Earth tones aren’t only the trend, but they are also psychologically comforting for homeowners and visitors. This is very important when putting a home on the market and having the entire house staged for sale. Interior designers use the colors based on color forecasts from the Color Marketing Group and what they see in popular magazines and catalogs such as Better Homes and Gardens or Pottery Barn. If you are selling your home consider hiring an interior redesigner or home staging professional to help select the colors that are most agreeable and appealing to the volumes of potential buyers. Not only do neutral colors bring a sense of warmth and comfort, they also bring in high offers when selling your home!

Just when you’ve think you’ve seen all the home improvement, interior design, and do it yourself magazines out there something new comes from out of nowhere. I got yet another free magazine offer in the mail today, which is perfectly normal. But this one was different. I had never heard of this one, ReadyMade. Curiousity made me open it up. I scanned the brochure…so good I ended up reading ALL of the material and sent in the free issue postcard. My first reaction was, “How did they find me?” It’s like they knew I was into thinking outside the box and giving objects second lives (for cheap). One of a kind, hip, crafty, geeky, inspiring, recycled, reused, transformed and always changing. Am I talking about me or the contents of the magazine? I can’t wait to find out what this magazine is all about! I mean I know it is about insanely creative, out of the ordinary, unique, and inexpensive projects that almost anyone can do. Some examples are using a surfboard as a floating shelf (sounds tacky but is surprisingly striking), making a mid-century mod clock out of chopsticks (think Herman Miller style), creating a bird feeder out of martini glasses, turning a old radio into a vintage style mp3 player, etc. One I love is making a faux mosaic table out of paint swatches. As soon as I read some of the project ideas, I was ready to get started!

When doing research for this blog I found the ReadyMade Magazine website which has a million projects that anyone can search through with complete instructions – magazine subscription free! So if you like the mid-century post-war modern (Design Within Reach style) and IKEA or - better yet - Salvation Army prices, then this magazine might be for you!

Space sells. In home staging one of the goals is to make small spaces seem more… well… spacious. Here are some tips to make a small room seem bigger.

1. Clear out the clutter! We can’t reinforce this enough. Less is more. If a shelf is completely full then nothing on it stands out and it gives the impression that there is not an inch of spare space. A buyer will think that there is no room for their belongings in the home. Pack up the collections. Create small groupings of two or three items and have tons of free space to show off shiny surfaces. Which leads me to the next tip…
2. Make it shine, all of it. Surfaces should sparkle and reflect light. Pearly or light paints on walls are another bonus. We’ve all heard that light paint makes rooms look larger. It’s tried and true.
3. How about making walls look taller? Make the room look bigger still by hanging window treatments as close to the ceiling as possible all the way down to the floor. It is very dramatic!
4. Clean your windows (everything shines and sparkles remember). Be sure to let in the light and expand the view by opening blinds and curtains during showings. Views and space help sell a home.
5. This is one people have trouble with, make sure the furniture is to scale with the room. Too big of furniture can dominate a room. Too small can look cheap or out of place. Make sure there is space to walk with a good traffic pattern. Professional interior designers and home stagers will choose the right furniture for the room and arrange it in the best way possible.

At the office we use binder clips to stay nice and organized, so why not take the concept home? Unexpected uses give your work tools and old school supplies a second life. How about this great idea? Binder clips are an inexpensive and great way to store sets of napkins and table linens. What other office products can you think of using in your home? Share some of your tricks with us!

I got this great little info packet in the mail from The Summit/Akron Solid Waste Management Authority this week and thought I would share. I thought that reading it out loud would reinforce my recycling efforts in my home. I hope these figures made enough impact on my family members and will on you as well.

• Recycling one aluminum can save the energy equivalent to six ounces of gasoline.
• The energy saved by recycling steel each year is enough to meet the annual electric need of 20% of American households.
• Recycling one ton of plastic saves the energy equivalent to 1,000 to 2,000 gallons of gasoline.
• Making new glass from recycled glass reduces air pollution by 20% and water pollution by 50%.
• Recycling creates almost 5 times as many jobs as waste disposal – in fact, recycling supports 1.1 million jobs in the U.S.

Gas prices are high here in Ohio and they have everyone grumbling. The economy isn’t looking too good either. So if we can make an impact on gas prices, create jobs, and make our skies a little bluer, then what are Summit County homeowners waiting for?

On a recent weekend getaway to Cincinnati, an interior designer and friend of mine said that Sofa Express was going out of business. Shocked because I knew of people who had recently furnished most of their homes with competitively priced Sofa Express furniture, I decided to pursue this rumor only to find out it was true. I tried visiting the website which said it was “under construction” – always a bad sign for a business.

I ran across a post from the Business Courier of Cincinnati. The article begins, “An Ohio furniture retailer with a nearly 50-year history is eliminating its corporate staff and beginning the process to close stores. According to documents filed with the Ohio Department of Job & Family Services, Sofa Express Inc. plans to close all eight of its Central Ohio stores and its headquarters and warehouse. Another six stores in northeast Ohio are scheduled to close, putting 436 workers out of a job altogether. That tally includes 253 workers at the Groveport, Ohio, headquarters.”

