I don’t know about you, but I’m always impressed when someone puts in a little extra effort to boost the curb appeal of a home. It makes the home more memorable, and implies that the homeowner has taken extra special care of the home.  I thought it would take a lot of measuring and planning to create a stripe pattern in a lawn, but it turns out, its not that difficult to create those stripe patterns in your grass. You can do it with a standard lawn mower, or even a rake,  just by pushing your mower (or raking) in the pattern you desire. The goal is to get the grass to lay over in one direction or another to create the pattern. Grass laying over towards you will look lighter in color, while grass laying over away from you will look darker. The longer the grass (2″ is optimal) the more distinct the pattern.

You can get more impressive results, with some professional tools like a “grass brush” attached to your mower.

Here’s a video I found on a website VanWall.com, a lawn and garden equipment website:

Not many homes have lawn or grassy areas as large as a professional baseball or football stadium or a golf course, but this technique will work with smaller lawns as well.

I can’t overstress the importance of curb appeal when selling your home. The first place home buyers will see your home is on the MLS or on other real estate listing websites. 99.9% of the time there will be photos of the front and back yard (or at least there should be). Any effort you expend to make your home stand out in the sea of pictures on the MLS is a good thing and should result in more showings.

©2012 Moving Mountains Design

Since WWII, the trusty Swiss Army Knife™ has been the go-to tool for soldiers, campers, fishermen, construction workers, even Hollywood Bowl goers (mainly for the corkscrew and for slicing cheese:o). I even have a Swiss Army Knife™ in my home staging tool kit!

The Swiss Champ™ has 35 tools or “features” and there’s not a lot you can’t fix or attend to with a Swiss Champ™ in your pocket.

The more experienced the home stager, the more tools she is likely to have at her disposal.

I like the think I’m the Swiss Champ™ of home stagers. Like the problem solving Swiss Army Knife™, Moving Mountains Design can be the solution for many home selling difficulties:

• Need advice on how to add umph to your front yard to enhance curb appeal? A home staging consultation will cover that
• Need a recommendation for inexpensive carpet, granite counter-tops, reliable movers or storage? I’ve got several to choose from in my contact list
• Don’t know what color to paint your living room to appeal to more buyers? I know the perfect color
• Not sure if your furniture will help or hurt the sale of your home? I can assess your furniture and let you know if I think it will advance your goal to sell your home for top dollar
• Is your home vacant and feels empty with no furniture? I can provide a few rooms or a whole house of furniture, artwork and accessories to make your home look like a model home
• Don’t have a real estate agent to list your home? I’ve worked or interacted with 100′s, all over Los Angeles, Pasadena and the San Gabriel Valley and I know who does a good job
• Not sure if you should spend the money on remodeling your house for sale? I can tell you which upgrades should  help with a faster sale or a higher selling price
• Do you need to sell your home fast and as-is? I work with real estate investors that can close escrow in as little as 1 week for all cash – no banks, no mortgage approvals, no appraisals

If you’re the listing agent, I can help you with:

• Photographing your listing after staging. I’ll provide professional quality photographs of the homes we stage for use in marketing
• Writing your marketing materials
• Sending an email blast to 1,800+ real estate professionals on my mailing list
• Convincing your client of the importance of doing certain repairs, upgrades or staging in order to effect a faster sale at a higher price

As you can see, an experienced home stager has a lot in common with the trusty Swiss Army Knife™.

Smart home owners, real estate agents and real estate investors have one in their pocket. Do you?

I can’t over stress the importance of curb appeal when selling a home.

From the moment a prospective buyer has a first view of your home, they are making a sub-conscious decision about how much they like or don’t like your home. If they have a good impression of the outside of your home (often called curb appeal), that is one less objection you must overcome when they walk through the front door. Your house (no matter how lovely) is not having to overcome that bad initial impression from the curb.

Here’s the front of the home as I first saw it in early January.

And here’s the house almost 2 months later – the epitome of “charming English cottage”!

The list I gave them during the home staging consultation was long and specific. Some of my suggestions were:

• Trim camellia bushes in front of the windows below the bottom of the window and “lace them out” (trim out some of the inner branches to give a lighter, more lacey effect).
• Trim and lace out camellia bushes on either side of the front door and either corner of the house.
• Remove all dead plants and fallen leaves.
• Plant new colorful flowers in planting beds (I suggested adding Impatiens which grow quite well this time of the year in Pasadena).
• Cover all exposed dirt with redwood bark chips.
• Neaten border edging.
• Broadcast a weed and feed product on the front lawn and rake in some grass seed on bare areas.
• Paint the front door red for a jolt of eye-catching energy.
• Add 2 bowls of colorful flowers on either side of the front door.

Making these changes created a true Cinderella transformation for this house. The house now shouts “Look at me! Aren’t I lovely?”

This home is listed by Irina Netchaev, Keller Williams Pasadena, (626)627-7107. Read more about this home Charming Caltech Area Home Staging

One of the biggest eyesores affecting curb appeal is a big concrete block or stucco wall right outside French doors or the kitchen window.

While the block wall probably provides security, privacy and noise control, they are usually butt ugly! I discovered a brilliant, simple and inexpensive solution on the CaliBamboo web site. By attaching 2×4′s top and bottom to the face of the stucco or block wall using concrete screws or anchors, it enables you to  attach bamboo fencing panels and give the wall a much more pleasing appearance.

This bamboo application could work well with many architectural/garden styles.

Bamboo is one of the fastest growing plants on the planet and is considered a renewable resource. Bamboo is also amazingly strong, durable and insect resistant. Many Bamboo cultivars grow particularly well in Los Angeles gardens.

Click here for more extensive instruction on how to face a block or stucco wall with bamboo.

Photo by Annieo76

Take 35% off all items!

Burkard is a fantastic nursery with a huge selection and very knowledgeable staff. If you have a shady dry corner of your yard, a sunny wet corner, or want to know which tomato plant produces the largest fruit, the Burkard staff will be able to point you in the right direction. And with a 35% discount, you’re in big box store pricing territory.

Some of the many things I have purchased for my Pasadena garden:

• Blueberry plants

• Strawberry plants

• Tomato plants – Burkards is famous for their heirloom tomato selection

• Roses – they have one of the best selections in Southern California

• Fruit trees – Peach, Nava Nava Navel Oranges, and Satsuma

• Landscaping plants – Kangaroo Paws, Gardenias, Camellias, succulents

Definitely worth a trip if you are getting your Pasadena home ready for sale and are working on your curb appeal or want to start that Freedom Garden.

For more information you can call Burkard Nurseries at (626)796-4355.

If you need assistance with curb appeal and preparing the outside of a home for sale, call Moving Mountains Design (626)441-8975. That is one of the many services we offer to help homeowners and real estate agents in Los Angeles and Pasadena prepare homes for sale.