Aloha, envy! Yes, I was bitter. Enter my personal mantra:

‘If you can’t beat them, join them….
then beat them.‘

So now, class, 20-some odd years later, I’d like to give y’all a lesson based on stuff from my island vacation!!

Only this lesson is full of material that you can actually use– stuff that can change the very environment in which you exist, for the better!!

I am sooo much cooler than that spoiled bitch Molly Jacques!

Okay, I’m over my childhood trauma now. Onward!!

Here’s today’s ‘don’t let this happen to you’ lesson:

The building is Jackie O, but it’s dressed like a skanky ho!!

So I just got back from an all-too-short vacation to Turks & Caicos (footnote for the geographically-challenged: these are islands that are part of the British West Indies– don’t feel bad, I had no clue where they were either.)

After a long flight, me & the BF arrived at our 5-star resort, which was substantially less pricey than the other 5-star on the island. This is how I got him to go along with (read:pay for) it. And it was swanky.

Unfortunately, before I could get too excited by my choice, I discovered the reason for it’s relative-cheapness: our room sucked.

Now, I know you think I’m referring to the decor. I am not.

The room sucked for other reasons, like the rotten, musty smell in the otherwise upscale bathroom (there was a sketch on the ceiling that marked the spot for an absent ventillation system.)

Plus, there was no ocean view- instead, we had a view of the parking lot (a pseudo-garden view, if you will.) And the room was small.

Looking back, I don’t think the room was supposed to be rented out, period. In other words, the staff was evil and/or stupid to place us there. How do I know?

The bitch that showed us to our room had to call housekeeping to let us in, as there was no key to the room. Oddly enough, they used actual keys, not cards, because they’re more tasteful!

The irony of this will become more apparent in a minute.

Upon being shown to this $450/night atrocity, asked how much more a room with an ocean view would cost. Well, there was no such thing as a mere room with a view, only large suites with gourmet kitchens and 2 bathrooms and 2 balconies.

They started at $900… per night.

Believe it or not, even though someone else was paying– someone who could afford it, even– I wasn’t about to lobby for the suite. But before you start thinking I’m so martyr-like, you should know that above all, I was not setting for the moldy shoebox-room.

I mean, who goes to an exotic island and doesn’t stay in a room with an ocean view? Why don’t they just fly there in the wheel-well of the plane while they’re at it??

Instead, I presented various scenarios in which we disputed the Visa charges and moved to the other 5-star next door. Before anything was settled, our jet-lagged asses passed out in the shoebox… only to awake and realize we couldn’t leave the room without having housekeeping let us back in!!

This meant only one of us could leave at a time. Naturally, I immediately left the mold-chamber with the BF still in it. I was on an anti-moldy-shoebox-mission, after all.

One hour later we were taken to our ocean-view suite, complete with the view pictured above!!

Only this time, everything was magnificent except for the decor… we’re talking 60′s-style modernist furniture, in a decidedly old-world building. WTF??

**I scoured the hotel’s website for a pic of the distasteful interior, but surprise, surprise, all they show is a tastefully, appropriately suite, like this one:

So, if you will, imagine the atrocity of modernist furniture like this substituted for the furniture in the above photos:

Now that you’ve got an idea of the living & dining rooms, let me share the best part with you: the bedroom. Again, because they neglected to advertise the interior of the heinously-appointed bedroom, I had to find a similar pic elsewhere.

But before you feast your eyes on it, let me make this crystal-clear…

I AM NOT THE STANKY HO PICTURED BELOW!!

Ah, but we did have a black comforter on our bed. Only ours had neon turquoise accent pillows!!

As disturbed as I was by our suite’s inappropriate decor, there was no way I was going back to the parking-lot-view-closet-room (which, for all it’s faults, was decently decorated.)

So why would they decorate the suites so badly compared to the mere rooms? Why would they poison this wing with bad furnishings?

Could it be that the vile-decor virus was contained in our suite alone? I had to find out.

So I tipped our Haitian housekeeper and asked that she show me the suite across the hall. It looked like Jackie O had lived there, identical to the first two rooms pictured above.

Once again, my designer-gene wouldn’t let me relax until I found out WHY. Did I mention that this pesky gene takes it personally when bad decor happens to good buildings?

This gene is also responsible for giving unsolicited decorating advice.

As such, it took all of my will power to refrain from calling the manager back to ask, “Excuse me, why did you litter our suite with mid-century modern furniture?”

Because A) I didn’t want to kick a gift-horse in the mouth; and B) I didn’t trust myself to broach the decor-subject without doing so, I refrained from asking anyone at the hotel.

The next day we caught an island-hopper plane Grand Turk (which is totally worth doing, BTW). Because our return flight was running on island-time (read: 2 hrs late), I struck up a conversation with a lady who turned out to be a Realtor.

Finally, a kindred spirit in the home staging universe!!

She told us what the deal was:

Our hotel, The Somerset, was “A condo resort hotel”. Translation: An actual person owned our suite (hence, the fully-equipped gourmet kitchen.) When one buys a condo/second home at such a place, one has the option to rent it out and earn income while doing so!! Every owner can choose from a number of furniture packages that vary widely in price. Our owner was cheap-ish (i.e. he paid $100K rather than $180K to furnish it) and/or had bad taste.

