Party Time – Yikes!
By Marni JamesonIt starts innocently. One night you’re sitting by the fire with your significant other drinking eggnog that’s probably too strong when one of you says, “We should have a holiday party.”

The warm feeling grows and pretty soon you’re on the phone; the word is out, and there’s no going back.

Then reality hits: You have to clean the house! I mean clean beyond what any housekeeper can do. (Housekeepers can’t throw away your clutter, magazines, and mail; they just make it straighter.) You look around anticipating the public humiliation. You imagine your guests wrinkling their noses and whispering, “Oh, they’re that kind of family.”

You start to notice everything you’ve been ignoring or stepping over: moldy socks behind the drapes, the dog’s chew toy in the bread box, lice in the light fixture, the refrigerator that smells like cooked cabbage four weeks out, and the carpet stain where one of the dogs chewed up a watermelon-scented marker. Next thing, you’re running around like your hair’s on fire screaming, “Whose idea was this?”

Parties put the pressure on. Yet every holiday season I have at least one. To prepare, I dart through the house like a roller derby queen armed with Pledge, Mr. Clean and a stun gun. My goal isn’t perfection. I gave that up years ago, along with the goals of six-pack abs and a caffeine-free existence. Some efforts aren’t worth the agony.

But I do want my home to look better than usual, usual being a cross between the epicenter of a large earthquake and a frat house.

I start with a big basket and go room to room. I fill it with the flotsam and jetsam of our lives: unpaid bills, chewed gum wads, overdue library books, dull razors, dead flowers, burned out fireworks. When I get to my kids’ rooms, I close the doors and put thick red “biohazard” tape over the doors.

I stand back and try to see my house as someone who has never seen it would. First, I want to know whether there are any more bombs inside. Then I get down to business. It’s party time. I roll up my sleeves and start staging.

Although I have my own kamikaze way, I decide to call a staging pro. Dana Dickey is vice president of Interior Redesign Industry Specialists, a national organization based in Chicago whose members specialize in staging homes for sale and events.

“It’s not that people don’t want to pick up,” she says. “They just stop noticing what other people do.” She’s being kind. Most of us avoid housework like the endodontist.

Beyond a good cleaning, here’s what Dickey says to do to make your house party-ready:

• Clutter bust. Put all toys in one designated playroom, ideally with the kids, a pizza and a babysitter. Cut back your stack of books and magazines to two each, and the newspaper to that day’s. Blast through the mail stack. Put what you can’t throw away or file in a basket in the garage to sort after the party. 
• Strip the refrigerator of all the kids’ pictures and artwork. Open it and toss anything old, smelly or gross. 
• Edit your stuff. If you must feature your angel collection, don’t put out all 15, put out three of your prettiest, together. “Staging is all about selective decorating,” says Dickey. “It’s better to start with a clean surface and add a few carefully selected items, than figure out what to remove.” 
• Get the magazines out of the bathroom. “No one needs to know what you’re reading in there. It conjures up a weird image.” Speaking of weird images, I once went into a bathroom and found a laptop. Detail this space well. Set out clean guest towels. Remove anything embarrassing from the cabinets. People look. 
• Edit your bulletin boards. Remove appointment cards and prescriptions. No one wants to know when your next colon screening is, or that your husband’s on Viagra and you’re on estrogen. 
• Hide the laundry room. However, if your guests will be in there, dump all dirty clothes in the washer and close the lid. Put a tablecloth over the washer and dryer to make back-up counter space. 
• Cut the lights. Switch 60-watt bulbs to 40-watt for softer ambience. Light candles. They hide a lot, including dust in corners and worry lines. Pillars burn longest. Avoid scented candles, which make some people sick. 
• Do a walk through. Start at the front door. Plan where guests will put coats and purses, where they will head for a drink or food, and where they will go from there. Be sure the experience flows. If a place in your house usually becomes a bottleneck, rearrange furniture to open it. To move guests to another part of the house, put food there. 
• Point the way. For large parties, place directional signs on easels that point to the coatroom, bar or kitchen. This frees you from being traffic cop. 
• Or simply think twice before opening your big mother mouth and saying: Party at my place!

Marni Jameson is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of “The House Always Wins” (Da Capo). You can learn more about her and her book – which can be a nice housewarming gift or a tool to show buyers some great ideas for turning a house that isn’t quite right into perfect – at www.marnijameson.com.

Bennington VT

Today is my birthday.

At the age of 46 I feel like life is just beginning.

This year has seen a lot of changes, and I’m at a very happy place in life.

In late 2007, Kathy Sollien and I left our brokerage firm in order to start our own firm RE/MAX Maple Leaf Realty.  We spent a couple of months building the office space at 203 Northside Drive in Bennington and opened our doors in early February.

As everyone knows, this year has been a challenge for Buyers, Sellers, and in turn REALTORS®.  Our new agency is well-funded and capitalized, and we planned for this type of market, and we’ll be fine financially.

As we’ve moved through the year, we’ve been able to step back and look at the real needs of the marketplace.  While there are other agencies who work in the Commercial Sales & Leasing market, I personally feel that my background in opening retail businesses and consulting to business owners gives me a unique perspective in the Commercial Market.  It is for this reason that I created “The Richardson Group” which is now officially the Commercial Division of RE/MAX Maple Leaf Realty.

Another part of the commercial division is our Residential Marketing & Leasing services.  We have created the infrastructure to be able to market residential rentals, screen tenants and write leases for area landlords.  This process ensures a better quality tenant through proper screening and standardized rental guidelines.

These new offerings allow RE/MAX Maple Leaf Realty to be a full-service real estate brokerage, and I encourage you to call me today at 802-447-3210 to discuss how we can help you with buying, selling or renting your residential, commercial or investment property.

Having a getaway home can be a treat during the winter, even if the home is located in a cold climate.

However, costs can add up quickly when you leaving that second home vacant, but ready for use. Here are some ways to lower costs.

• Weatherstrip all the doors and windows and make sure that the heating and air conditioning ductwork has no leaks. Install maximum insulation.
• Pay attention to the thermostat. Heating load is proportional to the difference between outside and inside temperature. If it is 10 degrees colder outside than the desired indoor temperature, turn the thermostat down 1 degree and save 10 percent on energy. If there is a 20-degree difference between indoor and outdoor temperatures, turning the thermostat back one degree will only save 5 percent on energy.
• Turn back the water heater. Even if someone will occasionally shower there, keeping the water heater set at 115 degrees keeps the water at a comfortable temperature and saves money compared to usual settings.
• Unplug appliances, televisions and anything else that is on standby. The standby features use lots of watts. For instance, a microwave oven uses as much energy to run the clock as it does to cook.

Reprinted from REALTOR® Magazine Online with permission of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®. Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.

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