It’s “Sew” Easy

You may or may not know that I have spent the last year on updating Sewing For Dummies. This is the Third Edition and I'm very excited about the updates, revisions, and the addition of the dozens and dozens of step-by-step illustrations.  You're going to love it, too!

So, if you know how to sew and want to get more efficient using my commercial techniques, if you are a strict beginner and want to get a handle on the needle, the thread and sewing machine — even if your skills and experience are right in the middle, this sewing book is for you.  The projects are fun, current and give you an opportunity to put that skill you just learned into practice. Read more about the book below and visit the on-line Cheat Sheet .

Sewing For Dummies, Third Edition

Takes the Guesswork out of Needle and Thread

Hoboken, NJ (September 2010)—Has your favorite pair of jeans become too tight, too loose, or begun to look ready for the scrap pile, but you can't bear to part with them? Are you tired of the same old curtains and throw pillows, but can't afford to go on a decorating spree? And do you long for kids who are dressed to the nines, but don't want to spend the dollars to do it? Worry no more, because Sewing For Dummies^®, 3^rd Edition (Wiley Publishing, Inc., August 2010, ISBN: 978-0-470-62320-6, $19.99) has the perfect solution. This step-by-step guide takes you from assembling your own sewing kit chock-full of every gadget you'll need to creating your own outfit from scratch.

No matter what your cause for learning to sew, Sewing For Dummies enables you to create your own stylish, unique wardrobe and even decorate your house for next to nothing. While you learn to patch up your family and decorate yourself and everything around you, Sewing For Dummies encourages you to become a confident, self-expressive sewing machine.

Other lessons include:

·         Measuring yourself to perfection

·         Yardage estimates for most any project and fabric width

·         Covering up your skill: pillow covers for beginners

·         Getting straight to the right point—needle point, that is

·         Restyling Eco-Fashion – projects that start from old stand-bys

·         Stopping rookie mistakes and sewing like a pro

Whether you need a quick fix to patch a hole or a new dress, Sewing For Dummies is the guide for you!

Our Garden Wall

My friend Nairn Friemann (www.ingenuitypizzazz.com) sent me this email today.

"Thought you would enjoy this blog by Chris Brogan (www.chrisbrogan.com) about legacy. We all think about legacy in the big picture of our lives as we're getting older. But the connection to legacy is key in our Green training – what is the legacy we will leave behind if we don't change our practices in business and our daily lives? I'm a subscriber and this one first caught my eye because of the old man building the wall with left over bricks and stone – very Green indeed – creating something useful from a heap of someone's "trash."

I know what you're thinkin' – that's great…but how is this helping me? You may know that Ted and I are remodeling our 1959 ranch-style home in Longmeadow, MA (Check out www.nakedroomsolutions.com and click on the before and after tab to follow our progress).  We needed to put in a bulkhead to widen the foundation for our deck.  Pouring concrete was too expensive, railroad ties – too heavy and polluting. So we looked on Craig List and found a service that creates concrete walls out of discarded concrete.  Besides building the wall for us, they also terraced the side of a hill that was washing away. We paid for the labor – materials were free!

Let me know what you think?

Gotta love those Elephant Ears!

Get that Back-To-School Feeling With New Color

To me, this time of year feels like a new year  – you know, the feeling we get when the kid's head back to school? In my old neighborhood, we mom's got together to celebrate the first day of school — when we got our lives back and could move at a more predictable tempo — and our thoughts naturally  turned to decorating.

Whether preparing your house for sale, or just freshening up the place, the easiest and most affordable upgrade is changing the wall color. And … how about pulling down that dated wall paper?

This was our dining room that Ted, my creative husband, painted ten years ago. As much as we liked the faux stripes, when we were putting the house on the market, the stripes had to go.  Why?  Besides the dated color scheme, the stripes, like wall paper, were too personal to appeal to a wide range of buyers.

Look what happened when we neutralized the color.  Besides giving the room a more updated look, no matter what furnishings were brought into the space, the wall color worked. And check out that back yard … by removing the window treatments and the screens, the additional light in the room encouraged buyers to notice the incredible yard framed by the window.

