One Two Six Design Diary

Shame on us for not posting anything here for so long, we are letting the Twitter tool to do all the hard work posting our Tweets summaries week after week.

Well, we have been quite busy, staging, designing and putting together a brand new site: CandidHome.com!! Yes, we have added a brand name furnishing retail business to our services. Our goal is to offer great products at low internet price but with comprehensive retail service. There are already over 2000 items on the site, and we are adding more constantly! Updating the site with new items is a time consuming task, so please visit us often.

Unlike other furniture retailers who’d charge you $75 just to drop off the bulky sofa you order on your driveway, our experienced movers will deliver it into your home, set it down easy at the spot you want, and we’ll do this for only $3/mile, even FREE if your order is over $1000 and live within 10 miles from us. Too many choices, not sure what to get for your living room? Don’t forget, we have been staging for over 10 years, let us help you to design the perfect place you call home! Talk to us at 650.425.7724

CandidHome.com Screenshot

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We received an email from the US Commerce Association a week ago, notifying us that they’ve chosen One Two Six Design for the “Best of Palo Alto Award” in Home Design & Planning Services category.

One Two Six Design, Best of Palo Alto Award

Woohoo~~!!   Yippeeee~~!! (for the next 5 mins)

Finally when the excitement subdued, and calmness settled back in, we realized… wait a minute, “Best of Palo Alto”? But… we moved from Palo Alto to the present Mountain View location more than 5 years ago. US Commerce Association? Who are these people?

Intrigued, we followed the link provided in the email, the web site open with instruction on how to obtain the award plaque, for a fee… Something didn’t feel right, if someone really want to give us an award, shouldn’t they give us the plaque for free?

Have to say, these people have came up with a very creative way to grab your money, hats off to them. In the world that’s full of spam mails, at least US Commerce Association’s spam comes with a vanity award.

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Robert Kiyosaki (Rich Dad Poor Dad) wrote in his book Before You Quit Your Job about the three kinds of money: Competitive money, Cooperative money and Spiritual money. For the detail in explaining their difference, please read his book, it is well worth your time.

One Two Six Design, we are a staging company, and obviously we make money by selling our staging and related services, and yes we have many competitions, so the money we earn, according to Rich Dad’s definition — Competitive money.

Staging has gained a lot of popularity recently, mostly hyped up by the TV shows on HGTV and the likes, there are also countless number of web sites now selling “How to Start Your Own Staging Business” courses. But if you stop and ask any seasoned stager, you will hear that staging is no way an easy business. The pay can be good, but our cost is also high, the result is beautiful, but the process is also very labor intensive. Fortunately, besides the physical monetary compensations, we are also awarded by the more important Spiritual Money.

Selling a home is probably one of the most important decision most of us make in our lifetime. Our home is our safe haven, generally it is also where majority of our hard earned money went to. In the rocky economy of today, selling one’s home is often a reluctant choice, a forced decision. Just two days ago, we de-staged a townhouse in Fremont after it was successful sold in a short time and at a reasonable price. The owners were a couple with two young children, the husband was laid off by his previous employer and was forced to move back to his home country in Asia looking for a new job, leaving his wife and their two school-aged kids here taking care of the house. The wife was so thankful to us, for helping their home get sold, the close of escrow means they no longer have any financial baggages and the family can finally reunite to start a new life.

We love hearing stories like this, this is what Spiritual Money means to us. Selling a home is not just about the numbers, there are a lot of emotions to it. We are part of the team that helps people with their most difficult decision, and we work hard everyday for it.

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One Two Six Design Relay for Life Donation

One Two Six Design is proud to donate our services to the cause of fighting cancer — Relay for Life.

Cancer impacts countless number of lives and their friends and family around them. Let’s all do what we can to battle cancer, donate your support, money, time and service… one person can make a difference!

Our service will be auctioned at Alain Pinel Realtors (Los Altos) event this June 1. Join the relay, and help make a difference!

Learn more about Relay for Life on American Cancer Society web site.

