Home Staging Pennsylvania- Hart & Associates Servicing the Main Line, Philadelphia, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery Counties.

I have decided to challenge myself over the next thirty days to capture the realities of what it is like to be a home staging professional, an entrepreneur, a small business owner, and a working mom. As many of you know, I love to write and use my blog as a way to work out the problems I encounter in the daily task of balancing the above. I hope that this diary will be useful not only to those considering a staging career but also to other small business owners on this site (Realtors, Mortgage Professionals etc) and working Mom's (and Dad's too). I was inspired to do this by all the warm and wonderful comments from the Stage it Forward Group. I have always been a writer but never had a place to share it. So hopefully some of you will enjoy the daily drama that is my life. 

Sunday May 20th:

9:32 a.m A family that stages together stays together: At least that is what I tell myself. For the 3rd Sunday in  a row I load up my car and my husband loads up the kids and we caravan to the storage unit 20 minutes away. I have a car full of staging props for an upcoming job and I am way too bone tired to unload the car myself so Chris has offered to help me unpack so we can go home and attend to other things we need to accomplish today- Like grocery shopping, paying bills and weeding the garden and oh yeah spending time with the kids.

11:07 The car is unloaded and we have decided to repack the car and bring some small furniture items home to the basement since they are taking up valuable storage space. My kids have now watched 2 dvds in the back of Chris' car- I hope what they say about too much TV is not true- at least they were outside (sort of) and watching somewhat educational movies. My Mom Guilt nags at me on the way home as I call the team to check in for tomorrow's destaging.

12:34 We unloaded the car and I got the boys lunch and then down for the their naps- thank God they still sleep. Maybe I can convince them to do this until they are 21! I hop  in the shower. I have a staging presentation to give at an active adult community.

2:08 I am in the car on the way to the presentation when I get a call from a Realtor sitting an open house for a home I just staged. She tells me that she entered the home and the mirror had fallen over in the dining room and has shattered all over the floor. Can I please come over and clean it up? Yikes. I do not want to be late for the presentation. I had built in enough time to return some items to Homegoods on my way there but I guess I can do that on the way home.

2:19 I pull into the driveway for the open house and there are 3 people there- Thankfully I had a mirror and some candle sticks and a bowl I was going to return. I unload the car and as gracefully as possible in heels and linen slack carry the mirror past the people into the home- I am sure they had no idea what I was doing. DOn't we all bring a mirror with us when we look at homes?

2:27 I have cleaned up the glass- it was not just the mirror but also 3 apothecary jars that were broken- Seems like someone may have bumped into the table? Or was it the train tracks 30 feet from the dining room that made the walls shake and the mirror fall? Note to self- include trains and big hips in the next contract.

2:42 I am on the expressway and there is tons of traffic- 3 local schools have graduation today. I begin to practice the presentation in my mind. Intro, Exterior of home, Interior of home...

2:57 I arrive just on time and I am pleased to see that 7 people are waiting for me- last weekend only 2 came. Would you really want to sit in a rec room on a 70 degree day in May to hear about how to prepare your home? I cheerfully enter the room and greet my guests. I love active adults- they have so many questions about what buyers want and some great stories to tell.

4:23 The presentation and Q& A is done and the builder and sales department is thrilled. They take some brochures to give to potential clients. I got my marketing done for the week. I am off to Home Goods.

5:17 I am $432.00 richer- well actually now there is $432.00 less on my credit card. I had a staging cancel so I returned an area rug, an end table, an ottoman and various plants. I was going to keep them but given the lack of space in the storage unit I decided to return them.

5:44 I run into to Genuardis to grab some diapers,dog food, garlic bread and slimfast. Tonight I am attempting family dinner. My 5 year old has relented to eating pasta with butter and salt and I want to make sure we eat together at least once this month.

6:38 Just as  I am setting the food out on the patio it begins to rain! So much for getting some fresh air. We squeeze around the kitchen island and Nicholas pronounces the pasta with butter the best he has ever had.

9:01 Sopranos is on. There is nothing like violence, dysfunctional families and Italian Food to end my weekend. Now I can relax. More work tomorrow.