A lady called today and asked if I do contemporaries.  It was 5:00 p.m., my son was shrieking in the background, "I'm not going to eat that, it's disgusting", Little Miss Thaing wanted to be driven someplace annoying and my husband wanted to know suddenly where was the box of pins.....

"Yes, I do contemporaries," I bellow at the poor woman, "I'll call you back."

Later, I got to thinking.  Why do people ask that question?  ARE contemporaries that different?  I don't do many of them - we don't have many around here, this is Center Hall Colonial country - but I know HOW.  I think. I mean, obviously the guidelines about symmetry are somewhat unhelpful... what might some other guidelines be?

I'm liking 5.  Here they be:- (with my first attempt at embedding an RES at the bottom)

 1.     Divine the Architect's Intent  (there always is one)

Ask the homeowner, or stand there and look around until you get it.  Hint: it's usually about light and the views.  Plus, there'll be a reason for the open plan...

2.     Get Out of The Way

None of the usual clusters of stuff, the 3,5,7 colorful jars, this is the Major Leagues of "Less is More".  1 accent piece - huge, odd and captivating.  The occasional magazine (Art, the Robb Report, Yachting for Billionaires kind of thing) and a live, flourishing plant.  Keep it spare, really spare.

3.    Use Color to Lead the Eye

A signature touch with contemporaries is often vast paintings.  They draw the eye to tall ceiling, the play of light, the interesting angles by comparison.  Tie in with a pair of pilllows in similar colors and you're kinda done.

4.  Add texture to Connect the Senses

Maybe because the palette's a bit blah for those of us on the CHC beat, but it seems to me there is always lot of different textures - coir in stead of carpet, leather seating, stone bits and pieces, fur draped about chairs and beds, incredibly soft, supple bamboo fabric where there used to be linen, cotton, etc.  Maybe it's just to disguise how the furniture's so bloody uncomfortable?  Trust me on this one, however, do texture.

5.  Cover the Basics of Human Life

Ann Maurice summarizes this best in her book, The Best of House Doctor.  "Think of the basic needs all of us have in our lives -- sleeping, eating, working, playing, relaxing, cleansing - and then make a point of creating a space for each of them within your home, even if it only takes up a corner."  See what I mean?  Says it all.

Since I don't do them very often, this house is from 2 or 3 years ago.  It sold handily and in good time.  I would do it differently today.  Still, you get the idea, eh?

<<Please click back to Gallery to see the slide show.  For some reason I can't embed it here.  I'm a stager, not a techno-whizz sadly!>>

A number of us (certified, experienced home stagers, that is) are starting to offer Move In Services.  It's kind of "un-staging".  Instead of packing things up, we unpack them.  Instead of arranging furniture for traffic flow, now we group in conversational clusters and easy living.

It makes sense.  Thinking back on our work when we staged your house for the market, what are we particularly good at?

• organizing kitchens, linen closets and china cupboards;
• arranging furniture;
• hanging artwork;
• displaying collections;
• recommending wall colors, window treatments and other touches.

At Juliet Johnson Staging, we have a certain POV, focussing on appreciating all that you've got. So, we look for the best features in every room and arrange all your favorite bits and pieces around them.  This way you can enjoy it all at once. I really don't believe in saving all one's best things for a rainy day, hidden away in the closet.  You have it, enjoy it.  Live a little.

We charge by the day or by the half day.  Whatever you feel you can handle.  There's a 10% discount for the Magic Wand service. 

Magic Wand Service?

You don't have to be there.  We unpack everything and put it all away.  It's like you've waved a magic wand and the whole thing's done!  

And the best thing of all - the estimate is FREE!! Call today (973) 477-7000.

We had not been hired to create murder scene.  Rather, we had been asked to pack up the attic, clear things into neat rows and generally pick up.  (i.e. Pick up the stray tampons, packing peanuts and cymbals lying on the floor that is.)

This is the house we found $367.23 in lose change, largely pennies.  The leather cigar case couldn't close because of the large plastic bag of very old pot.  We couldn't get to one of the cupboards in the dining room for the boxes of books of official papers, published in beautiful, gold embossed hardcover volumes, of Reagan, Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Eisenhower.  Elephants everywhere, our owner must have been in government and on the Republican side. 

Perhaps I should go back to the beginning? 

Initially, we were contacted to do something to ready this house for a large neighborhood open house in 2 weeks time, without a full staging, and after the house had been vacantly sitting on the market for 18 months.  There were piles of clothes everywhere, boxes from an estate sale standing by to be sorted and a general sense that these folks had only just got out ahead of the creditors!

 

If the homeowner wasn't prepared to furnish the place, the least we could do was pack everything up, dust and tidy, and maybe create some vignettes using existing resources.  This the homeowner agreed to and in we went, Swiffer, i-pod and surgical gloves to the fore!

Naturally, we found some amazing things:

Signed and numbered limited edition prints by Picasso, Klee, Dufy, Chagal, Modigliani plus a weird (but stunningly beautiful) landscape made out of 3" pieces of white electrical tape that has to be someone famous....it's just brilliant!

