In the now infamous NAEBA article siting home stagers as deceivers, a reference was made to the use of smaller sized furniture to make a room appear larger.  Is that a common practice?  Yes - and it should be! 

Every designer worth their fee will tell you that scale is imperative in a properly designed room. Using over-sized pieces in a small area will only make it appear cramped - or even smaller than it really is.  What is the solution?  Pieces that suit the scale of the room. This is not deception, it is proper use of space.

The concept behind scaling down pieces is not to deceive a buyer into thinking that a room is larger than it is, but to display the room as a functional space besides its limitations.  It is smart design, not trickery.

For Example:  According to the seller, this family room/breakfast nook combo once held a sofa, love-seat, entertainment center and breakfast table.  They also admitted that the room was very crowded and that they did not use the room as much as they had intended - they set up a second family room in a larger area that was actually an office.  Since the room really was too small for a family room, I staged it in a different way to show it as a functional space.

Consider this: If a bedroom currently holds a king size bed, offering only enough space to circumvent the bed, what would you think?  You would think the room was very tiny and the house not worth your time.  That is a type of mental roadblock that can prevent someone from moving forward with a purchase and can easily be remedied. If the same room were staged with a queen size bed and more floor space was visible, along with ample space for bedside tables and lamps, wouldn't you view the room ina  totally different way?  Yes, because the scale of the furnishings is more in keeping with the scale of the room. 

In the same turn, if that room were viewed with that queen size bed and the potential buyer required a king size bed, it would be obvious that the room would not suit their needs.  You cannot trick people into thinking a house is right for them if it isn't. 

The same goes for arranging furniture in a certain way to enhance the features of the room.  Most people put their furniture in the wrong place - that is just a fact.  Because most sellers are not aware that their pieces are badly place, they are also not aware that it affects how buyers view the house.  It can make them feel uncomfortable or even that the house does not flow properly.  If that can be corrected by moving the sofa, why wouldn't you do that?

For Example: When entering this home, the first thing your eye was drawn to was the back of the sofa - actually, I could not take my eyes off of it when I walked into the house the first time. In a house with high ceilings, extra tall windows and over-sized rooms, that is not what you want a buyer to see first.  By rearranging the furnishings and selecting less taste specific pieces, the eye goes to what you want them to see - the two story fireplace - which displays the true size of the room.

Buyers are smarter than they are given credit  for and no amount of staging can hypnotize them into buying the wrong house.  Staging is a tool that grabs a buyers attention and gives them the opportunity to really LOOK AT and SEE a property, but it cannot make people think it is something that it is not. It may get them to take a second look, or even make an offer, but in the end it is many other factors that close the deal on a home.

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If you would like your vacant property staged with its specific scale and proportion in mind, contact Kimberly Wester of Details Staging and Redesign at 219-241-7252.  Serving all of Northwest Indiana.