Notes From Sag Pond
Greetings from my pond in Sag Harbor NY. Today this is what the view from my living room window looks like, we are expecting up to 6 inches of snow. Not exactly conducive to resourcing furniture for my latest 8,000 sq. foot vacant home! So as previously promised I'm providing a snippet from my e-book, Styled by Design, A Guide to the Design Principles of Home Staging (www.styledbydesign.com).
Home Stagers often know this information intuitively but sometimes they may lack the vocabulary or are at a loss for words to express it to their clients. Knowledge is power! I hope this gives you one more tool for your home staging tool box. Here is the introduction to Chapter Three, Focal Points.
Focal points
A focal point is defined as “The central or principal wall you see upon entering a room, or the wall facing the room’s dominant flow of traffic.” Why are focal points such a necessary function in Home Staging? The answer is …“Love at first sight!” We know how rapidly an opinion is formed in a buyer’s mind, how quickly an emotional response is generated. In order to encourage closer scrutiny and create a lasting impression, you can capitalize on this knowledge by using focal points to your advantage. Fashion a home where you feel a sense of entry, a feeling that you have finally “arrived”, and that all is right with the world.
In addition, establishing a focal point will also give each room order and a sense of balance. It is a starting point, an epicenter for the room. Focal points give the eye a place of impact at which to start before beginning your visual tour. They help the viewer to maintain a focus and act like a homing device which they can return to again and again. If a room lacks a focal point, it can make the observer feel chaotic and restless. A well-defined focal point will invite you to linger and enjoy the surroundings in a comfortable and serene environment.
Identify the focal point—a camera’s eye view
How do you identify a focal point? If no logical focal points exist, how do you create one? What establishes a valid focal point? Let’s explore these questions.
In order to identify a focal point, determine where the viewer’s eye will be drawn first. If at first blush, there is no obvious answer, try looking at the room through the eye of a camera. Tour the home in the natural route a buyer would follow, position yourself in doorways and entryways, and snap a photo of what their first glimpse of each room would be. With this method, you will have a “frozen image” of the buyer’s first impression of each room. Evaluate each photograph and try to anticipate how a buyer would react, what they will see. You may be amazed at the results.
In the living room of a recent client’s home, the predominant focal wall had only an end table centered on it with the sofa and chair placed at a right angle to it. In a matter of moments, we had flipped the sofa to its proper placement on the focal wall, placed the chairs flanking the sofa, and in doing so we gained the opportunity to hang impressive artwork above the sofa, creating a stage for gracious living. The clients had lived this way for years and marveled at this simple improvement. Sometimes, you just can’t see the forest for the trees. There should always be a center of interest and as a Home Stager; you can set the stage for the entire home tour.
I still love these photos from a house I staged in Silver Spring MD for fellow "Rainer" Debbie Cook from Long and Foster Real Estate, we used all of the clients furniture and art and just moved it around. What a difference an established focal point makes! The house sold for full price the first week it was on the market.
Allegra Dioguardi
Styled and Sold Home Staging, Sag Harbor, NY www.styledandsold.com
Author Styled by Design- A Guide to the Design Principles of Home Staging www.styledbydesign.com
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