# 212 - Staging the House for some Real Fun!

Australian Shepherds can damage your pretty front door. If they are like my Howdy, they will actually POUNCE on the glass in a manner that causes the glass to completely break as the person standing on the porch is mortified that a dog is apparently trying to "get" them. We've been to the stained glass store a few times with this door. Not all doors are compatible with a growing Aussie.

These days, he stays doesn't jump on the door.

Deputy Dave refinished the door and I think it's a true beauty.

The gameroom and extended living room upstairs are FINISHED. We even flipped the table to show the poker side so that buyers can walk through this room and think, "Wow...this house is made for good times!"

Yep, that's the feeling you want buyers to have as they consider your house for a purchase.

Deputy Dave and I put three coats of high-gloss MinWax polyurethane on the floors and they are stunning. We put these same wood floors in our Master Bedroom and Master Closet.

Heather's room is all dolled up. I love this bedding set, so luxurious. I've promised to give it all to Heather as soon as we sell the house. Even though the bedding is gorgeous, I sure don't like having to worry about every little spot on cream perfection. Not in this house.

Over here, we have LOTS of "Howdy Hair."

I tried to capture how beautiful the foyer is with the curved stairway. I love the custom mosaic entry tile-rug. I wanted one of these so bad and had been pricing for the work to be done, it wasn't under $2,600, so Deputy Dave decided to tackle it himself. He did a beautiful job.

The mosaic tile rug makes the odd foyer area have a distinct delineation from the other rooms that it flows into.

He laid all the tile in the house, and he laid all the wood flooring. We would not have been able to put these beautiful floors in the house if he'd not been able to do the labor himself. The installation costs were unaffordable for us.

My kitchen is enjoyable. It's not fantastic, but it is functional and a reflection of our lives. We've had a lot of fun times serving great food to family and friends from this kitchen.

One thing that we WON'T have in our cabin in the woods is a floorplan with funky angles. But, this house displays the long-haired cowhide rug that I love so much in the living room downstairs. I had mistakenly thought it was from Brazil. Wrong. It's actually from Kenya, but tanned in Brazil.

When you go to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, these kinds of things are what you will find to buy. They have every Western and Southern piece of furnishing and accent that you could imagine.

Below is a shot of our living room that shows the weird angles. One thing that I will DEFINITELY AVOID in the construction of our cabin is the position of the seating and television...I'll avoid creating a "hallway" effect through the room. Sitting to watch television can be frustrating because everyone must pass in front of the screen. Bad hallway, bad.

Interesting note, the cedar chest that the television is placed above is one that my mother gave to me. This was her very first piece of furniture that she won from a shop in town when she lived in Austin. She had only been sixteen at the time. I have loved this piece of furniture as much as she did. It is solid cedar.

Actually, I didn't get to take this cedar chest from my mom's house until after I'd returned from living in Germany. But, I'd grown up with it in my room. Upon our return to America, I discovered that my brother had moved into my old room that held the cedar chest. I was in agony after seeing that he'd marked offensive symbols all over the front of the chest with black magic marker and the top of the chest had numerous burns from lit cigarettes being set on it along with a few carvings that had been made with a knife. It was "guyed-up" in a bad way.

No, my brother hadn't given any respect to this treasured piece of furniture, but he was a teenager a bit out of control, to put it nicely. I would have throttled my kids if they would have vandalized any of our furniture. These days, he has teenagers and he'd wring his kids' necks if they did some of the stuff he did, especially if they tore up the furniture in the house.

Since it was solid cedar, Deputy Dave took his time refinishing the chest until the knife carvings could no longer be seen and all the marker penmanship evidence had been sanded away and the burns were taken care of too. The legs had broken as well, as if the chest had been slid around so much that the weakened legs snapped off. He repaired those too.

Since my mother passed away a few years ago from breast cancer, I'm so unbelievably happy over this cedar chest...that she'd seen it refinished and brought back to its full glory.

So, we had spent Saturday nearly putting ourselves in traction because we were trying to get the house ready for my best-friend, a real estate agent, to come and do her "official" walk-through with her buyer's eyes in place. She'd be giving constructive criticism and I was a mess trying to get everything ready. But, we did get things relatively prepared for my friend, Kelly.

Later in the evening, we got to have a special visitor...our niece Shaye came over to spend the night. I had called my sister and said, "I miss Shaye, she's welcome to come spend the night, if you guys want to go out for date night or something."

Within a short time, Deputy Dave and I were cracking up because they were at our front door and Shaye had her overnight bags in hand. I love my Sissy!

So, I decided that the room upstairs that is staged to look like fun needed to be used for some REAL fun. So, I thought it might be a great time to teach the niece a few games. And since the table is a poker table, we started out learning a bit of poker. We threw dice and she learned how to give the dice a lucky "blow" and she now knows how to recognize "Snake Eyes." Then, we decided to play Dominoes. I think my sister will be delighted that I'm teaching her daughter how to play poker.

And here we are, shuffling. I get ready to take my turn.

It's so nice to not have such a quiet house because a child is making delightful noises. Even if it is while learning to play poker with her Aunt.

That's how we roll around here.