House Staging For A House Sale

For the last month my home has been on the market with no offers and I am surprised that I didn't have it sold in a week. So after many showings and no offers I had to take a hard look at the home and see what I could do to improve the look of the home so the showings would go better and possible get an offer.
After a review of my home I found three areas that need attention.

1. My lanai.porch. My lanai is a small enclosed screened in porch that is the perfect size for an outdoor sofa and two chairs.
2. My office. This room is really the guest bedroom but I opted when I moved in to use it as my office. It has a closet that spells bedrooms but some buyers might miss this.
3. My guest bedroom is really the office and it's very small. So I need to switch the two rooms so that buyers will know for sure what is what. 

This morning I decided to tackle the lanai.

I have to say that I know better yet I allowed potential buyers to see this lanai this way

With a little bit of time (2 hours) and some fabric and flowers I created an inviting spot to enjoy.  Here's how it looks now

 My goal was to make this room inviting so that potential buyers could see themselves in it. Here's what I did. The sofa and chairs that I had in this space was very tired. So to improve the look of this set I covered the cushions with fabric that I had on hand. Instead of sewing I just used some safety pins to hold the fabric in place and made sure the pins where at the bottom so they couldn't be seen. I could of also used duck tape but didn't have any on hand. I went shopping in my garage and found some (4) accent pillows I had that just happened to be a perfect color so I used them. What was missing was another small accent pillow on each side. I made these accent pillows (the small ones) with coordinating fabric that I also safety pinned together. Then just a quick trip to Walmart for the  pale pink gereniums and I was done.  Total cost $13.00

Tuesday I'll tackle the office and guest bedroom with the help of my son-in-law/

Fabric Rose Pins

My new label pin for my denim jacket

I had a yen for making some fabric roses into label pins. I did it but I have to tell you I'm not so impressed. I was looking to make something a bit bohemian that would look so great on my denim jacket that woman would stop to ask where I got it.

I was inspired by these fabric rose key chains done by InkyPinkies that I saw on Pinterest.  What's a bit different about her technique is that she just starts with a knot which becomes the center of the flower. Here also TatortotsandJello  has a tutorial on how to make them with the knot. Previously I've made fabric roses with a rolled center following the tutorial from My Sparkle. 

Fabric rose made with the rolled center

Each way works great but my personal favorite is the rolled look. The above photo is my first attempt at the rolled center rose. After comparing the two photos for me the rolled technique is the winner.

One of the hard parts for me about making these roses is the hot glue. I've tried all different types of glue but hot glue is the quickest and just overall works the best. Oh but the burnt fingers are not fun. So to save me from the burnt finger syndrome I devised a way to get it done without suffering. So instead of gluing as I go along I tried pinning. I would have two flowers going at the same time and would make about 1/4 of the flower pinning as I went. Once I was happy with it I would hot glue the underside and wait for it to set. Meanwhile I would do the same thing with flower number two. I believe this takes a bit more time this way but the saved fingers are worth it.

I made quite a bit of them

  
 I made a flower template that I sized to fit the rose and then made a cardboard pattern out of it. But first I spray glue some fabric on to a green felt square. Then traced my pattern and then just cut them out hot glued to the bottom of the rose.

 So it's back to the drawing board on the label pins. I might just do something a bit different.