Paris Style Video: Suburban Paris Luxury Home Staged for Sale

Irwin Weiner ASID - Greetings from Paris! Jay Johnson and I are on Day 5 of our vacation in the beautiful French capital, and that of course means that we're on "assignment" for Design2Share. We never go anywhere without reporting back on residential and home trends, and that includes the latest international hotel scene and other looks in public spaces that will soon influence the shape of home style. Our fifth feature shows a Luxury Portfolio International suburban Paris home for sale, modeled after George Washington's Mount Vernon, with an interior that has been subjected to one of the most thoroughly modern real estate home staging schemes I've ever seen. (After looking at the replica of an early American home, I was cringing to see cheap reproduction American furnishings inside, but leave it to the French - they've taken a traditional shell and turned it into a clean, modern space.)

Interior design, as our readers know, is the process of decorating and adding a client's personality into the living space; real estate home staging takes away the personality and stages the home so that any potential buyer can imagine themselves living there. Staged homes sport neutral design schemes, and many professional stagers love white objects placed in rooms - they "float" in the space, add no obtrusive colors or patterns that would distract buyers, show size and scale in a room, and show off the utility and functions of the space. This particular home is staged well, even down to a white grand piano. Click here to look at other Luxury Portfolio International Paris real estate.

After a beautiful weekend, we'll be saying good-bye to Paris on Monday. Then it's back to the New York, and everyday reality. We can't wait to show off some of the sights of Paris and the style discoveries we've made this week; we'll save those for future posts. Au revoir!

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House for Sale, Filled with Memories

Irwin Weiner ASID - This month's Design2Share banner is a shot of my master bedroom by the amazing architectural photographer Chris Cooper. The reason for this banner instead of our usual focus on home goods and furnishings? My partner and I decided three weeks ago to sell our Pennsylvania country house after ten years.

The reasons for not selling would fill a long list: 10 years of wonderful memories, a beautiful garden, a home that's fixed up just right and just the right size, wonderful neighbors, a sleepy Delaware River town close enough to every convenience but distant enough to be a peaceful and relaxing retreat. Overall, a perfect country retreat only an hour and a half from Manhattan, centrally located between NYC and Philadelphia.

But one "let's sell" reason outweighed the others: we've run out of projects and ways to fix up the house and property. Our D2S readers know how much Jay and I enjoy DIY and makeover projects for the home, and our list ran out.

We could spend much more on expanding the extensive gardens, but to what point? The Derek Sutphin designed master landscape plan, boasting two secret garden rooms, is a delight as it is.

It's time for someone else to enjoy this beautiful home. Which brings me to the ultimate reason for this post. I wanted to somehow formally say good-bye to a house that's filled with good memories. Dinners by candlelight with a roaring fire going in the fireplace.

The discovery during remodeling that the original structure was actually a "barge house," the framing made from decommissioned barge boards from the Delaware Canal. The thrill of having a totally renovated modern kitchen - there's nothing like cooking and entertaining!

The beautiful displays of flowers and leaves through the growing season, with meals out on the patio. Pool parties. Falling asleep on the porch swing.

We know we'll have regrets when we move, but we'll also have immense satisfaction in knowing that we were excellent stewards of our Bucks County PA home ... and that we'll have more real estate adventures (in the same area - we love it in Bucks) with a new fixer-upper home, filled to brim with projects to tackle. Click here or on any of the photos above for more information on our PA house and a 25-photo slideshow.

Videos Show Off Today's Luxury Homes for Sale

Irwin Weiner ASID - Social media and Internet marketing are the keys to successful home sales, according to many realtors. People like to see many photographs of a home on the Multiple Listing Service - you should definitely take advantage of the full 25 photographs possible on any MLS listing if you're trying to sell your home - and short 3-minute videos help capture the lifestyle aspect of walking through a home. Keep your home videos brief and let them tell a simple story:

• Set the scene and show the beautiful area where your home is situated, or views directly from your house.
• Enter the front door and begin the home tour.
• Simple pans to the left, right, up, and down are all that's needed to show the scope of a room and focus on extra details of interest.
• Turn on all the lights and the gas logs on your fireplace to show off the space to maximum effect.
• Stage your home so it looks clean, spare, and minimal. It must show "clean."

Post your video on YouTube, Vimeo, and other sites where real estate videos are featured. Title your video the address of your property and use descriptive tags besides the address to attract people who are searching online for a home to purchase. Here's an example of an excellent, short-and-sweet real estate video from realtor Bobbi Vogel, Prudential in Oakland, CA (that's her going through the front door in the video).

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Video Interview: Professional Home Stager

Irwin Weiner ASID - Interior design is adding as much personality and your clients' "stuff" as possible into a decorated space. But real estate home staging, or getting your house ready to sell (or sometimes just getting your home decluttered and more organized if the home isn't for sale), is all about taking the decor down to the most elementary levels and eliminating a lot of that personality. To sell homes, staging gives potential buyers the chance to add themselves to a more neutral space. There's nothing glaring or screaming about the design that would turn them off or make them find the home unattractive ("Why the pink wallpaper in the master bedroom?!). Here's a video interview with Minnesota-based home staging professional Sarah Gordon. She does a wonderful job of explaining what she does, how she became a stager, and how she works with clients. Enjoy!

Bonus

Click here to read 5 Easy Ways to Get People to Admire Your Home - with a bonus video message from one of NYC's hottest realtors!

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