We’ll be putting our house on the market very soon. I’ve read about the basics of staging, but could use some advice on a couple of specific situations.
We painted my son’s former bedroom and in the process took down his old posters and other wall junk. Now the walls are entirely bare. Is it better to leave them that way, or put up a couple of framed prints/posters? I don’t like it looking so sterile, but maybe that allows people to better imagine what they would do with the room? It still holds a matching bed, chest of drawers, desk, and bookcase. Maybe add some throw pillows to the solid navy comforter on the bed?
The very large room that used to be the kids’ playroom still has an old console TV and couch that were used solely for video games, as well as a keyboard on a stand with a bench, and two large bookcases, one that now holds a bunch of kids’ books and another that has a bunch of kids’ video cassettes, Disney and the like (yup,we had a lot of space and just kept this stuff). I could sell the keyboard and donate/toss the contents of the bookcases, but is it better to leave it all as is rather than have the room so empty? (All the toys and toy storage bins are long gone.) I know the conventional wisdom is that once people have moved out, an entirely empty house lacks appeal, and I also know it’s important to get rid of clutter and excess furnishings to make rooms appear more spacious, but I’m kind of in between with this room. It has a cathedral ceiling and will seem pretty cavernous with nothing in it.
We just sold our home and when I staged it, I took most everything off the walls except for a couple of simple prints in each room. I found some inexpensive ones at TJ Maxx and Ross. We removed about half the furniture in each room to make them look clean and open. The throw pillow idea is good to add a pop of a contrasting color in your son’s room. A few simple decorative items would look nice on the shelves of the bookcase and the chest.
I’d take the videos out of the bookcases and place some decor pieces on the shelves in the large room. One of our rooms was pretty empty also and I purchased a couple of inexpensive accent chairs to fill in the space and add some color. An area rug might also help to fill some space.
I can PM you the link to our home listing if you’d like to see the photos. It sold in a little over a week with three offers. The people that came to view our home gave us positive feedback.
Take out anything that screams old. The pillows and some current generic art is a good idea. Don’t make it too small or hang it too high. Does the sofa need a slipcover?
I also think it depends on your market. I think your realtor will be your best source of information.
In general though, I think staging is most important in homes with ill defined spaces, where it’s difficult to figure out furniture placement. I think a large bonus room can be so multi functional that I wouldn’t worry about staging that room. A pop of color with throw pillows is a good idea for your son’s room but I don’t know that I’d bother with art work.
We just got a contract on our house. We did a lot of decluterring, but otherwise kept our (somewhat outdated) furniture and pictures–the saving grace was that we’re pretty minimalist so there wasn’t too much of either. Our agent brought over several recent listing brochures, and we got some good ideas from them and pictures in redfin, zillow and the like.
FYI - the realtor we hired paid for staging of my mom’s house. They brought over decorative pieces and arranged furniture, which included moving them to the garage.
We staged House1 by removing most of the personal artifacts and making the rest of the decor generic; we used our own furniture - our realtor approved this plan (leather couches from Dania, granite top tables, newer bookshelves, beds, etc). We did not have many pictures on the walls and removed most of them (kiddo’s room with massive anime wall was a PITA). De-personalize the house as much as you can!
My son just sold his house. He had painted it and moved a bunch of stuff to storage. Very little if anything on the walls. For the online photos the realtor staged the living room with completely different furniture and also staged the outside with nice patio furniture, a little table on the patio outside his bedroom with a bottle of wine and 2 glasses. It looked like a show house!
He and his wife flat refused to keep the white furniture the realtor used for staging in the house except for the photos. They wanted to be somewhat comfortable in their home expecting it to take a while. He was quite irritated by the whole process but it turned out she knew what she was doing.
They got a full price offer in less than 10 days and the buyer requesed a quick closing. He also liked the patio furniture and bought it from the realtor.
He made over 50% profit in under 6 years so it was a good buy!
A simple exercise you can do is pull up all the houses in your neighborhood that sold recently in your price range. Look through the photos. It will become very obvious which ones are appealing and which homes are not appealing, focusing on the furniture and staging.
Pops of color make a big difference in the photos. Photos are critical to get the buyers in the door. I feel a nice piece of art work helps in the photos.
I agree with depersonalizing the house. I also think that it depends on the market. The market in my midwest town is fairly hot for larger houses that aren’t McMansions. We had some totally empty bedrooms and some rooms with minimal furniture and had a contract within 4 days of listing, wth someone who saw it day 1.
One of the bloggers I follow does home staging. She says go very basic and absolutely depersonalize. Def empty out and remove the bookshelves and the old tv - or anything else old and dated (not cool old) No family photos.
I actually want to walk in a room and NOT feel like someone is living there. To me, more empty allows my mind more space to visualize myself there.
When we were looking at houses, I found myself concentrating on the stuff that shouldn’t be there instead of enjoying the house.
I say…ditch anything that might distract a person from looking at the HOUSE. So…out with the old TV, the old couch and the posters in the kid’s bedroom.