Staging Your Pike and Wayne County PA Home To Sell

I am watching an old episode of Designed to Sell, one of my favorite shows. Sometimes though, I think they pick weird things to change.

For instance, how about a very plain, ordinary ceiling fan. It was not ugly and hideous, just plain. The critic was going on and on about that ugly, dated ceiling fan. I guess ugly is in the eye of the beholder; it just looked ordinary to me. Is something like that REALLY going to stop someone from buying the home?

I wondered if they went through the house and decided they needed one more "flaw" and figured the ceiling fan was a good one because replacing it would be cheap.

In my opinion, some things are worth changing, and some things simply are not. Reupholstering a couch - or even buying all new furniture seems ridiculous to me. What if your new furniture doesn't go with your new house?

Updating the kitchen floor and counters seems important...updating little fixtures like drawer pulls and ugly faucets are great ideas.

Do buyers really care if you have computer desk in your bedroom, especially if it's clean and uncluttered? Are they going to say "Oh, I can't imagine myself sleeping in this room with that computer in it! Is this a bedroom or an office?"

Somehow, I think that these shows presume that buyers are stooopid and need others to do all their thinking for them.

Clive Pearse says "Putting up crown molding is sure to drum up buyer interest." Is it really?

Have any buyers said "I want a home with crown molding?

It is certainly nice, but I think saying that it will drum up buyer interest is an overstatement. It will appeal to buyers who notice such things, but overall, if the house doesn't grab them, the crown moulding certainly won't.

I believe in decluttering, I believe in updating curtains, putting slipcovers on ugly furniture, and rearranging furniture to showcase the room in the most positive light.

I just don't get spending the money to replace a perfectly fine, neutral fixture like a plain ceiling fan with a more "stylish" one that may put off as many buyers as it turns on.

To me, the first priority should be the curb appeal, then a clean, clutter free interior. Believe it or not, people do buy houses with outdated ugly kitchens; I see it all the time. I also see beautiful, "showcase" homes sit on the market for a year or more. The crown molding (moulding is also a correct spelling!) in that house certainly didn't "drum up buyer interest" that much.

They probably had an ugly ceiling fan. That must be it...

Staging Your Pike and Wayne County Home to Sell, ©Copyright 2007 by Karen E. Rice. All rights reserved.

Rachel's Garden in Pike County PA

Today, my youngest daughter and I spent the day together, just us. She didn't feel up to going to school today; the official reason was a headache. The real, undisclosed-but-detected-by-mommy-radar reason: needing serious Mommy & Me time.

After the other two went to school, she came up into my bed and snuggled for a while as we flipped through the channels on TV and mutually agreed that Dora The Explorer is extremely irritating. She actually wanted to watch some court program. She said the smart aleck judge was funny when telling someone they were lying. Shoot. I wanted to watch Dragon Tales. I was doing some "stuff" here on from my laptop at the same time, but it was just nice to have my little girl snuggling by me.

Then I remembered, I needed to go to Home Depot to get a new bathroom light, so off we went. It was a glorious glorious day here in the Poconos - nearly 80 degrees, and sunny. We stopped for lunch but Rachel didn't have much appetite. At Home Depot she perked up a bit and wanted to go in the Home Garden center to see the birds that are usually roosting in the rafters.

We saw the birds but saw some potting soil and some flowers. I am not a gardener. Plants wither when I walk by, but I said "Hey, Rachey, wanna plant some flowers?" She brightened up and said "YEAH!"

So, armed with some potting soil, some terra cotta pots, some pretty azaleas, a can of hornet spray, and a box of seeds, we headed home. Since Home Depot didn't have any watering cans that Rachel could handle, I stopped at a little garden center to get one.

"Isn't it funny," said the cashier, "that we don't have any watering cans at all?"

I looked at her, stupefied. "No, actually, it's not funny. I think it's kind of bizarre. We need a watering can, and what better place to find one than a garden center?" Oh well. I bought two pots of irresistibly beautiful pansies and we headed home.

The porch has some long neglected built-in flower boxes, empty and ignored since my bulb planting experiment of 1998 failed. All these flower boxes have yielded for years were weeds and grass. So we got to work cleaning them out. I put the pretty azaleas in the terra cotta pots and put them on the porch steps along with the pansies for instant gratification. Later we added an old, but pretty liquor decanter we found in the woods to the arrangement on the steps. It looks kinda cool.

We dug (well, I did most of the work but Rachel did try, a little) and loosened the dirt in the flower boxes, got rid of the clumps of grass and weeds, and planted the seeds, and then (I) swept up the porch. We spread some black plastic and redwood chips (which Rachel for some reason calls Dragon Poop) in one of the other flower boxes that I was unwilling to cultivate today. Now it's set for the season...no flowers, but no unsightly weeds either.

