What IS that smell?!
I cover a lot of territory during my day-to-day. Checking progress on houses that I’m helping to renovate. Reviewing homes that are in the process of being staged. Meeting new clients. Going by a store to check on fabrics, wallpaper or furnishings for a project. Those trips carry me back and forth across our entire community.
Because I work with so many Realtors, I’m constantly noticing For Sale signs in front yards. And, because I may travel the same route multiple times, I notice the fresh signs when they pop up on a new listing. I also notice the signs that linger when the property doesn’t sell.
There are many reasons a house stays on the market month after month. Price can be a factor. Marketing can be one. Location can be a reason. Some reasons are both difficult to determine and equally difficult to remedy.
Recently, I ran across an article that details some reasons a house might be lingering on the market. And most of these reasons can be easily pin-pointed and remedied.
Home not selling? Here are 10 ways you’re turning off prospective buyers.
Take a read. And, if your home is in this “lingering” category, talk to your Realtor. And give me a call.
Lyn
(502) 762-6449
You can work with a pro. Or someone who isn’t. Why spend the money?
I’ve been designing interiors, staging and providing renovation designs to my clients for a long time. There are a lot of things I’ve learned. Most of it is about what works in a home or a room and what doesn’t. I’ve learned how to handle unusual situations. I’ve learned to manage my time and the costs of a project. One of things I’ve learned that I’m most proud of is what is important in 
every situation. And what isn’t. That’s how I keep happy, repeat clients.
Something that I’m still working on is how to help prospective clients understand the value of what I offer. So often, it’s simply about money. They think. But I know better how much is really involved. I have to explain so that a new client’s expectations are in line with reality. In the end, we’re both happier that way.
Recently, I came across an article that describes, “Why You Might Want to Work With an Interior Design Pro.” It’s a clear, concise list of the advantages of working with someone such as me. Click on the link and read. I learned something. So will you, I’ll bet. Then, let’s talk. Experience matters.
Kitchen Trends – First Question. What is important to you?
I renovate a lot of kitchens for clients. We discuss what they don’t like about the old kitchen. That leads to a discussion describing their dream kitchen. Colors, counter-tops, appliances, cabinet 
styles and layout become part of the conversation. So does the question about how they plan to live in their new kitchen.
Recently, I came across an article by Michelle Slatalla in the WSJ. She writes, “Why Kitchen Islands Are Ruining America’s Kitchens.”
“Ruining” is strong language. I don’t agree with that, especially since islands are, in my experience, a very popular item in the kitchens I work on. My kitchen has an island.
But there are also kitchens I’ve designed as well as those of friends’ that don’t have an island. They use a kitchen table. And some kitchens have both an island and a kitchen table.
As with all rooms, I renovate kitchens for people that encompass any number of trends, old and new. Why? Because I make the kitchen what my clients want it to be. Remember one of my 
favorite quotes?
“I want every home to reflect the best most interesting version of the people who live there.” – Frances Merrill. You read that quote whenever you go to my website. It guides my way of seeing, my way of designing and my way of renovating. It guides my way of serving you.
Are you thinking that it’s time for your kitchen to “better reflect the best most interesting version” of you? Let’s pull up a chair, a cup of coffee and talk about your dreams. Give me a call.
Articles on kitchen trends:
- Beautiful Home & Garden – https://www.bhg.com/kitchen/remodeling/planning/timeless-kitchen-trends/
- House & Home – https://houseandhome.com/gallery/top-10-kitchen-trends-for-2018/
- Houselogic – https://www.houselogic.com/by-room/kitchen/9-kitchen-trends-that-cant-go-wrong/
- Decorators Wisdom – http://decoratorswisdom.com/decor/interior-design-trends/2018-kitchen-trends/
For the Love of a Rescue Dog
You only have to spend a few minutes with me to know my deep love of animals, especially dogs, and especially my dog, Galen. Thanks to The Voice-Tribune for including me in this post about Greater Louisville Women’s Council of Realtors and our love of rescues. We were so pleased to participate in Hats Off for Derby on April 12, which benefits Louisville’s Animal Care Society. Hats off to DOGS! Check out the story here.
