Home Staging

First of all, let me acknowledge that it is okay to have fear and be a scaredy-cat. Hey, if it wasn’t for fear we would easy place our hands on a hot stove. The key is to face the fear and be proactive (um, like NOT touching the flames on your stove - ouchie!) by moving forward with comfort.
 
Are you procrastinating from decorating your home to reflect your comfort and style? If so, what is stopping you from decorating your home to “fit” your comfort?
 
Is it not enough time? money? knowledge? tired when you get home? The answer – you are! You are what is stopping you from living better in your home.
 
My philosophy is that you obtain comfort at home from a physical (balanced furniture placement & color schemes) and mental state of relaxation (believing that you deserve to live great)  - and not from expensive furniture.
 
You and only you have the power to do something about the comfort of your room(s). Even if you do not live alone, you can be the motivator in your household for improving your home, while making it FUN and moving FORWARD!

So how do you move forward? It’s simple – think of the letters F-O-R-W-A-R-D, here’s the guide:

F-ind time and make a decision to love living and enjoying your home
O-rganize your items  by what you like/do not like or want/do not want
R-emove all excuses of why you can’t or shouldn’t treat yourself to living in comfort
W-elcome input of others, but keep the eye on the prize YOUR immediate household’s comfort
A-rrange your home life to reflect your personality & the lifestyle that you WANT (not the lifestyle you currently have, reach for more luxury)
R-emember your ultimate goal (e.g.: fun living room to invite friends over, kitchen to accommodate dinner parties, bedroom to relax and read, etc).
D-esign a plan for decorating your home that matches your heart 

Here are a few inspirational quotes to remind you to live happy within your home and your “self”: 
 
“Success is a journey, not a destination” – Arthur Robert Ashe, Jr. (prominent tennis player)

“the greatest motivator for me was getting started.” – V.S. Naipul (nobel prize winner)

“Creativity requires the courage to let go of certain certainties” – Erich Fromm (renowned psychologist)

How boring (and quite “twilight zone” strange) would it be if you had the same exact décor 10 years from now? Same wall colors, same toss pillows on your sofa, same artwork. Hmm, a bit boring (zzzzzz) to you and your guests, huh?!

So don’t be afraid to buy a particular framed art that you love NOW, and it may become a perfect gift that you pass on to someone you love in 3 years from now.  As your comfort level, tastes, and style grows so should your home – to reflect your life  - a successful journey living your life to the fullest potential of your current style, tastes, and preferences.

Now this doesn’t mean you have to spend a lot of money on furniture, it means that you decorate your home following your heart’s inner desire: 

• perhaps you cannot afford to have a built in Jacuzzi tub, but you can surround yourself with plush towels and a bathrobe that feels like a warm hug  
• perhaps you cannot afford a new sofa, but you can slipcover your current sofa to make the room look and feel brighter and larger
• perhaps you cannot afford a new area rug for your living room, but you can paint your current old rug with colors that match the newly purchased toss pillows that you love

Make a decision to improve your home and get started (move F-O-R-W-A-R-D)! Give yourself a wishful deadline to energize yourself.  Maybe even plan a dinner party with the goal that you will have a new improved home to showcase at your dinner party. 
 
When you start feeling a fear that you may make decorating mistakes:

• embrace the fear and remind yourself that it is okay to make mistakes as long as you learn from them 
• get decorating tools to help guide you and help alleviate your decorating hesitance (e.g. from your local library, decorating TV shows, from us -> view our website source page, e-book 31 Mistakes to Avoid When Decorating Your Home, decorating service options: Quick Room Analyzer, Dream Design Kit. To learn more about these services, please go to the website below.

So, take charge and be a tiger/tigress RAAAR (<- that is my tigress sound effect) and decorate your home to reflect YOU! Feel happy at home, and within your”self”. 

© 2007 Ada’s Interior Design, Inc. All Rights Reserved | Website: www.adasdecoratingsolutions.com

Ada Gonzalez
http://www.articlesbase.com/interior-design-articles/are-you-a-decorating-scaredycat-hmm-are-you-677099.html

So Santa Claus will be visiting soon and you have not finished (or started) decorating your home for your guests or for your enjoyment. Or perhaps you look around your home and feel as if there is something missing in your decoration.

