Organize, Simplify, Solve. “If a home doesn’t make sense, nothing does.” ~ Henrietta Ripperberger
Terry’s Blog
Staging is about creating the broadest appeal for potential buyers. Each house has unique features that require special attention. But, we can’t help but to have our favorites. Here is a list of TLC Home’s Top Ten of 2019.
Continue Reading →All About TLC Home’s organizing and staging experts, and how we can help you achieve your goals. Terry L. Cooch, Founder, founded TLC Home, LLC in 2007. Beginning TLC Home was a natural progression, giving her the opportunity to share what she has learned while raising a family of 6 children and two dogs in Arnold, MD. Making a comfortable home was always a priority for Terry, but organizing had to become a priority, as well. In the last 30 years of caring for a family, home and business, she has developed practical techniques in time management and space efficiency
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TLC Home completed a new type of staging project just before Thanksgiving: New Construction. 551 Leftwich Lane in is part of a new townhouse community in Annapolis, MD. New Construction properties present their own challenges when it comes to staging. A new, modern, open floor plan means standard Living Room, Dining Room, and Kitchen spaces aren’t separated, instead offering two large open spaces and a small nook. We chose furnishings that reflected the modern style and space and made the house feel like it could be a home. We purchased a modern style desk for the nook to show how
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Has this wave of crisp, fresh, fall weather inspired you to make a big change? When we feel the urge to change or improve our life or our home, it often results in large organizing or home maintenance projects. Change is a natural and important part life. But now you have a really, REALLY big job ahead of you and don’t know where to begin. You’ve acknowledged the need for change and have learned to sort into Keep, Toss, Donate, but you’re still stuck. Whether it’s a mountain of paper in the office or a heap of clutter in the
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Telling clients how to prepare their home for sale is the easy part. You know what condition the house needs to be in and how it should look to get top dollar. The tricky part is getting owners to buy in and take action. If not done well, asking a homeowner to make changes often results in a poorly prepared house or worse – not getting or losing the listing. If the goal is to achieve a successful sale, homeowners must want to make the necessary adjustments. It can sometimes feel like getting a kid to eat their vegetables. We
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Hey Folks! Full transparency: for the past year, I haven’t been writing my blogs alone. I have always enjoyed my work in staging and organizing. Recently, I identified an aspect that excites me no matter what service I am providing at the time: Collaboration. Working together with a client or another stager to find solutions is a great feeling. When each party sets aside ego and contributes to the goal, the best ideas and solutions are achieved. Staging requires an understanding of design and understanding of the buyer’s perspective. When working with another stager, the process becomes more efficient and
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Showing your house while actively living in it is daunting. Whether you live in a small cottage in Edgewater MD, a townhouse in Glen Burnie or a two story home in Severna Park, MD, owners must be ready at a moments notice for potential buyers to view their home. As part of our staging consultation, TLC Home provides tips on how to live in and show a house with least effort and maximum success. We focus on tweaking those most used systems and routines: the enter/exit zone, kitchen counter activity, laundry, dressing, bathrooms and pets. These high frequency, essential systems
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Spring is a season of light, warmth, flowers and spring cleaning. But who wants to spend these warm and breezy days cleaning? Wouldn’t you rather enjoy your time with family or at spring events? With cleaning on the brain, spring is a great time to consider not-cleaning and hiring professionals. TLC Home recommends hiring professional cleaning services to our clients, and to everyone else. Hiring a cleaning company gives you more time for activities you want to enjoy and pushes you to maintain home organization. Time is a precious commodity that is nonrefundable. Cleaning requires time and concentration to achieve quality
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Peggy is a senior preparing to move from her home in Severna park MD into a retirement apartment in Annapolis MD and overwhelmed with the details of the upcoming move. She didn’t know where to begin and couldn’t separate what needed to be done into manageable projects. She was stressed and confused by the many organizing projects and decisions to make. I recommended that her primary focus be to stage her home, confident that organizational issues would be simplified by the staging process. At the staging consult we discussed what needed to be done in order to prepare her home
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January is a great month for getting back into those hobbies we don’t make a priority in the busier months. New Year Resolutions combined with wet and chilly weather keeping us indoors means we have the motivation and the time to get back into old hobbies or start new ones. It can be so exciting to start something new and see the end result in our minds eye. A trip to a Joann Fabrics or William Sonoma can be fun in and of itself. However, often times we start and don’t finish our projects and hobbies. We clutter closets with
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I received a call recently from a realtor I work with that was concerned about a property in Baltimore, MD. It had been on the market for nearly 4 months already and another house down the street had sold much quicker. The other property had been staged. The realtor didn’t have much of a budget for staging the newly renovated, American Foursquare house built in the 1920s in a classic Northern Baltimore neighborhood. The renovations were well done, lots of space and a great kitchen. The only problem was the house was empty and had gray everywhere. Gray walls,
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In January of this year, TLC Home celebrated 10 years of business in Anne Arundel County. Throughout the year we created specials, posted on Facebook, and made an effort to do more speeches and networking. But I couldn’t figure out how to top it all off in a celebration. How do you throw a ribbon cutting for a business that started out as an organizing service? Do you just throw a party at a restaurant, or could we make it more unique to what TLC Home does? My answer came in September in the form of a job opportunity. I
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Terry L. Cooch founded TLC Home, LLC in 2008, first building her reputation by helping homeowners create functional systems and calm, comfortable living spaces. Over time, her love of design and her talent for transforming how a home looks and feels led her to professional home staging. 
