Who Lives Here?

The way you approach staging a house is very different from the way you approach decorating a house. And both are very different from the way model homes are staged. You decorate your house by choosing a color scheme that you like and then filling the rooms with furniture and rugs and pillows and lighting and art and knick-knacks that all speak to who and what you are all about. You decorate a house to make it a home and to live in it. The designers who stage model houses know that at least two groups of folks will wander through--those who are interested in buying, and those who are looking for decorating ideas. The designers stage accordingly, using furniture and props to suggest uses for each space, but also going overboard with themed rooms. You've seen them--the "gentleman's room" with the dark paneling, burgundy and hunter green wallpaper, hunting prints on the wall and a bagpipe on the coffee table; the "media room" complete with popcorn popper on wheels and a Coke machine and lined with framed movie posters; the "football playing kid" room with football shaped pillows, astroturf on the floor and a comforter cover that's green and white to look like a field. It can all be overwhelming. While folks looking for ideas might have a grand time, folks looking to buy can get distracted by all the hoo-ha going on.

When you stage your house to sell, you want people to be able to see the house and all its potential, not the stuff in the house, and certainly not your personal stuff or taste. Serious buyers are looking to project their lives on the stage of your house. Help them do that by suggesting uses for each space with just a couple of key pieces and keeping visual cues to a minimum--don't clutter everything up. Denote "bedroom" with a bed, one nightstand (or two, if it's the master bedroom or a guest suite) and a chest of drawers/dresser with a mirror. A couple of lamps, a couple of non-descript but pleasing prints on the wall, a couple of simple props--a book on a nightstand, a mirrored tray, a vase of flowers. And that's it. It's not a lot, but you're not staging to live in the house. You're staging to sell the house. All that other stuff that's usually in the bedroom--ironing board, computer, dog bed, big storage chest, basket of videos, television--all need to go. The stage says, "This room is for sleeping. Period."

Take yourself and your personality out of the house, and your buyers will say, "Who lives here? There's no way anyone lives here--it's too neat and clean!" I know--it happened with our sale. I even asked our buyer what made our house stand out, and she said that it "felt good" in the house and that she and her husband couldn't believe that anyone lived there!