When I was a young girl, I used to love to go to furniture stores or kitchen showrooms where my younger sister and I would play house while Mama and Daddy did their shopping. We loved pretending that the kitchen displays or the living room settings were our own homes and we could have played for hours in there! I will never forget the first time I staged a condo for a real estate developer. At the end of the day, after I had set up the entire condo and stepped back to make sure the finished product was perfect, I felt a very familiar feeling of satisfaction. It was the same feeling I had as a little girl after spending hours setting up my "house" and arranging everything just so. I really didn't care so much about playing house, once my house was finished. The fun for me was setting everything up! Often, when I close out a job with a client, I will sign my email with something like, "It's been a pleasure working with you!". But what I really want to write is, "It's been a pleasure "playing" with you"! I have never gotten the nerve to write that for fear that my client may think I am a little strange.
Recently, I was hired to play house in two kitchen showrooms: one in Graham and the other in High Point. I really enjoyed staging these kitchen displays. Many of the fixtures and finishes had already been selected. I did help with some of the paint colors, and choosing some of the backsplash tiles, but mostly, my job was to make these kitchens look like someone lived in them! So much fun! Below, are a few photos from some of those kitchens. These photos were taken with my iPad, so the quality is not great, but you will get the idea:
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Installation day! Many of the dishes, cookbooks, and small appliances I used
were purchased from Goodwill or consignment stores. |
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The Entry Before: I had them remove the dated pediment from above the opening
at the end of the alleyway and enclose that opening so we could hang a nice piece of art there. |
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| The Entry After |
