Monday, May 17, 2010

staging—part 1

We have chosen a realtor and as part of her services, she pays for a stager to come out and help us with all the things we need to do to make our house sell quicker.  After touring our home, our stager Barbi built me up by saying, “I just love your house.  It’s so beautiful!  You’re 99% of the way there!”  I was feeling pretty good. . . until she proceeded to give me a list of a thousand little things we needed to do before we could put our house on the market.  I thought I’d detail this process in the hopes that it will help some of you who may need to sell a house in the future!

Last month, my mother-in-law came to visit for a few days, and as part of that visit, we BOTH took our first trip to Mary Jo’s.  I’d been hearing about this “Mecca of fabric stores” ever since we moved to Charlotte, but had never made it out there since it’s about 45 minutes away from our house.

IMG_2868

We were amazed by the store and we each came away with a few good finds.  I had been wanting some pillows for our screened porch (even before we knew we were selling our house), but the selection of pillows I’d found made with indoor/outdoor fabric was definitely lacking.  The one I found that I actually liked was at Crate & Barrel and they were $25 each.MeridianPlw13x20MaribelS10Well, at Mary Jo’s, there was a HUGE selection of indoor/outdoor fabric and I was able to buy enough fabric to make FOUR pillows for just $8!  I had only planned on making two pillows for the porch, so now I still have enough fabric to make two more at some point.  Here’s the finished product:

IMG_3245

And here’s another view of it:

IMG_3246

That’s right—it’s reversible!

IMG_3249 IMG_3252 IMG_3254

I had some leftover pillow stuffing from WAY back when I made Kendall’s crib bumpers in 2003, but I had to buy one more bag at $3.50.  Since I only used half of the fabric, I’ll say it just cost me $4.  So the total cost of these two pillows was just $7.50!  Take that, Crate & Barrel—and I like mine better(By the way, I found the EXACT same fabric as that C&B pillow shown above at Mary Jo’s and it was just $12/yard—those pillows are 13”x20” and you can make four with just one yard, which means I could have made four of those $25 pillows for a little under $25 total once you add in the stuffing!)

One room down, LOTS to go. . .

7 comments:

Marliese said...

Gorgeous. It's amazing what a good pillow can add to an area. Thanks for sharing.

Mirien said...

I love those pillows! I want to go to that fabric store. I get so inspired late at night, looking at blogs at what other people have done, but that enthusiasm fades when the busy-ness of life takes over the next day. Most projects are just too daunting right now, but pillows? Maybe I could squeeze that in.

Erin said...

I am actually going to MaryJo's this morning. I love that place!! I am glad you finally got to experience it!

Your pillows look fantastic! The salmon-y geometric print is one that Emily also chose for her pillows. I love that print.

Jenn-Lee said...

I miss MARY JO's! For their home fabrics. I do have lots of cute quilting designer cottons out here but MAry Jos...oh how I love that place!
Anyhow. Good job Meredith on those pillows. They are so cute and looks so much like the ones you loved.

Kelli said...

I love the pillow! I make sure to stop by Mary Jo's every time we visit my in-laws. Love that place!!

Unknown said...

Good luck with all the staging! Your house is so lovely, I'm you'll have a buyer before you know it :)

It's Been a Day! said...

way to go with the pillows. i'm jealous of that fabric store! hoping the house sells quickly!