i do…you do..ra redoes!

We love being challenged by small houses and rooms and saw another one  in Silver Spring last week.  As stated in the earlier post, this space felt like shabby chic so we did a mixture of shabby chic and just chic. The furnishings ended up mostly white or cream and added color sparingly. We were inspired by the large art piece found at our furniture supplier and tried to put together a room that ‘she’ would fit in.  How did we do?

The entry door was to the immediate right of this picture, this is the view from the fireplace.

Yes, this the chair that I found on craig’s list and modified to fit this piece. I do believe it works in the space!

On to the dining room, just next door. It features another Craig’s list find – the table.  It is the perfect size!

and how the two rooms ‘mesh’ together from dining room and looking out.

We hope that we captured the spirit of the art and savvy encourage home buyers to envision themselves living in this space. That is what home staging is all about!  We think our changes inspires more LIFE than the plain empty home and hope buyers will agree.

My realtor asked me to review a small cottage home nearby for staging. She only wanted the living room and dining room to be staged because the space is small and small spaces tend to confuse potential buyers.   Technically, the house feels like a modified bungalow – brick front, fireplace flanked by small windows and shiny glass chandelier in the dining room, and I wanted to be sure to incorporate some of these highlights in my staging plan.

So after reviewing the furniture at my furniture supplier and thinking about the space, I decided that slight shabby chic look would best in this space.  My furniture supplier has modern and contemporary pieces so shabby chic  meant that I would need to get more involved with purchasing the furinture, rather than renting. Which means that I had to purchase smartly.

So after working on the plan and determining what I had and what they had that I can use, I got busy on Craig’s list. I found some great items, a white wooden slightly distressed dining table and a cool swivel chair. Both were priced under $50 (score) and the swivel chair needed some work. Here is the before of the chair..

This is while I was working on it, so I had removed the cushion. I already have 2 round barrel chair slipcovers I purchased last year from Ikea that I thought could work well on this chair.  I even took the slipcover with me to see if it would fit. It almost fit on the chair but was just too tight. Fortunately, Mom is a great seamstress – she removed the seams in the appropriate places and pinned up the new fabric that we purchased to fill in the gaps.  She left me to actually sew it together, which I did, using my sewing machine. (Yes, I actually have one of those, handed down from an aunt). I was proud of the work that I did. It didn’t come out perfect, but that is beauty of shabby chic, it still works!

Anyway, here is the final product…both front and side views.

I will post the updated rooms in a few days to show you how the chair fit into the space. Stay tuned!

Another staging success story! We were contacted by a DC condo owner about staging a small vacant studio in Dupont Circle on Monday and completed the project the following Friday.  Two weeks later, the owner has received 2 offers, after a successful open house held over the weekend. Prior to staging, the unit sat vacant with no offers for 3 weeks.

Check out more photos in the original post. And contact us today if you are listing a vacant property – staging helps!  Especially if you are out of town, we can work with you virtually, just like this seller!

We are so excited to learn that a 2 BD 2 BA condo we staged in Fairfax is under contract and due to close towards the end of August. What makes this ‘sale’ so special is that we have been featuring it on our ‘Behind the Scenes in Staging’ series – giving readers a behind the scenes look at what happens in a staging project. And just how do we tackle a condo that starts out looking like this..

to a condo that sells in 4 weeks? check out our staging blog for the entire transformative story!

This week saw my first challenging small space staging project – a small condo in DC! The condo owner recently relocated out of town, so is motivated for a quick sale. Fortunately, the unit is in DC’s popular and busy Dupont Circle, and  kitchen and bath have both been recently upgraded, to help make this unit stand out from the crowd.  However viewing a vacant studio is challenging – many buyers can’t imagine how to live in space and whether a sofa, bed, desk and storage would fit. My challenge was to show that yes all of that can fit and living in the space is definitely possible. I think we pulled it off – what do you think?

If you are a home seller or realtor with a vacant DC condo or home, give me a call! I would love to come out and take a look…at no cost to you!   No hourly fees, offer month-to-month contract and pricing is created for EACH home, usually within 24-48 hours of initial visit.

And if you LIVE in a small space and want to know where I scored the furniture used – all are from local independent MD/DC stores and most available for sale! Of course, you have to wait until the condo is sold!

I was very happy to find the newly created MidCity Design District webpage, including some of my FAVORITE design stores in DC.

Most of the stores that I enjoy are already listed on this blog in the Favorites section but let me focus on a few here for fun.

My all time favorite – partly because it is one of the oldest on the corridor and partly because they have been INCREDIBLY supportive for yours truly is Reincarnations Furniture.   Frank and Jonathon have been a great support  to ra redoes rooms, referring us to TV production company looking for designers as well as to great clients.  In addition, most every picture of me IN a decorated room is actually in the Reincarnations showroom.

They provide fabulous customer service and have wonderful sidewalk sale at least twice a year too. If you are fortunate to be around when they do the sale, it is an event NOT to be missed. and if you are 30 minutes late to it, you will miss it.

Tied for second favorites are the RCKNDY and Mitchell Gold and Bob Williams stores.  RCKNDY is an independent local  furniture store, like Reincarnations, and is run by a great manager/owner David. He specializes in modern furniture and accessories for one-bedroom apartments and condos in the city.  He has also referred fantastic clients my way and hosted a design seminar, featuring yours truly, in the store too!

Mitchell Gold and Bob Williams has successfully coupled comfortable and tailored furniture with an easy going vibe. The staff there is comfortable too! I was fortunate to meet Bev and Page after opening my business years ago. They along with manager Ryan, and staff members, always make sure I am taken care of at MG+BW.  Plus it is cool to meet Mitchell or Bob themselves when they visit the store during events. (and they follow me on twitter – cool-o!)

