Selling Your Vanilla Box

We all know that the real estate market is in a major slump. Nothing seems to make that grim point more real then when one takes a short drive through any neighborhood. For it is there we see, dotting the front yards of so many homes, a multitude of For Sale signs. But while looking at a sign in a front yard makes a tangible point of reference for what is happening with the sales of single family homes, what is taking place with regard to the condo market is sometimes harder to see. Because often there is no sign, it is easy to overlook the fact that there are many many condominiums for sale too.

In some ways selling a condo is harder then selling a single family home. First, it is not uncommon, especially in larger developments, for one condo in a building to be selling against another condo configured with the exact same floor plan, features and finishes. And, except for slight differences in the exterior façades, it is also not unusual to find one building full of condos to be pretty much the same as another building full of condos in the same neighborhood.

Sellers need to understand that with so many condos to choose from, they all start looking the same to the buyer.  In the buyer’s eye, without much distinguishing one from another, they become just another Vanilla Box.

While there are many configurations of the Vanilla Box, the typical Vanilla Box of today has the door in the rear, sliding patio doors to a balcony in the front, and a kitchen in the middle with stainless steel appliances, granite counter tops and an island that separates the kitchen space from the open dining/living room area. All are pretty much the same…floor to floor, building to building, neighborhood to neighborhood.

With so many condos being relatively the same, the chance for a sale is quite competitive. Plus, if you are a home seller that is currently living in a Vanilla Box, in a neighborhood that offers similarly priced NEWLY constructed Vanilla Boxes… keep in mind that a shiny new Box is much more appealing to a buyer, than a scuffed, scratched, and worn used Box.

Good news is that the hope for a sale of your Vanilla Box is not a lost cause… for either the independent owner trying to sell their unit, or for the builder trying to sell one or more units. Both, for different reasons, can benefit from hiring an EXPIRIENCED home stager.

Stagers will help individual seller trying to sell their unit in a number of ways. First, they will point out the problem areas that make a used home look used, and then offer low cost ideas and solutions that make the condo feel new. Next, while it is a fact that a furnished property is easier to sell then vacant; sellers need to understand that due to size constraints of the home (typically condos are more compact) furnishings in the condo needs to be set in a way that  they actually help the condo show and flow for touring… and a stager can help here too. Good staging is a balance between adding the right amount of visual appeal, without having the interior décor distract the seller’s eye from the property they are considering buying.

For the builder, a Stager can also be of great service. Who hasn’t been a bit surprised to experience a builder’s empty vanilla white unit after touring their lush and lovely model? For this reason large builders have for years had model properties for buyers to first tour. Today, the opportunity and benefit of having a model unit need not be a selling advantage reserved only for the larger builder. Smaller builders can hire a Stager who can provide low cost, yet beautifully designed staged-model solutions. PLUS, if the builder is selling multiple units in one building, should the staged unit sell, the staged model can be moved from one unit and re-set in the next. The added flexibility of a “rolling” model offers yet more flavor and appeal to the Vanilla Box.

So yes, without a doubt this is a tough market, especially for condo owners. But properties are selling. Fortunately, builders and owners of Vanilla Boxes can change the flavor of their offering from FOR SALE to SOLD… with the help of a Home Stager.

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Tools of the Trades

Wooden hand planes were found in virtually every 19th century tool box. Tradesmen, farmers and amateurs needed at least a few planes to size, true and finish wood stock. Most common were the bench planes that were used to square and finish boards for carpentry, cabinetmaking and joinery. These planes are long and rectangular with handles (called totes) and single cutting irons. This group includes joiners, which were used to true edges and faces of stock, and the shorter fore and jack planes, which removed larger amounts of wood easily and quickly.

Illustrated Catalog and Invoice Price List of Joiners’ Bench Planes,
Moulding Tools, Handles, Planes Irons, &c., Manufactured by the Greenfield
Tool Company. Greenfield: 1872. Reprinted by the Astragal Press.

Also common are molding planes that were used to shape and decorate molding and millwork. These planes were produced in a bewildering array of shapes and sizes and were given esoteric names such as scotia, astragal, ogee or torus bead. Some were quite simple in shape, like the hollows and rounds I used to make the bit of molding in an earlier post. Others were quite complex and were used to make the ornate cornices and architraves in fine Georgian, Federal and Greek Revival homes.

