor.

Contact 1-888-782-4464 to register.