A great idea to spoil yourself or someone you love is to create an at home spa sanctuary or give a spa gift basket.  Purchasing these items are much more affordable than a day at the spa and a whole lot closer to home. To do an at home luxury spa treatment, you should focus on touching all 5 senses. Here’s how:

• Sight - Start by clearing out the room. Who can relax when they are looking at clutter? If you are giving a spa gift basket to a friend, you can’t exactly clean her bathroom for her, but you can give her a large enough basket to quickly shove all the clutter into. Flowers, candles, and plants are spa must haves. Think of choosing relaxing colors like whites, pastels, ocean, or sky tones.
• Sound - Give a CD with relaxing music.  These can be found almost anywhere in the music and even fitness sections of the store. A “Do Not Disturb” sign is a great addition for those who have to lock themselves away for a rare moment of alone time.
• Smell - This ties into the candles and flowers. Pick scents that de-stress such as lavendar, ylang-ylang, or lemongrass.
• Taste - Add to the spa gift basket a mug and a relaxing herbal tea like chamomile, an organic juice, or her favorite gourmet coffee. Chocolate truffles or chocolate covered strawberries are other great additions. Everyone loves to be pampered.
• Touch - Nothing feels better than a warm fuzzy robe after a hot bath. Add a couple different sizes of plush white towels to the basket. Go for a high thread count cotton for both the robe and the towels. Other ideas to add to the basket are massage oils, scrubs, masks, body butter, etc.

Other ideas to add to the basket are a book, magazine, or a home-made gift certificate ”Good for __________ (fill in the blank).” Get creative and be thoughtful. Who wouldn’t appreciate a gift basket full of hand selected luxurious indulgences?

Consumer Reports has possibly the best reputation for giving consumers advice on pretty much anything that can be tested or studied by experts and then put on the market for sale… even homes. They recently wrote a fantastic blog called “Tips on Selling Your Home in a Slow Market.” Of the four tips that they stress, staging is one of them. They say, “Use staging to enhance your home’s curb appeal. A professional home stager can make over your home to de-emphasize your taste and make it more appealing to a broad range of buyers. A two-hour consultation can run around $300.” (Which we can do it for a lot less!) Find out what the other tips are to help sell your home.

Mythic paint introduced a revolutionary new non-toxic paint line that protects the environment and your health. “Traditional household paints contain cancer-causing toxins that can still be released into the air years after drying.” The paint contains zero VOC’s, no harmful toxins, and no unpleasant odors. The paint is also washable and offers the same quality performance and durability.

VOC’s are defined in another part of our blog. You’re sucking them in, you might as well find out what they are.

The first ever Staged Makeovers’ Bulletin is ready! You will enjoy a real estate cartoon from world renowned cartoonist Jerry King, a motivational quote, timely tip, and short article packed with only great info. Sign up by visiting our website.

What is Freecycle? “It’s a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It’s all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills… Membership is free.” FREE! Yippee! And you can clean out your own junk and someone else will come and get it.

Here’s what freecycle has done for me… I’ve unloaded so much stuff on others who needed it:

• Carpet samples went to an animal shelter to keep the pups warm and cozy
• Wallpaper samples went to local girl scouts for crafts
• Household items went to a local woman in need
• Shoes, belts, and handbags - this post reunited me with a highschool friend.

The list goes on and on. I’ve even got a few goodies myself. I needed new speaker for my computer, a pair of baseball pants for a costume, an adapter for a label maker, etc. etc.

So if you want everyday to feel like your birthday, save some cash, lessen the landfill load, and help others in need, join your local freecycle group. It’s easy. 

PS I highly recommend using the daily digest setting to receive your freecycle messages otherwise you will get hundreds of e-mails a week.

Just because your mother doesn’t live with you doesn’t mean that you don’t have to make your bed. This is especially true when it comes to presenting your home for sale. All too often we have to tell homeowners to make the bed. We even go as far as demonstrating how to make it picture perfect. Lucky for you Pottery Barn Teen has a page called How to Make a Bed: Layer by Layer which applies to basically any bed not just a teen’s. Use it yourself, give it to your kids, or if you are a real estate agent or stager give it to your sellers.

Ceilings don’t have to be stark white anymore!  In fact Cleveland-based interior designer Christopher Lowell states that leaving ceilings white is like having a white sheet over all your decor.  We like to color our floor and walls, why not the ceilings as well!  Use a lighter version of the wall color or another neutral to add contrast.  Remember:  neutral is not limited to white, off-white or beige.  Light browns, tans and taupes should also be considered.

One way to get a nasty grease stain out of your upholstery is to spray and scrub. Another way to get rid of a grease stain in your light-colored fabric is to use something you probably already have in your cupboard… cornmeal. All you have to do is cover the spot with cornmeal and let it soak for about half an hour. To clean up the cornmeal just vacuum up the grains. One more pro to this “how to remove grease stains” trick is that it avoids using harmful chemicals, and we love anything that is natural and earth friendly.

Speaking of glue (Another Nutty Idea), we have another smart multi-use tip that will really stick in your mind. Instead of pulling out a splinter with tweezers, a better way to remove a splinter is by applying a drop of glue over the splinter, then letting it dry. Once it is dry, peel the glue off. The splinter will be stuck to the glue and not in you!

Mildew comes from a combination of moisture and dirt and is encouraged by shade and lack of ventilation. If you are wondering how to get rid of mildew, we have some advice that will not only help to remove mildew, but will also give you a bit of a home makeover. You may have mildew in your kitchen, bathroom, or on the exterior of your home. One way to work on the problem is to clean with diluted bleach. Tilex makes a spray-on product that works great for the shower and on tile. A better solution is to paint. (We’re always looking for an excuse to make a change.)

Recently I noticed a little bit of mildew in a customer’s bathroom which was getting a makeover, so when I called Sherwin Williams to order his paint, I asked if they could add a mildewcide to the paint. Turns out the Duration Interior latex paint already contains a mildewcide. Perfect. Now he just needs to utilize his home warranty and get his bathroom vent fixed and prevent the mildew from coming back.