Home Staging

Home staging is the art of home furnishing placement to highlight the architectural features of a home.  The purpose is to help the home sell for the highest amount of money in the least amount of time.  Many homes have too many furnishings, others not enough, and still others have rooms that need to have their purpose converted from what the owner is using the room for to a more conventional use.  The objective is to create more light, space and help a buyer concentrate on the the home instead of the possessions of the owner.  I work with all of my sellers to help present the home in it's strongest light.  I generally use the existing furnishings, specializing in "re-design", but occassionally bring in some art work or accessories.  I use the principals of feng shui in staging homes, a philosophy that can be summed up in the phrase:  "Let there be nothing that is not useful or beautiful."

When Less is More

 

The feedback on this home was that certain of the rooms felt small.  The solution was to remove some of the furnishings and accessories to create more open space and less visual distraction from the windows and fireplace wall.  A dozen family photos were removed, a side chair was moved to another room, the stacking tables were repositioned beside the sofa, and the slipper chairs were bunched together to open the flow and create a greater sense of spacousness.  There were two reasons for removing the photos:  1.  Virtually every surface in this home was covered with a ornately framed family photos.  As a result, the dominating presence of the owner was a distraction to buyers from the home itself.  (Collections, diplomas, trophies and mounted animals can all have the same effect, resulting in the home becoming memorable as "the doll house" or "the santa bear house" rather then "the house with the great kitchen".)  2.  In addition to the personal photos, mirrors were used liberally throughout the home, prompting the comment from one open house visitor "They certainly do admire themselves."  Obviously, this was not the reaction the seller was hoping for. 


 

This room felt much smaller than the 132 sf of space it possessed.  To show off all the space, we removed personal photos from the table top surfaces, removed a large floral rug and the bed steps, reduced the decorative pillows on the bed by half and repositioned the floor lamp from the door way to the corner in place of the hamper of stuffed toys that filled the corner.  There was also a blanket across the foot of the bed which was removed before the original shot.  An additional step could have been to remove the mirror and the small dresser in front of the window.

 

This room could have been taken a little further by removing the dresser in front of the window and the saddle horn or the tent to eliminate the ring around the room of furnishings, but progress was made in making this room feel larger by removing the two rugs (one at the foot of the bed is not shown in the photo), removing the blanket from the foot of the bed, taking the camp stool out of the tent, removing the personal photos from the table top surfaces, removing the bed steps and moving the hat on the bedpost to the saddle and positioning the boots next to the saddle.

 

This loft felt crowded, but the space really opened up by removing the zebra skin rug and the white round ottoman.  A pair of balloon curtains were also removed from the window to lighten the busy look of the window treatment before the original photo was taken.


Finding the Natural Flow

 

This room felt unbalanced and disfunctional due to the sofa being positioned off center in front of the window, an end table blocking access to the window seat and the grand piano blocking the doorway to the front porch.  I moved the piano to another corner of the room, centered the sofa on the window, removed the end tables and placed the throw pillows from the easy chairs on the window seat (to the left of the fireplace).  I removed the wooden horse to make the window seat usable rather then use it as display space.  The rug was turned from vertical to horizontal and the chairs repositioned.  The tapestry over the firplace was moved to another wall in favor of a bronze sculpture from another room, and the empty basket and wood rack on the hearth were exchanged for some bright flowering mums.  A floor lamp was positioned at the end of the sofa to add light for reading.



 

This split entry home had 2 small bedrooms upstairs with a bath off the hallway and a large bedroom down stairs with a private 3/4 bath.  The owners were using the large bedroom in the basement as a playroom.  Once we moved the king sized bed from an upper floor bedroom into the lower level, we "re-positioned" the play room as a master suite, and the home sold quickly.

Filling an Empty Stage

Filling a vacant home with rented furnishings can be cost prohibitive for many home sellers.  An empty space can be warmed up with just modest additions, however.  By adding a couple of pictures on the wall of this "basic" bedroom, the room gains a little life and character.