Done in a Day

Media & In The News

To Stage or Not to Stage…

Washington Home & Garden Magazine
Early Spring 2008; Page 136

THANKS TO THE BIRTH OF HGTV and similar programming, we homeowners can get instant access to design ideas, organizational processes, and howto tips from the pros. With the help of Ty Pennington, we can install new plumbing in the powder room, and we are forever indebted to Nate Berkus for helping us select the perfect shade of teal for the guest bedroom.

With this wealth of information, we can declutter the office, install the new vanity, and faux paint the entryway all by ourselves. That’s all well and good while we’re hanging our own hats in the foyer, but what about when it’s time to sell? Do we need the help of a pro, or can we rely on our own fabulous sense of style?

Chances are, when you decided to paint the master bedroom “celery,” you probably weren’t thinking about what potential home buyers would be attracted to and/or what moods and emotions the color green evokes for the masses. Professional stagers know what sells, and they know what appeals to the largest section of the market. In other words, if you want to sell your home faster, and likely for more money, hiring a stager is a great investment.

Click here to read the full article.

Update—Don’t Renovate!
Leaves Magazine
Fall 2007; Vol.82, No.4; Page 47

This concept is not just for reality TV viewers anymore-savvy sellers in the DC Metro area are beating out their competition by taking proactive steps to update their homes.

Knowledgeable sellers and agents are familiar with the real estate basics of getting homes ready to sell—cleaning, fresh paint, removal of clutter, adequate lighting, and good furniture placement. But beyond the basics most sellers are at a loss—especially when it involves preparing outdated kitchens and bathrooms for the sale. The suggestion
of having to renovate a kitchen and/or bathroom(s) to sell the property faster, even if it means more money is enough to make most sellers run for cover.

Click here to read the full article.

Done in a Day Stages Local $4.495M Presidential Mansion in Advance of Market Re-Entry

Nixon (Ford, Wilson, Taft, JFK, LBJ . . .) Slept Here
Before or After White House, Presidents Were Just Locals
By Kirstin Downey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 16, 2007; Page C01

Elegance and sophistication in the heart of Wesley Heights. This magnificent home is located on a quiet, private
cul-de-sac in prestigious Wesley Heights and has had an incredible transformation! Once a Vice Presidential residence, this sophisticated English fieldstone Tudor home backs to Glover Archibold Park on over one-half acre.

Presidential houses might have more allure than ordinary homes, but they are susceptible to the same real estate market vagaries. The Nixon and Ford houses have attracted a lot of attention but no solid purchase offers.

The Nixon house, at 4308 Forest Lane NW, went up for sale in October for $4.75 million. In June, the Whitakers took it off the market and renovated it. They have just put it back on the block, this time at $4.495 million, with an open house Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m.

Click here to read full article.

HOME STAGER

By Susan Millar Perry
Home Magazine
June 2007

Ever wonder what makes on home sit on the market for months with nary a nibble while another gets snapped up in days? In this cooling real estate climate, house hunters can afford to be choosy, and 70 percent of them will pick out the top five properties they want to tour from online photos.

How can you ensure that your pad is on the list? Hire a home stager, a decor pro who will scrutinize your space from a buyer's perspective and bring out its strengths so it can make a great impression.

Click here to read the full article.

A Building On the A-List
Kalorama Condo Is Steeped In History -- and Celebrity

By Beth Gilbert
Special to The Washington Post
Saturday, May 19, 2007; Page F01

It can be difficult knowing where to start describing the Wyoming, a condominium in Northwest Washington's Kalorama Triangle neighborhood.

The 105-unit, early 20th-century building at 2022 Columbia Rd. NW is on the National Register of Historic Places. In

1997, its ornate beaux-arts lobby appeared in "Absolute Power," a movie starring and directed by Clint Eastwood.

Betty Friedan, author of "The Feminine Mystique," once lived there. So did George Stephanopoulos, the White House staffer turned television correspondent. Six pages of other notable residents, including Dwight D. Eisenhower and his wife, Mamie, as well as senators and House members, were included in the building's application for historic status.

There's one unit now for sale, a two-bedroom-two-bath-plus-den apartment with almost 2,200 square feet of living space, for $1 million. It's on the second floor, with southern, western and eastern exposures. "Coming home to this lobby makes me feel like I've entered an opulent oasis," said seller Evelyn Petschek, who recently retired from the Treasury Department.

Click here to read the full article.

Right At Home with Mark Livingstone
& Jennifer Murawski
NEWS TALK 630 WMAL
with Guest Caroline Carter of Done In a Day.
February 18, 2007

Part 1

Part 2

Cleveland Park home decor Done in a Day
By Beth Saltz
The Northwest Current
Wednesday, September 20, 2006

"House Smarts," a Chicago-based home improvement television show, taped an upcoming episode in Cleveland Park last week. The NBC-sponsored episode features local designer Caroline Carter, of Done in a Day, a local firm that furnishes empty houses to make them more appealing to buyers.

Carter and her team decored the home at 3403 Rodman St. in less than 24 hours. The television crew first filmed the home completely bare and returned one day later to interview Carter on her style and approach. The transformation and attention to detail are amazing. Instead of hollow and cold, the house is enchanting, with her meticulous attention to each room's decor...

