Some of these pics are so damn priceless they’ve been burning a hole in my pocket (er, MyDocuments…) for weeks.

Some of this stuff, you simply can NOT make up.

You’d have to see it to believe it’s true.  But thanks to a blog reader, I have photo evidence of one particular case of blissful ignorance and the attempted cover-up.  Have a look…

I thought long and hard about whether or not to post that photo.

Some might think it’s “NSFW,” and others might think that it’s unprofessional to post a photo of a massive…….billboard.

Anyways, kudos to Peter for making his mother want to die an early death…

As for my photos of the week, well, I have a real doozie for you!

Thanks to a loyal blog reader Paully for providing me with photos of a house under construction somewhere in Toronto, which gives us, quite possibly, the best “before and after” I’ve ever seen…

So where do we start?

Well, I guess we’ll start with, “When I build a house, I want to leave no stone un-turned.  I want to pay attention to even the smallest detail.”

That’s fair.

So when the owners of the house below drove by and saw the house under construction, they probably were quite pleased:

But alas, all is not quite what it seems.

Pay attention to even the “smallest” detail you say?

So what about big details?  Big……like……the physical address of the house?

Well, if you’re going to mess up the address, just do NOT chisel it into the concrete…

Damn!

Classic mistake!

I always spell “eight” as “eighehth,” you know, when I’m drunk…

As the Greek legend explains, God gave fire to Prometheus, but then he gave a chisel and a bottle of Fireball to the day-labourer at this house, and the result was a spelling mistake that a second-grader would catch.

Ah well.

Drive by the house today, and you’ll see this:

Yes, that’s right, folks.

Just as your grandfather will suggest that duct tape can fix just about anything, any experienced builder will tell you that anything concave can easily be made convex once again!

Take out some mortar?  Put some back!

Chisel out a misspelled word?  Slap the right one on top!

Okay, so while we’re on the subject of mistakes, poor workmanship, and poorly-mistaken workmanship…

Take a look at a photo from a house that was described on MLS as “Fully Renovated”

“She’s beautiful!”

I firmly believe that the same person who misspelled “Ninety” outside that stucco house, might have also misaligned those two pieces of trim by a full three inches.

I will say, however, that adding the quarter-round is a really nice touch!

Now, the only thing worse than two pieces of misaligned trim covered up by a piece of quarter-round, is probably four pieces of misaligned quarter-round, adjacent to two pieces of trim:

Yeah, I know.  And those were two different houses!

Well, at least we all know you can make even the worst home look beautiful again with the magic power of staging!

I mean, take a look at these two close-up pictures of these beautiful, fresh, crisp arm-chairs that the stagers brought into a west-end house:

Er……umm…

Well, maybe they were fresh, crsip, white chairs.

But then a very large, very sweaty man rested a short while on them while……recovering from losing his breath after seeing this gorgeous house!

Seriously though – that’s a vacant house, that’s been staged with those awful chairs.

Anyways, sometimes, you get creative with staging.

Like trying to stage the property so you seek out a target buyer.

Like the photo below, which shows a “staging item” that really, firmly, directly targets the chain-smoking 80-year old with emphysema:

Yes, that was on the terrace of a $900,000 condo!

Last, but not least, a picture paints a thousand words, but a video does oh so much more.

This video will clearly demonstrate how not to stage a home for sale in this market, but also how much fun my clients and I have when we go out and look at houses.

Enjoy!