Check Out This Amazing Kitchen, Bathroom & Hallway Renovation!
This was a really FUN project! Check out the before and after photos here and click here for a video detailing part of the transformation! What a remarkable difference! My team is the absolute BEST!
Living Spaces By Lyn Transforms a Germantown Home – From Bare Bones to BEAUTIFUL!
It didn’t start out pretty, but check out this cute shotgun in Germantown …. completely gutted, renovated and furnished with the help of the Living Spaces team. Artist Mike Stevens and his wife Melissa purchased it as an investment early last year and asked us to help.
Mike did much of the rehab work himself ( all of the artwork is his ) and We purchased all of the furniture in one trip to Ikea. … fun! See the Finished Product Here. What a transformation!
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Color Challenges for Open Floor Plan Homes
Walk into a home with an open floor plan and you can often see up to four rooms at once. Picking the right color for each of those rooms can be a challenge.
Here are some interesting ideas of how to approach this challenge by Donna Frasca. They’re very similar to my own.
How To Choose Color For Open Floor Plans
Do you still have questions about your particular situation? Let’s talk…
Lyn
Living Spaces Earns Best of Houzz Award 2018
For the fourth year in a row, Living Spaces by Lyn has earned the Best of Houzz Award for Customer Service. Thank you for your confidence in our team!
StyleBlueprint Names Living Spaces By Lyn in The Best Home Resources in Louisville
Friends, I’m so flattered to have been included in StyleBlueprint’s recent article about the best home resources in Louisville! Read the article here.
Living Spaces By Lyn is Among the Top 18 of 135 Interior Designers in Louisville – Second Year in a Row!
Friends – I’m once again honored to have been selected as one of the top 18 interior designers in Louisville! Living Spaces was selected based on the following criteria: reputation, credibility, experience, availability and professionalism! I love my team – I love what we do! Read the article here.
Be Bold: Style Your Home with Colors, Patterns & Textures
(Style Blueprint) I’m so flattered to have been interviewed by Style Blueprint for this article about designing with bold colors, patterns and textures. Design can be daunting, but once you’ve determined the focal point of the space (or Queen), things come together beautifully. Read the full article here.
Six Easy Projects to Personalize a Cookie-Cutter Home
(Houselogic) You’ll love these easy and inexpensive ways to make your cookie-cutter home reflect your personal style. 
Read the article here
Pros and Cons of 5 Popular Kitchen Flooring Materials
There are some things to consider when you’re choosing a floor for your new kitchen. The article here is a good one to read when you are making that decision.
Living Spaces by Lyn keeps these considerations in mind when choosing floors for new kitchens as well as baths and other room. Does it sound confusing? Not to worry. Give Lyn a call.
Ten Reasons Why You Should Stage Your Next Listing
(By Audra Slinkey, Home Staging Resource) Friends, when it comes right down to it, there is no good reason to NOT stage your home prior to listing it!
Read about the ten reasons here
Five Easy Home Staging Tips that Transform Your Home
(Home Staging Newswire) Simple things make a huge difference, and you don’t have to break the bank. Staging sells! Read the article here.
F
ive Surprising Ways to Transform a Room – Without Purchasing New Furniture
(The Decorologist) Friends, there are easy ways to transform a room without breaking the bank. A color change here, a new light fixture there, some colorful textiles and accessories, and you’re on your way to a completely refreshed space! Check out more ways here.