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Watching the FOX 10 o’clock news, and it is reporting a growing number of burglaries occurring at vacant staged homes. Apparently, criminals use online tools, virtual tours and even open houses to research and target staged homes, then break in to steal the expensive furnishings and accessories. Time is tough, thieves are also getting creative.

Hope we’ll be spared from such mishaps, and hope no home owners will have to go through such nightmare, selling a home is already stressful enough…

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Preparing your home for sell?

De-cluttering your junk?

Packing & storing your things?

Let us help you save some money! Give us a call 650.967.2575 and see how we can help, beyond staging…

Discounts with our partners

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Haven’t updated this blog in two weeks, if it wasn’t for the automatic Twitter digest, this page would have been static for the past half month! What a shame, as we have done a lot of exciting projects in March!!

2009 has been fast paced, and March has been especially exciting! We worked on brand new construction on a historical lot in Los Altos, new homes in Pacifica with great views of the ocean, fantastic condos in Palo Alto, and huge mansion in the hills of Saratoga… all these and many other memorable projects all throughout the Bay Area!

I spent few hours to pull out and organized some photos for these projects, and used them to updated our main site’s front page, the Before & After section, as well as the Portfolio section of this blog. I just love looking at the before & after photos, the transformation is always amusing to me! I need to put up more of them on our site…

Okay, that’s it for now, just wanted to write a quick update. It is going to be another busy week ahead, we just got the words over the weekend that few more properties (we staged) are sold! Love hearing these great news!!

Happy Monday everyone!

Before

After

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One more good news for the night…

• Kipling, Palo Alto (sold and closed in 3 weeks!)

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We are very happy to hear the news of the houses we staged throughout the Bay Area are selling!

• Camino Al Lago, Atherton (this was staged for rental, rented!)
• Port Dr., San Mateo (sold in <60 days)
• Hope St., Mountain View (sold & closed in 60 days)
• Hidden Hills, Napa (sold & closed in 30 days!)
• Deauville Park, Fremont (sold & closed in 30 days!)
• Vaquero, Mountain View (sold in first weekend!)

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BBB gave us an “A+”!!

We got A+!!

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Good news are pouring in!

• Magdalena Ave., Los Altos – Sold in 6 days!
• Henrietta Ave., Sunnyvale – Sold in 2 weeks!
• Bitteroaks Dr., Cupertino – Sold in the first weekend!
• Outlook Cir., Pacifica – Sold within a month!

We are very happy for our partners and clients! Yeaaa!!

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We staged 432 Ives Ter in Sunnyvale back on 2/5, today we were told that the buyer has removed all contingencies, and the place is ready for us come and de-stage!

Sold in 2 weeks!!! Yeeeaa!

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Juan is our Mover/Installer, and he is One Two Six Design’s very first employee. We celebrated his birthday at the end of Jan, and on March 15th, we’ll be celebrating again — his 10 year anniversary with the company!!

Star Employee Juan (left) Celebrating His 31st Birthday

In his 10 year tenure, Juan has helped staged well over 3000 homes all around the Bay Area; He knows the every short cut and back road from Peninsula to East Bay and can point out homes he help staged at almost every intersection. Juan has an amazing memory and is the master of our warehouse, he knows exactly where to find anything, and can pull out any specific painting from our collection of ~1000 prints stored along the 120′ long wall!

Juan’s experience is a huge help to our business, he remembers which painting looks well with the furniture the designers picked and can literally stage a home all by himself! It is hard to find anyone who works harder than Juan. He is always punctual, always upbeat, and always pays attention to safety and details. Juan and the rest of our team of designers and installers are the soul of our company, they are One Two Six Design, they are the reason why we are still around after 10 years!

Thank you Juan for you hard work and dedications!

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More good news from our realtor clients, actually, we prefer to call them “partners” since we are working toward the same goal — to help home owners sell. 

We recently staged a lovely 1300 sq ft condo a block away from downtown Mountain View. In less than a week, our partner called us to de-stage, yup, the place is sold!! Granted, the condo is located at a prime location, great looking boutique complex, functional layout and nicely remodeled. It is still amazing to hear how fast it was able to sell!

