Thanks to all who responded to my post. I've been about every route with my mother's estate. With Craig's List I usually end up waiting for people that never show up. I don't live close enough to any large population centers to make it worth the trip for anyone interested in just one thing. I had one woman leave an angry message on my answering machine "I drove for two hours and I still didn't reach your town!" I have contacted estate liquidators and the consensus of opinion is that unless I have very high-end antiques (you know - Ming vases and Duncan Phyfe furniture) it would cost me more to pay them to do a sale than I could make from the sale. Most of the dealers here in upstate New York only want the very finest antiques and collectibles. Consignment shops won't take anything either because they are not selling very much right now. Everyone is griping about how bad the antiques market is. I guess I just hit it at the worst possible time. I know my mom bought most of her things, like Depression glass, in the 1970's when it was a hot item and expensive. Now you can't give it away. A few weeks ago I saw a Madrid cookie jar in the local Salvation Army for $2.99. I went back this week and it was still there! I have two pieces of Oyster and Pearl I've been trying to sell - a 14 inch sandwich plate and a divided relish. No one even looks at them. Most people that stop at my sale ask for: military and sports memorabilia, old fishing equipment, jewelry and gold and silver coins. Yeah, everyone has that laying around the house. I made a Web page with photographs of some of the contents of the house. If you'd like to look, click on link below. On another note, I theorize that unless you can have a tag sale on the first or second weekend of the month, don't bother. By the time the third and last week of the month rolls around, people are starting to run short on money and not looking to blow it at a tag sale. Any opinions on this? Here is a link that might be useful: Contents of House

Every morning my Inbox is filled with offers from sites where I have signed up. The best for me has been Groupon and I have gotten some great deals there. However, I only buy things I have been thinking of getting anyway. I really need to "unsubscribe" from some I never use. Thanks for the tip, Moni. I learned about Woot on the CF and got a great deal on a steam cleaner.

Wow! Bumblebeez.... "I'm tired of hearing about people with allergies and their problems to scents. I feel sorry for them, but every time I go into Bath and Body Works, it's packed out. Surely there are still plenty of people who do like scents and I think they far out number the ones who have issues. Again, I feel bad for them but lets not encumber the rest of the world with their problems. And if they come to my house, I won't burn candles and I'll remove my wallflowers. Odor de doggie will be the only aroma." I don't know you, but are you also the type of person to smoke inside and get sick of people complaining about the smoke? Lot's of people smoke, so those who don't like it should not encumber the rest of the world with their problems (sic). You came across harsh... I was originally (before I read your post) going to post something along the lines of: Please don't spray scents and such into the air before a showing. As someone who went through the buying process I looked at a lot of houses, some had no scents, others had too many scent, and everything in between. My perception of house with too many scents is that they are dirty. Houses that smelled like cleaning products, I perceived as clean. As for houses with no scents... I looked at the house. I am one of those "complainers" who can't stand artificial scents. I can't go anywhere near the first floor of Macy's or walk past a Bath and Body works. Notice I said artificial scents. I LOVE natural scents and they don't make me feel sick. Most people who have an aversion to scents are to the chemicals, not the actual smell. If you place essential oils around, you get the smell with none of the chemicals. For those that like plug ins, you might try the reed diffusers with natural products. They do scent the air, but don't output chemicals.

I'm really torn about staging. I understand why, and quite frankly, the overall process is rather fascinating to me ... but another part of me feels that if someone is too darn dense to see past furniture and paint colors, that person is potentially too daft to enter into a contract of sale! Maybe that's mean of me to think (yeah, I'm pretty sure it is), but I just can't quite wrap my mind around not being able to see a space and its potential. OK, if a place were completely packed to the gills with all sorts of clutter and junk, I certainly understand the need for weeding out and pulling together a pleasing arrangement before buyers view the property. I guess what kinda irks me, though, is what I've see on the HGTV staging shows, where the "expert" will walk into a spare bedroom that perhaps houses a desk and a treadmill and sputter in shock, "What is this room supposed to be, anyway? Is this a bedroom? If so, I want to see a bed in here!" Jeez. Like people are really that ignorant that they don't recognize a space for what it is intended to be, or what it could be? I realize I haven't exactly addressed Joanna's question about this particular loft -- but maybe in a roundabout way I've expressed my rather two-faced views of staging overall. ;-)