Happy Chinese New Year To All My Chinese Friends & Clients!

February 14, 2010

Chinese New Year, also know as Lunar New Year or Spring Festival, is the most important traditional Chinese holiday. Regional customs and family traditions vary widely for the celebration of the Chinese New Year. Traditionally, every family thoroughly cleans their home to sweep away any bad fortune. This makes way for good luck to come in.  Windows are opened and rooms are aired out. Brooms and cleaning rags are thrown away and trash is emptied so that no dirt of misfortune is carried into the New Year.

Starting today, Chinese people all over the world engage in a wide variety of traditional customs and practices that involve food and gift giving. Dumplings (sometimes known as Dim Sum) that are shaped like gold bars are eaten. Children receive small amounts of money in red envelopes (Hong Bao). Adults may receive a gift of tangerines, which are symbols of prosperity and happiness, or kumquats, which are another prosperity symbol. Schools and businesses in China close for at least a week.

My nephew, who is an architect in Shanghai, says they don’t get much sleep during this week due to all the firecrackers going off at all hours of the night.

The Chinese Lunar Calendar is set up in 12 year cycles and each year in the cycle is associated with an animal. This coming year is the Year of the Tiger, the third year in the Chinese Zodiac. The tiger is a symbol of Courage, Strength and Prosperity. According to legend, Lord Buddha summoned the animals to him before he departed the earth. Only 12 came to bid him farewell and so he named a year after each one as a reward. It is believed that the animal ruling the birth year of a person has a profound impact on their personality.

Despite diverse customs and traditions across China, and for Chinese living in other parts of the world, the sentiment infusing Lunar New Year is one of peace, prosperity and happiness.

Happy Lunar New Year to all my Chinese friends, clients & business associates. I wish you much happiness, good health and prosperity in the coming year!

Los Angeles Home Staging Tips To Stage Your Kitchen With Feng Shui

December 13, 2009

Stage Your Kitchen With Feng Shui

Welcome prosperity and good health into your home with sound Feng Shui practices. With the New Year 2010 approaching, now is the perfect time to invite positive change into your life.

Whether you are staging your home to sell or staging your home to live you can use the principals of home staging and Feng Shui  to prepare your home for more comfortable, pleasing and prosperous living for you or your potential buyers.

There are many schools of Feng Shui.

Recommendations will vary from Feng Shui school to school and practitioner to practitioner. Here are some tips to get your kitchen in top Feng Shui shape with little or no cash outlay, just an investment of your time. Despite the fact that different schools have differing “cures”, following are some basic changes you can make that apply to all kitchens. We can affect many positive changes in our lives just by applying intention – putting the energy into making a change and welcoming that change into our lives.

In Feng Shui, the condition of the kitchen can influence your level of prosperity and good health.

The goals of both home staging and Feng Shui are increasing cleanliness,functionality and organization and getting rid of clutter to make room for whatever your new prosperity will bring. Follow these steps to increase your prosperity, good health and general well being:

• Clean out your refrigerator and your pantry.Get rid of  any out-of-date food or ’science projects’ (all of which hold negative energy, by the way). This includes any outdated vitamins or medications you keep in your kitchen. Wipe down the shelves, clean up any old spills and crumbs. If you use shelf paper in your pantry, and it is torn damaged or worn, replace it. If you are staging your home to sell, your pantry should be half full and very neatly arranged. If the items are awkwardly shaped, put them in baskets.

• Restock your refrigerator and pantry. A fuller refrigerator and pantry equates to prosperity and generosity. It also allows us to be prepared for whatever may come up, be it unexpected guests or a change in employment status. Don’t overfill the refrigerator and pantry. We don’t want them cluttered, just sufficiently full to meet our nourishment needs plus a little extra.  Put a small open box of baking soda in the refrigerator to absorb odors. Opening the refrigerator should be a pleasant experience.

• Restock your refrigerator and pantry with healthy food. Take care of your body and it will take care of you. One of the fastest paths to good health is eating healthy food. If your intention is to improve your health, then walk the walk.

• Display fresh fruit on your counter. Abundant fruit is a symbol of prosperity and generosity (yours and the Universe’s) in Feng Shui. Besides, you are more likely to eat it if it is readily available, which will improve your health and well-being.