Don’t panic!

Don’t hide in the closet!

Don’t try to wrap yourself in a box to avoid decorating!

Don’t grab the scissors and stare at the tangled Christmas lights!

Don’t put an extra something in the eggnog to try to calm your nerves!

Don’t eye the ornaments and imagine your family as targets!

Follow these 3 simple steps, practiced by elves at the North Pole in charge of interior decorating, in order to find your creative inspiration for decorating the interior of your home.

1st step

Remember your goal. The goal is to decorate so you LOVE walking into your home and inviting people to visit. Not just admiring the outside Christmas lights, but the heart of the home (the inside!!) … so you can FEEL that Christmas is near … so people can talk about how wonderful your home looks (hey, there is nothing wrong with having fans admire your creative unique interior decorations). You make your home special every time you decorate because no matter how many ideas an interior decorator may give you; it is ultimately your personality (as an individual or a family) that chooses the ultimate Christmas decorating design. No home can ever be decorated the same because we all have different personalities, styles, and tastes that inspire our creative heart to reach our desired goal.

2nd step

Narrow down a mood. The second step to finding your inner Christmas decorating inspiration is to narrow down a mood that you want to feel in the room. What emotion do you want to portray in the room? Do you prefer informal or formal. March of the Wooden Soldiers with Laurel & Hardy movie or White Christmas with Bing Crosby & Rosemary Clooney movie. Making your own gingerbread house or buying one already made.

Now remember, there is nothing wrong with combining two moods and styles as long as there is harmony. How do you go about doing that? Simple: pick your primary mood preference then throw “decor sprinkles” of your secondary preference. You prevent two moods from clashing when the secondary preference is introduced into the room in small amounts – which I call “decor sprinkles”. For example, say you want to decorate your home to reflect an elegant white Christmas look (the main mood preference is relaxed elegance) but you don’t want it to look too fancy (the second preference is a decor sprinkle of fun!).

You can:

Decorate your home with wreaths sprayed with snow and have white elegant fabric bows, with silver bells.  Place white felt fabric on all tables to resemble snow. Decorate your tree with clear Christmas lights, different shades of white & silver round ornaments, fresh cut white roses, beautiful soft doll angels with white feathered wings; and place under your tree presents wrapped in silver with white ribbons and bows. These are all primary mood preferences of elegance.

Then, add your décor sprinkles of fun! Add to your Christmas tree adorable snowmen figurine ornaments with red scarves and red roses that pick up the color of the red scarf on the snowmen; add mistletoe and red berry branches to the center of doorways; and insert small red & white stripped candy canes within your snow covered wreaths.  The red color is your little SPLASH of fun! Be careful not to overwhelm the sprinkle of your secondary preference – the holiday magic word is “subtle”. These are all secondary mood preferences of fun.

Remember, narrowing down what mood you and your family prefer for the current Christmas will inspire you and your family to start visualizing designs in your imagination that bring comfort and joy.

3rd STEP

Organize a decorating plan. Knowing the first two steps gives you a guide (a design blueprint!). So now you know your goal (1st step), and you know the direction of the mood you wish to use for your interior decoration (2nd step). The next step is to organize a decorating plan (3rd step).

How?

Look within yourself … or much easier (less meditation!) … look within the boxes that contain last year’s Christmas decorations in order to organize your decorating plan. If you have a limited amount of decorations, then go window-shopping to sort through store decorations.

Take out all the decorations you have and sort out what you like and what you do not like.  As soon as you start to sort, you will receive inspirational decorating thoughts that will guide you to pick this year’s Christmas decoration   design plan that will impress even Santa Claus.

Search and sort by:

Mood. Sort the decorations by moods (which are fancy, elegant, relaxing, whimsical, funky, playful, etc).

Theme. Organize by theme (nutcrackers, snowmen, a Christmas village, indoor animations, reindeers, etc.)

Color. Separate each ornament or decoration with the color that stands out the most. This goes for Christmas lights as well – separate the multicolor Christmas lights from the single color Christmas lights.

