The fabulous City Stagers captured by Orange Memories Photography

I have had so much fun and I am so grateful to be involved in some great opportunities to help others this season.

The City Stagers Sereena’s House project, spear-headed by Heather Kleim (centre front row above and @EpicEmpire on twitter) saw 13 amazing women come together after months of preparation and help to makeover the common rooms in this Downtown Eastside women’s rooming house.

Heather Kleim and I started the City Stagers Meetup Group as a way for local home stagers to build community, visibility and credibility within our industry.  From the beginning we wanted to include service as part of our mandate. (More on the City Stagers at Meetup.com/City-Stagers )

Here are links to the Vancouver Courier and the Province articles:

Here’s the story in the Province:

http://www.theprovince.com/news/Volunteers+dash+belonging+women+their+DTES+home/3941064/story.html

And here’s the video with Heather Kleim:

http://www.theprovince.com/videos/index.html?v=1688050289#/Makeover-DTES/juegqq_FqBGgnP_I5VhgLXRZ5_n_TkWK

And the Vancouver Courier article:

http://www.vancourier.com/life/Home+stagers+reach+troubled+women/3945184/story.html

Here are some of the fantastic donors involved.  Our thanks and congratulations for helping others so generously:

Many thanks to everyone who helped with the Sereena’s House makeover project.  I know it was an eye opening experience for many participants and I know we made a difference.

Proving, once again, that I get a lot more than I give.

Well, I sat down this evening to write a post about whether or not to decorate your home for the holidays when your property is on the market. Turns out I still feel rather strongly about it and I realized I’d written a post on this same topic last year. (If you’re interested you can find the post here.)

For the most part, I still agree with myself:

• Pick one accent colour for holiday decor that works with your home decor, and stick to it.
• No “cute”, inflatable, or flashing anything.
• For every holiday decor item you choose to display, remove one daily decor accent of similar proportions. (Because, of course, you’ve already edited your knickknacks, tchotchkes, collections and everything off the fridge and floor, right?)
• Do not have holiday decorations visible when marketing photos are taken of your home – they become dated within about 2 weeks.

Just in case you need a reminder…potential buyers will check closets and cupboards.  Prepack off-season and seldom used items to free up space.  (Ideally, every closet and cupboard should be no more than 1/3 full.  Viewers will be amazed at all the storage space you have!)

I’m seeing lots of white glass and ceramic holiday decorations this year.  Would white work as your one colour?  Clear glass is also a  lovely material to decorate with during the holidays, or anytime.

Last year I suggested you could leave out cookies or cider and spices simmering on the stove.  Don’t even worry about all that.  Just make sure you’ve followed all the usual rules of staging:

• Declutter and edit
• Keep an overall neutral palette
• Keep your home immaculately clean

Enjoy the last holiday season in your current home, just be aware that the house is now a product for sale.  You can go hog wild on decorations next year if that’s your tendency.

Have you decorated your home for the holidays while it was for sale?  How much did you decorate and did you notice any reactions from potential buyers?  Were they fascinated with your Christmas Village instead of the new windows and hardwood flooring you had installed?

Whether you are staging your home, or just looking for a way to tame clutter, today’s post comes directly from my friend Lynne (otherwise known as CrazyChameleon).  She describes her DVD collection as being in “the hundreds” and although I can’t relate, I know many others can.

Lynne came up with a great way to liberate shelf space for artful display.  She transferred all her DVDs from their cases into binder pages with transparent pockets.  Imagine the space she has created!

Here is an example from Staples of the type of loose leaf pages that could be used in a decor coordinated three ring binder.   Binders are available in all kinds of colours and textures and If you want to get creative, you could even cover one in fabric (I was going to post a video from YouTube here, but the fabric used was far too garish!).

Anyway, you get the idea.

One more way to tame your clutter