Melissa Marro www.StagingAndRedesign.com www.RedesigningCharleston.com

Certified Staging Professionals (CSP^TM) course comes to Indianapolis, Indiana

Linda Barnett, Founder of Home Matters Home Staging of Indianapolis, Indiana announces that on Nov. 17-19th, 2009, the long awaited and highly respected CSPTM course, for Real Estate Staging will be taught in Indianapolis.

PRLog (Press Release) - Oct 22, 2009 - CSP^TM certified staging courses are cutting edge and recognized by leaders in the field of the home staging training industry. The Certified Staging Professional Organization offers a variety of specialized courses. The CSP^TM Staging Course is a 30 hour course which provides the foundation for those wanting to start a career or own a business in real estate property staging. The proven CSP^TM process is a blend of interior redesign techniques, along with business, marketing and communication skills, to effectively market a house for sale. Owning a business involves so much more than talent; like pricing, invoicing, communications and vital marketing components. The program includes a one year membership in the CSP Alumni Association, which provides the support and resources crucial to building a profitable, home staging business. Barnett, founder of one of Indiana's largest, most successful and fastest growing Home Staging, Training and Rental companies, recently became a certified instructor for both the 3 day CSP^TM Stagers course and the CSP^TM Elite Real Estate agents' course.

"This first November 17th class will be an exciting event for students." Barnett says, "Christine Rae, CSP Founder and Author of "Home Staging for Dummies" along with Melissa Marro, owner, First Impressions Staging & Redesign and CSP^TM, Director of North American Operations will both be here in Indianapolis and along with myself will instruct parts of the 3 day course". "If you come to this session I can probably even get Christine to autograph your very own copy the Home Staging for Dummies book" Barnett noted.

Barnett-A Staging professional, interior decorator, former realtor and Certified Home Staging Trainer-founded Home Matters in 2004, and has since worked with more than 850 homeowners, realtors, builders and investors throughout the Indianapolis metropolitan area, helping them sell homes for an average 98% of the list price and in an average of 48 days on the market after staging. Barnett and Home Matters have been featured in numerous media, including The Indianapolis Star, Indianapolis House & Home Magazine, Indianapolis Business Journal, REAL ESTATE Lifestyle Magazine, FOX 59 News, and WISH-TV/Angies List segments. Also in 2008, Barnett became Presidents of the Indiana State Chapter of the Real Estate Staging Association (RESA). Barnett is also an Indiana State certified instructor through the Indiana Professional Licensing Agency and the Indiana Real Estate Commission has been offering certified training to Home Stagers and Real Estate agents for several years, including a GRI Continued Education class for the Indiana Association of Realtors at the IUPUI Campus at Kokomo, Indiana. "I could not be more pleased to be offering the CSP^TM Courses. Christine has developed first class training courses and I feel fortunate to be involve," Barnett said.

For further details about Home Matters and the CSP Training Courses please visit our web site at www.homemattersllc.com or go directly to the CSP web site at www.csptraining.com

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About Home Matters: Home Matters Home Staging & Training is a professional home staging and training company serving all of the Indianapolis, Indiana Metropolitan area. Home Matters has become one of Indiana's largest, most successful and fastest growing home staging, redesign and training companies in Indiana. Founded in 2004 by Linda Barnett, Home Matters has since serviced over 850 clients helping them sell homes for an average 97% of the list price and in an average of 48 days on the market after staging. Linda's background as a former Realtor, owner of a Gift Basket and Event planning business and Certified Interior Decorator has served her well in the Home Staging Industry.

This week my assistant and I staged a phenomenal home in the luxury Kiawah Island market. The agent, Lucie Jones of Dunes Properties, and I have worked together before. The last home we worked together on defied odds and sold in 4 months (the average DOM in this community is over a year - and there are currently 8 years worth of inventory on the market last I had heard). The moment she took this new listing she knew that we would be working together again.... As we walked through the home - a secondary home for the owners who lived in another state - it was clear that the home had been in their possession for many years and hadn't been updated in some time. The overall bones of the home were fabulous, however!

The biggest problem, in my opinion actually was in the master suite - it did not feel at all masterful. With a $1,000,000 plus price tag, that seems a minimum requirement. Here are the problems that I viewed with the room....

The queen sized bed shoved into the corner with only one night stand did not feel cozy for a million dollar luxury beach house. The problem seemed to be that there were no other walls to move the bed against without moving the bed under a set of windows. To top it off, the wall that made the most sense of moving the bed to (second set of photos) was unbalanced. The windows were not evenly distributed along the wall and simply moving the bed there would have felt awkward.... so, what to do?

(old dark photos removed for newly taken photos)

Now I wish we had finished this home earlier in the day, and hopefully we'll have the opportunity to go back to this gated community to take additonal after photos, but you can see the amazing change. We swapped the queen sized bed for a king, hung some curtains to create a solid wall where there were unbalanced windows (only losing a view of the neighbor's back yard), and creating a masterful luxurious setting. Much of the furniture that had been in this room was used in other parts of the home, the rest was either picked up by family members or donated to habitat.

