Beautiful Modern Contemporary House Elevation

Art That's Great for Staging

Art That's Great for Staging

This black and white woodblock print will look terrific, whether it's hung horizontally or vertically. My daughter visited me this week...

11:17 AM

Putting On a Happy Face

Putting On a Happy Face

Both the new baseboards and the ceramic floor were were real estate enhancements that will impress buyers. We hope. Our total bill from flo...

8:57 AM

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i951.photobucket.com/albums/ad351/2painters/toilebath.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="366" src="http://i951.photobucket.com/albums/ad351/2painters/toilebath.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> I spent all morning in someone else’s bathroom. A client wanted the wallpaper removed and the walls painted. One thing’s for sure: I would rather take it off than put wallpaper up. If you ever want to test the strength of your marriage, wallpaper a small room with your spouse. If your home is on the market, you need to remove wallpaper. The exception might be a high quality vinyl paper that is a simple grass cloth design or some other very simple all-over pattern that is absolutely classic, that is in excellent condition.    How to Take it Off Wallpaper removal is difficult when: <ul><li>The walls weren’t properly primed for paper, and/or, </li><li>There is more than one layer of paper on the wall.</li></ul>Neither of those bug-a-boos presented themselves to me today, so in an hour I had all the paper off the walls of a 6 x 10-foot bathroom. Getting them clean and smooth took another hour. And painting them brought me up to lunchtime.     Here are the steps to getting rid of wallpaper.  <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i951.photobucket.com/albums/ad351/2painters/Wallpaperremovalstuff.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://i951.photobucket.com/albums/ad351/2painters/Wallpaperremovalstuff.jpg" width="412" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You'll need a spackling knife, screwdriver, spackling, a paper tiger, and a sanding block.</td></tr></tbody></table> Supplies: Stepladder or two-step stool, screwdriver, dropcloths and old towels, paper tiger tool, garden pump sprayer, cloth rag or large sponge, spackling knife, quick dry spackle, sandpaper or sanding block. <ol><li>If the room is small, remove all furniture. In a larger room, cluster the furniture in the center of the room.</li><li>Remove curtains, wall hangings, and all hardware (curtain rods, switchplates, outlet covers, picture hooks, towel bars, etc)</li><li>Protect the floor if necessary, using towels and dropcloths.</li><li>Use a paper tiger to perforate the outer layer of paper.  Do the whole room or just a section.  Don’t be too rough with it.</li><li>Fill a garden sprayer with hot water.  Spritz a section about five feet wide, starting at the top.  Mop it up when it runs all over the baseboard.  </li><li>Let the water work into the paper for a few minutes while you say good riddance to the paper that someone once loved (you?)</li><li>Peel off the outer layer of paper. With luck, the under layer will come off at the same time. You may have to gently lift the edges with your spackling knife, and then carefully scrape the under layer off,  but don't put gashes in the drywall.  </li><li>When all the paper is off, wipe down the walls with water to remove glue residue. The smoother the walls feel the better they will look.  </li><li>Sand the walls. Patch any dings or holes with spackle. </li><li>When the spackle is dry, sand your patches smooth.</li></ol>Details That Matter Walls that have been always papered may not have ever been caulked around the baseboards and other trim.  You may have to caulk these seams to get a finished look to your paint job. <a href="http://www.askthebuilder.com/716_How_To_Caulk_Baseboards.shtml">Here's help:  </a><a href="http://www.askthebuilder.com/716_How_To_Caulk_Baseboards.shtml">http://www.askthebuilder.com/716_How_To_Caulk_Baseboards.shtml</a> Now your walls are ready for paint – a light, neutral, buyer-friendly color.  Remember, wallpaper patterns are very personal choices, and what you like is probably not going to be a buyer's first choice.  No offense. Also, styles change and you can't afford to have anything looking outdated in your staged to sell house. For my helpful comments about problem wallpaper removal, and advice about how to paint over wallpaper, see my <a href="http://diyhomestagingtips.blogspot.com/p/ebooks.html" target="_blank">eBook</a>, DIY Home Staging Tips to Sell Your Home Fast and For Top Dollar. <center></center>

How to Kiss Wallpaper Goodbye

I spent all morning in someone else’s bathroom. A client wanted the wallpaper removed and the walls painted. One thing’s for sure: I would r...

