Yesterday I spent 4 1/2 hours at a client's home with her home stager. This is something I like to do - be there when the home stager is there to learn, to help and to problem solve with the home owner.

Now, yesterday was hot. It was really really Ottawa humidex warm. Double, double, toil and trouble.....

My client's home is full to the brim with lovely things that she has collected and found ways to display. She has things from every member of her family and her husband's family and from her children. There are pieces that I would love to own. However, you know it, her house is going on the market in a couple of weeks and it has to be turned around from her home to a product - something to be sold.

In terms of the process, the three of us, (owner, stager and real estate person - 3 wicked witches) started with a walk through and the stager's decision to start on the main floor. We emptied the dining room (put many things on the floor and then the Stager told the client how it would look when finished. She pointed and drew the idea in my client's mind. We took things off the wall and out of cabinets and started stacking. The dining room was ready in terms of a concept. Then we moved to the living room and did the same things but this time all the collections and wall hangings and pictures were moved into the dining room. Furniture was moved (several times because we are women and changed our minds) and then my client's husband came home from work and we used his muscles to move things to the garage for eventual move to the next home. It was an amazing afternoon. We transformed the concept of the main floor.

Was it magic? Was it a bottle of Seagram's? Was it Magic?

The client was left with a room full - full - full of collections to pack, paint colour recommendations, names of painters and electricians and cleaners and flooring people. There was a commitment from the Stager and Client to meet again. This begs the question

"When shall we three meet again?"

Today is my client's birthday - Happy Birthday to You.

Photo is adapted for this post from: Vintage Ad #391: 7 out of 10 Witches Surveyed prefe Seagram's http://www.flickr.com/photos/jbcurio/1782610307/

Everything you read about staging says to take down personal photos and unusual pictures from the walls. What some advisers fail to say is that you should also take out the hooks, the nails, the rods, the thumbtacks and any other type of hanger that is fixed in the wall or ceiling.

Buyers and I were looking at a wonderful bungalow. The layout, while a bit unusual, was appealing. However, everywhere you looked there were hooks and nails in the walls where the owners had previously hung their ‘art'. These were owners who hung stuff over the doors, low on the walls (probably for the children), in collages, above cupboards, etc. When we finally made it to the basement, there was the ‘art', stacked along the walls ready for packing. I would quesstimate that they had well over 200 items. We left that house just thinking of all the damage done to the walls. It would have been advisable for the Sellers to patch the holes and touch up the paint.

This house became unhooked from the Buyers' list.

Photo credit: Uninspired 46/365