Yuck. As if Ohio’s economy wasn’t looking bad enough. The company’s reason for closing is their financial situation. Usually I can’t help but run into news like the closing of furniture retailers in my own backyard, but the company is quietly dragging out the closure. It will take several months for 40 stores to be closed.

Or are we already there?

According to a recent article on the Washington Times website, “This year’s housing bust is shaping up to be one of historic proportions. Sales and construction have sunk to levels not seen since the 1990 savings and loan crisis, while foreclosures and price drops are the largest since the Great Depression — and expected to get worse next year.” The article predicts millions more foreclosures and over one trillion dollars (yes trillion) in mortgages reset within the next two years. So what caused this dilemma? “John Stumpf, president of Wells Fargo & Co., the second-largest U.S. mortgage lender and a survivor of the housing busts of the 20th century, blames today’s crisis on unscrupulous lending practices, which joined in a toxic mix with outright greed and extraordinarily low interest rates to send house prices soaring 90 percent between 2000 and 2006. When the bubble burst, house prices collapsed by 5 percent to 20 percent in cities nationwide.”

Greed definitely played a huge role in the extreme number of foreclosures. Rachel saw this first hand when she worked for years at a mortgage company and knew of other offices whose brokers would intentionally sell adjustable rate mortgages so that borrowers would have to refinance a few years down the road. That way the broker could charge them more fees. Can we say predatory lending? Her office did the right thing and locked homeowners into fixed rates at historic lows that they could afford. If only more lenders did the right thing.

Lenders are now giving their lending practices a makeover by re-popularizing the 30 year fixed loan. You can read more about the crooked lending process and the governments role in this economic decline in this article, part one of the Washington Time’s series.

WallMarker, an arrow shaped piece of chalk, makes picture hanging easier. How? The adhesive side sticks to the back of the frame. You then press the picture against the wall where it will be hung, and wall-ah! You have a chalk mark pointing to where you will hammer in the nail or hook.

WallMarkers are reusable and come in a pack of two, a blue for light walls and a yellow for darker walls. The price is right at just $2.99 plus a small amount of shipping and handling. Order them here, I did!

We aren’t kidding when we say the market is rough and that you need to stage your home to sell it as quickly as possibly to avoid taking a loss. Here are some terrifying facts from foreclosure1.com:

• Last October 115,568 foreclosures had been listed 
• This year it is 224,451, showing a 94% increase.
• In October the ratio was 1 foreclosure for every 555 houses.
• The foreclosure filings are inclusive of default and auction sale notice as well as bank repossessions.
• 45 states saw a high jump rise from last year.
• Year by year the number is still up but it had leveled during the last two months after making an all time record in August this year.
• The pace has slackened most probably because of the lenders bending to pressure and beginning to modify terms of loans. Another reason may be a lull in filings after the shooting up following a new surge in interest rate rise.
• It usually takes two to three months for a borrower to be marked as defaulter after the reset sets in.
• Roughly 2 million loans are about to reset in the following eight months. Inevitable this would lead to a surging of foreclosures.
• In October lenders repossessed more and more houses after failing at the trustee auctions. Very few of those who were marked foreclosed managed to save their houses.
• In Ohio especially 45% of all the filings were bank notifications for repossession.
• In Missouri and Michigan the numbers were 46% and 37% respectively.
• Apart from the sub-prime other causes were economic woes like job loss.
• Nevada topped the foreclosure list with a ratio of 1:154 compared to the national average of 1:555.
• In October the filings numbered 6,618 showing a rise of 20% from September and triple that of what it was in the same month the previous year.
• In California the ratio was 1:258 but it recorded the highest number of foreclosures – 50,401. It had come down by 2% from September but triple that of what the numbers were in October 2006.
• The ratio in Florida was 1:273 with the state recording 30,190 foreclosures. It was a 9% drop from September but up by 165% from the previous year.
• Ohio showed 1:290 with 17,276 foreclosure listings – 10% more than last month but 136% higher than the last year.
• The other top ranking offending states were Georgia, Michigan, Colorado, Arizona, Indiana and Illinois.

Women are the top consumers, holiday season or not. So well designed stores and savvy salespeople and real estate agents use marketing strategies to appeal to their number one customers… the ladies. Females are responsible for the majority of household purchases (including major appliances) and remodeling and building desicions. Women analyze more when it comes to making a purchase and don’t follow a direct path. Instead they explore their options.

Women like to talk about what they want. Figuring out her preferences – whether you are selling her a home, redesigning her home, or buying her the perfect Christmas gift - is easier than you may think. Pick up the hints… What is behind her purchasing decision? What is her lifestyle? What magazines does she read? What emotions can you appeal to? Does she use the internet to shop online? 

Use these clues to help buy the woman in your life a fabulous gift or to sell to your feminine target market.