Home Staging TNT

If you are considering selling your home, you know you need to have it looking its best before prospective buyers come calling. Sure, the furniture and knick-knacks they see during the open house don”t come with the property. But these impressions matter, and can tilt the scales between a sale and no sale in an exceedingly tough seller”s market.
Recently, sellers and realtors have increasingly contracted the services of a professional home stager to prepare their homes for viewing. A home stager is a professional with design training that will prepare the home for sale. More than a specialized home decorator, home stagers have in-depth knowledge about buyer demographics and how to appeal to serious buyers. They are trained in how to highlight your home”s assets, while minimizing flaws or potential value detractors.
You may be thinking, “Why should I take on the added expense of a third party stager? Can”t I or my realtor spruce up my home sufficiently?” In the case of the latter, many realtors lack the time or training in how to successfully stage a home. In the case of the former, homeowners can benefit from the objective perspective a stager brings to the table. Many homeowners are unable to view their spaces without bias, while a stager can enter the situation from the perspective of a prospective buyer, and make changes accordingly.
Opening their homes to strangers can be unnerving for some people. Many home stagers will arrange to have your belongings placed in safe, self secure storage during the selling process to ensure none of your valuables are damaged or stolen during the selling process.
The value of a home stager is supported by the numbers. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) found that home staging typically costs between 1-3% of the home”s total asking price, while a staged home generates a return of 8-10%. A Home Gain Survey of more than 2,000 Realtors found that home staging provides an average of 568% return on investment.
Staged homes also sell faster, and less time on the market means a higher return for the seller. The NAR found that homes that stayed on the market for less than four weeks sold for 1% above their asking price, versus 10% below their asking price in homes on the market for 24 weeks.
With record numbers of homes on the market, every effort to separate your home from the pack may be beneficial to you. With such fierce competition from sellers, buyers are extremely particular about which home they settle on. With a professional home stager, you can relax knowing a trained professional is making your house look its absolute best, decreasing your stress level and resulting in a higher sale value.

Do you want to make more of the place where you live? Are you planning on selling your own home or perhaps helping others to sell their home? Have you considered ‘redesigning’ or ‘home staging’ your property? If you can believe what you read, ‘home staging’ or ‘redesigning’ a property will assist in the sale of the property more quickly and for more money.

Home Staging is not a new phenomenon, but has become a recognized and proven essential tool for marketing homes for sale. In other words, home staging services which will maximize the value of your property. There are many articles available that one should explore as a way of discovering new home staging strategies to help you prepare your home for a quick and profitable sale without spending more more money than is necessary.

Utilizing a little design psychology, you can profile the prospective buyers and make changes to the property to attract a specific market. Buyers can be quickly deterred by spaces that are empty and without life or rooms that are cluttered. By changing wall colors, making repairs, removing the clutter, re-arranging furniture, art and accessories, home staging could be the answer you need as it will transform your house into a home which will sell itself and which prospective buyers will be unable to resist.

Interior redesign is the instant transformation of a room by artfully rearranging the furniture, the artwork and possibly any personal accessories. The redesigning of a home is good for clients wanting to update their humble abode for their own enjoyment rather than for selling. If you plan to redesign your home, you will need to reinterpret the living spaces and your existing furnishings in your home in order to take advantage of what you already have in front of you. It requires a deep introspection into your individual needs.

Decorating is accomplished mainly from repositioning the existing furniture, revamping certain pieces, rearranging the decor, replacing or adding art and maybe incorporating other more personal accessories. Again there are many articles and good books available to inspire you and offer you advice on how to develop your home decorating ideas and if you feel the need, to restyle every room of your home.

The redesign phase of a home may include painting a few rooms and installing new carpeting. When you are ready to start with the redesign you may need to find goods or services to help you create your perfect interior. You may find that professional home decorating services typically charge less than interior designers, although some home staging professionals may also be trained interior designers.

There are many new businesses springing up for redesign and home staging. The job of professionals who specialize in home staging may be simply to assist sellers reorganize the existing furnishings. They may need to encourage them to pack those extra personal “things”, and add a few carefully selected props that suggest pleasant activities, happiness, peace and security in the home.

Sometimes all a place needs are suggestions from a professional third party. They see little things that the home owner cannot see. Nowadays there are accredited home staging specialist courses available and there are professionals who specialize in interior redesign and home staging in cities throughout the world.

More and more people are working from home today. With the current economic downturn, more people are finding ways to cut expenses. One way to do this is by creating a home office in your house instead of renting or leasing an office space in a business building. This is also a great way to stay at home if you have a family or are ill and cannot leave the house. There are also others who are interested in selling their home and want to maximize their chances of selling their property in the first few weeks of it being on the market. Whatever your reason for creating a home office, it is very important that this space in your home look its best at all times. Home offices are extremely popular and are proven to give the extra push at time of sale. The following home staging ideas below can guide you when creating this exciting space in your home.

