Home Staging

Where in the world (if anywhere) can a person study or take a professional career course in stage magic or the art of illusion to qualify as magician and to be able to follow the likes of Houdini and Copperfield? Or is it someting that can only be self-taught?

Magic Inc.
5082 N. Lincoln Av
Chicago, IL
773-334-2855
www.magicinc.net

Follow in the footsteps of Copperfield, Penn and Teller, Mac King, Lance Burton, etc. They all came through Chicago to buy tricks and books and to meet Jay Marshall, the owner of Magic Inc. Call the shop with your questions. They’re great and have professional magicians on staff.

It’s my favorite magic shop, and the best magic shop in the world. They can also answer your questions about magic lessons and recommend books, teachers and camps.

Good luck!

I need to know how to stage a newly built house for resale.

Arrange furniture to make the rooms appear spacious. Use as few pieces of furniture as you can and stage so that traffic flows easily and smoothly through the rooms. Open blinds or draperies to views that are appealing, close them to ones that are not. Accessories should be minimal and arranged in vignettes of odd numbers 3,5, etc. at varying heights. But, avoid clutter. Towels in the bathrooms bring attention to fixtures when decoratively arranged. Candles that smell like foods (vanilla, cinnamon, banana bread) or baking cookies appeal to the sense of smell to give the feeling of home. Avoid tripping hazards in major traffic patterns. Most of us actually glue accessories down or I like to use museum wax because it makes the items difficult to remove, but can be cleaned off the items later.

I want to help someone in home decorating or weding planning, any suggestions?

Examples of your work help. Do something with your place(you got to start someplace) for no one wants to be the guinea pig… to make it"cool" and then invite friends over for "tea" so they can see your handiwork. Maybe they know somebody who knows somebody. Word of mouth works the best.

Congratulations on entering the home staging business world! Sure, your main objective is to sell your client’s house the same day-ideally-at the highest price, with your attractive arrangement. But, many professionals love this type of work because of the artistic factor. You are not alone if you value creating an appealing space as much as landing the contract. This sort of profession is also great for people who do not want to pursue a formal degree, but still want to interior decorate.

Creating an attractive space does not have to cater to a few individual tastes; in fact, that would be detrimental in selling a house to a wide number of prospective buyers as possible. One factor in having a successful home staging business is creating attractive spaces that appeal to the general public, where individual buyers can picture themselves living in the house. But, popular trends as well as local trends should be considered, such as with choice of furniture or art, if you choose to rent such materials.

The grass can certainly seem greener when you look at the profession from the other side of the fence. The ease in starting and the lack of formal credentials required make it appealing to people who want to become self-employed. Also, the growing demand for redesigning services and the potential high profit is another lure. But home staging business demands a lot from you: Flexibility with sudden requests, lots of time marketing yourself, and an ability to think creatively and often on your feet. New ideas seem awfully simple until you try and work things out from scratch. The end result that transforms an ordinary room into a dream may seem obvious, but, more often than not, the result was through much hard work and lots of thinking.

If you are ready to get started, visit Decorate-Redecorate at http://www.decorate-redecorate.com to sign up for a tutorial course you can take at home. The learning company is based in Orange County, California, which has one of the biggest real estate markets in the U.S. Barbara Jennings, the owner, has been in the home staging business for 20 years. Jennings offers one-on-one advice for people who sign up for her training. The training is divided into several levels, depending on your interest and skill. The website also offers resources for self-promotion, leads on client, and an electronic newsletter for the latest in the industry.

Iprwire Staff Writer
http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/welcome-to-the-home-staging-business-135761.html

The photos you put in your professional home staging portfolio are among the most important photos you will ever take. Your portfolio is used to show your prospective clients what a talented home stager you are, and whoever is looking at it is expecting dramatic transformations to justify investing in your home staging services.

Even great home stagers can detract from their portfolios (and in turn their own image) by simply not having the basic digital photography skills to make their photos fabulous. A good portfolio shot should demonstrate your home staging skills. A great photo will compel people to look at it because it says something. It should be well lit, straight, in focus, interesting and free of distracting details.

The following tips should improve the quality of your photos dramatically:

Think before you shoot. Get to know your camera. Take the time to set up some practice shots in your own home and experiment with shooting the same image from slightly different angles, with and without the flash, with the lights on and off, with and without a wide-angle lens, and even try standing on a chair or ladder to see how the shot will turn out. You can also try different resolutions settings. Before shooting your image, make detailed notes to remind you what you did. When you load the images on your computer and look at your notes you can compare what they look like on screen and when they’re printed. You’ll start to learn how your camera works and what can be accomplished by doing a couple of things differently.

Be mindful of these digital camera basics. We’re all in hurry these days, but when you’re shooting images for your portfolio, slow down a bit. Pay attention to how you’re holding your camera and be sure that you have it straight and you aren’t covering the lens or flash with your finger. Don’t move after focusing or while you’re shooting the image – move into position before you shoot and stay still. Avoid shooting towards a window because everything will come out too dark if you do.

If you can change the resolution setting, put it on the highest or next to highest setting and see what size the image will be. Usually an image size of 1 MB is sufficient quality for anything you’ll need in a portfolio. (You’ll use more memory at higher resolutions, so buy a larger memory card or even a second one so you won’t be stuck with insufficient memory when you’re on your shoot.) You will get a crisper more detailed image at higher resolutions, and you can always reduce the resolution later. If an image is shot at a low resolution originally, you can’t make it higher later. This is a problem if you want to make a printed image larger or if you need to supply images to the media.

In part two of this article series, you’ll learn about the importance of your attention to detail and capturing strong staging stories when taking photos for your home staging portfolio.

For help putting your portfolio together, the Staging Diva Ultimate Portfolio Guide can help you determine what to include in your portfolio and it has an entire chapter devoted to photography in staging.

Debra Gould
http://www.articlesbase.com/entrepreneurship-articles/staging-divas-top-photography-tips-for-home-stagers-part-1-755082.html