Mountain View Condo (Sold in 1 Week!)

On the other hand, last Tues we did a partial staging for a townhouse in East Bay. This was a challenging project. The townhouse was covered in floral patterned wallpapers dated from the 70’s, the owner also had a lot of heavy, bulky, solid wood furniture and a set of bright red leather sofa. To make it more difficult, the owner run out of storage space, so besides the bright lipstick red leather sofas, everything else had to stay… Well, we re-arranged the existing furnishings, brought in a set of lighter neutral colored sofa, art works and accessories to tie everything together… Again, we were very pleased to hear from our Realtor partner over the weekend that the place is pending!!

Crane Partial Staging Before & After (Sold in 1 Week!)

Crane Partial Staging Before & After (Sold in 1 Week!)

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We love it when agents call to tell us their listings we staged is pending! What’s even better is when they call us shortly after we stage the properties!! It is a great feeling knowing that we were part of a successful selling experience for the sellers!

Recent sold under 30 days:

• Newheaven St., Concord (3 weeks)
• Pleasantview Rd., Pleasant Hills (3 weeks)
• Guinda St., Palo Alto (13 days)

What could be better if you ask? Sold over listing price that is!!

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One of the coolest thing about what we do is that we get to unwrap “presents” all the time, year round! We are constantly looking and shopping for that perfect ornament, bedding and furnishings to add to our already vast inventory. It is always like Christmas here at our warehouse. 

We got it for its simplicity, its clean lines and its neutral color. Can't wait to use it!

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Being in the business for over 10 years, we have accumulated abundant resources in the real estate industry. From over 1000+ realtors we have worked with in the past to handyman and painters, we have the Power Team in place to help you prepare your home for the market and to sell at top dollars.

We are very excited to announce the new service we will be rolling out in early 2009 — fully managed interior/exterior painting service.  

Our client often ask for our recommendations on the interior and exterior paint color during our initial staging consultation session, so it makes absolute sense for us to include the painting as part of our service portfolio. Together, our staging designers & experienced painters will work with you to select the most suitable color for your property, then we’ll take care of the schedule and logistics for the painting and wrap it up with our stunning staging, all in time for the market. 

We are aiming to become your one stop shop for getting your home ready for the market. We are constantly seeking ways to offload you and save you the headache of working with multiple vendors. By bundling the services, we can save you a lot of money as well! On the other hand, we can benefit from less time conflicts with the other contractors as well! This really is a Win-Win solution… 

One Two Six Design is one of the best known and well respected staging companies in the Northern California, we’re proud of this and take our work very seriously. Our painters are exceptionally gifted, specializes in custom paint color and textures. A good paint job is more than just good color choice or brush works, we also factor in the effect of natural lighting of your rooms and the color coordination with the furnishings. Painting is the largest “art work” in your home, so choose your painter wisely! 

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A $10 milion dollar mansion in Atherton… whew…
Can’t wait to start working on this project! It will definitely be challenging, but that’s the best part!

Stick around and we’ll tell you all about it, in few days!

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Archive

• Free Virtual Tour (03/08/2010)
• Hello 2010! (01/05/2010)
• Partner Discounts (03/31/2009)
• One Stop Shop (03/02/2009)
• Season’s Greeting (12/24/2008)
• Newsletter (10/10/2008)

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Back in September, Comcast expressed their interest to interview us for their next segment of In Good Company. This is a short 3 minutes program aired between the news segments on CNN Headline News. Of course we said yes to their request. 

A film crew of three and the hostess came to our office with their gears, we set up a mini-set with shelves, trees and chairs to be the primary interviewing location. The crew followed Vivian around our 14,000 sq ft warehouse for a quick tour of our inventories and some close-up shots of our accessories.

It was a fun experience for us, the program was aired throughout the month of October. Thanks to Comcast, the short segment gave a lot of home owners an inside look at our home staging operation, and as a result, we were able to help numerous home owners who contacted us after watching the show.

Here is the short video, if you have trouble viewing it, please watch it on YouTube directly.

Filming crew setting up

Checking the video equipments

Getting ready for shooting

Interviewing

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