• Remove everything from your cabinets. Assess everything and determine if it is really useful. With the exception of some seasonal items, if you haven’t used it in the past 6 months, you should get rid of it (donate, give away to a friend, recycle or throw it away). If it is chipped, broken or otherwise damaged, either fix it or get rid of it.  That broken toaster that has been sitting in the cabinet since 2004 may be burning off some of your prosperity – send it on down the road.  If the item can be fixed (and you are likely to have it fixed) by all means, do so. If it can be repaired, but you are not inclined to do so, label it with the problem (so the recipient know what they are getting) and then donate it. If it can’t be fixed or recycled, then throw it away. The goal is to get rid of clutter and make space for new and better items that will come into your life in the coming year. If you are staging your home to sell, keep your cabinets half full. It allows potential buyers to imagine their things in the cabinets.
  

• Put the items you are keeping back in the cabinet in an orderly fashion, and in a manner that allows the item to be useful and of service to you. No matter what anyone tells you, if the organizational system is not organic to your way of doing things, you won’t be able to maintain it and it will devolve into chaos quickly.

• Don’t store large or heavy items overhead or you may feel pushed down or weighed down. Store them in a low cabinet if they need to remain in the kitchen. Besides the Feng Shui implications, it is often difficult and sometimes dangerous to remove and replace bulky or heavy items in a high cabinet.

• Carefully pack seasonal items (Thanksgiving turkey platter, Christmas themed plates, for example) in plastic bins and store them in the basement, a closet or the garage. They don’t need to be taking up space all year in some of the most energetically valuable real estate in your house – your kitchen. If you are staging your home to sell, pre-pack these items and put them in storage. This helps you prepare for your move, and helps potential buyers see how much storage space is available.

• Clean off the kitchen counters of all but the most used items that can’t be stored anyplace else. Kitchen clutter (holding on to too much stuff) often manifests itself as excess weight (holding on to too many calories).

• Don’t display knives on your counter or on the wall. The “cutting Chi” they possess may cut your prosperity and create anxiety.  The best place for knives is in a drawer, stored with the blade facing down.

• Take care of any maintenance problems. Fix the leaking faucet (money down the drain, literally and figuratively). Replace burned out lightbulbs or broken light fixtures and switches (a dark kitchen is not only dangerous, but also depressing).  Replace broken cabinet pulls (if you can’t get to your food easily you will starve physically and emotionally). Broken appliances = broken energy. While the task may be small, the rewards and sense of accomplishment you will reap from the repairs will be large. If you are staging to sell, this will eliminate haggling points buyers might use to justify offering a lower price.

• Throw away your old sponges, dish rags, mop heads and broom. Start the New Year fresh. Dirt is seen as negative energy in Feng Shui. Don’t drag this year’s negativity into the New Year.

• Clean your kitchen until it sparkles – every square inch of it.  Pay special attention to the stove and the stove hood. The stove, where your food is prepared, is of paramount importance to your prosperity and well-being in Feng Shui. Make sure all the burners are in good working order and use them all equally. You will be maximizing your ability to call in prosperity from multiple sources by doing so. An make sure your stove hood or extractor is working properly to remove smoke, excess humidity and odors. If you haven’t done so recently, wash the extractor filters. Get rid of old greasy dirt and cut down on the chance of a fire from grease build up. If you are staging to sell, this is a very important step. No one wants to work in a dirty kitchen, and no one wants to buy someone else’s dirt & grime.

2010 is just around the corner. Welcome the New Year with a clean, functional, uncluttered kitchen. In Feng Shui, the condition of the kitchen can influence your level of prosperity and good health.  Follow the above steps and welcome prosperity and greater well-being in 2010.

Arcadia Home Staging – Confucius says “One Must Have A Good Tool In Order To Do A Good Job”

November 30, 2009

What does Confucious have to say about home staging in Arcadia?

What do Confucius and home staging in Arcadia have in common?

There is an old Chinese expression which translates roughly to “One must have a good tool in order to do a good job”. This comes from an ancient text called the Analects of Confucius.

This wisdom can apply to many aspects of our lives, but when selling a home in Arcadia, that “good tool” is Moving Mountains Design Home Staging.

Doing a good job, in real estate and in home staging, means making sure that, from the moment a potential Arcadia home buyer drives up to the front of your house, steps inside the front door and looks around, he or she feels like they have found the perfect home, the home they want to buy. There are many Arcadia homes for sale so you have to make sure your home is in excellent condition and shows beautifully. Home staging by Moving Mountains Design will help your home make a good showing.

Here’s how Moving Mountains Design can be your “good tool” when selling your Arcadia home:

• When you hire us to stage your home, you are hiring an Arcadia home staging company with years of experience in the area and hundreds of homes staged and sold.
• We understand whom the home buyers are in Arcadia and we stage to their taste.  Because of our extensive experience staging homes in Arcadia we understand what these home buyers will find appealing.
• Feng Shui is important to many Arcadia home buyers.  Michelle Minch is trained as a certified Feng Shui consultant and understands how to “fix” many Feng Shui problems that may slow down the sale of your home.
  
