Staging a home

February 16, 2016

I’ve gotten over the ecstasies of patching a carpet and have moved on to the wonders of staging. You’ve heard of it? It’s the process of making a home look like nobody lives there without making it seem vacant.

I get it. When we have shopped for homes, I’m always drawn to the minimalist decor. This home was vacant when we bought it and it allows me to notice the great features of the house itself.

That’s the premise behind staging. As shown in an earlier picture, our master bedroom has a cute little leather camel back sofa in the bay window. It’s a delightful nook with targeted lighting overhead, perfect for reading. But the stager urged us to remove the couch and attendant table altogether and to place a low bench in it’s place. “Show off what you’re selling, which is the view.” So the bedroom looks a little sparse, but indeed you do notice the pretty view of the back yard from the huge windows, the natural light, the ample space.

She also urged us to take down all personally identifying photos and keepsakes. She was fine with pictures of Jesus and temples.

One other interesting element to her instruction was to get plain colored comforters for the beds with quilts. The quilts look so pretty and add a splash of color, I thought she’d love them. But she’s looking at it from the view of how it will look in a photograph and quilts look too busy. They give the effect of clutter. She listed the best place to get good prices on the things we needed. . .Ha! imagine giving the Queen of Thrift advice on where to get a bargain! “All my favorite stores” was all I said.

She divided up my favorite orange towels into two bathrooms and now we have no drab bathrooms.

“Buyers expect to be able to look into any built in storage.” So I guess we’re taking our underwear out of the dressers in the closets. But it’s true, I’d want to make sure that the drawers all worked and see how deep they were.

This house has built in storage everywhere. Even the toilet room in the master suit has an overhead cupboard and a wall cabinet with shelves overhead. Since there’s another linen closet right outside the door, I’m not sure what to put in that little space. “Roll up some towels and put them on the shelves so it looks like it has a purpose.” OKAY!  Now we need to “prepack” dishes and glassware. That’s a euphemism for “hide your junk.”

Overall, it was fun. We hauled one love seat, two occasional tables, an ottoman, three potted trees,a bench, two wooden aquarium stands (Thomas likes to build with 2×4’s) and about 100 more books out to the garage. Today I’ll buy comforters, a new welcome mat, touch up paint for the nail holes I will have to fill, black mulch for the front flower bed, (later I’ll add some new pansies. . .the deer have done in the ones I planted in the fall) My son Scott took down the rope that had been a swing from an old oak in the back yard, knocked down the arbor and knocked apart the redwood bench I built to go on the deck in Colorado. (Redwood does rot eventually). Scott also sheeted the interior walls of our garage/shed for yard equipment and woodshop. Since it’s got electricity and lights, I think code requires that wiring be covered. It looks so nice and we got lots of scrap wood pulled out,too.

What a process!

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