WORLD MARKET
Exactly one year to the day from record closing highs for both the Dow and S&P 500, US Stocks plummeted for the eighth day in a row of ugly losses. Afraid they wouldn't get fair market value for their newly listed house, I helped a family this week tidy up their place in hopes of getting record high offers. To spruce up the ugly walls on this street, I showed them a little trick to introduce drama with little out of pocket expense. With twelve foot vaulted ceilings in the living room and white painted walls, littered with tacky 1980's retro-blah furniture, I headed to Cost Plus World Market where prices on home goods are at record lows (hurry, sale ends on Saturday!). My challenge: the clients asked that I keep the budget for the living room S&P (Sprucing and Primping) under $500. Hopefully they'll stop singing the blues and start seeing some green!
THE RUG DOCTOR:
First impressions are everything, especially when you want your house to be on in this market! The living room of this house was the first room you saw when entering so leaving a lasting impression was important. So, I warmed things up a bit by painting the walls AND ceiling in Benjamin Moore's Chatam Tan and painting the beams museum white so they'd pop. I found inexpensive slip covers from World Market and jazzed them up a bit with throw pillows on sale for $9.99/each. I then purchased an 8x10 rug for 50% off at World Market and grabbed inexpensive frames in various sizes (all with unfinished wood, then painted the frames the same color as the museum white of the beams) from Ikea. To create interesting, inexpensive artwork I cut the rug in pieces and placed them in the frames, scattering them about the wall from sofa level all the way up. The walls are warm, dramatic and keep your eye from plummeting!
TIME TO COMPLETE TASK: 1 hour to cut rug and insert in frames
COST: Rug $39.99 from http://www.worldmarket.com/ frames $1.99/each at http://www.ikea.com/, slip cover $59.99 from http://www.worldmarket.com/, pillows $9.99/each from http://www.worldmarket.com/. Total for living room makeover (with paint) $312.00.
STRESS LEVEL: Increasing the value: LOW
