If you’re going to put your home on the market soon, now is the time to start thinking about your curb appeal. And the physically largest part of a yard is often the grass. Crappy grass does not invite people into your property.

But here’s a free class:

The Home Depot is offering a seminar on April 26, 1-2 at all stores. You can register in person or online at www.homedepotclinics.com.

A coat of paint is the cheapest way to make a huge impact on your home before it hits the market. But choosing colors can be overwhelming, especially when you’re facing the climbing wall-sized paint section at the hardware store.

Fortunately there’s a new book perfect for folks looking to do their own staging. It’s called Neutral Color Schemes from Firefly books available for $29.95 (or 19.77 on Amazon).

It offers over 200 palette suggestions with a main color and 4 accent colors for trim, pillows, curtains and the like to give a room a pulled together look.

Another nice feature is that it purse/man-bag sized so you won’t ever have to face the paint swatch section alone again.

A few days ago I wrote about winter staging focusing mostly on the front of the house. Here are a couple of ideas for inside your home. My stager, Jean McCue, is adamant that no one wants to stage for Christmas and then have to change it out. So think “snowmen” not “Santa.”

Here’s one of her ideas: Buy some Christmas ornaments that are NOT the traditional green & red to add a little shimmer to your home.  This tips its hat to the jewel-toned holiday season without tying it directly to December 25th.

 Glass bowls from places like World Market and Pier 1 are a great way to display ornaments.

 Also when you’re staging think of having montages. That’s little areas that almost tell a story on its own. Montages aren’t cluttered, but do have a grouping of at least three items.

Here’s an example from a staged bathroom. The lamp warms up the little room without bleaching it out with the large, overhead light.

I hate to be the first one to say the “w” word on the blog, but let’s face it: It’s nearly winter and that makes a difference for your home on the market.

First let’s talk winter staging. You’re not going to have that lush lawn to greet potential buyers at your curb. And more often than not in recent years we haven’t even had snow to hide the expanse of dormant lawn. That puts more pressure than ever on your front entryway.

I talked to stager, Jean McCue and she says she always is sure to stage for “winter” and not “Christmas.” This really makes sense because who wants to re-stage on December 26? This goes for inside, too.

A low maintenance arrangement to have by the door is trimmed spruce bows. For about $30 a bundle, spruce tips  make you a beautiful impression. Throw them into a large container and with an without lights, they give a homey feel. That being said, give the inflatables with the Santa on the Harley and the Snoopy in the Snow Globe a rest this year. Call me a jerk, but it doesn’t sell your house or your ‘hood.

Door mats are also a cheap way to make a tidy impression. If you’re moving into winter with a house on the market, it’s time for a new mat with a seasonal theme.The inside entryway itself needs to feel practical.  I’ve toured homes with 15 coats and a half dozen boots overtaking the space. Nothing says, “no closets” more than tripping over outerwear. Consider mounting a rack with hooks that can have one good looking garment on it and perhaps a colorful scarf. That’s it. Think sparse. Think Ikea.

However, DO have a rubber mat or tray for your browsers to put their dirty boots. I have never been offended by a gentle note reminding me to take off my shoes. I sure HAVE been offended to come back to my staged house and wipe up muddy tracks off my wood floor.

Also, walking into a stone cold home does little to warm the hearts of buyers. In addition to making them want to run through your home as quickly as possible, it also brings up questions like “what’s the heating bill here?” and “How old are these windows?”

Winter staging should say, “snug,” “cozy,” and “you’re home.” Look at your home with fresh eyes and see where you can install these adjectives into your setting.

There is nothing like a party to get my rear in gear to clean the house and take care of any unsightly chores hanging over me. The last time my parents visited from Maine had me buying kitchen tile at Home Depot at midnight and taking on Herculean landscaping projects (Not that I recommend that).

And it seems that the Twin Cities are feeling a similar stress to impress. In under a month we’ll be hosting one of the biggest shindings of the year as the National Republican Convention (replete with journalists and worse yet, snarky bloggers) descends on our humble home.

Now we’re being asked to do our part to make the city look spic and span. In a press release by the convention hosting committee reported by MinnPost, citizens are invited to participate in the “Spruce up Spirit” campaign which includes contests for the “best sprucer” and free tickets to the Twins for those who show at the Dome to wash taxis (more below).

