Virginia Tatseos

I love finding neat inexpensive pieces of art and tweaking them. This piece is an original and dated 1941. That's pretty cool I think.

This picture was used in a staging a few months back

I used it here because the gold frame complimented the brass on the fireplace and the ceiling lights.

This is what it looks like after painting the frame a very soft white.

Stage-Show-Sell, offers affordable home staging solutions in the Birmingham – Bloomfield and surrounding areas in getting your home ready for the market. We service both home sellers and realtors. We have the experience, our own rental furniture and accessories to stage many homes. We specialize in Estate work. The house can be put into our hands for the whole process of getting the house on the market

Seems like every house I work on now has hardwood floors that need work. Yesterday I posted a blog on how Murphy Oil Soap saved the day for me for one room. Today, I'm interested in how to refinish the floors.

The reason behind this is decks. My logic is that refinishing a hard wood floor is not that much different from cleaning up a really bad deck. This deck below, from my last job, had a wheelchair ramp up to the house. This will put 99.9% of buyers off.

The ramp before the handyman attacked it.

We used $50 worth of deck cleaners and brighteners and power washed to get it the best we could. Then we sealed it with Cabot clear.

It really looks good.

I'm thinking that I could have taken a sander for hardwood floors and sanded the deck. That would have meant no chemicals and the look would have been more consistent. The area that had a outdoor rug is lighter than the rest of the deck.

I'm definitely not trying to put the professionals out of work. They would be called in at the drop of a hat for a large deck. A deck of this size would be cost prohibitive on most of the Orchestrating Estate jobs that I do.

Has anyone used a floor sander on a deck?

The local Home Depot has a floor sander that it rents by the hour and day.

Will this work for the decks too!!

I've very curious about this because my son's deck needs to be re-done. We are all do it yourselves :-)

We tried paint strippers and power washers and it still needed to be sanded. The logical thing was for us to try sanding one section before stripping and amazing this worked. We can now skip the process of paint removers and brighteners and just sand. There are many really nice hand sanders on the market and I figure it would take us months of weekends to finish the job.

Will the hardwood floor machine work for this process?

Stage-Show-Sell, offers affordable home staging solutions in the Birmingham – Bloomfield and surrounding areas in getting your home ready for the market. We service both home sellers and realtors. We have the experience, our own rental furniture and accessories to stage many homes. We specialize in Estate work. The house can be put into our hands for the whole process of getting the house on the market

I was recently working an Estate in Warren Michigan. The owners had passed and it was time to sell. Those who follow me know that this is my forte. I love it.

This last home had carpet in one room that had to be torn out. No if and or buts it had to go.

Tearing it out was easy. The hardwood floor underneath had a few issues that were difficult to deal with. Do you remember the yellow padding that be used to have under carpets? The kind that turned to dust when it was old? Well that the problem. The padding was stuck to the floor.

I tried scraping. I tried a wall paper steamer. I tried every fancy cleaner for hardwood floors.

Finally, I was reminded that for an oil problem I should use an oil product. The old padding were petroleum based.

The problem was solved. Murphy Oil Soap and a floor scrubber and it was in good shape

Stage-Show-Sell, offers affordable home staging solutions in the Birmingham – Bloomfield and surrounding areas in getting your home ready for the market. We service both home sellers and realtors. We have the experience, our own rental furniture and accessories to stage many homes. We specialize in Estate work. The house can be put into our hands for the whole process of getting the house on the market

For less than a cup of coffee a day

April I was rejoicing that a home that I staged went pending. Every listing agents and stagers dream is to have gone pending within 3 weeks.

Things started sounding fishy when the buyer needed an extension on his inspection period.

Then they dragged out the renegotiating. This dragged out for weeks!!!!!!!!!!! And a closing date was finally set.

The seller told me to de-stage the property because it would save her money on the extra month rent. I acknowledged her desire to do this and said that the rent until a couple of days before closing was insurance just in case it didn’t close.

Let me explain that her rent on the items was very inexpensive. I mean less that buying coffee out during the month.