Vintage Chanel Bags and belts hanging on the back of a closet door

Old wines, exotic liquers, cigars (and the pot)

An antique Norwegian set of fish dishes, half-packed in a room once used as gym

An enormous LLadro of some horses frolicking in the surf  (a real acquired taste)

....the list can go on and on.

We did the best we could to create some "scenes"

 

 

 

 

 

and then headed up to the attic.

 ... in the next post - the (6 year old) Master calls.

It was a new day, the first of a warm humid spell fast approaching.

I had raised Little Miss Thaing (my v. popular, v. pretty, v. tired 16yr old daughter) and insisted that she come along with to earn money and help her poor old mother pay for her lifestyle.  The sulking beauty threw on clothes and slithered into the car without breakfast, not too sleepy to be already texting on her phone!

We arrived at the home, where the door is never locked (remember the Picassos, Dufy, Klee, Lladro, etc.?), grabbed brooms and toiled up the 2 flights of elegantly arching stairs.  So sad, despite my efforts 10 days back, the home had not retained any of the freshness I had infused with sprays, candles, etc.  The A/C had been on, but the house smelled stale and frozen in time.

 We walk into the attic and Miss Thaing is horrified.  "What are we going to do here?" 

"We're going to create neat rows, generally tidy up and demonstrate this is a feasible asset to the home." 

"What, just you and me?" 

"Ye-es, now let's see how to begin.  Let's get a clean floor and we can start to move things around a little."  At which point, the child grabs a broom, collides with an old, uncovered light switch/box and falls to the ground.

"Oh honestly! What----"  Was her left leg was twitching a little?  She was fine.  Awake, confused some but perfectly fine.  She claimed she hadn't touched the wall, it was just that she was feeling faint.  She sat to one side taking deep breaths and got a vituperative lecture from me about the benefit of eating breakfast.

An hour later, she's rallied to manage a little sweeping.

I'm meanwhile perspiring out of places I never thought possible.  There's an unusually large amount of what looks like mouse droppings on a pile of old curtains.  Plus ski clothes, a revolting, disintegrated cheetah coat, and a very amusing old steamer trunk replete with drawers, special hangers, a beaded drape.  Everything went into a garbage bag - the cheetah, the mice, I reckoned we'd have to get the EPA in for a definitive identification - and gradually, at the bottom of the pile, I found a crumbling, black, maxi vinyl raincoat.  Was that the 60s or the 70s?  At least, we could think there was less chance of mice now that we'd identified the source of the "droppings".

I moved a pile of these limited edition prints from more noted 20th century painters, thinking now that perhaps the ones downstairs were less valuable given that there was a whole pile gathering dust in the attic.  I got down on the floor to pick up a "Matisse"  and on the way up, banged my head on the house fan's metal frame. 

Punctured, more like.  Blood everywhere!  I grab some old drycleaners' tissue paper, shriek for paper towel and try to gush blood tidily!  I had forgotten how much one's head bleeds.  It's all over my face, running down my arms and all I keep shouting is "Polly, catch the drips.  Nothing on the carpet.  We've got to get to a sink that we can clean.... a metal one... the kitchen [two flights down]... Man, this hurts, maybe you should call 911... for God's sake don't let me drip on anything."

We teetered down the 2 flights of now irratatingly "arching stairs" and called my husband. 

"Are you asking me not to play golf today?"

We called 911.  The police came first, but only so as to be able to explain to the EMS people where the house actually was.  Plus, I think he was kinda hoping for a more juicy story than 2 clumsy civilians cleaning an attic.  By the time EMS had showed up, most of the blood had been washed away.  We hadn't dripped anywhere... can you imagine?

But when a lady asked me today if I did "attic clearance" I referred her on to 'Man With Truck'.  So much for the glamorous, designers' life that is staging!!

I'm often asked what improvements a person should do to a house while they live there, so that they can ACE the sale.  HGTV has some good data and so does Elizabeth Weintraub at About.com.  (Isn't she fab - anyone else a fan?)

Here's a new spin:

Anyone catch this article on Yahoo yesterday?

http://finance.yahoo.com/real-estate/article/103190/best-and-worst-home-improvements

If I read it right (and that's no certainty), it is suggesting that you shouldn't improve your home ABOVE and BEYOND your neighbors.  Keep in step but not surpass them.  This is the first time I've read that.  Surely someone has to take the lead?

Plus, I love the finance journalist's view that we fill a house with fresh flowers and high-tech TVs.  I've yet to add a TV to anywhere!  I'm still hauling them out of people's living rooms!!  That being said, I would LOVE to find a source for a fake, lightweight flat screen tv.  Any ideas?

Lastly, ""Forty percent of homes built last year didn't have a living room, and the square footage of the average home is getting smaller."  I knew homes were getting smaller, or going back to normal... but I thought Dining Rooms were going, not Living Rooms?  Really?