As styles in furniture and architecture changed during the 19th century, so did the types of molding planes. Historians and architects are often able to date furniture and architecture according to the differing styles of molding and decoration. The study of the molding planes is an important means to trace the development of these decorative styles. Following is a short primer on molding planes which shows a few of the many different shapes and profiles used in the 19th century.

The most common molding planes were the hollows and rounds. These planes were often bought in pairs of one hollow and one round of the same size. One plane could be used alone to form a groove or bead or in tandem to make more complex shapes like an S shaped ogee. Cabinet makers and joiners who frequently made molding often bought complete sets of hollows and rounds in graduated sizes. In this photo there are three rounds and one hollow from the #72 series of the Ohio Tool Company and one round from Chapin and Sons.




Also quite common were the various bead planes. Side beads, which cut a rounded profile on the edge of a board, were bought either singly or in graduated sets. Center beads, which cut a rounded bead profile in the middle of a board ,were especially useful for furniture makers. Reeding planes, which cut several parallel beads in the middle of a board were also common. Below are three graduated side beads from the #105 series from the Auburn Tool Company and a #41 center bead from the Ohio Tool Company.



The ogee, which is a gentle S curve, is the most common of complex molding planes. The ogee can have two profiles: The cyma recta, where the concave section is at the bottom of the profile, and the cyma reversa, where the concave section is at the top. Below are three graduated ogees from the Ohio Tool Company. Roman style ogees are, which are characteristic of the Georgian Style, are based on the circle while Grecian ogees are based on the ellipse and usually have quirk defining the inside edge of the top part of moulding.



Following are a few examples of some other complex molding planes. These include (from left to right) an ogee sash plane for making window sashes and muntins, a Grecian ogee, a simple cyma recta, an ovolo, a Grecian ogee with quirk and fillet and last a gothic bead.

The Gideon and Agnes Pond House

The 1856 Gideon and Agnes Pond house is one of the few Minnesota examples of the Federal Style. Gideon Pond was a Connecticut carpenter who came to Minnesota in 1834 with his brother Samuel to serve as Christian missionaries to the Dakota Indians and to teach the natives European farming methods. He settled in Bloomington, MN in 1854 and founded a mission near the village of the Dakota chief Cloudman. In 1856 he built this two-story house near his mission with bricks made on-site from clay found in the adjacent Minnesota River valley.

Although late for the Federal, which had been losing favor in the East since the 1820s, Pond decided to build in this refined style which had been common in Connecticut when he left in 1834. Some experts hesitate to call later examples like the Pond House Federal, preferring instead to describe them as vernacular or a Federal style remnant. Although certainly quite provincial, the Pond House has some of the classic features of the Federal and I believe the name is appropriate despite its plainness and late date.

Federal buildings are usually box-like, with a symmetrical arrangement of windows and low-pitched gabled or hipped roofs. High style examples have refined, but decorated cornices beneath the roof line with fanlights and sidelights surrounding the entrance door. The Pond house features a symmetrical arrangement of windows, although many Federal examples of a similar scale have a third window centered above the entrance.



The focus of a Federal facade was the front entrance. Entrance doors were sometimes flanked by half or three-quarter sidelights while higher style homes often had elaborate fanlights as a transom. In this example there is no fanlight although full-length sidelights are present.  Although the sidelights appear somewhat wide and blocky (reminiscent of those often found on contemporary Greek Revival homes), the entrance suits the proportions of building. The door slab is a recent (and quite incorrect) replacement.



Rather than an elaborate cornice with dentils and molding which were common on higher style homes, Pond constructed a simplified version in brick.

The Pond house is located at 401 East 104th Street in Bloomington, MN and is open for visits on Sundays from 1:30 to 4.

Nothing could be finer

Nothing could be finer that to be in Carolina on the 4th of July. The fourth is one of my favorite days of the year and New Bern does it up right, with a spectacular fireworks display over the Neuse River. Last year, along with several of our friends, we watched from the middle of the Neuse River. It was a blast, and we were not alone as there must have been 300 other boats anchored along side us. Check out my web site http://www.newbern-nc.info/ after the 4th for some photos and you will see why nothing could be finer.