She insisted that I get it out by the 16 of April so there would be no monthly rent until it closed on the 28th.

I was out of town on the 18th and I didn’t need the items so I couldn’t honor her request. On the 27th I de-staged the home, donated the remaining furniture and moved the items to another location.

The 28th I found out it didn’t close and there would be another delay.

Friday May 22, I found out that it didn’t close and it’s back on the market –vacant. The seller won’t stage again because of finances.

For less than a cup of coffee a day the house could have stayed staged. Now she is l looking at thousands of dollars in losses.

Sellers please don’t de-stage until you absolutely KNOW that the house is closing.

Stage-Show-Sell, offers affordable home staging solutions in the Birmingham – Bloomfield and surrounding areas in getting your home ready for the market. We service both home sellers and realtors. We have the experience, our own rental furniture and accessories to stage many homes. We specialize in Estate work. The house can be put into our hands for the whole process of getting the house on the market

MEDIA ALERT

For Immediate Release Contact: Melody Herr
Ph: 248.722.4955
Email: melody@sellingimpressions.com
What: CHARITY STAGED HOME EVENT

Who: The Real Estate Staging Association Southeastern Michigan Chapter (RESA-SEM) and Habitat for Humanity of Oakland County

When: Friday, April 24th Preview Night for Realtors and Press from 4:00 - 6:00 p.m.
Sunday, April 26th Public Open House from 1:00 - 4:00 p.m.

Where: 159 Highland Clawson, Michigan

Presented by: RESA Southeastern Michigan Chapter (RESA-SEM) with support from:

Fowler Real Estate

Dynamic Flowers

Cort Furniture

Echo Appraisal

Graebel Michigan

Participating Stagers: Melody Herr, President of RESA-Michigan, owner of Selling Impressions, LLC
Jennifer Cohol, Selling Impressions
Deborah Chene, owner of Staging Impressions
Marianne Sweet, owner of Home Sweet Home Staging, LLC
Virginia Tatseos, owner of Stage-Show-Sell
Jill Neugebauer, Selling Impressions
Sandy Rochette

Cost: $5.00 donation which includes admission to the open house and classic car display, along with a chance to win a complimentary Home Staging consultation.

Information:
The RESA Southeastern Michigan Chapter (RESA-SEM) is proud to announce that it is sponsoring a charity Home Staging event to be held April 24th and April 26th. This event will give Realtors and Michigan residents a chance to see how Home Staging can transform a home. The RESA members will be staging a vacant house in Clawson, Michigan. Realtors will be able to tour the house on Friday, April 24th. The house will be open for public viewing Sunday, April 26th. Participating Home Stagers will be on hand to answer questions, give advice and offer complimentary Home Staging Consultations to the winners of the raffle. There will also be classic Detroit cars on display. All donations as well as proceeds from a lemonade stand will be donated to Habitat for Humanity of Oakland County.






Michigan stagers and RESA aren't just staging homes; they are staging the community they live in too. Several RESA-SEM members are also participating in the Habitat Women Build May 12th-16th.

If you want more information on this exciting project, contact RESA - Michigan State President, Melody Herr of Selling Impressions at Melody@sellingimpressions.com. For more information on Habitat for Humanity, call Brad Irwin at (248) 338-1843.

Habitat for Humanity is a nonprofit, ecumenical Christian ministry that seeks to eliminate poverty housing and homelessness from the face of the earth by building adequate and basic housing. Since its establishment in 1976, Habitat for Humanity and its partners have built more than 300,000 homes for 1 million people in 100 nations. Habitat for Humanity built its first home in Oakland County in 1994. Since then, Habitat for Humanity’s Oakland County affiliate and more than 20,000 donors, sponsors, and volunteers have built safe, decent, affordable housing for more than 100 families. Habitat for Humanity presently focuses its work on building and rehabilitating homes in Oakland County neighborhoods suffering the effects of the economic recession. To learn more, visit habitatoakland.org.




RESA South-Eastern Michigan Chapter: 33228 W. 12 Mile Road #186 c/o Melody Herr Farmington Hills MI 48334
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