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Staging should fit the mood of the house and the target buyer

By
Home Stager with Staging Diva / Six Elements Inc.

staging an elegant powder room Home staging isn't about pretty decorating (though we do that too), it's about creating the right environment for buyers to fall in love with a home.

For staging not to look contrived and artificial, it needs to fit the mood of the house. You shouldn't be able to walk into a home and know who staged it because they always do the same "look". Nor should you walk into a home and know immediately that it was staged at all!

Our job as professional home stagers is to find the things that really fit the house, that feel like they belong there. It's what creates that indefinable feeling of rightness that homebuyers respond to. 

The powder room at left clearly belongs in an upscale formal home. It would look completely out of place in a 1950s suburban bungalow!

I don't own my own home staging inventory for that reason. I select the right things for the particular character and target market of the house. Some get a very relaxed treatment, while others are very formal. This carries through the furniture, art, accessories and flower arrangements that I provide, and the colors I choose for the walls.

When home staging becomes too formulaic, it doesn't work as well.

Consider that staging is often used to make "cookie cutter" homes look different from each other. So if we take a "cookie cutter" approach to home staging, how will that be effective? Everything will take on a certain drab sameness and we'll be back where we started from when nobody staged their homes (though we would still be ahead in terms of visual appeal).

Since home stagers typically get into this field because they love decorating and they're creative, we do ourselves a disservice too when we suck the creativity out of our own profession.

I'd be interested in your thoughts on any of the issues raised here. Please add your comments!

 

 

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva 

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva, is president of home staging firm Six Elements Inc. She has trained hundreds of others in the US, Canada, Australia, South Africa and Wales to start and grow their own house staging businesses. She brings a unique perspective to training based on her experience of growing her own staging company, being a self-supporting entrepreneur since 1989 and her MBA in Marketing.

Show All Comments
Teri Isner
Keller Williams Realty at the Lakes - Orlando, FL
GRI, CRS, CIPS
You have such creative vision I don't think you need a warehouse full of stuff to use perhaps an arrangement with some of your favorite stores.  We have a stager here that has one with a couple of the fine furniture stores and expo center.  Small as the bathroom or powder room above is it looks very soothing. 
Sep 09, 2006 10:25 AM
Craig Schiller
Trempealeau, WI

Debra is right.  In fact I advise Realtors not to tell the buyers that a property has been "staged" as you do NOT want a buyer feeling as if they are being tricked or duped into liking a property. Nor do you want a buyer thinking they have more negating room... because it has been staged. 

So I totally agree with what Debra has to say. Props should not only work with the décor, but the demographic and the architecture too.

But I have a slightly different philosophy when it comes to owning a Prop Library.  We do own an extensive (and when I say "extensive" I mean EXTENSIVE) Prop Library of nearly 2,000 items... and growing. 

We find it works considerably well for both the seller's and our advantages. 

For example we had an older couple (recently married for a second time) and was blending 2 households... and the kitchen table  he had been using for years in the property they were selling was way to massive and overpowered the kitchen. And while they had learned to live with and around it... it was NEVER right for the kitchen. We brought the table and 4 smaller chairs in from our own Prop Library.   The "staged" kitchen now made visual (scale and proportion) sense to the buyer.

It cost us more on the front end... but in the long run we find the seller benefits greatly and is so apprciatve we provide this solution.

Sep 10, 2006 01:09 AM
Phyllis Pafumi
ReStyled to Sell Home Staging New Jersey - Old Bridge, NJ
ReStyled to Sell Staging Homes NJ

Hi Debra

I totally agree with you. The decor has to fit the house. I have staged homes that sing Bed and Breakfast, while others are contemporary clean line type of homes. I am so glad that you also feel that realtors should not let buyers know the house has been staged. I too feel like you are duping the buyers somehow. I was once at the tail end, packing up some cleaning supplies of a staging job when a realtor brought a client by to see the house. I explained that I was tidying up for the Open House the next day while quietly slipping my card to the realtor. That client came back the next day with her husband to the Open House and made an offer. 

Oct 24, 2006 11:36 AM
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