Decorating With Class

An Adventure in Selling a Home

Visit the VictoriaLarsen.com website for stencils, plaster molds and lots of ideas to give your home a new look on a budget!

An Adventure in Selling a Home

As a business owner in the business of Home Decorating, I know all too well the importance of "staging" when it comes to putting your home on the market.

Go to any "model home" in any development and you will see it all laid out with furnishings and accessories as if someone actually lived there.

Go to any department store and see little "vignettes" of furnishings all set up as if they were in a real living room or dining room.

This is called "merchandising" and it's purpose is to help the buyer envision how "pretty" it will look if they owned that particular item or home. It creates more desire than simply seeing a sofa sitting all alone or a house with blank walls and floors.

Business owners realize that the average person can't see the possibilities. So they create an entire "setting" to help the buyer appreciate the beauty of the item they are selling.

 As the real estate agents paraded through our northern Idaho home, I was so proud of myself as they commented on how the rooms had already been "staged" so beautifully, leaving them nothing to do.

Beds made with decorator pillows and accents, excess furnishings and personal items put away, carefully chosen accessories placed within the room, each room looking like something out of a magazine. I got complimented a lot on what they called my "talents". But it's just a matter of "learning" over time rather than actually having a knack you were born with.

Those of you who read my blog are "do it yourselfers" who can walk in to any potential home and look past the collections of "junk", the weird paint colors and the jumble of furniture to see a vision of how YOU would make the home look.

But you have to remember that most people aren't like you and I. They only see the "junk", the bad paint job, the hole in the ceiling; not the "potential". It's those people you must appeal to the most with how you present your home to them.

It's the same in business. If you went to my website and only saw a picture of the stencil and never another photo of just how it might look on your walls, cabinets or ceilings, would you be quite so quick to purchase?

OK, maybe YOU would, because you are a visionary. But the average customer needs those ideas in order to help them decide how that item might fit in to their own decor.

I learned this lesson well back in the late 90's when I was selling to all the Ben Franklin Stores across the nation. One store here in Washington was having trouble selling a grape stencil design I sold them. They had purchased 24 of them and there they sat on the rack week after week without one sale.

They asked for assistance, so I stenciled the grapes on to a Bar-B-Que apron and displayed it with Bar-B-Que tools. Within two weeks they were sold out and ordering more. Point proven: people need to see it along with an idea.

Even smart Ebayers know the importance of staging their items to appeal to the buyer. So keep this in mind as a good lesson in life; whether you are selling your home, a service, or selling merchandise. 

Now that you understand the reasoning behind creating "displays" in your home before you put it on the market, you can now see why it's vital to the sale of your home.

If you need help with staging your room, send me a photo of how the room looks now and let me make some suggestions to you.

Simply email me directly at stencilstoplaster@yahoo.com and attach your photo. I'm happy to help.

Revising the Best Laid Plans in a Poor Economy

Visit the VictoriaLarsen.com website for stencils, plaster molds and lots of ideas to give your home a new look on a budget!

Revising the Best Laid Plans in a Poor Economy

It was 5 years ago this past April that my husband and I bought our retirement dream home in the mountains of Northern Idaho.

The plan was for him to retire early (which was to be this past March) and for us to move there and live out the rest of our lives in the peace and quiet of the mountains.

For 5 years we worked our hind ends off plastering walls, re-doing kitchen cabinets, installing granite, covering up disgusting paint colors and fixing everything that needed to be fixed.

The turn in our economy caused many companies to change course, which effects many employees and retirees.


This was the case for my husband. Changes within the company he works for stopped all plans of retiring early. And with the sudden loss of most of our 401K, the plan had to change. Now we had to make a decision. Since he now can't retire for another 10 years, do we keep the Idaho house?

No. We have decided to sell it. We only get to be there 4 weeks out of the year. Why hang on to it, making payments on it for another 10 years before we even get to live there? It's a better financial decision to put those mortgage payments in to savings or investments.

At first, I was horribly disappointed. But that didn't last long. You see, I'm the type of person who faces a challenge bravely and tries to see the good that might be waiting on the other side of what appears to be a "loss".

We have all faced some drawback to this economical disaster and it's important that we make the best of it, learn from it and make new plans and goals or we will drive ourselves crazy.

So I choose to see the sale of that house as an opportunity to make a new dream, to create a new start, to find a new plan. It's all about "re-inventing" the future.

You have to think like an "artist". You have a blank canvas before you. See it as an opportunity to create whatever you want.

