Today, in a spring clean-up effort, my darling husband cleaned up the woodpile, the trailer, the extraneous lawn furniture that had been haphazardly stored over the winter. I walked around that side of the garage and felt relief…I hadn’t realized it had been a stressor all winter to have that messy pile of stuff there.

My point: look with fresh eyes at your surroundings and take care of that eyesore that you don’t acknowledge, but may be draining your sense of order, beauty and serenity.

MU workers rake glass, not leaves by KOMUnews, on Flickr

Home Staging: Spring yard clean-up.Here in the heartland, the winter snow has just finally melted to reveal the unsightly, brown and sometimes moldy lawn. Over the years, my compulsion to clean it up has been tempered by the “don’t rake too early” adage. Until this morning’s paper. The article suggests that if you have snow mold, its best to rake it away. I cannot wait to get out there and rake away!!! (yes we have snow mold) Even without snow mold, the column reiterates what my own experience has been…if it’s relatively dry, a gentle raking to remove leaves and salt and sand will improve your chances of a green lawn. Happy raking!

Here’s what the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors says:

Weekly Market Activity Report The gap between current and year-ago listing activity continues to widen, as anticipated. Expect the supply-side numbers to show sizable year-over-year declines due to the high baseline set during the spring 2010 tax credit. It should be noted that we are now approaching a period where we’ll be comparing the 2011 non-tax credit market to the 2010 tax credit market at its peak level.

For the week ending February 19, there were 690 signed purchase agreements, which made for a 12.1 percent decline from the same week last year. There were 1,367 New Listings for the week, representing a 25.4 percent decline from a year ago. Active Listings, at 21,642, have been holding steady since the beginning of the year due to subdued seller activity coupled with fairly reliable sales volumes. That marked a 3.3 percent decline from year-ago inventory levels.

A more meaningful comparison is to look back at 2009 and 2008 and avoid tax credit stimulated activity. This week’s 690 Pending Sales fall right in between 2008 and 2009 numbers. While that is less buyer activity than we would like, it does provide hope for the future. If you’d like to see the full report, visit the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors.

We have been thinking about painting our own home this coming spring. I have spent my travels around town scrutinizing every home with orange brick in hopes of spotting that sharp, clean paint job that will inspire me. What I have found is that orange-ish brick is most often paired with white (yuck). Another consideration I am making is the palate of our neighborhood…most of our immediate neighbors have some shade of taupe…We could paint the brick (another yuck in my opinion) to open up our options. I was surprised by how limiting brick color and neighborhood color scheme could be. Yet another element to coordinate with is the roof color… any stonework or metal work…style of home, landscaping, window casing and shutters, gutters, driveway (asphalt, cement, other)…Who knew how difficult it could be in determining the right color scheme for the exterior of ones home. I am sure, though, that by considering all of these elements, something curbilicious will result!