Taking the time to search and sort through your Christmas decorations will:

• keep you from wanting to use every single décor you own and inspire you to save them for other Christmases to come.

• help you pick out what matches or doesn’t for your (a)  comfort (1st step – goal) and (b) preference (2nd step – mood).

• help you plan a design that harmonizes with your personality and furniture. Just because you have a red bow does not mean you have to use it. A red bow attached to a red lampshade will not stand out; whereas a white bow would be a noticeable contrast.

• make planning future Christmas decorating easy since you already went through the process of sorting and stored decorations by mood/theme/color.

• save you money since now you purchase with a plan in mind that match your goal and the mood that you want to portray in your current Christmas theme, instead of just grabbing any (or all) adorable Christmas decorations.

Perhaps you do not like an ornament that was given to you by a relative, but you feel obligated to have it as part of your Christmas interior décor. REMEMBER, it is your home … your comfort … your creative Christmas décor. Do not let past gifts bully you into feeling that you “have to” display the item(s). Choose decorations that “YOU” want to represent in your home.

Extra Tip: if you have a guest that gave you a unique décor and he/she is planning to stay over for the holiday, then surprise them by decorating the guest room with the unique gift. They will wholeheartedly appreciate the thought you gave into displaying the gift, and feel happier during the happy holidays.

For additional Christmas interior decorating tips check out Christmas Interior Decorating Guide with Ideas that Will Impress Even Santa Claus!, visit: http://www.adasdecoratingsolutions.com/foryou.html

© 2007 Ada’s Interior Design, Inc. All Rights Reserved | Website: www.adasdecoratingsolutions.com

Ada Gonzalez
http://www.articlesbase.com/interior-design-articles/christmas-interior-decorating-a-3-simple-step-guide-on-how-to-find-your-inner-creative-inspiration-that-will-impress-even-santa-claus-691811.html

I completed all assignments 8 weeks ago and still no feedback. Since my enrollment in April their terms are totally changed. No assistance, no instructions, no obligations. I can’t get money back unless I completed the course but they won’t let me to. All those ads lead to trickery. Shameless collecting of money from naive job seekers.

it’s awesome …dude ..good luck

I’m painting and decorating my house, not specifically to sell, but with the thought in mind that we’re going to sell in a couple of years, so the house has to be decorated as we will stage it. I really don’t want to do much work when I’m trying to sell.

I found a color of beige (ralph lauren’s cottonwood) that I absolutely love and I just can’t find anything else that I love as much. I decided to paint the living room, basement, hall bathroom, hall, and master bedroom that color. I’m trying to decide on a color for the guest bedroom and I can’t find another color that I love as much. I would do a neutral color for the guest bedroom even if I didn’t do the beige. And I know that it’s good to go neutral when you’re selling, but the thing is, the living room, hallway, hallway bath, guest bedroom, and master bedroom are all right there together and you can stand in the hall and see them all from one spot. I did that on purpose because I didn’t want a different color in every room and it’s like the amazing technicolored house that doesn’t flow. but I’m worried that a buyer will come in and be like beige overload. What do you think, can you overdo it on beige when selling your house or should I break it up and paint the guest room a neutral sage or something?

It’s a pretty good idea to stay neutral, but make sure that the cottonwood color isn’t too dark and doesn’t date anything.

You might also want to consider putting it only in bright & sunny rooms and then using a lighter beige in darker area like hallways and even bedrooms. From what I can tell online, that color is similar to what I’m seeing in new homes right now, but it can be too dark or overbearing in rooms that don’t get enough sun. The thoroughbred line is very very very rish colors that can be overbearing.
It may also make the place a tiny bit boring without any variation. Maybe mix it up painting some darker rooms RL Deep Cream, and other rooms Garden Moss RL Number: ML14 , or Cowrie Shell RL Number: WW60 if you want to stay in true beiges.

Maybe yes, maybe no. Yes because those that need to sell will want to get every penny they can out of their house, considering it just lost about 1/3 it’s value last year. No because many people are just hanging on to their existing house instead of buying up. You could market yourself for the "sales staging" and for the "re-decorate with what you have" options. Many folks want to change, and if you can do re-do’s with the homeowner’s existing belongings, that’s a whole new market for your skills.