As the adventure of selling this house in a poor economy progresses, I will keep you posted.
You will learn things (as I will) as we go.

To all of you facing tough decisions because of the economical events of this past year or so, bear with it, take a good hard look at your life and what you want and forge ahead with a new plan. I feel your pain and I'm here to share.

A 1920's Bungalow Needs Plaster Stenciling

A 1920's Bungalow needs plaster stenciling.


Mary posted a question that you all might like to know the answers to:


"I d like to do some raised plaster things on the ceilings of a 1920's bungelow we're restoring and because the rooms are very large with also very  large squares from beams can you tell me several of the largest both in width and length raised plaster stencils?
Thanks, Mary"

Hi Mary,

What a wonderful addition to your antique home! I do love those fabulous ceilings and raised stenciling in a large design is a great way to add real character and beauty to them.

We have a special section on our website at VictoriaLarsen.com specifically for Large Plaster Stencils.

One of my favorites is the Raised Plaster Royal Anne Frieze Stencil.
It can be used alone as a central design or repeated on long panels just beautifully!

I think if you used one in each of the panels, then did a soft faux finish over the top, you will be creating a ceiling that would be a real focus in the room.

For ceilings, try to keep your colors soft and neutral (beige, cream, brown, soft green, silver, even pale blue) so that it doesn't over power and you never get tired of it.

I'd love it if you update us on how your ceiling comes out. That's truly a project I'd LOVE to tackle!

My Favorite Blue Color is Back!

Visit the VictoriaLarsen.com website for Ornamental Plaster Molds, Raised Plaster and Painting Stencils and scads of ideas, techniques and inspiration.

My Favorite Blue Color is Back!

It's rare that you ever see me decorate in the color blue. But there is one version of blue that just knocks my socks off and has ever since the first time I saw it as a child.

I remember seeing it in the Bidwell Mansion in Chico, California as my fifth grade class toured the mansion one sunny afternoon. I can't remember if it was on a pillow, in a tapestry or just where it was that I saw it, I only remember that is struck me as being so elegant and beautiful.

It wasn't a standard blue.... it had just a hint of green, just a touch of gray and just the right amount of brilliance to set my soul on fire!
Not a turquoise, not really blue, not really green, but a color so nondescript, so inexact that it just jumped out at me!




In the last few years, I've seen this color come in to fashion. And I instantly gravitated toward it.
I thought of bedroom furniture painted this color then trimmed out in antique gold metallic paint with gold stenciled designs here and there...
I image the walls being painted in the palest version of this color and then trimmed out with light cream on the woodwork. How elegant!

I tried to find a sample of this color on line to no avail so I created these samples in Corel Draw. If you love them, save the sample to your computer, print it out and take it to your local Home Depot or Lowe's store and ask them to scan the color for you.

A fun and fascinating tool for choosing paint colors for your room is at:

http://www.sherwin-williams.com

Not only do they let you see what different rooms would look like if they were painted in the colors you choose, but also offer accent color suggestions as well! Way fun. Give it a try.

Eliminate the need for picture frames with Gallery Canvases

Visit the VictoriaLarsen.com website for Ornamental Plaster Molds, Raised Plaster and Painting Stencils and scads of ideas, techniques and inspiration.

Eliminate the need for picture frames with gallery canvases

I love to paint and it's something I've been doing since I was 12 years old. Recently, the itch to paint has totally overcome me and I dug out my brushes and started a new painting of aspen trees.

Finding and investing in frames to hang my paintings in has always been a real headache and displaying the simple painted canvas on the wall didn't give a "finished" look.

The answer is "gallery wrapped" canvases.

These are art canvases where the canvas itself is stapled on the back of the frame instead of on the sides as was the norm in years past.

With this painting, I was able to take the background and even branches right over the side of the canvas. Who needs a frame when the art is continued to every edge?

Now, when you paint a painting, you can bring your background all the way around the sides of the canvas. What a novel idea and why didn't someone think of this decades ago!

Now, you can do your artwork and display it with pride without a frame.

This type of display works fabulously in today's popular contemporary decorating scheme as well because it keeps the look very simple and modern.

For those of you who are not artists, but would love to do something fun with a canvas like this, take your child's artwork and use modge podge (a craft product used for adhering and sealing designs to a surface) to glue it to the center of a canvas you have painted a coordinating color to your wall color.

Or try painting the entire canvas jet black then stand back the throw brilliant colors of acrylic paints with a paint brush for some dramatic and colorful art on your walls. Who needs to be an artist? Not you!

Find gallery wrapped canvases on sale right now at dickblick.com