Stagers Should Picture What They Preach

Without a doubt the end result of a home’s staging should be a great visual impression. Because this is so, home staging has come to be viewed as an “image” industry. But as a relatively new industry, home stagers have much to learn from their counterparts in other more established image industries such as advertising, interior design, and landscaping. Professionals in these fields know that to sell and grow their own businesses; they must first present a good visual image of themselves. This impression starts with the logos, business cards, and websites they use to market their products and services.

Be leary of staging hypocrits. If home stagers are going to pitch the need and importance of investing money to ready properties (which is a home seller's "product") for market, then the stager needs to invest money to do the same for what they sell... their staging services. To be fair and judged credible, a home stager needs to invest in their business image. But more than just spending money. A stager's image, communicated through business cards, brochures, and websites, must demonstrate knowledge of and skill to apply basic design principals. Why? Well, basic design principals are universal and govern all visual creativity, including the skill and ability to properly stage a home.

Picture what they preach. Another area, where real estate stagers need to practice what they preach, is in the portfolios they use to sell their ability. First and foremost, the work they show MUST ONLY be theirs... and it better look good. If stagers are going advise sellers and Realtors as to the importance of using good photography to capture and present a home, then again, a stager needs to do the same with photography they show of the their work. A stager's portfolio is a key, yet often overlooked tool that communicates quality, skill and ability.

Seller’s looking to hire a stager can use a stager’s online portfolio to pre-screen and judge a stager's talent and ability. The best portfolios address the following 3 points.

• Versatility & Proficiency - Every market is different and examples of the work a stager shows should represent the types of homes being sold in the markets they serve. However the more depth and diversity a stager can show the better. The most compelling portfolios will show staging work that was done in both big and small homes, vacant and occupied homes, low to high end homes, and the ability in to work with a variety of design styles.
• Same View Point - Proof of a stager's skill and ability is often shown in Before & After photographs. But quite often the Before photo is taken from a totally different position in a room, from the After photo. The best sales testament that shows a stager’s ability and talent come from having Before & After photographs taken from the EXACT same angle.
• Quality Photos - While it may not be possible to take the perfect Before, the After image needs to be well photographed. Stagers that invest the time and money to take quality photos visually communicate their commitment to their profession.

Just as a home that is for sale is being judged by how it looks, sellers can use the business images a stagers shows of themselves to judge skill and ability. The best home stagers will picture what they preach.

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See Why & How Seller Used Staging... and ends up selling in 10 Days!

When Wallpaper Attacks, It Can Kill the Sale

In today’s real estate market more and more home sellers are relying on home staging tips and advice to guide them in ways to best prepare their homes for selling. So last week, when I was hired to tour a seller’s property to give them my “Buyer’s Eye” advice, a monster of a problem reared its ugly head. The wallpaper in my client’s home was so extremely ugly I told them I just had to write a blog about it and use it as an example on how monsters like this will negatively affect a home’s sale.

So for the fun of it, and to drive home my point, I present to you (below) what I saw. So hideous was this wallpaper, I have to admit it almost looks like a cliché. However be wise, while not all wallpaper is as ugly this, it still is a problematic issue that sellers need to pay attention to. Fortunately, my clients were motivated and open to advice and willing to take it down. They know they had to present the most competitively appealing property as possible to sell in today’s market. But when it comes to wallpaper, not all sellers are as accepting of staging advice. I have found that the topic of wallpaper usually results in eye rolling, harrumphing, justification and/or avoidance with sellers. So if you are serious about selling your wallpapered home, you need to look it from a sellers view. Keep in mind, regardless of how “fantastic” you think your home’s wallpaper is, it is a HIGHLY personal expression of taste, so chances are potential buyers will NOT like it. Second, buyers want to buy their dream home ready for today, not yesterday. Wallpaper is trendy and needlessly ages a home.

But most importantly, what sellers need to know is this…. when buyers see wallpaper they don’t like, they see dollar signs. When it comes to spending their hard earned money to buy their dream, buyers will scrutinize and negatively react to your wallpapered home as, hopefully, you reacted to my extreme examples above.

So you need to know that any and all the resistance you have about removing wallpaper will be the EXACT same resistance a buyer will have about it too. Buyers know removing wallpaper is an arduous task that can be costly. Because this is the reality of buying a home with wallpaper, buyers know in this market they can and will move on to the next home that does not have that monster to battle.

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