If we stayed in this house, we all loved the more spacious, modern look the fresh paint brought to the room.  What do you think? Oh yes… the color is Sherwin Williams Townhall Tan SW 7690 – neutral but not boring. And in keeping with doing our 10% to green up the environment, we used Duration Home in a Matte finish – excellent coverage (only 2 coats covered the stripes), low VOC's for better interior air quality, and a very washable finish.

Making your space the best place,

Jan

Home Staging Means Clutter Control

If you were selling your car, wouldn't you want to get top dollar and detail it a little bit before showing it to the first potential buyer? Of course you would, that's just good business. What if this room is the first thing you see when entering a property for sale? Most buyers would turn around and walk the other way or make a very lowball offer.

Understandably, when facing a packing and sorting job like this one, as this home seller, you may just want to bury your head in the sand and go shopping!  Believe it or not, this is the entryway into a ground level condominium. It was also used by the seller as a home office. 

But look what happens once the items in the space were sorted, stored or discarded.  The space takes on a completely different ambiance.

By clearing away the clutter, picking up everything off the floor, finish painting the window frame, and hanging some art, this space looks welcoming, spacious.  And if the buyer wants to use it as a home office, it's organized and looks like a place that would be a productive place to work.

Making your space the best place,

Jan

Office Affair: Let’s Give’Em Something To Talk About

The home office is a must these days for both buyers and sellers. This tiny office was used by everyone in the household.  We were hired to redesign this eight square foot room just to see what we could could do with it.  Our other challenges?  There was a closet in the corner that the owners' needed full access to, a large picture window on one wall, and the entry door that was on an angle  – not  a lot of wall space for furniture placement.  

So we turned this rather utilitarian space into one the whole family could use and Mom and Dad could also monitor the kids' computer use! When this family was ready to move, all they did was remove the personal pictures from the desk and the office was staged to sell.

To learn more about staging your property for sale or using what you have to redesign you space, visit www.nakedroomsolutions.tv. Just give us your name and email address we will send you a our free Home Staging for Dummies Home Staging Resource Guide.

Until next time,

Jan

We Won “The 2010 Green Bud Award”!

August 3, 2010; St. Catharines, Ontario

CSP International Business Training Academy's President and CEO announced that Jan Saunders Maresh and Naked Room Solutions have been awarded the 2010 Green Bud Business of the Year Award. The Green Bud Award is intended to recognize a person or business that had made an effort to significantly improve and protect our environment by implementing green practices.  The recipient also demonstrated how what she has done impacts other local businesses to alter their practices to ensure the sustainability of both our environment and economy.

"This project has been a labor of love – love of our new home in Longmeadow, MA and love of the planet we live on.  I will be sharing a lot of what we have done to employ the "Green Build Practices" in updating and the remodeling process of our 1959 ranch-style home."

Jan Saunders Maresh

Sell This House



Staging Occupied Homes

We are the home staging experts in Southwest Washington and Portland, Oregon and bring the style and simplicity necessary for buyers to connect with the home and we work within your budget.As Certified Staging Professionals and home staging experts, we look at your home through the buyer’s eyes and use yourexisting furnishings and accessories to accentuate the architectural strengths of your home while minimizing its weaknesses.

Please look around our site and see what we’ve done to stage homes in Oregon and Southwest Washington. Then visit us often — we’re always adding new properties to our “Before and After” pages. Take a look at our work…

Home Staging is NOT Decorating, It’s…

• refreshing, reducing, rearranging;
• a process of preparing any home regardless of price, size or location;
• selling the space
  … not the “stuff”;
• an essential marketing tool
  to sell a home in less time and for more money.

On average, staged homes sell in half the time than non-staged homes.

Considered an indispensable marketing tool in other metropolitan areas, home staging in the Portland/Vancouver Metro Market has been confined to high-end homes …until now. With nearly 4 million homes on the market nationally, sellers MUST work harder to attract buyers.