the results are in

Okay. Here are the photos after the stager finished her handiwork. Most of house was a mish mash of bits and pieces that were struggling to fill the space provided. The lounge room literally only had a couple of sofas in it and that was it, as you can see from this first picture.

I was quite happy to have a stager come in and do something with the area, since we aren't into buying more stuff mode, what with the move back and all, and the lounge room is the first room one arrives to upon entering the house, so it is important to make a good first impression.

Anyway, the whole point of staging is to draw attention to the house, rather than the things in it, or the ugly wall paper; hideous overly mirrored walls and dog piss stained carpet...as was the case when we bought this house. Yes, the aim is to give it enough that a potential buyer can see themselves living in the space, rather than picking up the owners vibe i.e staring at their wedding photos; checking out the diplomas on the wall and the books in their book case etc. It all has to be inviting, pleasant and reasonably impersonal.

The stager was actually at our place for a good four hours, which surprised me. The other surprise was that she not only did the one room, like she said she would, but she added a couple of bits and pieces to most of the room to tie it all in (I guess so people weren't immediately struck by how one room looked suspiciously lovely while the others looked so so).

The stager used many of our own things, but arranged them in different ways. She mostly added lamps and pictures to our vacant walls, and added a few other decorative pieces.

In the end the changes she made were quite subtle, but made a dramatic impact. She brought in the ottoman for the living room, which gave the room a great grown up look - that room was formally dominated by the kids and their stuff.

She also gave us a kitchen table which is not pictured here. She moved our own table into a space in the lounge room to make it into a formal dining room (pictured here). The kitchen table she gave us is a little rectangle one which gives our kitchen a look of so much more space. She did a really good job.

I think the biggest surprise came from Ashley's reaction. He wasn't sold on the stager idea. In true blokey fashion, he couldn't really see the point and did not appreciate the potential power of soft furnishings and a few well chosen pieces of furniture, but he was suitably impressed.... I am glad, because I just kind of said "we are doing this" and this was it.

To answer Muses query, the kids were great about the new furniture and stuff. The stager didn't touch their rooms, which was good. It is all a bit of a novelty stillm so they are presently respecting the rules about the new things. I do know, the longer the place takes to sell, the harder it will be to maintain the pristine look, so I am praying that it sells quickly so we can give this stuff back and get back to being the uncultured slobs we normally are, ha!

Haunted

We bought our house 18 months ago, and ever since, we have been elbows deep in renovations - MAJOR renovations.
A couple of weeks back I was on the front lawn painting the unhinged front door a lovely hue of midnight something-a-rather.
It just so happened that a huge slowball tournament for the "beer league" was taking place that weekend, so there were an abnormally high number of passers-by stopping to talk and give house and garden tips - yeah thanks mate!
Later in the day, a twenty-something guy walked past staring at the house; he just smiled. Later, he walked past the other way muttering "memories, memories, memories". Moments later another guy walked past and stopped to talk to Ashley. He tells him that he is a friend of the previous owners son, pointing to the guy who had just walked by. The comment made me wonder what he thought, seeing his childhood home.
I have lived in a few places, and it kind of creeps me out to see where I used to live - like something in the house recognises an escapee or something, or perhaps fragments of my energy are somehow locked into the fibres of the house and are reaching for my soul as I stand there gaping for the few moments I can bear to look, before I feel compelled to slam on the accelerator and skid away as quickly as possible. Has anyone else ever had that experience or is it just weird old me? Not all places have that effect, just the significant ones.My earliest years were spent in a small rural community in the Murray Mallee. The house was an old federation style stone and red brick home, with high ceilings and cool thick stone walls. There was a pink blossoming almond tree out the side and the place was backed against scrub-land, which was an amazing lush wonderland of greenery, moss and bridal creeper during the cooler months, but a virtual snake pit in summer, and avoided at all cost.My room was painted in the loudest version of aquamarine you could possibly imagine, with white trim. The rooms were huge. There was a three sided veranda skirting around it, which was wide enough to do whatever really. It was great. I loved that house. It will forever be preserved as the perfect childhood memory, because we moved from there when I was 10, and a couple of years later it burned to the ground. My Grandparents lived on the adjoining property, a mile or so away. I have great memories of life inside that house too. The house has now been condemned and it was eery and terribly sad to see it a few years back; deserted, neglected, unloved... forgotten. Memories, memories, memories, indeed.
The next house my parents built. It was a large light brown brick home. Everything in it was modern and new, unlike the old place. I remember playing "lifestyles of the rich and famous", welcoming imaginary film crews and a TV host to wander through, while I gave them all the royal tour- pretty funny. I lived there until I was 17. I dream about that house a lot, and recognise that it has sort of come to represent a particular developmental stage in my life.
At 17 I moved away from home and lived in a dodgy boarding house inhabited by lonely old men, potheads and ex-crims. When I first moved there, I was one of two girls in the place, but soon after, I was the only girl to last more that 48 hours with that group of societies outcasts. I lived there for 10 months - I have no feelings of connection to that place, but if I had a blog back then - gee would your eyes bulge ... crazy times!
Then I lived in a flat on a glam street in a posh part of town. It was a safe place to live and close to everything - I could even walk to work. I enjoyed living there for about 18 months or so with my brother, who was attending secondary college at the time. There were many flats in that complex and many people have probably come and gone since I lived there.
I then moved back in with my parents, who had since moved, and were in the process of building another house, in a different town. It was a nice place; two storey and near the beach, which is what I loved and remember most. I didn't spend a whole lot of time there really, since I worked quite long hours, so when I see that place now, it is kind of weird, because I witnessed its creation, but nothing of me remains there.
Ashley and I then bought our first house. It was a sweet little house, with a huge, parrot filled gum tree out back and a to-die-for view of the distant mountains. We had grown out of the place when we sold it to come to Canada, but we loved it and it reflected so much of ourselves that we might just have put up with the various inconveniences and lack of space, just so we could remain there. We miss our old place; so many of our happiest memories were spent there. I dream about it quite a bit still. It was funny. A year ago when we were briefly in Australia, we drove by and it looked just as we left it; almost felt like it was welcoming us home after a long holiday. It was good to know that someone else appeared to love it, as we had.
Presently, I feel no connection to this current place, despite the hours of hard labour put into it. I don't feel it is very reflective of us. I can't really put my finger on it. Maybe time is required, or perhaps we have to stop DOING stuff to it, so it can settle and get used to its new self. Change is more than an external happening, it must also take place in the essence, or maybe the energy of the original owners remains, haunting and seeping from the nooks and crannies where neither paintbrush nor broom can reach.