Here are some suggestions outlined by the convention for homeowners:

- Display the American flag
- Hang red, white and blue decorations
- Plant, primp, and trim the yard and garden (petunias and impatiens come in red, white, and blue)
- Put a fresh coat of paint on your fence and touch up any chipped areas on your house
- Sweep your sidewalks, decks and porches

Additional volunteer events planned during the month of August include the Airport clean up and signage campaign — and my personal favorite The Cab Wash at the Metrodome, Aug. 5, 10 a.m.- 4 p.m. If you go, would you please please send me some photos???? I think this would be a gas and honestly think it’s a good thing.

It goes back to my theory that even though I have never been to a professional sporting event in Minnesota, I think supporting sports are good for a market (within reason). Every time people talk about sports, they’re actually talking about my state - and suddenly we’re less about loons and more of a place where exciting things happen.

So I hope we do noticeably tidy up a bit, dress our houses in their Sunday best (sometimes putting political affiliations aside) and take some pride in our properties. At the very least, your curb appeal will be nicer for you - and you never know when you’re going to put your house on the market.

and frightened your buyer away.

I haven’t worn my home maintenance hat in a while and as the dog days of summer are prime spider time, I thought I’d clue you in on what the professionals told me.

The deal with spiders, and other water loving creatures like centipedes, millipedes, springtails, termites and silverfish (gah, they really gross me out) is to control the moisture level in your home.

The first stop is outside around your foundation. You’ll want to rake away soil away from the house - it wicks water - and if you have mulch periodically turn it and keep bushes trimmed so they don’t touch the foundation or siding.

While you’re there it’s a good idea to add a simple weather stripping to your windows, too and check holes into your house. Sometimes the cable installer dude forgets to seal up the line entrance with some expanding foam. You can pick some up at a big box home center. One product name that comes to mind is Great Stuff, but there are many to choose from. In addition to excluding bugs and moisture, it’ll keep heat in too.

Check your downspouts and make sure they’re pointed away from your house and that they have a decent slope to drain down. Over the years the grade can change and before you know it, your home is sitting in standing water, which is bad news way beyond spiders.

And if there are plumbing problems that are causing even a bit of standing water, you’re setting the welcome mat for bugs, too.

But here’s the true secret to spiders…keep a humidifier in a spider prone area, like the basement, set at 40. Be diligent about knocking down cobwebs and in no time the spider population in your home will dramatically drop. Really, it’s true.

Special thanks to The Family Handyman and Reader’s Digest who are truly home experts. Here is the original article I wrote for them on the subject with lots more information and photos. I dare not pluck the images from their website least I tempt their formidable legal team to tumble roll into my home office.

Lucie is a Twin City and Twin Ports writer who specializes in housing to pay the bills, but enjoys being a humorist and storyteller. Here latest story on the theme “Tightening the Belt” based on her real estate adventures can be heard on Minnesota Public Radio’s In The Loop and streamed here.

Even though I’m not going to be buying a house for at least a year, I still find myself checking out what’s out there. I use traditional MLS sites like webdigs.com, troll Craigslist and FSBO portals, too. Some of the non-traditional sites offer A LOT of pictures - sometimes 20 or more.

I love real estate photos, I really do, but when is it too much of a good thing?

According to Point2Agent, the more photos the better. Their research shows more hits as the numbers of images increases.

But I believe in the burlesque dancer approach - you want to show just enough to entice, titillate even - but not SO much that your potential buyer peeks a blemish and moves on. The idea of posting images is to motivate armchair buyers into their car and seeing your house in person where they can fall in love with it. Somehow you want your home to be the Dita Von Teese of Real Estate - sexy, alluring, but never giving away anything before its time.

I found that when confronted with 30plus pictures, I’d eventually come to one that would throw me out of real estate ecstasy - and I’d more often than not scratch it off my list. So it becomes a fine balance of using the “come hither” photos and excluding ones that may cast doubt.

A while back I read a Star Tribune article on how to take better photos for selling your home. One of the best tips I got was to take an outdoor photo in the evening with the lights glowing in the house. When I took mine I really lucked out because it had just rained which made my patio particularly inviting.

