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Home Staging
Here are some ideas for effective, low-cost staging:
- Remove scatter rugs and knickknacks from every room.
- Get rid of everything on the kitchen counters, including appliances, except for the coffee maker.
- Remove as much as you can from closets.
- Hire a cleaning service if necessary to make the house spotless. Scrub floors, walls, and windows. Pay special attention to the microwave, oven, and refrigerator.
- Focus on the feature rooms, the living, dining, and master bedrooms. Additional bedrooms are best left empty or minimally furnished.
- Arrange the furniture to show off each room’s best features.
- Set the dining-room table with napkins, plates, and flatware.
- When showing the house, turn on soft instrumental “buying” music, preferably classical or jazz.
Source: Detroit News, Marge Colborn (05/03/08)
Get them inside. The first thing a prospective buyer notices about a home is not the living room but the front yard. Cut the grass, trim the hedges, rake those leaves, sweep the sidewalks, and power-wash the driveway. And make sure you don't have too many potted plants scattered around the property.
Pretend you're camping. A cluttered room will appear too small to buyers. Go through each room of the house and divide belongings into two piles: "keep" and "give up." Items in the "keep" pile will be used to stage the room, while those in the "give up" pile should be stored elsewhere.
Balance hard and soft surfaces. When staging a particular room, it's essential to have a good balance of hard surfaces, such as a coffee-table top, and soft surfaces, like a carpet. For example, a room with a cushy, 7-foot-long sofa, a love seat, and four La-Z-Boy recliners has too many soft surfaces and not enough hard surfaces. Instead, consider getting rid of the La-Z-Boys and the love seat, replacing them with two wingback chairs.
Work in ones or threes. Arrange items on top of hard surfaces in ones or threes.
You would place three items—say, a lamp, a plant, and a book—on top of a larger hard surface, like an end table. For hard surfaces with less area, however, a single item will do.
Decide from the doorway. Since would-be buyers will get their first impression of each room from the doorway, homeowners should use that perspective to judge their staging work. That way, you'll be better able to ensure that each room appeals to buyers.
Source: US News and World Report, Luke Mullins (06/03/2008)
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