The challenge of keeping it new and exciting

One of the aspects of home staging that I enjoy the most is that each home, each homeowner, realtor  and the personal dynamics that come into play in what can be a stressful situation, fascinate me.  For that reason, and for the fact that personality quirks on the part on all the players ,along with changing homeowner situations make for a continually new experience.  On top of that no two days are even remotely alike.  Some people thrive on routine, predictability and a steady continuum. I never understood that.  Home staging is really dynamic and suits me to a tee.

Not only do decorating styles change, what colors are in or out, what makes something  "dated."  You know dated when you see it, and the homeowner may not see it that way.  I don't know about anyone else , but I can walk into a place , empty or furnished, and see exactly what it should look like.  The process to get it to look like that is something else again and is thoroughly grounded in how relationships are handled.  Yes, this business is about decorating, but it is more about people. 

Realtors, are well, realtors after all and , in my experience, reluctant to give up turf.  I have felt, in dealing with some realtors that they feel that if they use a stager, they are giving up turf.  In my mind they are adding to their turf by offering a very valuable resource to their clients and , by so doing, expanding customer care options which will benefit them hugely in referrals.  What realtor does not want to sell houses for more money and do it faster? 

Then we have the homeowner whose own home, furnishings, placement and choice of color and household stuff may be challenged. Still it is less about the stuff ,than it is the relationship a stager builds with the owner.  Ideally the homeowner, realtor and stager should be a team but the "who does what " can get really messy when the relatshionship boundries get  fuzzy.

Last of all, but not the least important of all is our relationship to our work.  Is it fun?  Is it a drudge?  Do we have enough independance?  Are we effective in ways it can be quantified? Keeping decorating unique can be a challenge because there are, after all, rules.  Rules are hard for creative people. Once, in an art class where part of the learning was critiquing everyone else's assignment  one of the students just would not follow the rules of the we were given.  Finally the instructor asked him why he, could not/would not ,follow the rules.  He said,"all the great artists broke the rules, just look at Van Gogh."  She just looked at him and said, "When you get to be a great artist you can break the rules, but first you have to learn the rules."   In staging we have arrived when we have learned the rules, know how to break the rules and keep our  decorating perspective new and exciting.