I told Rachel that we just planted "Rachel's Garden." She smiled. It was a special day, and I hope she always remembers it. I hope she remembers how we snuggled, how we enjoyed the birds, how we tried to get a watering can, and how we made the porch prettier.

I know I always will. It wasn't a productive day for real estate, but it was a "soulful" day with my daughter.

Rachel's Garden in Pike County PA, ©Copyright 2007 by Karen E. Rice. All rights reserved.

My kids were pretty revved up about Earth day here in the Pocono Mountains, (but they don't think about septic systems).

My youngest had a ball when her first grade class went out to the surrounding woods to pick up litter. She wanted us all to go around our neighborhood near Lake Wallenpaupack and pick up more litter - I promised her that we would set aside an afternoon to do just that. I have always loved the beautiful earth God created for us.

I remember seeing the famous "Crying Indian" pollution commercial starring Iron Eyes Cody, when I was just a little kid. While the actuality of Cody's Native American heritage seems to be a matter of debate, the power of this iconic commercial can not be denied.

Several years back, I saw the commercial replayed on Nick At Nite and was mesmerized into silence again, like I was the first time I saw it in the 70s. Thanks to the Internet, I can still see this historic clip whenever I want. It pains me to see litter strewn about Pike and Wayne County and I have been known to amble around Bingham Park in Hawley or the shore along Lake Wallenpaupack, picking up the trash laying around.

I was searching for something (totally unrelated to this blog, and meant for a future blog) tonight and somehow found The Simply Green blog by Danny Seo, which promotes, naturally, reusing, recycling, and just plain "being green." I was scrolling through the articles, enjoying many of them and admittedly, snorting at some. I am a conservationist to a degree but...well...I'm not perfect, and I just can't get into a pillow that looks like a thatched roof...OUCH! I was particularly interested in Lazy Laundry, part of Danny's series "Combat Global Warming Week". When it comes to laundry, I am definitely lazy, so this blog was for me.

Natch...this blog was NOT for me. I am one of the many homeowners in northeast Pennsylvania that has a home septic system for our waste management. While Danny's suggestion of doing several loads of laundry at one time, in order to dry all the loads one after the other, makes sense when it comes to conserving electricity, it does NOT make sense for your septic system.

Septic experts teach that one of the main reasons for failed septic systems is the washing machine! One problem is the lint released into the system by the washing machine, which makes its way into the drainfield and clogs the pores, preventing proper drainage. The other issue is an overload of water being flushed into the system in a short period of time. It is better for your system to spread your loads out throughout the week, limiting your laundry to one or two loads per day, rather than several loads in one day.

Danny's suggestion is great if you happen to live in town or in a homeowner community with central sewar systems - but if you have a home septic system, steer clear.

Here are some links for information on home septic systems and their care.

1. Local conservation expert Ron Tussel offers a variety of ecological services, articles and solutions on his company website: EcoScientificSolutions.com Ron is well known and respected throughout the community.

2. SepticProtector.com

3. Reader's Digest article "Maintaining a Septic System" - a very simplistic article but offers some helpful illustrations and other links.

4. Penn State Extension - Water Resources. I was going to link to just the septic page, but felt the entire section is link-worthy.

5. Sun & Earth Cleaning Products - I love this stuff, especially the cleansing spray and dishwashing liquid.

While I'm all for being green, protecting the environment, and conserving energy, I'm also all for preserving your septic system - it's a costly thing to replace. Fortunately, with care and education, a homeowner can have a septic system last for many years. As a REALTOR, I consider it part of my "Do" diligence to point homeowners in the proper direction in the care and maintenance of their septic systems...even if I loathe to do my own laundry.

Septic Systems and Earth Day, ©Copyright 2007 by Karen E. Rice. All rights reserved.

It's not secret that not everyone is into email.  Some agents really hate computers and know nothing about it.  (I found a local real estate agent's website - if you could call it that - that was simply one page, featuing a picture of their office, with their phone number and address on it...snail mail address, that is...no joke!  Check it out:  http://www.guccinirealty.com).

Google doesn't want to anyone to be left out; Google is trying to be everything to everyone.  Here's your proof:

Google Paper Mail 

Enjoy!  (please notice my tongue planted firmly inside my cheek...) 

Okay, well, now that I have that little joke off my chest, please feel free to check out my Pike & Wayne County PA Real Estate Website.  My area is famous for Wallenpaupack lakefronts, as well as many other homes for sale in northeast PA.

Google Is Ready for The Old Fashioned Among US, ©Copyright 2007 by Karen E. Rice. All rights reserved.