3:23 PM

Did We Make a Remodeling Mistake?

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i951.photobucket.com/albums/ad351/2painters/Harborwalk/Purocleanbill.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="196" src="http://i951.photobucket.com/albums/ad351/2painters/Harborwalk/Purocleanbill.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This isn't what we expected to see after the cleanup manager told us he would "work with us" to keep our costs down. </td></tr></tbody></table>The carpet/vinyl man finished up our flooring today in our condo that’s for sale.  It looks fantastic, but his bill came to $800.  When we asked him if it would have been cheaper to replace the carpet rather than dry it out and re-stretch it, he said – unfortunately – “Absolutely!”  This whole wet floor scenario leaves me with a knot in my stomach.  I always expect the best from people and I am usually rewarded with kindness and fairness.  The bill from the clean-up company arrived today.  It runs 14 pages long, and totals $6762.41!  Forty one cents?  They had to squeeze every last penny out of the job? We spent some time studying the invoice.  It looks like the way it works is the local franchise buys the national company’s software.  Then Mr. Sucker, the franchisee, fills in the blanks like square footage and how many dehumidifiers he used, and ends up with a detailed printout of costs.  I guess we were supposed to be impressed with the thoroughness and detail of the invoice.  Instead, we just got mad. Here are some examples: <ul><li>Remove two bifold doors (about a three minute task) $20.20</li><li>Block furniture in living room (put chunk of foam under each leg of loveseat)  $37.87 </li><li>Detach toilet $99.33</li><li>Tear out non-salvageable wood from dry bar (pick up 20 squares of parquet flooring already floating in water) $47.81</li><li>Apply microbial agent to one bedroom (about a two minute task) $147.22</li><li>Plug in a non-monitored air mover near a 3-square foot closet $77.25</li></ul>If you extend these figures to two bedrooms, two bathrooms, two hallways, a living room, family room, kitchen, and six closets, you can see how the total grew to a ridiculous amount, even though it entailed just one day’s hands-on labor and then three days of fans and dehumidifiers running. Mr. Lucky, being the sweetest man on the planet, could not take what I considered the  next, necessary step, to contest the bill.  But his wife could.  So I made a list of talking points and key phrases and phoned Mr. Make-it-right’s boss, Mr. Sucker (he does take up water), the franchise owner. Without my cheat sheet in front of me, and without the gut feeling that we had been seriously taken advantage of, I would be completely outside my comfort zone.  Being assertive is not something that comes naturally to Pink Overalls, but I was furious and I wanted this company to know what we thought of their pricing system.  I also wanted a bill reduction.  We agreed to meet next week to discuss the situation.  Meanwhile, we are still fine-tuning our staging to get the property back into shape for househunters.

Did We Make a Remodeling Mistake?

This isn't what we expected to see after the cleanup manager told us he would "work with us" to keep our costs down. The carpe...

11:59 AM

Insuring Vacant Property on the Market

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i951.photobucket.com/albums/ad351/2painters/Harborwalk/Toiletseatsign-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="223" src="http://i951.photobucket.com/albums/ad351/2painters/Harborwalk/Toiletseatsign-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's unfortunate that the staged home has to have something so inhospitable, but what's a vacant property owner to do? </td></tr></tbody></table>Major shock last Friday.  The builders insurance we took out on the property does not cover damage due to water from inside the property.  Don’t you love the way insurance companies make it work for them?  They don’t get to build those skyscrapers by helping ordinary folks. Here is the list of what they DO cover: Fire, lightning, explosion, windstorm, smoke, aircraft or vehicles, riot or civil commotion, vandalism, sprinkler leakage, sinkhole collapse, and volcanic action.  If only that volcano that triggered the sinkhole collapse that led to the civil commotion and explosions had caused the sprinkler damage and consequent vandalism that broke the toilet part, maybe we’d be covered.  But probably not.       I am sick that we will have to eat the entire cost of this cleanup. We talked to Mr. Make-it-right and he’s agreed to work with us to keep costs down. And you know what really fries my grits, as we say in the South?  Today at our supermarket we happened to park next to a brand new Cadillac SUV.  And its vanity license plate was the name of the local company that sold us this insurance policy.  That’s right.  We helped some undeserving leech buy that gas guzzler. That’s fried grits. To find out what other homeowners and real estate investors have done to get insurance for an unoccupied residence, I went online.  One of my favorite <a href="http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/realestate/">sources of information</a> is <a href="http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/realestate">http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/realestate</a>/.  The forum is called “Buying and Selling Homes.  It’s an active forum, one populated by knowledgeable investors, legal types, realtors, as well as buyers and sellers at every level of experience.  I recommend checking in often if you are a home seller.  I know you will lean new things with each visit.  What I learned is that it is almost impossible to insure a vacant property.  At best, it’s expensive.  What some forum posters suggested to me is to call it a rental property, but others suggested that such an approach could backfire if it becomes obvious that no one lived in the house and you have a claim.  So, there’s just no easy answer, except to turn off the water, either at the main valve, or at least at the toilets.  That’s what we’ll be doing henceforth.

