Hi, I’m Elia Martinez and I am the owner and Lead Home Stager of MC Home Staging & ReDesign.
I am a Certified Staging Professional (CSP), member of the Real Estate Staging Association (RESA), graduate of CSP international and Master Level Graduate from Staging Studio.
My story, vision and motivation for this business began in beautiful Nicaragua, where I was raised.
Growing up in Nicaragua involved strained economic conditions – everything was limited. There was no middle class, either you had money or you were poor. I grew up in very humble beginnings but had hope that one day life would be better.
My parents worked hard to build a solid family foundation for myself and my siblings. I was blessed to earn a scholarship to study in an USA university and I graduated with a degree in Economics and Finance. After I finished my studies I went back to Nicaragua and worked in Human Resources. I married my husband Gil who worked as a civil engineer in Nicaragua and as we started reflecting on our future we knew we wanted a better life for the family we would create together.
Dramatic deterioration of the country’s economic system, political state and freedom of rights drove us to the very difficult decision to pursue our dream to come to Canada, knowing that it would be a better future for us but would also be difficult.
We left Nicaragua and embarked our journey to seek refugee protection in Canada. We came to Canada in Oct 2007, with a lot of hope but only $400 in our pockets. We lived in a one bedroom basement apartment with just a bed and no furniture.