Step 1 De-clutter the space When we work from our home office, we often times find ourselves living in this space too. Everything from food packaging, magazines, clothing, shoes and other items that do not belong in this office seem to be taking up this space. Before you start staging any room, remove all the clutter. Get rid of trash, extra books, papers and other items that can be stored away in cabinets.

Step 2 Clean up- After you have removed the extra clutter in the home office, proceed with cleaning the room. Grab the vacuum from the closet and pass it around a few times if the room is carpet. If it is not, clean the floors with a floor cleaner that is safe and environmentally friendly. Clean the windows and add some shine to any wooden furniture in the room. Again, use household cleaning products free of harmful chemicals. Get rid of any spider webs in the ceiling or blinds. Dust the blinds and any shelves. Stack your library books neatly and water your plants.

Step 3 Eliminate extra junk- Keep as little in the home office as possible. Clear everything out of the room and choose which items are important to have in the office. The less you have the more appealing it will be. Do not overwhelm potential home buyers with too much stuff in the home office. Buyers are known to sit down and test out the area. Make sure they feel comfortable and can easily determine if they like your simple, yet clean space.

Step 4 Set up the room- If this room did not exist before and youre starting from scratch and are buying new furniture, choose a medium-sized table/desk with a great looking directors chair. Add a writing pad, desk calendar, a container for writing tools and a desk lamp. To complete the home office stage, add a picture frame or wall art to one of the walls.

If you are thinking about putting your house on the market and dont already have a home office in your home, consider adding this space immediately. Turn an extra room, basement or attic into a work environment. Home offices are proven to give the extra push at time of sale. If you do own a home office and are planning to sell and need to update this room, follow the home staging tips above to make this happen.

Home staging is a concept that is catching on fast in the UK, especially in expensive cities like London. It essentially means furnishing and dressing of a property by the landlord or seller to increase its marketing potential. This also helps to get a better price for the property, so the cost of renting furniture In addition, you normally recover the cost of home staging through an improved price.

There are many benefits of home staging in London, besides improving the rate of the property by as much as 10-15 per cent. A staged home also forms a fantastic initial impression in the buyer’s or tenant’s mind, thus enhancing the chances of the deal being closed soon. You can also advertise a staged home through print, television or the internet.

When planning to go in for showroom interior design, keep the marketing period flexible, till at least three months. Experts recommend not removing the rented furniture from the property until contracts have been exchanged and signed, which can take some time. The marketing period can be extended, if need be, on a month-on-month basis.

Home staging London requires a lot of thought and a knack for interiors. You need to think like a tenant and then design your home in a way that exudes positive vibes, while taking their attention away from the negative aspects, if any. This includes adding stylish but sparse furniture, basic kitchenware, and plants in and around the house. Just make sure they haven’t wilted away! Keep your house clutter-free and remove all personal belongings, no matter how much you prize them. Also, budget should be kept in mind at all times, so you don’t end up spending more than you can recover.

Furniture rental for showroom interior design includes a variety of options besides general furniture. You can also choose from bathroom accessories, kitchenware, linen and even electronics like televisions and DVD players. In short, everything one would need in a house, to make it complete.

Putting a home for rent or sale is a tough decision, especially if you’ve lived in the place for a long time. This is why you should ensure through proper home staging that the next occupant of the house also feels the same positive energy and feels a connection with the place. The landlord has to make an effort to change the property into someone else’s dream home.

You can browse through home staging London packages at emblemfurniture.co.uk, where you will find anything and everything you’re looking for, within your budget. Check out their exciting range of furniture and furnishings and get ready to make your property fetch you the best rates!