Insuring Vacant Property on the Market

It's unfortunate that the staged home has to have something so inhospitable, but what's a vacant property owner to do? Major shock l...

11:37 AM

Sucking Up Water Costs Big Bucks

Sucking Up Water Costs Big Bucks

Who ya gonna call? There are times when only a specialist will do, and DIY won't do. Ah- HA. So it wasn’t the water heater after all ...

11:23 AM

When Bad Things Happen to Good Real Estate

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i951.photobucket.com/albums/ad351/2painters/Harborwalk/tvroomfans.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="223" src="http://i951.photobucket.com/albums/ad351/2painters/Harborwalk/tvroomfans.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">What you are looking at is furniture on blocks, a stack of bifold doors, an extraction machine, and fans.  What happened?</td></tr></tbody></table>At our house it’s safe to say that when the phone rings at 8:30 on a Monday morning, it’s not a good sign.  At least it wasn’t today. Our realtor, Ms. Speedy was on the line, trying to sound calm.  The neighbor next door to our for-sale, vacant condo, had called her to say that water was coming out from under our front door, and that her carpet was soaked.  Both units are built on the same slab.  We live just two minutes from this property, and our realtor’s office is even closer to it.  Gotta love life in a small town.  By the time we arrived, Ms. Speedy already had the water turned off at the main tap, and had rounded up the president of the homeowners’ association and a handyman friend.  We stepped into the unit, onto wet and floating squares of parquet flooring, and squishy carpeting.  An inch of water covered the kitchen and bath floors.  It was not a pretty sight. The good news was that it wasn’t sewage water, river water or rain water.  It was clean water. Within an hour we had a team of fire and water damage specialists on site.  In another hour our plumber was there.  By this time Mr. Lucky and I had already sucked up over 50 gallons of water with our own big, wet/dry, shop vac.     The plumber determined that the source of the water was the water heater.  Its safety valve had given out, spilling the contents onto the condo’s floor.  The tank kept filling up to replace the lost water.  What’s strange is that we had turned off the water heater because it made no sense to be heating water while the place was vacant.  The plumber said he had never seen this happen before.  If you have ever been in a situation like this, you know that all you want is for things to be normal again.  All I can tell you is that if all damage repair specialists are as together as the local franchise owner, Mr. Make-it-right, there’s nothing to worry about.  As we inspected the various problems – wet vinyl flooring, wet baseboards, wet drywall -- his words were downright soothing.  “I can take care of that” “We’ll fix that.” “That’s not a problem.” The padding under the carpet was the kind that could be dried, so instead of ripping out all carpeting and padding, all of it would all be dried on site.  The baseboards would have to be discarded, but the wet two inches of drywall behind them could be thoroughly dried.  It would take all week, but the place would be clean, dry, disinfected, and out of trouble. All my precious staging was topsy turvy!  I stripped the beds and relocated to closet shelves pillows, books, lamps, and any small stuff I could.  I brought home to wash curtains and a bed skirt that had wicked up water.         The work is done by giant extractors, fans, and dehumidifiers.  And four men.  By the end of the day, baseboards were outta there, carpets were elevated, furniture was piled in safe places or elevated on foam blocks. My philosophy is that every misfortune has a flip side -- either a lesson to be learned or a greater reward down the road.  Let's just see where this soggy road leads!

When Bad Things Happen to Good Real Estate

What you are looking at is furniture on blocks, a stack of bifold doors, an extraction machine, and fans. What happened? At our house it’s ...

4:05 PM