Let's Pretend ...

My last post was on November 14, 2012 entitled, "Let's Pretend it is Fall."  Well, let's pretend I didn't just take almost a year off from blogging. The truth is I did. Now I'm missing it.

seashells and japanese fishing floats on my great grandaddy's table. thank you Miss Shutterbug for the basket!
it is coastal casual, vintage, my signature color and one of the only pretty things completed in our New New house

Hunky Husband showing off his handy
work. He closed in the opening to a formal
living room (framing, drywall, build closet,
move electrical,texture walls, install doors,
 install molding, install ceiling fan & paint)
to create a 4th bedroom. CHA CHING!

While I was gone, Hunky Husband and I found a great deal on a foreclosure just two neighborhoods down from the rental house. We renovated in four weeks changing almost every surface in the place -- took down popcorn ceilings, painted every wall, laid hardwood in almost every room, and repainted the kitchen cabinets.  We also took a formal living room area (as if that would ever happen for our family) and turned it into a fourth bedroom.

I will have some before & afters to come, but right now there are lots of before & durings.


Through all the drywall dust and late nights, I discovered what a superhero HH really is.  He did all the work himself (I painted and did all the Girlie wrangling) and it turned out amazing.


It was telling that during this process, I was super excited about our vision for the NewNew house, but not interested at all so much about staging. I never once thought to take pictures of the depersonalization I did in our rental house. It did not even blip on my radar screen to build my portfolio with before and after pix of the Girlie bedrooms.

It never penetrated my NewNew house induced euphoria when the realty company sent 3 perspective couples to view the property ON OUR MOVING DAY. Yup, you read that right. Moving truck in the yard, they were touring around our cardboard boxes and trying to help them "imagine the space" and "appreciate the great elementary school."

when all the staging is done and the packing begins,
sometimes you just have to take the biggest box and make a girlie castle

So, maybe I should change this whole blog to talk about our NewNew House (another story for another day) and my girls and HH and our life. Except for the fact that without working on this blog at all for almost a year, it has gotten 700-900 page views per month. Without me begging my mom and everyone from high school to click on it, people have come looking for the information that I put here long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away.

It is more telling that during this major transformation of our new space, I really did clean and stage the rental house for potential next renters to see. My friends assured me that in a military town, close to the base, at a good price, at the beginning of the summer, blah, blah... our property would rent no matter what shape it was in. I just couldn't imaging letting it roll like that.

This is what I do, this is who I am...I am a stager!

there were lots of late nights on bare concrete floors

So, I think I will finish the last post in the series on the five most adorable things to undo in your house. Nine months in the making -- worse than waiting for the new season of Walking Dead.


I will share some of the insights I got from being a renter showing a house to perspective next renters.  I will try to get some clients to let me post before and after staging photos of their listed properties. I'm looking into taking a certification class for staging so that I can have a very official looking logo to go along with all my fabulousness.

white kitchen cabinet doors coming soon!

I will prolly talk a lot about my NewNew house and all the Pinteresting projects that finish off the place.  We are still in cardboard in two rooms, but getting ready for the big reveal. Que fast forward music from "Trading Spaces."  Bring in the cute, tall twins from Property Brothers to talk about all the improvements.

I will try to make sure that every post from now on is not nearly as populated with the word "I".  Most importantly, I'm going to keep trying to help you live in your show house now by getting a little more VisitReady every day.

just bec