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

In late December 2011, I was hired for a home staging consultation for a home located off Beverly Glen, just blocks from Los Angeles Country Club. My home staging consultation was a Christmas gift from the husband to his wife. What a thoughtful Christmas gift! The home had been listed for several months in 2011 with no sale. They were tired of their house sitting unsold, so they decided to make the leap and hire a home stager to help them get their home ready for sale.

This past week, the homeowners let me know that they had completed the list of recommendations I had made, and they were ready to put their home on the market. They must have worked night and day, because everything looked great! The homeowners had done an awesome job of following my instructions. As the homeowners were planning to live in the home while it was on the market (occupied home staging), and their furniture was quite lovely, we staged using a mix of their furniture (I brought in a daybed), my lamps and accessories.

As you can see, this home has beautiful Spanish Revival detailing, yet it has been tastefully remodeled to incorporate modern living and technology.

Here’s info from the listing agent:

Beautiful classic Spanish home that has been tastefully updated. This home features three bedrooms upstairs and two plus den/family downstairs with hardwood floors, custom lighting, newer kitchen with granite, stainless steel appliances, remodeled second floor with spacious master suite with beamed ceiling and steam shower. Garage converted to art studio and work shop. Outdoor landscaping installed in 2010 with extensive play area, outside kitchen, pergola, fountain, fencing and landscaping.

Located at 1627 Pandora Ave. Los Angeles 90024, the first open house will be on Sunday, with the Brokers’ Caravan on Tuesday 1/31/12.

For more information, contact the listing agent, Murray Weisberg, Sothebys Realty at (310) 481-6260.

Do you have a Los Angeles or Pasadena home you want to sell quickly and for the most money? Call Michelle @ Moving Mountains Design (626)385-8852, Los Angeles’ best home stager!

View Larger Map

It seems to me, anyone seeing those photos on-line is not going to be in a rush to purchase those homes.

Since more than 80% of home buyers are searching on-line before going out to look at homes, the photos your real estate agent posts on the MLS are of the highest importance in driving home buyer traffic to see your home.

Did you know that Moving Mountains Design provides big, beautiful, professional-quality photos of the homes we stage, for use in marketing the home on the MLS and print marketing? You can check out our photos in our home staging portfolio or in many of our blog posts. Whether your home requires vacant home staging or occupied home staging, when we stage a home, or provide a home staging consultation, we work doubly hard with  home owners to ensure that their home appears at its best, both online and in person. We want your home to sell faster and at the highest price!

Would you like to get an estimate for staging your home? Just click here: How much does home staging cost?

Welcome prosperity and good health into your home with sound Feng Shui practices. With the Lunar New Year 2012 approaching, now is the perfect time to invite positive change into your life.

Whether you are staging your kitchen to sell or staging your kitchen to live you can use the principals of home staging and Feng Shui  to prepare your kitchen for more comfortable, pleasing and prosperous living for you or your potential buyers.

There are many schools of Feng Shui.

Recommendations will vary from Feng Shui school to school and practitioner to practitioner. I’m a graduate of the Western School of Feng Shui. Here are some tips to get your kitchen in top Feng Shui shape with little or no cash outlay, just an investment of your time. Despite the fact that different schools have differing “cures”, following are some basic changes you can make that apply to all kitchens. We can affect many positive changes in our lives just by applying intention – putting the energy into making a change and welcoming that change into our lives.

In Feng Shui, the condition of the kitchen can influence your level of prosperity and good health.

The goals of both home staging and Feng Shui are increasing cleanliness,functionality and organization and getting rid of clutter to make room for whatever your new prosperity will bring. Follow these steps to increase your prosperity, good health and general well being:

1. Clean out your refrigerator and your pantry.Get rid of  any out-of-date food or ‘science projects’ (all of which hold negative energy). This includes any outdated vitamins or medications you keep in your kitchen. Wipe down the shelves, clean up any old spills and crumbs. If you use shelf paper in your pantry, and it is torn damaged or worn, replace it. If you are staging your home to sell, your pantry should be half full and very neatly arranged. If the items are awkwardly shaped, put them in baskets.
2. Restock your refrigerator and pantry. A fuller refrigerator and pantry equates to prosperity and generosity. It also allows us to be prepared for whatever may come up, be it unexpected guests or a change in employment status. Don’t overfill the refrigerator and pantry. We don’t want them cluttered, just sufficiently full to meet our nourishment needs plus a little extra.  Put a small open box of baking soda in the refrigerator to absorb odors. Opening the refrigerator should be a pleasant experience.
3. Restock your refrigerator and pantry with healthy food. Take care of your body and it will take care of you. One of the fastest paths to good health is eating healthy food. If your intention is to improve your health, then make sure the food you have available is healthy.
4. Display fresh fruit on your counter. Abundant fruit is a symbol of prosperity and generosity (yours and the Universe’s) in Feng Shui. Besides, you are more likely to eat it if it is readily available, which will improve your health and well-being.
5. Remove everything from your cabinets. Assess everything and determine if it is really useful. With the exception of some seasonal items, if you haven’t used it in the past 6 months, you should get rid of it (donate, give away to a friend, recycle or throw it away). If it is chipped, broken or otherwise damaged, either fix it or get rid of it.  That broken toaster that has been sitting in the cabinet since 2004 may be burning off some of your prosperity – send it on down the road.  If the item can be fixed (and you are likely to have it fixed) by all means, do so. If it can be repaired, but you are not inclined to do so, label it with the problem (so the recipient know what they are getting) and then donate it. If it can’t be fixed or recycled, then throw it away. The goal is to get rid of clutter and make space for new and better items that will come into your life in the coming year. If you are staging your home to sell, keep your cabinets half full. It allows potential buyers to imagine their things in the cabinets.
   