Athletic?

We bought a house two weeks after we arrived in Canada, eighteen or so months ago. It was a bit of an unsightly thing both externally and internally, with garish decor, loud colours, an over abundance of mirrors everywhere we looked, and whole rooms that were completely unfinished...and this house was already 30 years old. But....it was within 30 minutes to Ashley's work, in a nice part of town and relatively cheap, and cheap was all we could afford. So we endeavoured to do what we could with the place and fix 'er up.
Closer inspection revealed, dodgy wiring, leaky pipes and rotten floors beneath the scary carpet, but we sighed and got on with it and the transformation inside was something to be proud of, considering we only had two weeks to do it all in and a very limited budget.
In the warmer months we got to the exterior. Ashley started the reno season off by diminishing the hazard that was a rotten beyond repair garden shed in the back yard. We also had to replace the rusty gutters and repair the roof, but the gutters had to wait until we had painted the exterior of the house.
After the agony of trying to match the existing colour on the house walls, we decided to bite the bullet and repaint the entire house in a new fresher colour from Benjamin Moore. Originally we had a dreary Nantucket Gray with Heritage Green trim. We opted instead for Green Gables with Classic White trim.
Ashley did the preparation work, while I painted (except for the area I couldn't reach). It turned out great and I got a real work out from the experience. I had been wondering how I could get myself out of the physical slump that has lingered since the shock of my first Canadian winter, so I definitely recommend painting the house - although it might not be for everyone.
Well, not wanting to let this new energised me wane and evaporate into not so thin air, I thought about re-joining a gym. Yes...re-joining. An Australian friend recommended a gym that also happened to exist here in my town. I looked into it, but the Canadian one has no creche (typical) - what is it with Vancouver services and their failure to acknowledge the needs of potential customers? Don't they realise that their client base would improve significantly if they provided the minimal means for women to actually attend their services i.e a free minute or free arm. This particular service claimed that its 30 minute workout was designed "for busy working women and moms" - I guess they just don't need the profits. GRRRRRRR, it is soooo frustrating. (SIGH), but I digress.....Once a week I have taken Alex and Olivia to the local indoor swimming hole for a play in the kiddie pool. And since I recently went to the excruciating effort of purchasing the most abhorrent of all garments (a bathing suit), I thought I might as well use them.
Last night I fired up; determined to go. The pool opens at 6am and closes at 10:15pm, so one can't really fall back on that convenient old adage that "time prevented me of going". So there I was, standing at the waters edge at 9:15pm, ready to take the plunge and plow through the water like a torpedo just fired from an enemy warship. Many may not be aware of this, but it was my childhood fantasy to become an Olympic swimmer - the next Lisa Curry (scoff!!). I did actually attend the local swim club when I was in years 6 and 7. I trained there four nights a week, but it was just a pipe dream really.
Straight off the bat I did 4 laps of breast stroke, revelling in the fact that I was keeping pace with a man in the neighbouring lane - never mind he was pushing 70 (oh the shame). All in all I managed to do 10 laps of the pool on my first attempt; in a variety of strokes I might add. Pitifully I exited the water at 9:30pm, a full 15 minutes after my hopeful and exuberant entry. As I staggered back to the change rooms, my heart was working at such a frantic rate that I thought it might splatter hard up against the adjacent wall, if not for my rib cage to contain it.
By the time I started walking to my car a terrible thirst appeared and thoughts of blackening out invaded my almost static mind ("Captain, do you read me.... we are losing transmission... over"). When I finally reached the couch, in the ego-saving privacy of my own home, I collapsed in a heap with my feet nesting on a pile of cushions, in the hope that the blood would pool back into my oxygen deprived brain. After a short while, I declared to all who cared, that I thought I might just throw up. YEAH...I am so FIT!