By Melissa Dittmann Tracey, REALTOR® Magazine It’s been gray mania in home design over the last few years. We first saw grays grow as the base wall color in homes, then within flooring, furniture (hello, gray sofas!), and now gray colored kitchen cabinets are all the rage. Gray is everywhere! And while all these gray [...]

By Patti Stern, PJ & Company Staging and Interior Decorating You want potential buyers to remember a property from the moment they step though the front door. Think beyond just furnishings and décor and present a lifestyle that they can envision—all through memorable, engaging home accents. Add in Pops of Bold Hues For the gorgeous [...]

By Jennie Morris, International Association of Home Staging Professionals In the beginning, home staging was mostly focused on sprucing up vacant properties. In the late 1990s to early 2000s, when staging first started to gain traction, stagers and real estate professionals tended to have limited furniture resources and focus on “vignette staging.” Vignette staging is [...]

By Melissa Dittmann Tracey In a throwback to the 1980s, neon colors are popping up in more home decor. The flashiness of neon colors is a sure-fire way to brighten up your home’s interior, and the way fluorescents are being worked into a room isn’t as nauseating as you might at first imagine. Adding in neon-green [...]

By Sarah Anderson, VHT Studios Let’s face it: Moms work hard! Besides juggling their own work schedule, they are integral to keeping the family on track, from changing diapers to helping with homework to shuttling kids to and from school and assorted extracurricular activities. Because of that, when moms are looking for a property, they [...]

By Melissa Dittmann Tracey, REALTOR® Magazine The speckled, spotted styles of granite countertops that have dominated kitchen design in recent years are moving out of the mainstream. In fact, those brown speckled granite countertops may even start to now age kitchens. Instead, countertops are blending in more to the kitchen design. A polished, solid colored [...]

Submitted by the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute (OPEI) Photo credit: OPEI 1. Declutter & Clean The first step to sprucing up the outdoor living room is to clear dirt and clutter from the space. Store lawn equipment, children’s toys, and pet play things in a shed or garage. Give the entire area a good scrub down, [...]

By Melissa Dittmann Tracey, REALTOR® Magazine Besides a good window cleaning, there’s another way to boost your curb appeal and get those windows shining: Remove the screens. Home stagers love this trick, and it’s taken straight from the film industry. Remove the outside screens on your windows in the front of your home prior to [...]

Photo Credit: VHT Studios / Chrissy Barrett The real estate professional: Cris Grayson, broker associate at Baird & Warner in Glen Ellyn, Ill. About the home: The five-bedroom home in Glen Ellyn, Ill., was built in 1975. The home has been meticulously maintained, and the homeowners had recently made some updates to the interior as well. [...]

Photo Courtesy: OPEI By Kris Kiser, President & CEO of the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute (OPEI) As the spring selling season kicks into high gear, real estate and staging professionals can help their clients enhance their listings by creating an outdoor space that is attractive to buyers. The family yard not only can expand living [...]