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Staging Horror Stories

By
Home Stager with Upstage, LLC

We’ve all had them, right?  That moment when your creative process comes to a screeching halt.  Something goes terribly wrong, and you suddenly find yourself doing something totally unexpected.  Here’s one for ya...

I visited my client for the initial consultation and instantly noticed that all of her beautiful hardwood floors were covered by custom rugs.  I mean completely covered, so that the entry, hallway, kitchen, and dining room looked almost like wall-to-wall carpet.  They were very nice, but taste specific, and I thought they made things a bit busy.  Afterall, buyers love hardwoods, right, and these must be pristine since they’d been covered since they were installed! screaming

So, my proposal included removal of the rugs.  Just roll them up and move ‘em out.  Unfortunately, the rugs were stuck to the floor with double stick tape.  Industrial strength double stick tape that had been in place for seven years.   

After our initial shock wore off (and a lot of grumbling), my co-stager and I finally decided that the job needed to be done right, and we had to find a way to get that adhesive off those perfect hardwood floors!

After HOURS of scraping and scrubbing on hands and knees, the floors were beautiful.  No more distracting rugs.  We even found a beautiful inset of travertine tile in the entryway.  All in the name of good staging.  Our goal, always to make the house fabulous!

Now it’s your turn.  I want to hear your horror stories of staging gone terribly wrong.  Halloween’s just around the corner, and we can use some scary stories.

 

kitchen before

kitchen after

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before - with rugs                                                                       After - with just one rug

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Upstage, LLC helps homes sell quickly and profitably.  Our staging and marketing techniques help attract buyers and increase the perceived value of a home.  Upstage the competition! 

 

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Comments (5)

Team Honeycutt
Allen Tate - Concord, NC

Wow, I think staging is very important and it really helps sell homes!!

Sep 18, 2009 03:52 AM
Diana Young
Staging Seattle, King & Snohomish Counties - Edmonds, WA

Hi Sheridan,  So much better with just the one carpet.  Your hard work paid off!  Just yesterday we have an interesting situation, although I wouldn't catagorize it "horror" story.  The house we staged was being managed by a trust department of a local bank.  I guess they had not paid the power bill (the agent gave us a clue about this) because the power was turned off.  So, we staged in a pretty dark house, didn't have power for our vaccum cleaner or air pump for out inflatable beds.  We have a back-up hand pump for the air matresses and we will go back later to vacuum once the power has been turned on again! 

Sep 19, 2009 02:00 PM
Sheridan Corrie
Upstage, LLC - West Linn, OR

Staging can be an essential part of home selling!

Diana, that's a great point to remember.  I've never thought about lack of power.  A hand pump is a good idea.  It seems that stagers are great at making something from nothing, though.  We certainly can learn from the mistakes of others.

Sep 19, 2009 02:37 PM
Beverly Carlson
Carlson Properties 325-721-2429 - Abilene, TX
Abilene's Staging Realtor

Not really a horror story, just frustrating, but I paid for some updated custom sewed drapery panels that I have never seen!  I did a staging plan for a house and had another lady hired to make  the  tab drapes from the fabric of the existing drapes.  First they weren't done for the open house. Then they weren't done after the contract, but the windows were now  bare as the old ones had already been cut up to make new panels,  and I had already promised them to the buyer. The morning of the closing, the new drapes went up.  I let the lady in putting the drapes up,  and then went to closing and gave the the new owners a key and never saw the   finished product as planned to be  staged with contemporary style drapery panels.   The moral of this tale is get the drapes up before you promise a buyer they will have drapes!   For all I know, they planned to replace the matching panels anyway.   

A new policy is don't give away what you don't have yet!   I have had to stop watching HGTV and Sabrina Soto saying stuff like,  I made this out of this scrap [ found and it didn't cost almost anything.    Another time   she found a cute wood chair at a garage sale for $10 and painted it As a stager, one must remember that your time is valuable, so probably need to get to figure out what it is costing  you to spend hours on these kind of projects and get off the make something for nothing kick. Whoops this is the start of another blog!

Sep 19, 2009 11:54 PM
Sheridan Corrie
Upstage, LLC - West Linn, OR

Beverly, you do bring up some great points that we can all learn from.  We have to spend our time wisely. And, always under promise and over deliver!

Sep 20, 2009 04:10 AM