New Trends in Bathroom & Kitchen Tile
(MyDomaine
) I get carried away when looking at new tile and envisioning how it will change a bathroom or kitchen. Here are some trends for 2018. Good news: you can step away from subway tile! Read more here
A+ Rating With Better Business Bureau
Friends, take a look at reviews from satisfied clients! I LOVE what I do! See Client Reviews Here
Home Office Designs – Get Ready to be 
Wowed
Get ready to be wowed by these very cool home office designs. Your home office is, well, in your home. Don’t you want it to reflect the style of the rest of your home while providing a creative space to work? Click here to read more
The Magic…or Miss…of Virtual Staging
Living Spaces by Lyn works with many Realtors to stage homes that are about to go on the market. They want these homes to sell quickly and for top dollar.
Whether a home is occupied or empty, large or small, new or historic, staging makes a lot of sense. As a matter of fact, the National Association of Realtors believes that staging makes so much sense that they’ve actually broken their argument into 10 reasons to stage a listing.
10 Reasons Why You Should Stage Your Next Listing by Audra Slinkey
(Listen up, home owners! If your home is going on the market and your Realtor is not talking about staging, ask them, “Why not?”)
Staging takes two forms. Staging for occupied homes and staging for empty homes. That’s right. Staging makes just as good sense for an empty home, or even more, than staging an occupied home. Why? Because an empty home lacks warmth and a feeling of affection. Potential buyers need the imagination to envision how rooms could be furnished. How they could live in home that is sitting empty. Just as important, shapes and colors bring out the charms of a space. All of this is important to properly market the house.
I received an email recently with an ad from a company that provides “virtual staging.” They take pictures provided by a Realtor of empty rooms in a listing. Using a computer, they add furnishings into the picture, “staging” it.
Their argument for this is that “90% of home buyers begin their home search online and the photos are the first impression that potential clients will have of your listing.”
I agree with that. That’s why I always recommend that my clients use professional photographers for their listing pictures. But here is where “virtual staging” misses the entire point of staging.
Imagine that a prospective buyer sees these wonderful pictures online. They set up an appointment and come to the house. The Realtor opens the door. The client walks in. The room is empty. It echoes. Nothing in the home helps them imagine their family in that house. The favorable impression they got from the listing pictures evaporates like smoke.
Re-read why the National Association of Realtors recommends staging so highly. None of that applies to “virtual staging.”
Then give me a call. Let’s talk about making your listing the best it can be when it goes on the market.
“Not staging your home in the current housing market is like leaving money on the table.” – Audra Slinkey/ President of the Home Staging Resource
Seven Home Remodeling Projects with Maximum Return on Investment
(Houselogic) Friends, here is a great article about seven popular home remodeling projects and the return you can expect on your investment. A GREAT way to prioritize and plan! Read the article here.
Let Go of Things: Create a Space that Nourishes
Friends – I’m so flattered to have been chosen for an article in Today’s Woman online magazine! Check it out here …
Great Article About the Cost of Popular Kitchen Upgrades
Friends, here is a great article about the cost of popular kitchen upgrades. Click here to read the article.
The Struggle for Young Homebuyers
(CNNMoney) It’s going to be an intense house-hunting season — especially for young buyers.
After years of many experts lamenting how Millennials weren’t interested in becoming homeowners, it turns out many are actually diving in. But they’re facing a lot of competition.
Millennials are the largest group of homebuyers, according to Ellie Mae, a software company that analyzes mortgage data. In January, Millennials represented around 45% of all purchase loans, up from 42% the same month in 2016.
My top styling secrets are inspired by two quotes I love …
- “I want to make every home reflect the best, most interesting version of the people who live there.” – Frances Merrill
- “The desire for symmetry, for balance, for rhythm in form as well as in sound, is one of the most inveterate of human instincts.” – Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman, Jr.
Here are the styling secrets that help guide me!
- Whether the project involves a single room or an entire home, I include cherished objects from my clients. Family mementos, items from their travels, or something they found that they just love is included in my design scheme.
Include cherished objects - To create my color scheme, I always start with something in my client’s home that “speaks” to them. It may be a favorite rug, a piece of art, or the fabric from a piece of furniture, for example.
