subject: Life is a Stage - So is Your Home! [print this page] Life is a Stage - So is Your Home! Life is a Stage - So is Your Home!
What is a home staging?
Home staging prepares a home for sale, and for the dozens of enquiring eyes that will be scouring the property looking for flaws. It creates an image of the perfectly decorated home, in move-in condition. This should be the next step after decluttering, cleaning and repairing your home. The changes may be as small as rearranging furniture to give the illusion of more space, or repainting with more neutral and soothing colors. Home stagers will offer great ideas for perking up a room with accessories and creating a new stylish look for your home
Why stage your home?
In this day and age, having to deal with a sluggish market, staging is a must. It can give you the edge that may result in a faster sale or a higher sales price.
First impressions can make or break the sale of the house, and a home that is properly staged helps to maximize your chances of a positive first impression.
Your home will have an advantage over other unstaged homes.
A staged home shows well in web site marketing and video tours, and since the majority of homes are chosen over the internet, this is a vital form of advertising.
Tips for staging your home.
As you go from room to room, there should be a flow to your home. Avoid overly bright or bold colored walls. This may mean repainting some or all of your rooms with more calming, neutral tones. Some people cannot understand that that bright purple wall can be removed with a coat of paint, and these distractions may result in no sales.
Clean the carpets
Furniture: The most common trick used by stagers is to rearrange furniture to create a more stylish look. During my house sale, my stager suggested I move my dining room table into the living room, creating a living/dining room. This freed up space for my crammed kitchen table and voila, I had a brand new and improved living space.
Rearranging may also mean reducing the amount of furniture so that a room looks more open. This includes emptying out closets, even if it means putting some things in storage. Consider renting a few pieces of stylish furniture or pieces of art.
Tidy up your bookcases so that they look pleasing to the eye. This may mean packing away many of your books and keeping out the ones that display well.
Brighten the house up by cleaning windows, and go with higher wattage light bulbs (just until the home sells). Make sure that the lights are left on before an open house, so the prospective buyers are walk into well-lit rooms and hallways.
Creative use of fabrics as accent pieces for additional texture and color are very common.
