I agree that most people will go up to or below the asking price and rarely bid above it. I agree that your home is worth well over $1M and you need to price it accordingly. It will sell quickly, as people will recognize the quality and taste that went into the home.
Today was color choice day (in between runs to Home Depot, Lowes and IKEA).
Yesterday I painted up a bunch of color swatches on downstairs wall. The colors were left over samples that I have. I choose the greyish light beige color. But, today I went to two different paint stores to get samples of a dark color for a tall accent wall. I took a picture of the top choice. If it doesn’t look good in the end, it’s just paint!! Start all over again 
Some pictures loaded.
Over an hour spent with flooring guy staining various areas of the floor where we patched in the white oak in the middle of red oak. These areas are where it is most noticeable between the two floors. There was an odd heat register in the middle of the entry floor that we closed up and patched in. There was a big dark stain in middle bedroom that we tore out and patched and there was a minor bit of termite damage in the front bedroom that we patched up. Another area where it is noticeable is where original red oak floor butts up against the new kitchen floor.
He started with darker stains such as Fruitwood or Classic Grey. I hated the dark floors, but they did mask the red oak. Then we went down to Weathered Oak and, unfortunately, it brought out the red in the red oak. Then we tried Country White. I did not like it, but it did tone down the red oak. Finally we’ve got a crazy mix of Weathered Oak (which was what was used at Guizot project that turned out really nice - but on White Oak flooring), Classic Grey and Country White. I sure hope we can re-create that same coloring in a large batch of mixed stain. We laid some down in kitchen and it was the exact ‘tone’ of the kitchen cabinets so I loved it. It looks different in each room with the different lighting. The picture loaded is right by front door and it is actually the least appealing coloring compared to the other rooms.
Staging
Two more stagers came by today and I really liked one of them. She took detailed photos and videos of everything so that she could make specific recommendations for each room. But, my agent is paying for it so she will decide who gets the job. She kept hinting… This is our 15th project and we usually stage ourselves, but I’m getting tired of it and I don’t want to keep the inventory. Hint, hint… you could get a lot more work on the flips. Like I’m big time or anything… they want those guys that turn quantity
Here are the 3 companies:
Astoria West - this is the high end company. I have no idea why they don’t have pictures on their website, makes no sense. But, they did stage a previous listing that my agent had
http://www.astoriawest.com/
Previously staged listing in high rise condo downtown https://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Diego/850-Beech-St-92101/unit-1505/home/6547288
Everything Creative http://www.everythingcreativedesigns.com/
San Diego Staging http://www.sdstagingco.com/#!modern/c1sv8
cb, I think the stain on the floor looks great. It has the gray tones that will match everything else. It’s going to look really good.
As for picking a stager, I have no idea how you’d do that. I assume they’ll all do a great job, so does it come down to price?? And what does this sort of thing cost?
Unfortunately, a lot of the furniture used by SD Staging looks cheesy to me and not what I’d expect to see in a house in your price range. Of the three, I was most impressed by Astoria West’s photos (I saw a small selection of pictures under the who we work for link.)
One thing that bugs me is when too small rugs are used; they look like placemats under the coffee tables. Another is when rugs are used in adjoining (open) spaces that don’t relate to each other in color or style. I’d rather they left the hardwoods uncovered.
Several of the rooms seemed to be over done. There was too much stuff on the kitchen counters and too many plants (not sure if they were real or fake.) I don’t recall seeing a TV (real or cardboard stand-in) in any of the living/family rooms. That’s always my dh’s first complaint about staged houses. He’d rather view them empty.
Your house would show well without staging, but maybe it’s expected in your market and would lead to a higher sales price.
We are committed to staging because it always makes a house show better. Note how gorgeous the living room looked at the Guizot Hoarder House with the furniture and pops of turquoise. For example, we staged a really comfortable chair with telescope in the converted front porch area to show that it was large enough for comfortable seating. Otherwise people would have walked in and said “What do we do with this area?”.
I will reveal the quotes after we pick our staging company. Don’t want to jinx it yet. However, the first thing I noticed about SD Staging was that the area rugs were too small in scale - it bugged me.
SD Staging doesn’t impress me. They seem to have one look, and it isn’t interesting. From the pictures, I’d be inclined to go with Everything Creative, but Astoria West would probably be fine, too.
The floor stain looks nice.
Dare I ask if you have considered making the accent wall an actual color? Like maybe something close to the color of the backsplash upstairs?
Do you and the realtor split the staging cost?
For many years my agent kept an inventory of stuff and she offered staging as part of the listing. But it was a lot of work, her furniture was getting tired and old and she still had to pay for storage unit and the moving guys. For my projects i brought a lot of stuff from my house also. Pretty much stripped my patio and back room bare!