A piece of art can set the color scheme - I encourage my clients to ignore the rules. Gather things you love around you. Mix styles and shapes. Organize and display these objects to create symmetry and balance. This may include colors, furniture, metals in hardware, or styles of lighting. Never hesitate to mix the old with the new and the bold with the subtle.
Ignore the rules When you look at a design project for your home, these are all important considerations to help guide you through the process of coming up with a room that will really impress. But, it’s easier said than done. I know. I’ve been at this a long time.
Do you have an idea for your home? Start with my two favorite quotes and the 3 secrets I’ve shared. Would you like to discuss them with an experienced designer? Contact me. I’d be happy to sit with you to work things out.
The following is a great blog post from one of my staging colleagues and mentors (Kristie Barnett, The Decorologist) about the power of color. Cheers!
I’ve been saying it for years now – the right staging colors increase the sales price of homes on the market. I believe it and have built my business on it!
Tomorrow is the first day of the Expert Psychological Stager™ certification course that I developed after a decade of staging homes to sell quickly and for top dollar. After this weekend, that will make over 130 home stagers that have trained under me in my unique method of Psychological Staging. Our course offers the most specific and proven paint color instruction for staging in the business. I say that with all confidence, because IT’S TRUTH.
Last year, a well-known home stager publicly said something like: “Anyone can do paint color – all you have to do is choose one of the paint company’s Color of the Year and you’re good.” I probably shouldn’t put that in quotes, but that’s the gist of what she stated regard to the need (or lack thereof) of color instruction for staging. Wow, is she ever underestimating the power of staging colors!
Zillow just put out a study that confirms what I’ve known all along – the right paint colors increase sales prices of homes. Zillow’s 2017 Paint Color Analysis looked at more than 32,000 photos from sold homes around the country to see how certain paint colors impacted their sale price on average. You can read all about the particulars here, but these are some high points:
STAGING COLORS COUNTS:
Houses with bathrooms painted light blue sell for more (over 5K!), while those painted white sell for less (-4K).
Houses with dining rooms painted gray-blue or dark blue sell for more (+2K), while those with red walls sell for less (-2K).
color design by The Decorologist
Houses with living rooms painted beige or oatmeal (greige) sell for more (+1.8K), while those painted blue sell for less (-800).
Houses with kitchens that are soft blue or gray-blue sell for more (+1.8K), while houses with yellow kitchens sell for less (-800).
color design by The Decorologist
Exteriors painted greige sell for more (+1.5K), while those painted taupe or brown sell for less (-2K).
I know what you’re thinking: WHICH light blue? WHICH greige? etc. There are millions of colors to choose from, but I teach my EPS™ stagers EXACTLY which staging colors to use and where to use them.
As you might imagine, I’m both excited and anxious to meet the 15 women in our sold-out training course! We will be staging a historic bed-n-breakfast near Music Row in Nashville, and it’s going to be amazing. Just look at this beauty!
Yes, the exterior is a dream, but the interior has some challenges for us to face. But we are up for the challenge!!! The September EPS™ course already has 5 people signed up (the class maximum is 15). It’ll be our last one for 2017, so be sure to secure your spot soon if you want to join this elite group of home stagers with all the paint color knowledge needed to sell homes for more money!
Check Out Our Houzz Page
We’re still working on our blog page. For an extensive library of idea books, blogs, resources, reviews and photos of my work, visit us on:
interior design
Getting your home to look and feel exactly the way you want can be easy when you have Lyn on your side.
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renovation
Renovating a home should start with a design that aligns with the homeowners needs and style, we can help with this.
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“I moved into the home of my dreams—lots of light and high ceilings. Having known Lyn for decades, I asked her to come over and help me with my decorating. I turned over all my artwork and travel memorabilia, which had been collected over my lifetime, and just asked her to “arrange it.” I wanted my personality to be revealed in my home decor and Lyn achieved that. Yes, I do confess and give her the credit.” – Kathy G. / Nashville, TN
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