How to stage your listings a la Early American Tacky

Home staging should show off the great features of your listing and diminish the negative ones, not create a phony atmosphere. It's all about marketing that feeling of the good life and what is possible for the room without going overboard.

A home should never look like it's been staged.

20 Tacky Techniques:

1. Napkins stuffed in wine glasses (Creates a phony atmosphere.)
   
2. Place settings on a table or bar (Nothing says, "This home has been staged", more than dishes, stemware, silverware, and napkins.)
   
3. Old bath towels hanging on a bar with ribbon (Old towels will not give a buyer the spa feeling, even with a ribbon.)
   
4. Single piece of artwork on a wall with nothing else in the room (Buyers will only see the art and not the room, especially online.)
   
5. Furniture store tags on items that are for sale (Staging should be about the house and not what furniture is being sold by a store.)
   
6. Old, dirty rugs (Rugs should only be used to define space or add color. Buyers need to see the floors and what they are buying.)
   
7. Dusty, plastic trees with only a few branches (I don't mind trees, but they have to look nice.)
   
8. Cuttings from bushes and branches brought inside (Will wilt rapidly, and it will take the eyes away from the room.)
   
9. Accessories that have nothing to do with the style of the home (Example: You can't take a country look and put it in a contemporary house.)
   
10. A card table with a sheet covering it in a dining room (A cheap look and does not represent the room dimensions.)
    
11. Plants or greenery over window treatments (Shows off bad decorating, and again takes the buyer away from the overall room.)
    
12. Plastic patio furniture inside that is covered or not (Just don't!)
    
13. Cheesy old lamps (Get the granny lamps out.)
    
14. Cheap plastic flowers (What I like to call "forever flowers" usually found at dollar stores.)
    
15. Sofa covered with a sheet as a slipcover (Planning on painting anytime soon?)
    
16. Blow-up beds (From personal experience: blow up beds will only stay fully inflated for a short time no matter how expensive they are.)
    
17. Plastic fruit (Fruit can be done right, but the majority of the time it looks tacky, creating a phony atmosphere.)
    
18. Breakfast tray on a bed with tumbled wine glasses (Creates a phony atmosphere.)
    
19. Only two chairs in a living room (This will not give a buyer a sense of the space.)
    
20. Wine bottle sitting on the edge of a garden tub (Creates a phony atmosphere.)

Tacky staging can spell disaster for your listing. Why? Because we remember tacky! What you put in the home is the perception of what the value of the home is worth. Your poorly staged listing becomes, "That house with the saggy, deflated blow up bed," or "That place with the cheesy lamp like the one in my parents' house."

If the accessories and furniture looks like you got it out of grandma's attic or down the street at a yard sale, the buyer could expect a yard sale price tag on the house. It is better to leave a house empty then to use bad décor! Staging should enhance the architecture of the home, not show off poor decorating ideas. Bad staging draws attention to itself - and distracts your buyer from your listing!

Please understand the quality of a good home stager.  Know what services you are having your seller buy and who you are recommending. They will be worth their weight in gold.

Helping you get your listing SOLD,
Angela Voss
Designology Home Staging