• Our private home staging furniture and accessory warehouse is located in Arcadia. We are a local business. We eat, shop and work in Arcadia.
  
• Our furniture and accessories are hand selected for you and our selection is customized to show off your home or listing. We know how to make your home or listing look its best and we have the accessories, artwork, luxury linens, towels and Persian rugs to do just that.
• Our furniture rental partner has a 100,000 sq. ft. warehouse full of hundreds of sofas, chairs, dining tables and beds! When you hire Moving Mountains Design to stage your listing or home, you aren’t stuck with what ever furniture we happen to have left over in our garage or mini-storage like you would be with some lower priced home stagers. You will get a custom staging plan using beautiful furniture in excellent condition that makes your home look like a photo in a magazine.
  
• We provide professional quality photographs of the rooms we stage. Our photos will make your home look outstanding on the internet and in printed brochures and marketing material. We provide these photos FREE for our complete home staging clients. Since 80-90% of home buyers start their search for a new home on the internet, professional quality photos are very important.
• Even in this market, many of the homes we stage sell in 60 days or less, often in the first 2 weeks and some over asking price.

Don’t try to do the job of preparing your home or listing for sale with a dull tool.

For the best home selling tool call Michelle at Moving Mountains Design 626)441-8975 or contact us by email to learn how we can help you prepare your Arcadia real estate to encourage a faster sale at a higher price. We also stage homes in Pasadena, San Marino, San Gabriel, South Pasadena, Altadena, Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley.

Vacant Home Staging For An Arcadia Townhome

September 8, 2009

This week we staged a vacant Acadia town home located in a very nice complex on Fairview Ave. When I first met the homeowners, they were in the process of moving out, hence all the before photos show their moving boxes.

Upon my recommendation, they agreed to paint the entire unit, have the carpets steam cleaned and hire a handyman to take care of a few minor repairs. They did a really nice job making their condo move-in ready. They were smart about hiring a professional home stager, and doubly smart for following my recommendations.

Any potential buyers who walk in the front door will see:

• a spacious living room with a fireplace,
• gleaming hardwood floors,
• a large dining area,
• lots of kitchen counter space,
• spa-like bathrooms and
• a large master bedroom with giant walk in closet.
• They’ll also see a well priced condo in a desirable Arcadia neighborhood, that is neat as a pin and well maintained.

For more information about this terrific Arcadia townhome, contact the listing agent, Sharon Chou, Century 21 at (626)446-8402 direct or (626)833-8888 mobile. MRMLS#09096771

For more information about our vacant or occupied home staging in Los Angeles, Pasadena or Arcadia, call Michelle at (626)441-8975

Los Angeles Home Staging – Luxury New Construction Arcadia Home

June 15, 2009

As noted in the previous post, Moving Mountains Design, Los Angeles home staging company, was hired to stage a beautiful Arcadia Luxury Home last week.

We staged the entry with a baby grand piano, the formal living room, formal dining room, butler’s pantry, 2nd kitchen, primary kitchen, breakfast room, great room/family room, downstairs bedroom, formal office and powder room. Upstairs we staged the master bedroom, master bath, second master and bath, wet bar and additional family room.

Before and after photos follow the full size shots (which show better detail).

This stunning Arcadia new construction luxury home is coming on the market this week. For more information, contact the listing agent, Tommy Thai, Prudential California Realty at (626)389-3899. You can also go to the web site for this home at www.2418Second.com for more info and photos. The MLS number is W09065142.

Click here to go to the Home Staging Portfolio page.

Los Angeles Home Staging – Luxury Arcadia Home

June 13, 2009

Los Angeles home staging company Moving Mountains Design staged a beautiful approx. 6,000 sq. ft. Arcadia luxury home yesterday.

This home is new construction and located on one of the nicer streets in Arcadia. We staged all of the downstairs including entry with baby grand piano, formal living room, formal dining room, kitchen, kitchen dining area, family room, formal office/library and guest bedroom. Upstairs we staged 2 master bedroom suites and  a second family room with wet bar. We used 5 fake flat screen TV’s, 4 sofas, 6 arm chairs, 12 dining chairs, 3 dining tables (including the kitchen), 13 lamps and countless books, pictures, silk plants and flowers. It took 6 stagers plus 2 furniture delivery men 8 hours, but we finished on schedule in one day. We didn’t select the colors, but we did tie everything together.

I haven’t been able to go through all the photos yet, but here’s a little appetizer. Enjoy!

I’ll be posting more photos and information about this beautiful Arcadia luxury home in the next day or two.

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