She has a new business model now and got rid of all her big stuff, although we have some of the accessories from Guizot staging.
For her regular clients she gives them a budget/max and they pay for staging up front. When the sale closes she reimburses from escrow. She didn’t want to get stuck paying for it if they cancel listing.
For me its free, she pays staging company. She knows that at the end of projects i have NO cash to pay any more costs. She works orety hard trying to find buyers before we even stage. Works some of the time.
We are going to save a little money and bring some of my extra patio furniture and buy some plants for parking patio
Can’t wait to see the professional photos!!
photos, photos, photos!! Need some more.
Photos are still not too exciting.
Another tiny step backward again today. We had to push all of the old cage redwood lumber out of the way to finish pouring concrete patio and other priorities. Carpenter went to try to finish fence and the lumber had been out in the rain and in the middle of all of the concrete mess getting washed. Oh boy, the planks are a mess and will need to be washed and possibly sanded again. See photos
Flooring arrived today - early! Went in truck to pick up 1,900 lbs of floor. After loading it all into the truck I realized the passenger rear tire had gone flat. Slowly slowly drive to nearest gas station and try to get some air into the tire. It was dangerously low. Knowing my luck, I would have just taken off down the freeway and had a huge blowout with 2,000 lbs in the back of the truck.
Then I get back and carpenter tries to back down to downstairs parking patio and the truck is so heavy, the back just starts scraping the patio. Ooops… pull up and lay down a whole ramp system to try to get truck flat enough to unload the 2,000 lbs!
I have no idea what is happening upstairs. Flooring guy started sanding last Friday and still is not ready to apply first coat of stain. Just today he was installing the new flooring into the new closet areas upstairs. That’s 4 full days of ‘prep’ which is very unusual for him.
cb, you’ve got great tradesmen. They seem to go above and beyond for you.
Newell Street went off market and came back onto market at $1.09 million. Still not selling.
Udall and Evergreen still on market
Stain Issue
Finally the floors were sanded and we are ready to put on the stain. At this point we have a small sample that we have to recreate in a big bucket to start staining the floors. The flooring guy and I spent about an hour trying to recreate the stain that works to hide the difference between the white oak and red oak. For some reason we just cannot recreate it. We had to go back inside and keep applying it to the floors that were perfectly ready to go (which means he has to go back and sand down the areas where we tested and then buff again). Nothing is working. Now, he is out of cans of stain to try to keep adding. The whole thing is turning into a frustrating mess, the patch in front room where we took out the mirror wall is ‘in your face’.
Have to start all over again this morning because he has to go to the special hardwood store to get more stain colors.
Very frustrating
Meanwhile, we have pulled everything out from the crawlspace where stuff accumulated over the last couple of months and pull all the tools out of the downstairs area for painting and floors.
Paint is on!! and Accent Wall done. I’m going to give it a couple of days to see if I love it or not.
Photos loaded
Staging
My agent has chosen San Diego Staging. It was not my call to make, she is paying.
Astoria West = $4,800
Everything Creative = $4,000
SD Staging = $1,600
However, she has called and had a long talk with them about the ‘look’ she wants, we need large rugs and large art downstairs. We will see what happens
She has used Astoria West before on a million dollar downtown condo. We both liked Everything Creative the best because we thought they would do a really interesting staging. But, in the end she had to go with the SD Staging because she does not get full commission when she does my listings and there was such a large cost difference.
We have labeled our style for this house as Coastal Contemporary
We will see
I know you want a light color floor…but I’m thinking a darker color has better potential to mask the difference in flooring than a lighter one does. What about a darker grey?
Can your paint shop analyze the pigment composition of the stain that you have left to come up with a formula to reproduce it in larger quantities?
I wish it was easy as that. Unfortunately… we threw the perfect sample into the big bucket!
The issue is that ‘Country White’ seems to be the only stain that neutralizes the red oak. I hate the Country White and am trying to get it towards a brownish grey. Each time we add more ‘Weathered Oak’ (which is the exact coloring I really want) for some reason it brings out the red in the red oak. Weathered Oak is what we used at Guizot (with a touch of grey wash) to get the desired effect. Unfortunately that was on White Oak - it’s not working on the red oak.
I really don’t mind where the total red oak floor butts up to/meets the white oak floor. Where we are having a problem is where the white oak was patched into the red oak floor in several areas of the old floors. The patches are really noticeable.
And, what’s really weird, and has us scratching our heads, is that we rubbed out the new stain mix onto a piece of sanded white oak and rubbed out a section with the perfect sample. They are exactly matching but we don’t know why it worked on the floor two days ago, but is not working now
We may be adding a lot more grey and ebony today just to get something to work so we can keep moving. I think the flooring guy is getting frustrated because, of course, he has a fixed bid on this project.