Libra Organizing

I simply cannot say enough wonderful things about the work Marin did for us and the way in which she did it.  She was recommended to us by our realtor, Claire Stone, as someone who could "cutesy" up our sunroom and main living spaces.  Marin did so much more than "cutesy" though.  She had a very full schedule with several out of town trips to repeat clients including some in D.C..  As a result, our experience with her was scheduled slightly differently than is typical for her.  I had movers scheduled to come the week after I first contacted her.  I needed to meet with her before then to know what had to go.  She arrived the following Tuesday and spent two hours in my home.  At the end of those two hours, she had gone room by room in my home and identified everything that had to be put in storage.  She answered my questions succinctly, but was careful to stay on task (I'm a talker, so she had to keep me focused a little to help me get the most of my 2 hours).  Once I was clear on what had to be weeded out and what furniture needed to be relocated downstairs, she moved on to choosing a paint color for the whole interior of my house.  We then moved outdoors and she made recommendations for increasing our curb appeal and weighed in on some suggestions our landscaper made.  Her suggestions were often rather precise..."make sure you have plants that are about 18 inches tall under that window, and two 8-10 inch potted plants for the steps."  I do not have a knack for design, so the more specific she was the more helpful.  After two hours she headed out and I knew exactly what I had to do to clear out my house and increase my curb appeal.  She charged an hourly rate, for a total of $130 to do work I'm not sure I ever could have done myself, let alone in two hours.  That afternoon, she sent a proposal for staging my home if I decided to move forward with that.  After meeting with her the first time, it was easy to decide to have her come back to complete the job.  We worked hard to have all of our other home repairs and painting completed in time to have her return on Feb 26th for the staging.  That day she spent about 3-4 hours going room by room and arranging the furniture to make small spaces look larger and all of them more inviting and functional.  She used stuff I had in ways I'd never imagined (one of our curtains became a linen accent near the foot of our bed...who knew?).  After that work was done, she excuse herself and went shopping for just a few accessories.  She lent some things to us that she had form previous stagings and bought truly the bare minimum for the maximum impact.  (I cannot stress this enough, I practically begged her to buy a mirror for our upstairs bathroom and a new inside mat for the front door.  She promised me we didn't need to spend money on those things. We trusted her and she was right!) Furthermore, she saved receipts for everything and encouraged us to return whatever we didn't want to keep long term.  She spent approximately $200 on needed items.  I ultimately returned $130 worth of items when they were no longer needed. Once shopping was done, she returned to put on the finishing touches which included hanging pictures (as task that seems to take me forever).  The next day we had photos taken and our house was on the market by Feb 28th.  Five days later we had two offers on our house, both for more than asking price! I have no doubt that Marin's work was key in the rapid sale of our house.  Not only that, but she was such a joy to work with.  We are already trying to decide if we can manage to have her come to Tennessee to organize and design the spaces in our new home. While the work she did for us was staging, I have every confidence that she would do an outstanding job with the other services she offers.