6. Put the items you are keeping back in the cabinet in an orderly fashion, and in a manner that allows the item to be useful and of service to you. No matter what anyone tells you, if the organizational system is not organic to your way of doing things, you won’t be able to maintain it and it will devolve into chaos quickly. If you are staging your home to sell, your cabinets should be half full and neatly organized.
7. Don’t store large or heavy items overhead or you may feel pushed down or weighed down. Store large items in a low cabinet if they need to remain in the kitchen. Besides the Feng Shui implications, it is often difficult and sometimes dangerous to remove and replace bulky or heavy items in a high cabinet.
8. Carefully pack seasonal items (Thanksgiving turkey platter, Christmas themed plates, for example) in plastic bins and store them in the basement, a closet or the garage. They don’t need to be taking up space all year in some of the most energetically valuable real estate in your house – your kitchen. If you are staging your home to sell, pre-pack these items and put them in storage. This helps you prepare for your move, and helps potential buyers see how much storage space is available.

The Year of the Dragon is just around the corner. Welcome the Lunar New Year with a clean, functional, uncluttered kitchen. In Feng Shui, the condition of the kitchen can influence your level of prosperity and good health.  Follow the above steps and welcome prosperity and greater well-being this year.

Stage Your Closets For Good Feng Shui

Stage Your Bedroom For Good Feng Shui

For More information about Feng Shui, here’s an article from Wikipedia

Gong Xi Fa Cai!(Mandarin)

GungHei Fat Choy! (Cantonese)

Happy Lunar NewYear to all my Chinese and Southeast Asian friends & clients

This year we are celebrating the Year of the Dragon

I have the great good fortune to work with many Chinese and Asian clients staging their homes in Arcadia, San Marino and Pasadena. I want to wish you all a very happy and prosperous New Year. The Year of the Dragon promises to bring many positive changes this year.

Chinese New Year, also know as Lunar New Year or Spring Festival, is the most important traditional Chinese holiday. Regional customs and family traditions vary widely for the celebration of the Chinese New Year. Traditionally, every family thoroughly cleans their home to sweep away any bad fortune. This makes way for good luck to come in. Windows are opened and rooms are aired out. Brooms and cleaning rags are thrown away and trash is emptied so that no dirt of misfortune is carried into the New Year.

On January 23, Chinese and Southeast Asian people all over the world engage in a wide variety of traditional customs and practices that involve food and gift giving. Dumplings (sometimes known as Dim Sum) that are shaped like gold bars are eaten. Children receive small amounts of money in red envelopes (Hong Bao). Adults may receive a gift of tangerines, which are symbols of prosperity and happiness, or kumquats, which are another prosperity symbol. Schools and businesses in China close for at least a week.

My nephew, who owns an Architecture firm in Shanghai, says they don’t get much sleep during this week due to all the firecrackers going off at all hours of the night.

The Chinese Lunar Calendar is set up in 12 year cycles and each year in the cycle is associated with an animal. This coming year is the Year of the Tiger, the third year in the Chinese Zodiac. The tiger is a symbol of Courage, Strength and Prosperity. According to legend, Lord Buddha summoned the animals to him before he departed the earth. Only 12 came to bid him farewell and so he named a year after each one as a reward. It is believed that the animal ruling the birth year of a person has a profound impact on their personality.

Despite diverse customs and traditions across China, and for Chinese living in other parts of the world, the sentiment infusing Lunar New Year is one of peace, prosperity and happiness.

Happy Lunar New Year to all my Chinese and Southeast Asian  friends, clients & business associates. I wish you much happiness, good health and prosperity in the coming year!

If you would like to work with a home stager that has studied and understands the principals of Feng Shui, and who has a lot of experience staging homes in Arcadia, San Marino and San Francisco, please call Michelle at (626)441-8975.