Is risk assessment rocket science? No of course it isn’t.
Health and safety law requires that you carry out recorded,documented risk assessments for work,jobs,tasks or operations with significant risk, if you have more than five employees. The people involved should be included and their input valued, include,engage,embrace your workforce in the safety culture. The results and any changes required should be cascaded,communicated to everyone in the workforce, do not leave information in a file to rot.
I have never done a risk assessment! Of course you have, if you drive a vehicle,car,bike, you perform one at every junction, (I hope), looking both,each ways before driving on, if it is clear to do so. If you cross a street,road,highwayon foot you do the same thing, look both ways before you walk,step out.
Risk assessment is 90% common sense, clean up mess,spillages, repair leaks, dont leave draws open for people to walk into. No trailing cables,wires. Specialist information,knowledge of machinery, production,processes or chemicals,products will,may be needed, so make sure you have this advice when you need it.
Your business’s most valuable asset are employees,staff,workforce, so it makes business sense as well as legal, moral sense to protect them.
It is impossible to eliminate all risk and the law would not expect you to, you are required to do what is reasonably practicable. The definition of this is, what an open minded, reasonable person would expect to be in place. Sometimes referred to in legalise The man on the Clapham Omnibus, but you can Google that yourself.
The Definition of Risk Assessment
A thoughtful,thorough examination of hazards in the workplace and the controls in place to protect people who may visit the workplace
What controls are in place? Review and make changes if necessary.
Did you know?
o 245 people in the UK are killed at work each year not including road related deaths
o There are 30,000 work related serious injuries every year, 1 every 17 minutes o 137,000 people in the UK were injured or killed in work related incidents last year
o 2 million people in the UK believe their illness to be caused or made worse by work
o 25,000 leave work every year never to return o 38.5 million working days are lost in the UK through injury or ill health each year which is a 30 billion annual cost to businesses
Did you know?
o The average fine for successful prosecution by the HSE was 18,765 in 2004 and this is not covered by insurance!
Five Stages of Risk Assessment
Stage 1 Hazard Identification
Pretend you are new and look at everything with a fresh view, is what you record reasonable or should changes be made.
Everyone in the workplace will have an opinion, seek them out and evaluate their comments.
Manufacturer data sheets are an excellent resource for hazard information on machinery and chemicals. Use them as a reference for your risk assessments.
Information that is already in your business’s possession may also be useful, like accident and ill health records, they can often identify hazards which are less obvious.
Not all hazards are immediately obvious, noise and exposure to dust for instance may not manifest themselves for some years.
Step 2 Who is at risk and how?
Compile a list of all persons,individuals who may be at risk then you will be able to manage it. You may need to consider them as groups rather than as individuals.
Descriptions of harm are needed, type of injury, e.g. repetitive tasks like on a production line. There are special requirements for some groups of workers like young people, pregnant women, disabled persons.
Extra thought will be needed for some hazards workers in particular disciplines such as cleaners, visitors, contractors, maintenance workers etc, may not be in the workplace all the time. Also consider members of the public if they could be hurt by your activities. If you share your workplace, you will need to think about how your work affects others present, as well as how their work affects your staff ” talk to them and ask your staff if they can think of anyone you may have missed.
Step 3 Evaluate the risks and decide on precautions
There are Approved Codes of Practice available from the HSE which are taken to be industry best practice. What are you going to do about the hazards, everything reasonably practicable is the answer.
Is what you are doing sufficient? Use the ACOPs to measure your performance.
Use the ERICPD acronym to check that you Eliminate, Reduce, Isolate, Control, PPE (personal protective equipment), Discipline of the workforce to work correctly
Step 4 Record your findings and implement them
All findings should be written down, kept simple and not too elaborate. For example ‘Tripping over rubbish bins provided’, Staff instructed, Housekeeping checks now in place weekly. Welding fume, local exhaust ventilation used and inspected regularly
Risk assessments need to, be sufficient and suitable, they are rarely perfect, but need to evaluate the hazard properly.
You need to be able to show
o a proper check was made
o who might be affected
o the significant hazards are controlled
o all people potentially involved
o precautions are reasonable
o staff were involved
o the remaining risk is low
Dont try to do everything at once. Make a plan of action to deal with the most important things first. Health and safety inspectors acknowledge the efforts of businesses that are clearly trying to make improvements.
o Quick fixes
o Medium and long term goals
o Training
Step 5 Review your risk assessment and update if necessary
Review at least annually
Nothing stays the same
o Changes
o Improvements
o Any near misses or accidents
o Ask the workers if everything is OK
o If you know there has been a change review immediately
Some frequently asked questions (Courtesy of HSE Web Site)
What if the work I do tends to vary a lot, or I (or my employees) move from one site to another?
Identify the hazards you can reasonably expect and assess the risks from them. This general assessment should stand you in good stead for the majority of your work. Where you do take on work or a new site that is different, cover any new or different hazards with a specific assessment. You do not have to start from scratch each time.
What if I share a workplace?
Tell the other employers and self-employed people there about any risks your work could cause them, and what precautions you are taking. Also, think about the risks to your own workforce from those who share your workplace.
Do my employees have responsibilities?
Yes. Employees have legal responsibilities to co-operate with their employers efforts to improve health and safety (e.g. they must wear protective equipment when it is provided), and to look out for each other.
What if one of my employees circumstances change?
Youll need to look again at the risk assessment. You are required to carry out a specific risk assessment for new or expectant mothers, as some tasks (heavy lifting or work with chemicals for example) may not be appropriate. If an employee develops a disability then you are required to make reasonable adjustments. People returning to work following major surgery may also have particular requirements. If you put your mind to it, you can almost always find a way forward that works for you and your employees.
What if I have already assessed some of the risks?
If, for example, you use hazardous chemicals and you have already assessed the risks to health and the precautions you need to take under the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations (COSHH), you can consider them checked and move on.