Roslyn Ashford

ow, I am used to having to respond and act quickly when working with local realtors to stage properties. But my last project was the fastest one yet! The realtor called me on Wednesday, I viewed the space on Thursday morning and we staged it on Friday afternoon! Whew!

To our benefit, the house was only 1.5 miles from the office AND we were only focused on the basement level. But it was a long basement - 38' ft long by 11ft wide that was forgettable to potential buyers. And the good thing about it the basement and just off the garage, no stairs...items could basically come right in! Take a look at the photos below and let me know what you think!

Before

After -check out our handy work below!

DC/Maryland based realtors - don't show your vacant, sell it! We can stage your properties quickly too! Give us a call at ra reDoes rooms! We'd love to help!

Was contacted by local realtor and staged a colonial home in my neighborhood, in downtown Silver Spring. It was fun - check out the pix below. Can you tell I enjoy what I do?

family room before and afters above

Dining room above, below is the FUN sun room!

and now you know why the breakfast nook was most fun! :-) I got to be a bit more creative than usual. Doesn't the cake look tasty?!

The entire process of purchasing property to live requires thought, analysis and decisions. Active buyers are constantly processing questions like

Will I enjoy living in this new community?

Is this location safe for me and my family?

Can I easily manage all of the necessary payments to maintain this property?

Will all of my personal items fit within this property?

When a vacant property is shown, this forces even more on the buyer to think think think! Buyers wonder whether their items will fit or if they need to purchase items, what will fit in the space. This becomes even more of an issue with smaller condos and homes. Let's face it - open spaces just confuse buyers. Common in condo spaces is an the open area...which tends to confuse lots of buyers. But staging a home with furniture can help address those issues and at least quiet those space questions down. Take a look at our example below to see what we mean.

Empty room/space in a condo...BEFORE

The space AFTER we dressed it up and staged it with nicely sized and furniture, added color and life!

Now you can really see how the family room and dining room space come together! And your brain doesn't have to work so hard to figure out where pieces of furniture can go and how they can fit.

If you are a homeowner or realtor selling a condo in DC, MD or Northern Virginia - stop confusing your buyers! They will thank you with a sale! So make it easy - stage your vacant property! We have great furniture to use make your place shine! See more of this condo at www.rarooms.com/portfolio.htm

Regards,


Roslyn Ashford, Interior Decorator and Stager
CEO, ra reDoes rooms, Inc.
http://www.rarooms.com; 240-423-1732

"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair

Last month, I posted that I found these really cheap closet ikea doors (i love the as-is section) and scooped them up most immediately. I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to do with them, but I figured something would come of it. And boy did it ever!

First - here is a picture of the doors again - for those who didn't catch the last post...I think they were the doors in the PAX closet system and they were cleaning out inventory. The store had a ton of them available for $3 each.

The first door I purchased, I made a headboard - still need to take a picture of it in the room but here it is with just the headboard itself

Shown covered with shower curtain from Home Goods.

And the other two doors, came in handy for my friend's new boutique. I made the dressing rooms and needed a second 'wall' to adhere a hook to for clothing. So take a look and see how I used them here!

Pretty neat huh! So those doors came in handy, wouldn't you say! Thanks for checking it out! Hope it inspires you to be creative this Spring too!

Ahh...January. Winter time here in DC and the number of staging requests have dropped signifigantly...and even those who have made contact have seemed to have magically disappeared. So what keeps me going this time of year?. Deals, sales and bargains! january is a great month to take advantage of all of the stuff the retailers want to remove before the new items arrive. cool for me!

January is a great month to me to re-stock inventory and prepare for Spring and Summer. I started today with a quick visit to Ikea, to purchase easy window treatments for my fathers home.

As always, I checked out the AS IS section and found it to be a little sparse, given the long holiday weekend. But then I ran across this huge stack of doors and I just had to pick one up! I saw this door from the Pax closet system. It is 62"H and 24"wide and I was like eh- until I peeped the price...see below!

Talk about a bargain! Yes, you are reading this right. it does say $3.00. Holy smokes - it is within the budget! Now, I have some thoughts of how to use it but I would love to hear what other folks think! Send them my way!

And I wonder - do you think I should pick up a few more?