How do I know it was a “he”? Well, kids, at a certain point, every designer can look at a space and tell you the owner’s age, occupation, and family status.

I pegged this owner as a late 40′s to mid-50′s single executive. There was NO WOMAN IN THE PICTURE; only someone who lived in an office would select a furniture package straight out of an office.

I told my BF about the demographics, and he kind of questioned my aforementioned abilities. HA!!

Guess what? I did a little detective work and learned I was 100% correct. But you knew that already, right?

Both of these quests are driven by emotion. In fact, studies show that when shopping for homes, people are emotional buyers, as is the case with dating.

If a buyer falls in love with a house, they are willing to overlook certain flaws (assuming they notice them at all.) Conversely, if someone is turned off by a house, as with a boyfriend/girlfriend, the individual tends to notice flaws more easily. Psychologists call this phenomenon Cognitive Dissonance– once we have made our minds up on an emotional level, we see things that back our feelings up while disregarding things that don’t.

Now imagine yourself as a single woman who has enlisted the help of a matchmaker in your quest for love.

You fill out her form, listing acceptable ranges for height, weight, race, income, hobbies and such. Upon reading your criteria, the matchmaker tells you she has the perfect guy for you. You see his picture and wholeheartledly agree! She sets the two of you up on a dinner date.

You can hardly contain your excitement as you enter the restaurant. You see him from a distance and get goosebumps! By the time you shake his hand, you’re thinking he may be the one. He looks like a GQ cover, and you know he meets your other criteria!!

Then, when he turns around to get your drink, you notice something strange– he seems to have caught a dead animal on the back of his collar!

Upon closer inspection, you realize that’s no dead animal, it’s his hair– his rat tail? Wait, he has a mullet– it’s been neatly pony-tailed for your date, but still!!

Then you see him pull out his wallet– it’s made of red pleather snakeskin!! And then you notice the footwear– he’s got cowboy boots that match!!

Needless to say, the emotional feelings you had for this guy just took him from husband material to used-car salesman material!!

But wait, these are superficial things that could easily be fixed, right?? Why don’t you just give him a makeover and live happily ever after with him?

Because you’re turned off now, that’s why. The illusion has been killed- he is not for you. It’s no longer meant to be. This is not your man. You cannot see him in your life.

Of course, some women, most of whom are from New Jersey, love this kind of style. Even though he’d much rather find a woman than have a mullet, he’s not cutting it anytime soon– it took him a long time to grow that hair, and he thinks it looks cool.

The matchmaker doesn’t want to risk offending her client by telling him about his style-issues, so she sends him to an Image Consultant, or Stylist. The Stylist is specializes in this sort of thing, and knows precisely a) what changes to make and b) the best way to get the client on board with the changes.

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, in the world of Real Estate the Realtor is the matchmaker, the man is the house, and the mullet is a mural (and/or other highly-personalized decor). That would leave someone like me, the Home Stager, in the Stylist/Image Consultant role.

Because the general feeling that one gets when entering a house is as key as the personal style of a potential life-partner, when big commissions are on the line, serious Real Estate Agents almost always employ someone like me.

Needless to say, they don’t like being the bad guy who tells the client to change their personal style.

Fortunately, I have a minor in Psychology (and a B.A. in Visual Communication to boot!)

This all adds up to faster turnarounds, higher offers and happier buyers and sellers. Agents do for Buyers what good matchmakers do for singles– and Home Stagers do for dwellings what Hollywood Stylists do for celebrities! Regardless of their innate levels of taste, practically all A-listers understand the necessity of a pro!

It really is an investment in one’s bottom line!

As always, if you have an issue that you’d like my help with, feel free to email me. Who knows, you may end up in my next entry!

Ciao for Now,

Jenna

As an Interior Designer, when I walk into someone’s home or office I sometimes feel like an A-list Stylist at an 80′s Hair Band concert– I want to approach the owner of the offensive getup and tell them to quit polluting their environment with bad taste. Or, if they think they’re too cool to care, I want to tell them they are embarrassing themselves by walking around with a virtual sign on their forehead that screams “CHECK OUT MY HOT MULLET- I CUT IT MYSELF!”

Alas, like the stylist approaching a Billy Ray Cyrus -circa 1995 clone, I’m hesitant to do so for fear of hurting the offender’s feelings. The end result is that the people who need help the most seek it least!

Hiring an Interior Designer can feel, to the average person, like hiring a hairdresser feels to the redneck: an unnecessary expense. Yet, in both cases, it’s actually the best investment they can make!

Enter the trade of Interior Redesign. If hiring a traditional Interior Designer seems like overkill– you’re afraid they’ll have you throw out all of your furniture and spend a fortune– hiring a Redesigner is the answer. We take existing decor and add cost-effective touches, like architectural moldings and appropriate paint colors, in order to create a cohesive design scheme that makes spaces feel like model homes.

Of course, there are somepeople who have an eye for design and, with a few tricks of the trade, can manage to do a decent job all by themselves. For those people, I’m here to clue you in each week with an article on techniques us pros use! If you have a design dilemma that you want answered in an upcoming entry, feel free to email me. Together, we can rid the world of the pollution that is bad decor!