Overall the change only costs a few hundred dollars, but what was the return on investment for the sellers?

How would potential buyers have responded to the thought of spending a million dollars on a home where the master bed was shoved in a corner? A king sized bed was out of the question with the previous layout.

Today, the views and open and expansive space is the first thing buyers will see when they walk into this space.... the agents for this property are thrilled and I'm hoping to receive positive comments after the brokers open house today....

While I was out of town last week perhaps the biggest change to our house to date took place... NEW FLOORS!! While the before photos of the living room look OK, to be honest the laminate flooring was gross. It obviously had gotten wet and as laminate tends to do was buckling..... Wanting to be as environmentally concientious as possible, I went with a fantastic vertical carbonized bamboo...

buckling laminate flooring was not working out... ripping them out was the best option.

After ripping up the laminate flooring we found out that the subfloors actually had been painted (per neighbors the homeowners lived like this for some time). Woodboys, our new flooring installers, were happy about this as it apparently created a new moisure barrier in addition to the barrier they installed.

You can also see my husband installing new 6" baseboards in this space. I like the statement of 6" over 4".

I'm really pleased that these lead into the dining room as well, creating a more open feeling (i'll have photos, but we are still working on the ceilings and rooms are taped off - for now that includes the dining). New french doors have also been installed and all the trim work painted with a nice crisp white. The new color is Basketry by Behr.

The rooms in the family room/den have been a bit of a quandry too. We knew we needed to do something with them. The question was, to refinish them or to put in new bamboo floors here too.... We went with the less expensive option (about $1000 less) and then held our breath having no idea how it would turn out.

We started this space by priming and painting to get rid of the cave feeling....

Then they refinished the floors....

I think we made a great decision! The floors are really stunning in person with the variety of wood grains shown off so well. (btw, in case you are wondering about that unpainted window to the right... it's being replaced so we haven't spent time painting it yet.)

So, what was the cost of flooring in the living room, dining room and refinishing the family room? It was a little less than $6000 professionally installed. The return on investment is significantly higher however... not that I'm doing this for resale (this time).

Now are are about 2-3 weeks from moving in.... I can't wait to see what this room will look like with furniture!

Why is it that so many 1970s homes have wood panelling? Ok, so that was sylish back then but why do so many men still like it? Why is it that men cringe when you say you want to paint over wood? Well, if you are one of those guys who love the look of paneling and the 'man cave'... look away!

Our den before....

This depressing room was given a lift with A LOT of primer and some great pigmented paint...

The floors will be redone later this week and the windows are supposed to be replaced soon (why they weren't painted). The desk was left in the home and hauled out this evening. Shelves and cupboard doors still need to be added but you can already see the changes happening.

Right now this is the room that has the biggest improvement. Prior to the paint job this room was dark and depressing... today this room is bright and feels clean and fresh - even a little beachy.

The cost of this makeover? About $100. When working on value add, paint is frequently the most cost effective change you can make.

In order to close on our new home we were told a few things by our lender - the first of which was it would have to have usable flooring throughout the home. Well, somehow they let the fact that there was no carpeting slide upstairs, but the kitchen seemed to be another issue... If you remember, this was one of the scarier looking parts of our new home...

since this is where the fridge would go we were certain there was going to be damage to the subflooring and we would have to rip all of this out and have a big job on our hands. Instead we got lucky and found out that the previous owner had actually installed a layer of plywood and sticky tiles over the original subflooring and roll out vinyl floor. Per the inspection there was no real damage, which meant we had easy (and cheap) options available to us....

Now I will say that we plan on completely gutting the kitchen within the next 6 months and replacing the flooring with what we want was not on the list of fixing before closing - it would have been a waste of money since it would all be ripped out when we eventually gut the kitchen. Our goal was to get the room done inexpensively and make it last for 6 months....

This was our solution...

STICKY TILES! At 68 cents each we just couldn't go wrong. Here was the process for anyone who finds themselves in this same situation....

First we pulled up the second layer of plywood and sticky tiles in a nice neat square area. We then purchased and installed new plywood in that area. Adding two layers of sticky tiles (one to meet the height of the previous sticky tiles and then one to cover the entire flooring surface) we continued throughout the room making this the only part of the home that actually feels reasonably clean.

Now, I'm the first to admit that it is not particularly attractive but the idea was to do this as cheap as possible (entire room cost less than $90) and pass the appraisal.... Mission accomplished!

Tips & Techniques on sticky tiles.....

How to cut the tiles to fit when you can't use an entire square - turn the tile upside down and butt up against the wall you are trying to measure to. With a straight edge mark where the overhang on the tile is and using a razor knife score the tile along that mark. Bend the tile along the scoring and cut down that line. This is actually super easy. Remember that your tile will ultimately be upside down and backwards when you are scoring so pay attention to which side has the good edge.