Sometimes You Just Can't Get The Furniture Up The Steps

By
Home Stager with Karen Miller, LLC

I work on many tiny Philadelphia homes - tiny living rooms, tiny kitchens and tiny, winding stairways.  Some of these houses are so tiny that builders or owners have cut trap doors into the bedroom floors so the furniture can be heaved from the first floor to the second and from the second floor to the third. 

Unfortunately, there have been no trap doors in the houses I have worked on.  All the tiny houses I work on require tiny furniture and creative strategies to stage upper floor bedrooms. 

In one itty-bitty house with only one bedroom, we couldn't get a full bed box spring up the steps, so I built a "box spring" out of banker boxes.  (I heard of a stager who uses refrigerator boxes.)  And, we had to make several attempts at winding the headboard around the stairway to finally get it up the steps.

So, this is where our staging creativity comes in.  It's not just in the design work - sometimes, it takes down-home ingenuity and a good hard push!

Comments (1)

Voila Design
Voila Design - Philadelphia, PA

Hello Karen :)

I own VOILA DESIGN (www.voiladesignservices.com) in Philadelphia and can relate to the tiny house dillema!

Prior to starting VOILA DESIGN I was a professional set decorator and behind the scenes interior designer/design producer and casting agent  for HGTV, TLC, FOX TELEVISION, CBS ,to name a few, and your blog brought back memories of my set designer days! 

When I worked for TLC our crew would travel across the country together for months making over houses from city to city and I can tell you from experience that Philadelphia's Trinity Homes are the trickiest spaces I have ever encountered.

We have had to take out windows on a 3rd floor trinity, hoist a complete bedroom set through the windows via a pully system (made on location of course) and put the windows securely back into place in a matter of hours!

In addition I have a "magic kit" that is nothing short of MacGyver caliber! In order to finish a tricky Philadelphia staging job I will bend spoons with my mind if need be!

A staging job well done should look minimal and effortless to the viewer...stagers and set dec's are the only individuals who know how much effort goes into making a job look effortless :)

 

Kathryn

VOILA DESIGN

www.voiladesignservices.com

YOUR ROOM SERVICE HAS ARRIVED 

 

Apr 11, 2008 06:07 AM