That’s a staging tip by the way. My stager, Jean McCue, suggested that we hose off the patio before showings to make it look it’s best. We did it when we could, but honestly by the 40th or so showing the novelty of doing to was wearing thin. But I always did it for second showings.

When my house was on the market with Webdigs, I think it had 9 photos and that seemed like a nice number. We never lacked for showings and we were able to hit the high points of the property.

P.S.: I am finding excerpts of “Selling isn’t for Sissies” all over Real Estate Blogs throughout the country. The one that made me laugh though was being included on a site called f*ckedseller.com. How funny is that?

Chew toy treat dispenser

Now you’re probably wondering how this dog toy fits into selling my house. You may remember that we’ve had some problem staging out our Rottweiller, Scottie-dog. Of course, there’s not doubt that for showings he’s got to go.

When you’re buying a house you don’t want to see a dog, hear a dog or in anyway think that a dog resides in this house. There’s a universal truth at work here - your own dog is lovely, wonderful, a Lassie reincarnate, but the other guy’s dog - well, that’s plain disgusting.

I accept this. Consequently spending hours on end in the mini-van was bringing out uncharacteristic behavior in our dog - like eating our seat belts. So I went to my local big box pet store and left with a solution. It’s one of those indestructible Kong chew toys, but with the twist of specially shaped dog cookies you shove in there. As your dog chews on the toy, he’s rewarded for his efforts with a treat. It gives him a hobby to distract him from our tasty restraining devices - we all need a hobby.

What’s in the can? Well, that’s a pressurized meat product you can squirt in along with the treats for added interest - and you don’t even have to refrigerate it. (I know - Ewww, but do you know how expensive it is to replace seat belts?)

So now before a showing, no matter HOW busy I am, I sprint Scottie around the block and then load up his Kong with pressurized meat  & liver cookies before I stick him in the van. I wouldn’t say he’s delighted or anything, but he’s been better.

Don’t tell him, but I got the “senior” version of this toy (Note: the dog on the can is wearing glasses). This particular chewer is made of a slightly softer material giving him a better chance of getting at the cookies (which are lower fat for the old guys).

Scottie’s been sentenced to the van 4 times this week for showings. Honestly, It’s getting hard on all of us. After a month on the market and 30+ showings, I’m starting to really resent the process. It’s a real time suck. I’ve fallen off the staging wagon a bit, so my last showings took me a good three hours to pull the house together for. At that rate, I could have had a part-time job.

There are some reasons to be hopeful. I was reading a report put out this week by RealTrends.com which is listed on the site’s front page. Chew on this - it states that while home prices for April 08 are down 4.5% and sales are off 16.3% over 2007, it’s way better than last month. March’s prices were 7% down and sales were off 28% from the previous year.

While I’d hardly call that GREAT - it’s more like this sucks, but it sucks so much less than it did. Kinda suck-lite. Still I’m choosing to take this as a good news and root for suck-lite to turn into a full-blown recovery.

I’m starting to hear the rumble of real estate on the move. And it’s not just some abstract, “I heard from a friend…”. No, my agent, Tom has some real live clients who have been interested in a number of properties that have snapped up.

And get this — they got into multiple offer situation for a house in Richfield. The clients bid $12K over asking — and lost! The listing agent said they had 5 offers and that the $12K over offer was 3rd. 3rd!!

I wonder if the listing agent priced the house low as a catalyst for a bidding war. Bill Effros writes about this in his book, How to Sell Your Home in 5 days. The gist is to advertise your home for far less than market rate starting on Wednesday, offer tours all week and close bidding on Saturday. Jason and I talked about doing this strategy, but just seeing my house on the market for so much less than its worth made my stomach turn.

At any rate, that bidding wars are happening - heck, that BIDDING in itself is happening is encouraging for a seller like me. While I don’t expect to ride the crest of 7 years ago, I’m delighted that the playing field seems to be evening out a bit.

Seller’s Diary - taking staging outside

And as far as keeping you informed with our sale, we have a second showing tonight which means I have several hours of tidying and staging ahead of me. And we spent a good 15 hours on yardwork this weekend and it’s looking pretty spiffy. We planted shrubbery and annuals on our berm. ( I can’t even say shrubbery without thinking about Monty Pytho, can you?)

