April, 2014 gets a postscript

 Our most recent Home Staging job

What's the difference between a silk flower and a real flower? You can throw a silk flower across the room and it will come up; if not smelling like a rose, undamaged and good to go. The big warehouse is nearly empty now and I am sorting through hundreds of silk flowers to get rid of the tired ones and packing others in storage boxes until they are in their new home; destination where? Perhaps some to my studio and some to a small storage shed in Richmond?

 
I can't figure out how to title this post. It's about endings and beginnings and I want to be positive but it's hard at the moment feeling so sad. I've been working in a small boutique home staging business in Southern Marin for 13 years with my dear friend, Max Lampert. We were a company of two, with some fun and excellent moving help. It was a great run in many ways. We had a tremendous amount of creative freedom and had a very customized approach to every house. We put soooo much attention to each and every surface. We got into such an intense creative zone that it blocked out the guns from the shooting range next door to our warehouse; quite a feat for sound sensitive people.

So the medium has been furniture, art, rugs, linens, dishes, accessories, etc in the design of homes for sale. Mainly we used Max's huge inventory, but it was fun and challenging to use a home owners. The icing on the cake has always been the florals. They provided an amazing way of pulling everything together, despite the fact that they were 3-d replicas of the real thing. Florals were a signature of our work. I think as staging companies go, we used an inordinate amount.

But over the years we had been burning out, each for different reasons; looking to do more permanent design work, something less strenuous, but not exclusively a desk job- too used to the rhythm of moving around a lot.  She didn't want the huge warehouse overhead. I wanted to work more with real flowers as opposed to silk ones. And it was time to think about working in the capacity of partners in a more formalized way.

Then a fork in the road showed up. Max got offered a wonderful staging job with one of the top staging companies in the Bay Area. It's perfect for her. She deserves it. No stress about warehouse overhead, and a support staff! Yay, Max! Change and growth is part of life. I know. I know... . A little afraid but looking for wonderful opportunities down the road. Breath in... breath out....

Postscript!! After a month of working with the said top staging company it didn't work out for Max. When I'm free we're doing some jobs together again. We're renting the big furniture and it's a dream. Post a point,the art, florals, and other accessories are what really makes the difference anyway.