From The Client's Perspective... Dee Whittington, HomeOwner

Most people think of Just Perfect! Home Staging + More when they want to sell a home, but in my case, I used their Redesign service to help make my new condo feel more like home. My husband and I recently moved downtown to a furnished condominium. We love our new location and our new space, but it lacked the warmth and personality I wanted it to reflect. Unsure of how to achieve my end goal with the existing furnishings and a limited budget, I turned to Jessica Pirone of Just Perfect! for professional assistance.

Despite a small budget and a tight deadline (I wanted to finish in less than four days since I planned to entertain guests on Day 5!), Jessica was up for the challenge. I couldn’t believe how she knew just where to find exactly what I wanted. She helped me select a few key items that were both multi-functional and suited to the space; she even negotiated a better price on a great piece of furniture that would have otherwise broken my budget. That was something I wouldn’t have dared to do on my own!

Back at our condo, Jessica defined different areas (living, dining, etc.) in the open loft space while somehow making the room feel even larger than before; she has such a great eye! Had I tried to tackle this project on my own, I know I would have spent a lot more money and a lot more time, still ending up with results that wouldn’t have been nearly as pleasing to me.

Our guests were also impressed with our new condo and its sophisticated, metropolitan feel; they said it felt like being in New York City. They never would have guessed that we created such a professional look on a limited budget in just four days.

— Dee Whittington, Homeowner

Holiday Decorating on a Dime - Part 3 Table Centerpieces

To continue my quest for inexpensive, versatile holiday decor, we will move on to the table centerpiece. Some might find a centerpiece daunting. I know I certainly do when I head to the family gathering for turkey day to find something worthy of Martha Stewart's Top 10 Beautiful Centerpieces of All Time sitting on my husband's aunt's dining room table. But for the layman, those of us that can't fathom something that takes more than 15 minutes to throw together, I offer up the decorative bowl with ________ decor (insert pertinent holiday here). The goal here is to find a bowl, platter, or tray that, as I like to put it, "speaks" to you. Find something that you'll enjoy at your table year round and garnish it with fruit or candles or the like.

When a holiday comes calling, Thanksgiving for instance, empty the platter or bowl and fill it with squash, little pumpkins, and gourds or your favorite fall flower. At Christmas, fill the bowl with pinecones and holly or christmas ornament balls. Place a coordinating table runner or placemat under the piece for added flare. Beautiful centerpieces don't have to cost a lot of money or time. A little creativity goes a long way. Something as simple as a mirror with some scattered marbles and a flower vase or a variety of candles can be stunning. The key to putting together a great centerpiece is planning it out WELL before your guests arrive. Set up the table, photograph several different variations of what you're trying to do and decide on a favorite scheme. Save the photo somewhere that you can access it on party day so you remember all the details that made you love it to begin with.

From The Client's Perspective... Samm Jernigan, Jernigan Homes

"As a professional homebuilder, I learned the hard way that furnishing model homes is time-consuming and costly. In addition buying all of the furniture for a model a home, we had to deal with transporting it, cataloguing it, packing it, storing it, and transporting it again.

Just Perfect! Home Staging + More solved all of those problems for us. Just Perfect! rents items to us from their inventory, so we don’t have to buy furnishings, worry about transportation and storage, or waste resources trying to track and catalog inventory. In addition, Jessica has a real talent for staging spaces to highlight the best features of a home. The furnishings and accessories she selects don’t compete with our construction, yet they are such a great enhancement, several clients have asked to buy our homes fully furnished, just like the model. (They can; Just Perfect! takes care of it.)

As a business owner, staging makes a lot of sense: it has simultaneously helped us to contain costs and increase profits. Most importantly, it allows me to concentrate on what I do best. I highly recommend the staging process, and Jessica Pirone of Just Perfect!, in particular."

— Samm Jernigan, Homebuilder

The "+ More" of Just Perfect! Home Staging + More

Here at Just Perfect! our primary focus is staging homes (and businesses) to help them sell (or rent) fast + for top dollar. However, there is a reason for the "+ More" in our full name - "Just Perfect! Home Staging + More."

We offer a number of other services including:

• Color Consultations (paint, flooring,...)

• Redesign for your home or business (where we use what you have to create a new look for your home in a day)

• Holiday Decorating (furniture placement and decorating for any holiday)

• Project Coordination (For the projects you've been wanting to have done but haven't had time to do yourself or meet with contractors... we take it off your hands so the job gets done without you having to find the time.)

• New Home Set-Up (moving to a new home? we can come set everything up for you so it looks great in the new space!)

• Shopping Buddy (Don't know where to go to find what you want? We shop all the time and can cut your shopping time in half by taking you to the best spots to get what you're looking for and helping you find just the right piece, at the right price.)

• + More (still!)

Perfectly At Home - Part 1 Walking the Walk

I sat in my living room one afternoon after I’d worked with Just Perfect for a while, looked around, and started to think about all the changes, improvements and updates we would have to make before putting our house on the market. We’re not interested in selling right now, but it occurred to me that a LOT of work would have to be put into to prepping our house for sale. That’s not to say I don’t like our home and its décor. I do. I love it actually. I designed and decorated every inch, so it stands to reason that I would think it’s fabulous. (Let me also say that while I totally love it, nothing is ever truly “done” in my mind. Every project is a work in progress and nothing is ever truly finished. Things can always be better. Time and money often get in the way of my masterpieces, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have big plans swimming around in my head.) Just like any first time homeowners, we were eager to finally have a place we could customize and upgrade to our liking. We (and by we, I mean I) painted every room with bold, cozy colors and found unique ways to display a lot of firefighter memorabilia. We really made it ours. It’s great for us, but I’d be a little naïve to think that because we love it and get lots of compliments on it, that any potential buyer who walked into it would not be intimidated by the brick red living room and stone colored kitchen.

I’m getting off track a little, so back to my original agenda. It occurred to me that even though we aren’t thinking about selling, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to start a list of projects I know will need to be done when that time comes. I think a lot of homeowners feel overwhelmed when they realize how much work is needed to get the house “ready” for market. I think they also probably throw their hands up in the air and decide lowering the price is more convenient that doing the mountain of work. I can certainly understand that. Given my profession, however, and the need I feel to “walk the walk”, I have decided to make a list of to-do’s and slowly but surely get this house in great shape so when we do decide to sell, we can hit the ground running and really get the most out of our investment. And ultimately that’s what a home is. An investment. We attach sentimentality to our homes and will always associate them with great memories and times in our lives, but when it comes time to sell, those feelings must be put in a scrapbook or photo box and shelved until the deed is done. Once you decide to sell your home, you can no longer think of it as your home. It’s a product. A commodity. A means to an end so you can move into that next stage of your life. It’s time to make your home look like a model home. A home that sells quickly and for top dollar is a home that’s warm and inviting, universally appealing and most importantly move-in ready.

I thought to myself, what better way to really “sell” the concepts behind staging than to invite readers along for, at least what could be, their side of the process. See the before’s and after’s of a real person’s home, laugh at the struggles and frustrations, gasp at the expense of replacing a few planks of hardwood floor that her dog chewed during the puppy stage. I’m not a super handy person. I don’t have years of expertise in home improvements. I’m actually more of a teller, than a do-er. I tell my husband what I want and he does it. Or he looks at me like I ate a crazy sandwich for lunch and says we’ll hire someone else to do it. I don’t flip houses for a living, have an inside track to the best contractors or a hookup at the local hardware store. I’m a first time homeowner getting her home ready for sale and I’d like to invite you to join me on this journey. If nothing else, it should be entertaining.