Our berm with young plantings. In a few years the plants will take over and make the berm blend seemlessly into the landscape.

What’s a berm? It’s just a mound of earth that’s covered with landscaping fabric, mulch and plants. It’s been a popular topic in recent years on shows like HGTV. It’s a way to get a little height variance in a yard and if you grow tall plants, it can provide some privacy around a patio. That’s partially what we were after, but mostly I didn’t want to pay someone to haul dirt away when we had our stamped-concrete patio poured. For the price of the clean-up, I could purchase the materials to create the berm.

Another thing we did this weekend was visit Mulch Mountain. That’s the mulch set out by communities created from their tree maintenance programs. While it’s not the beautiful clear cyprus mulch that we used on the berm, it has a lovely variegated look to it that works well in garden beds.

Tulips with free mulch and I see I need to weed more.

The kids love playing on Mulch Mountain and did I mention it’s free? Compared to the $2 bucks plus a bag I pay for the stuff at the home center, that’s worth digging little sticks out of my kids’ sneakers.

The one we went to was at the north side of Columbia Park at the playground parking lot in northeast Minneapolis. Call your city office to find out where free mulch lives in your area.

Lucie Amundsen is a contributor to the magazine, BackYard Living and others. She hopes to sell her home in enough time to start a garden at a new one.

After 20 something flawless showings in two weeks, something had to give - and it finally did. On Wednesday afternoon I got a call from the excellent showing service that Wedbigs uses, Showing Solutions. They informed me that a Realtor had scheduled a showing for 6:45 p.m. I said something along the lines of, “Dude, that’s in 3 hours,” and then, of course, moved Heaven & Earth to make it happen.

The house was in good shape and the children had tickets to the Children’s Theater to see their hilarious production of The Magic Mrs. Piggle Wiggle. I was supposed to throw my hat in the ring to perform at a story slam for the Minnesota Public Radio show, “In the Loop” — an event my husband had driven 150 miles to accommodate, but there was the problem of the dog.

If you’ve read my previous posts, you may know that our mostly lovable Rottie-mix has been frustrated by being stashed in the vehicle during showings - and chewing his dissatisfaction. So, do I go to the event and risk the mini-van interior (we’re down 2 seat belts) or do I wait for the showing to happen and be late to the show?

The Toyota Sienna won out in the end. After tidying, I drove to our nearby library and parked where I could get a decent wi-fi signal. The minutes clicked by and after an hour steeped in dog breath, I was happy to drop him off.

But when I got home, I could tell the house hadn’t been shown. Nothing was out of place and it lacked that “people have been in the house vibe.” I was crest fallen, but what could I do? I sighed and raced off to my MPR gig.

The next day, my little girl came off the bus flopsy & feverish. After setting her up on the couch and getting my little guy a game to play, I stole 15 minutes to squeeze in a bath. (As a pseudo-single parent, personal grooming often falls by the wayside, but I remind myself it bathing isn’t luxurious, it’s a social contract.)

Then came the knock and it wasn’t a neighborly knock. It was a “bang, bang, bang, bang, bang” knock. The kind that puts your heart in your throat. The dog was doing his job, barking like Kayser Soze was behind the door. I flung myself out of the tub, threw on my bathrobe and came dripping to my entryway. There was the Realtor - 24 hours later than I expected.

She seemed like a nice gal and she showed me her confirmation form, but all I could do was dance in a pool of my bathwater, restrain the dog, keep my robe closed and attempt to explain. I declined the showing. She was rightfully annoyed, but we were dug in with zero inclination to clear the premises. It was a bad situation all around and I honestly feel terrible about it. In the unlikely event she reads this: I’m sorry.

No one likes to be caught pants down - or in my case, completely pant-free. All I can say is mistakes were made and I’m trying to the best I can. I’m often away from my house 4 hours at a time to accommodate Realtors. I clean, I stage, I leave out flowers & candy, make baked goods - but show up at the door without clothes - even once - and all that good will is wiped away.

I’ve learning a lot from this experience, mostly that selling isn’t for sissies.

Lucie B. Amundsen, a housing writer in St. Anthony Village, who tries to be a good seller and not scare potential buyers away at the door.