I strive to make your decorating project as streamlined and simple as possible; offering a full-range of services to help you through the process. I also offer the following services for those occasions when a little something extra is needed:

STAGING ~ GALLERY WALLS ~ GALLERY WALL PHOTOS ~ HOME ORGANIZATION

STAGING

Even the most loved and well decorated home can use some tweaking when it’s time to sell. I can help take the emotion out and bring top dollar in.

Staging is a term used different ways. The most common refers to “staging a house for resale”. This means making changes that would help your home sell faster and for a better price. Maybe your home has too much furniture and it makes the house look crowded. Or maybe your closets are filled to the brim and need to be “decluttered” to make them look roomy. Are your walls painted in “too bright” colors or is there an “over abundance" of wallpaper from the ‘80s? That’s where I come in and help you make your house welcoming to ANY potential buyer. In today’s market, the house that is “move-in ready” is the house that sells first. Statistics bear this out time and time again but sometimes it’s hard to be impartial when it’s YOUR home. Let me take the emotion out of the process and get it sold!

Another way to look at staging is “dressing” the house. Now this does not have to be for resale but for your own enjoyment. Say you have bookcases and you want them to look more appealing than simply rows of books. Mixing the books with knickknacks and pictures would be “staging” them to look warmer and more attractive.

Or say you have kitchen cabinets that don’t go all the way to the ceiling. Artfully arranging items on the top adds charm and a finishing touch to your room.

Staging is taking your items and arranging them in such a way as to make your spaces comfortable, not cluttered, pleasing to the eye and welcoming.

GALLERY WALLS ... BECAUSE EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY

Every room needs some form of art. Maybe a painting or two, a vase or decorated box, or even family photos. I happen to believe that the best art is that which is personal and means something to you and your family. Gallery walls are any collection of items, grouped attractively, that convey something about the homeowner.

For instance, a young man who has been involved in theatre since childhood moves to his own home. His parents make his room a combination guest room and workout space BUT it is still his room when he is visiting. I took the covers off every program from every play in which he performed from age 7 through college, framed each one and hung them in groupings around the room. The room now has art and yet each piece has history and significance to the young man and his family…AND IT LOOKS GOOD!

The Millers had a big, empty wall space to the left of and over their flat screen television. For “texture”, I hung decorative shelves of different lengths. This couple had traveled extensively so I asked them for some of their favorite photos of their trips. I scanned them, cropped them and reprinted them in black and white, matted and framed them and set them on the shelves along with some travel oriented "tchotchkes" and voile’, a wonderful, personal “gallery” is made.

Another couple had some special architectural drawings…framed and run in a line across the wall provided interesting art that, again, was personal to the owners.

A typical baby photo of a little boy grinning with shaving cream on his face, when cropped, reprinted in sepia, matted and framed, hangs on the wall opposite the mirror his father shaves in front of every day.

A collection of small watercolors brought back from a trip to Paris forty years ago now is framed and hanging in a dining room “gallery”.

Look through the gallery wall examples. Think about what treasures are hidden away in your photo albums, drawers or boxes in the attic. Bring them out, let’s take a look and I will create your very own personal Gallery Wall that tells your story.

Organizing and De-cluttering

Clutter makes for stress and tension. Too much of a good thing can, indeed, be too much. Sometimes just clearing out a space is decorating enough.