I have most recently met staff at Vastu and Millennium Decorative Arts – and both seem like great places to shop as well. Hope to get back there and work with folks more closely in the near future!

Needless to say, I am ecstatic that more retailers are finding their way to the new and EMERGING MidCity Design District, bringing  customers and complementary businesses along the way.  Welcome Well Built and Room and Board to the MidCity Design District – and looking forward to meeting and working with you there as well!!

Sure, I know that Nate Berkus has done numerous spots on Oprah, and encourages people to decorate and redecorate their home. As an interior decorator myself, I like his simple yet highly functional makeovers and room designs. You can tell the rooms that he designs are for real people.




But where this home stager gets real inspiration is the use of accents and decorative items to make the rooms feel personal and comfortable. That is what motivated me to purchase his book and use his ideas for home staging in the Washington DC area.  My company specializes in staging vacant homes and condos so I am always looking for ways to use accents and decorative items creatively. Below are a few of the ideas I have gleamed from Nate Berkus and am slowly working the products and ideas into our staged rooms!

Typically personal photos are a no-no but I use photos of famous celebrities and their families sparingly in the units to surprise folks. Mostly black and white photos that I grab from various photo books or maybe a good magazine shot.




Below, we have a nice view of a room using traditional accents in a non-traditional way. The tray on the wall instead of on a table and the dried sea urchin on the table give the room a nice earthy and natural feel. Looks great as always! Appreciate that Nate can continue to keep it real, and not make everything seem out of reach/magazine styled, which is perfect for staging use as well!

Are you about to sell your home in Maryland, DC or Northern Virginia? I was recently contacted by a producer looking for HIGH ENERGY home sellers and realtors to be cast in the HGTV show “My First Sale”! Single people, families and couples are all encourage to apply and of course we can work out a fabulous deal for staging too! Feel free to send me an email to redo (at) rarooms (dot) com and I will forward your info to the producer directly.  Good luck!

Ten years ago this past weekend, I had my first housewarming of my recently purchased home in Maryland. I held it over Memorial day weekend, so I was able to host a number of out-of-town guests, from some of the places that I used to live and hang out.


Since I didn’t want people to just give me a bunch of stuff I creatively developed a garden themed housewarming. I used a now-defunct website to create a wish list of seedlings and plants that were appropriate for my climate, soil type and sun exposure. I was able to plant cool flowers in my new yard and didn’t junk up my home with items that I didn’t like. Since then, I have been asked to help with hosting a few other housewarmings, so I thought it would be fun to relay some of the themes that have worked well for homeowners. Hope you enjoy the list!

Garden party – as mentioned above – this is a great theme if you are gaining not only a house but a yard and want some help to get it going.   Your wish list can have items like plant (flowers and vegetables) seedlings, gift cards to local nursery, garden tools, and fun garden accessories like wind chimes, rain barrel, and even a door mat! Your invitations and day of decor can carry the garden theme – serving fruits, vegetables and picnic theme – folding chairs, drinking from mason jars etc. Have fun with it!

Hostess Party – this is a great theme if you want to host dinner or supper parties but need the inventory  materials to do so!  You can ask folks to help you build your hostess inventory – things like various sized and shaped wine glasses, high boys, martini glasses, brandy sifters, small appetizer plates, serving dishes, and decanters.  Personalized cocktail napkins would make a great gift and wine charms and stirrers.  You can even ask your guests to purchase china from consignment and antique stores, rather than purchase brand new dishware, to give your future parties even more charm.

Of course the Movie Theme would be perfect if your new home has a home theater or you are hoping to turn a room into a home theater…and you want your friends to enjoy the space with you!  Select your genre or theme movies and have your friends bring framed posters of the movies. One of my earlier decorating projects was completing a family room/home theater space and the clients featured black movie posters of their favorite movies on the walls.  You could do the same with action movies, romantic comedies, sci-fi movies – whatever floats your boat. Just be sure to let your guests know – make a wish list on Amazon or some other website and select a few so they know what you mean.

Hope these suggestions get the juices flowing on some great themed housewarming parties you can host for your home. Purchasing a home is still a special event and you should definitely celebrate it by letting love and laughter warm your home!

For the past few years, I have been able to attend the International Contemporary Furniture Fair every May in New York City.  Not only is it a great excuse to visit New York, it is also a chance to view fresh and new  furniture and modern designs, that will be featured in magazines and found at retailers within the next 6-8 months.  Products and designs are from all over the world – representing Germany, Spain, Britain, Japan, Czech Republic and good old USA.


This year, I decided to share some of my finds on my blog.  Some of these are pictures that I took at the event itself, while others are downloaded from vendor’s web sites, because my pictures didn’t turn out well.  If you have questions about any particular product, please do let me know! There were so many that I will post half this week and post the other half next week.


ModKat - Although I am not a cat owner, I found this modern litter box to be very cool and thought my cat owner clients might like this…especially those living in condos and apartments in DC. It seems perfect for small spaces and the videos on the website are priceless!

Qlocktwo – easily my favorite design item at the event, from a German company. My picture is below but hard to really get the gist of it – shows off better on the vendors website.

Basically this is a clock, and when the time changes, the letters change to tell you what time it is. The picture above says ‘It is five to five’.  The words change every five minutes.  You can get the box in different colors and of course, different languages, if interested. EXZELLENT!!

Indi B Rugs California vendor with colorful and striking rugs, featuring natural fibers and dyes and certified child-labor-free!  Beautiful, eye-catching rugs at very reasonable prices! Indib has a children’s line of rugs and a contemporary line for adults, see even more at their website!

Time for a break – feel free to rest yourself on these ‘Booty Bubble’ seats (my name, not the official name). Will do new post next week of other finds! Hope you enjoyed it!