Staging Disaster

So not only do I work full time but I am also a realtor and real estate stager on the side. There was a charity auction held about six months ago for another realtor who had been battling breast cancer. If you know any realtors you will know that since we are independent contracts you have to buy health insurance on your own. Obviously buying your own health insurance is ridiculously expensive and often doesn't have the best coverage. To help with her exorbitant medical expenses people donated their services and/or items to this charity auction. I donated a real estate staging package. Since it was some time ago and I never heard anything more about it I assumed that either no one ended up bidding on it or someone had bought it just so they could buy something but really weren't in need of a staging. Low and behold a couple weeks ago I got a call from a fast talking woman who said she had a certificate for a real estate staging that she got at an auction. I made arrangements to meet her at her house in a couple days.

I showed up on her doorstep and introduced myself to another professional looking lady standing in the entry-way. I thought at first this was the homeowner's realtor and made small talk. This lady explained to me that no, she wasn't their realtor but was the new wife of the lady's ex-husband who was battling cancer and this house was her daughters. Umm alright. What do you say to that? I laughed awkwardly and said something like ohhh, that is nice.

Meanwhile the lady whose house it was was scrambling around trying to finish up the nighttime routines. I could see she had a son around the age of 3 and a daughter who I later found out was 7. She invited me to come up and relax as she just had to finish up her daughter's bath. As I reached the top of the stairs in her split level home, her son came running at me with a rubber sword and wound up... THWACK right into the back of my knees. It didn't hurt but geesh I wondered if this was how he always welcomed strangers into their house. The mom saw her son axe the back of my kneeds and freaked. I was kind of embarassed about the whole thing and insisted that it wasn't a big deal. She said absolutely not that he was not to hit people. She told her son that he cannot watch his show until he apologized to Allison. This lead him into melt down mode where he stomped around and cried "I DON'T WANT TO APOLOGIZE!!!" Around this same time the seven year old tour out of the bathroom, completely naked and was screaming. Not screaming because she was in pain or anything, just to hear her own voice. The lady apologized since things were a little hectic and that her husband was supposed to be home but forgot he had to golf at the last second. Umm yeah let's weigh our options... golf... rearrange furniture.. golf.. rearrange furniture.. golf it is!

Finally she got her daughter dressed but the son continued to pad around the house muttering under his breath. Oh I forgot to mention.. he was wearing a t-shirt and just undies. Not that this phased me it just provides for a better mental image of the situation. So we start going room to room. I make suggestions of what to get rid of... we did some furniture rearrangement.. yada yada. The son kept popping in and out yelling "MOOOMMMMMYYYY!!! PLEEEAAASE!" Where the mom tells the son that until he apologized to Allison he cannot watch his show and that is that. Two minutes later the duo marched into the room where the daughter pronounced, "Allison, he says he is sorry." Of course this was not good enough since the son didn't say it himself. All the while you can tell the son thinks it was my fault he can't watch TV. Finally he came up to us, whispers "sorry" and takes off. I breathed a sigh of relief and thought the drama was over.

Yeah, over until for about two seconds. We were looking at the son's room and here comes the daughter shuffling down the hallway in MY high heels. Yes, mine... one of my favorite pair that I politely took off at the door. Mind you they had just gotten their carpets cleaned earlier that day and the carpet was still pretty wet. My shoes were starting to show signs of the wetness creeping up their leather sides. I told myself to chill what was the worst that could happen? The mother chuckled and said "oh yeah, she likes shoes a lot... just like her mother." I wanted to say, did you notice that those were my shoes not yours? But I refrained and proposed to rearrange the layout of the son's room. The daughter, wanting to help, got herself out of my shoes by stepping on one with the other. Sigh. The mom and I pushed the bed to the other side of the room, moved the dresser, and repositioned the nightstand. The gathering in his room must have caught the son's attention since he pulled himself away from his cartoons to see what was going on. Within two seconds of seeing the new layout, which I must say was 100 times more inviting, he freaked. He collapsed on the floor and was in a full out tantrum. Between his sobs he screamed, "WHY MOMMY? WHHHYYYY??" You would have thought I walked into this kid's home and killed his cat right in front of him, not move his bed from one wall to another! Holy cow get a grip! We left him in there to hopefully calm down as we moved onto the master. Unfortunately he didn't calm down and his screams and bellars only got more intense and hysterical.

As the hysterical increased the mother broke down and went and got him out of his room. She came back in the master holding him as we went over some options on what they could do to dress up their bedding and ideas for decluttering. When there was a break in the conversation the boy looked at me and yelled "I HATE YOU!!" and swung his arm in an attempt to hit me. His mom grabbed his arm and scolded him not to hit. I told her not to sweat it. I mean I would probably hate me too given his situation. A stranger comes into his house, upsets his living space, and was the cause for his punishment to not watch TV for 20 minutes. Why wouldn't you hate me?

We traveled back into the main living area where little miss was again parading around in my high heels. I am not sure why this was so irritating to me but I think if I were on the other side I would be upset at my daughter for prancing around in someone else's shoes, especially if they looked like a nice pair of high heels! I made a comment to her that those were pretty high heels and to be careful not to fall. Well no sooner had the words left my mouth did she go down like a ton of bricks. I counted in my head... one, two... out all screaming. This in turn got the boy all upset again and he joined in on the bellaring. It was all out mayhem. Over the screams the woman thanked me and said she really loved my ideas. Noting that she lacked design sense she said she would give me a call once they got a new house so I could help her decorate. I yelled over the screams that I would provide a write-up of my suggestions and ideas and drop it off to her within the next day or so. I slipped on my now wet high heels, waved goodbye to the two screaming kids, and hurried to my car. Pulling out of her driveway I decided I really felt for that mom. We all have our days where the kids won't stop screaming in the most inopportune times but I give her credit for sticking with her discipline tactics and even when her kids were throwing fits she still got down and helped me move some heavy furniture.