"Being involved with the designers' show house really gave it curb appeal, " he says.
So he volunteered the place to a charity as a show house for designers.
The latest figures show house prices off by 40% in real terms, and still falling.
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"If the house is the Kips Bay show house, I think it makes a substantial difference, " he said.
Indeed, I was struck by the fact that the place felt like a show house rather than a family home.
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Why are designers willing to turn down paying jobs to spend time and tens of thousands of dollars of their own cash on a charity show house?
"People remember it was a show house, but I don't think they come in because it was a show house, " said Ms. Barbi, who is an agent with TTR Sotheby's International Realty.
As for the time needed by the designers for decorating before the show house opens to the public, it could be considered giving access to prepare the home for the rental period.
The face-lift was equally dramatic at the seven-bedroom in Potomac, Md. owned by Daniel and Joan Strishock, who helped out the National Symphony Orchestra this year, after the first prospective show house fell through.
Maria Barbi, a real-estate agent whose family is trying to sell the home, said that, because each designer involved in the show house had different ideas, the end result may have felt disjointed to potential buyers.
In recent months, an army of contractors, suppliers and other volunteers have peeled off layers of old paint and dated wallpaper and ripped up grimy carpet in anticipation of the show house, which was held this month.
"It's very exciting for the designers to do it because people do come and see their work, get to know them, " said Bunny Williams, an interior designer and chairwoman of this year's Kips Bay Decorator Show House in New York City, considered one of the nation's oldest and most popular show homes.
's (nyse: DIS - news - people ) ABC? (The real estate boom gets more television time than college basketball these days.) Will HGTV's hit show House Hunters be as fun to watch if you know that the happy couple is likely, on paper, to see the down payment they worked so hard to save wiped out in a tumbling market?
Hand-colored postcards from the 1930s show the house and gardens soon after they were built.
The unearthed foundations show the house to be most like the one published in the memoirs of Austen's nephew.
The project will not just be a show-house, it will be a house that people can live in day to day and test out.
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He astutely turns the tables to show the house being repurchased by progressive whites in what is now a black neighborhood in 2009 Obama-era America.
His Fox show, House, ended its eight-year run in May.
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Much better is the heartrending, tragic-comic scene when Eckhart's Howie takes it upon himself to show the house to prospective buyers, only to fall apart when they come to the nursery.
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Imagine if you could only show your house three times a year if you were trying to sell it, or if you were trying to sell your car but could only show it three times a year.
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Documents released by the White House to Congress this week show Huang wrote the White House in February 1993, hoping to arrange a session between Clinton and Riady.
The same intimate approach will be applied to aspects of the Valentino show in Somerset House.
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"It's very challenging to work with him, but he loves to give credit" the upcoming Valentino show at Somerset House being a case in point.
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E-mails and documents released by the Justice Department show the White House and other administration officials were more involved in the dismissals, and much earlier, than they had acknowledged.
In an interview with BBC reporter Sima Kotecha for the Broadcasting House show, Mr Chinnery said he approached the star directly when he heard rumours relating to his private life.
The emails show that White House staff requested only minor edits to the so-called talking points about the Benghazi assault, but there were repeated requests from the state department to omit information that might be used to criticise them.
The dancing rodents shock the stuff shirts in an 18th century opera house and show them how to party.
Last year, MWC built a connected house to show off some of the ways that mobile is transforming daily life.
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