[Click here to download the full article.]

Setting the stage to sell:
Local business prepares homes for market.

By Homa Mojtabai
The Northwest Current
Wednesday, March 8, 2006

Over the past few years, weary veterans of the District's frenzied housing market have seen it all: very big prices for very small spaces, waived inspections and a host of creative mortgages designed to help desperate buyers prevail in bidding wars with sky's-the-limit escalation clauses.

Even as the market settles into what some may fear - and others hope - is a slowdown, there is a trend in the local real estate scene: home staging. In Northwest Washington, at least one person is making a living from it.

[Click here to download the full article.]

'Buy This House' --- To Stand Out in a Slow Market Sellers Hang Rented Paintings; Bickering Over a Wyeth Nude
By Kelly Crow

As home sales slow in many areas and more houses linger on the market, some sellers are going to greater lengths to catch the buyer's eye -- by installing splatter paintings by emerging artists, 7-foot-tall metal sculptures, even works by Calder and Dali. It's a pronounced shift in the strategy of staging, which traditionally held that the fastest way to sell homes, and get the highest price, was to give them a toned-down, hotel-style makeover. Now, rather than merely boxing up family knick-knacks, adding a new couch or repainting the bedroom in jewel tones, stagers are experimenting with a riskier approach...

Another Done in a Day client is mentioned in the news. Read the full article and hear what Keith Saxton has to say about his experiences!
[Click here to view the full article.]

Cooling Market Lifts Lid on Old Debate
By Sandra Fleishman

Done in a Day, a relatively new entrant in the staging business, opened 2 1/2 years ago in Northwest Washington and has seen business double in the first five months of this year because of the cooling market and the heated-up competition, said Caroline Carter, president and chief executive. And she said her firm has successfully turned houses that were sitting on the market for months into open-house sales.

Carter has five design assistants, two warehouses full of furnishings and a list of workers to call on to revitalize houses going on the market. A typical three-bedroom house that needs a fresh-me-up could cost $2,000, Carter said. A vacant house of that size might run $8,000. Carter recently staged two vacant houses with about 6,000 square feet of emptiness at a charge of about $11,000 each. Sounds high, but just providing the lighting at each house took about 50 lamps.

One of Carter's customers, Patrice Pisinski, said staging helped move her three-story townhouse in Northwest closer to sale. "She basically kind of cleaned it up a little bit and rearranged it because I've got two kids and we needed to show that it had more usable space," Pisinski said. "I understand there were like 40 people that came to the open house, and we got an offer on the following Monday."

[Click here to download the full article.]

DONE IN A DAY STAGES AGAIN!

For Northwest Homes, Prices Must be Right
By Amy Longsworth
The Northwest Current

For a billion bonus points: What kind of residential property can you get for your money these days in Northwest Washington?

And the correct answer is: "How much money do you have?" In the six desirable Northwest neighborhoods I examined, prices ranged from $649,000 to upward of $8 million, while several were in a galaxy even farther away. In order to comparison shop, I had to limit the many variables. So, I made some arbitrary choices, called a couple of experts and came up with a system.

[Click here to download the full article.]

Going Through a Stage
By Daniel I. Dorfman

Kaili Harding faced a dilemma: Her husband's hitch with the U.S. Army was just about to expire, and the Hardings were planning on relocating to the Chicago area from their current home in Clarksville, Tenn. The couple needed to sell their home as quickly as possible in order to buy a new place in Chicago...

[Click here to view the full article.]

Caroline Carter of Done in a Day Interviewed by Leaves Magazine, Summer 2005!

LOCAL REAL ESTATE MARKET GOING ON STAGE
A Must for Top Dollar and Rapid Home Sales

Selling a home? You only have one chance to make a lasting first impression says Caroline Carter, founder of Done in a Day, Inc. an area home staging company. "Home staging" is more than just "accessorizing" or "re-cluttering." Rather, it emphasizes a home's best features, downplays its flaws and helps the buyer "fall in love" with the home, explains Carter, a Spring Valley resident and Miller homeowner.

[Click here to download the full article.]

Faced With a Lack of Style, Invent It
By Stephanie Cavanaugh

Alice Wilson paced the empty Capitol Hill living room. The manager of Antique and Contemporary Leasing, a company that provides furnishings and design advice for houses going on the market, pursed her lips and said, "Usually you want the bones of the room to show, but . . . "

[Click here to download the full article.]

5 slow-market strategies
It takes a little extra effort to move a home when the market has turned.
By Les Christie

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Sellers are having a harder time getting good prices for their homes. Even in the hottest markets, getting top dollar is a challenge when you don't have 20 buyers battling it out in a bidding war. Owners can take some effective -- yet inexpensive -- measures to make their property more desirable, and valuable.

Debra Gould¹, owner of Six Elements, a home-staging consultant in Toronto, consults with clients whose homes are not selling and supercharges their appeal. Her job, she says, and the job of anyone selling their home, is to make "as many people as possible fall in love with a house." How?

[Click here to download the full article.]
¹(Caroline Carter of Done in a Day was personally trained in the business of home staging by Debra Gould of Six Elements Inc.)