decorating

Can’t find pillows in colors that you need or want in your price range? In the words of Tim Gunn – “Make It Work!”  You don’t have to make the pillows from scratch, simply upgrade solid pillows and make them fabulous.

I was in the need of accent pillows for a brown and red room, to be used in an upcoming home staging project. But I was having zero luck finding pillows at local stores.  So when I stumbled upon a window panel at a local retailer, the wheels started turning.

I filled my favorite shopping bag with a pair of red pillows and this great window panel (in the discount section of course) with my project in my head . My idea was to sew a panel of fabric onto each pillow. Fortunately, I inherited a metal Singer machine from my aunt some years ago, and I was not afraid to use it! Away we go!

My vintage sewing machine – still works great!

The fabric is bright and colorful but needed to be ironed.   After I ironed out the folds, I decided to cut the pieces in 4” by 7” strips to lay on the red pillows. Since I couldn’t sew fabric directly on the pillow covers with the machine, I used the machine to neatly hem the sides of the patterned fabric. The last picture is of the two patterned pieces, after the edges were sewn.

My chosen fabric, prepping it for sewing, then the finished panels.

After the fabric was sewn, I took a needle and thread and hand tacked the fabric to each pillow cover.  I didn’t realize it at the time of purchase, but having pillows with a zipper closure made things much easier.  It would have been harder to affix the patterned fabric to the pillows without removing the inserts.  Not impossible, but harder.

Voila,  a pair of brightly colored pillows, perfect for the staging project.  I think my grandmother and late Aunt Gloria would be proud.

The final pair!

And here are the pillows as we used them in the space!

Another one under contract in 2 weeks – in January!  We did it again!

Here is our ‘blank’ palate…recently remodeled rowhouse in NW DC.

Empty family room, view into kitchen and back wall of first level.

Great space, lots of natural light and lighting added to brighten up the first floor. We added our furniture and colors to make the space shine!

Staged Family Room

Staged Family Room into Kitchen

Staged Eat-in Kitchen

Upstairs we tackled the master bedroom with the featured bay window and large open space, as shown in the before pictures:

Staged Master Bedroom

We are so excited to hear this property was under contract in under 2 weeks! If you have a vacant home in the DC area, call us to move it from “For Sale” to Sold!

Last year, most of the properties we staged were inside the DC city lines but a realtor recently reminded us of a ranch home that we staged successfully in 2011.  Here are some great pictures of a ranch home in Silver Spring, where we used some of the sellers furniture and added our own to finish out the space. And a bonus – this one we had work done on the yard too!!

Curb Appeal Matters!

When we arrived for our staging preview, we were greeted with this very dated front yard. Well corner of the yard.

Can you see past the white rocks? the dead hanging plants? We felt like this yard was telling buyers that everything inside the house was old and dated too.   My go-to gardener was able to rework the space and it turned out much easier on the eyes.

Now you barely even notice the space that was an eyesore before. Now come on in!

Dressing up the Kitchen

Next up was the kitchen. The kitchen was sort of a weird configuration and it was hard to tell exactly how a family might live in the space.

We wanted to show a family could feel comfortable in this space, and not fall on top of each other.

I think we accomplished that!

Using sellers furniture in the living and dining rooms

So the seller had moved out most of the furniture but left a few large pieces in the dining room and nothing in the living room. And the furniture was antique and traditional and VERY heavy.

Notice how heavy the furniture is and how the china cabinet is hindering the table from being centered under the chandelier? Well we did and made some moves. Here is the final product

We were able to find a place to use all of the furniture that was available and keep to the scale of the room. And now the chandelier can shine above the table like it was meant to!