Since creating the “to be continued” blog, I’ve been closing each post with the words “dwell in possibilities.” I must confess that I borrowed this phrase from the great poet, Emily Dickinson. I saw her quote and realized that it summed up what I am doing as a professional home stager and interior designer.

I am most grateful to Ms. Dickinson for her insightful and inspiring phrase.

Regardless of the size or price range of a house, my objective is to find the possibilities in that house. I am looking for those unique features of that house and finding possible ways to accentuate them for the potential buyer. I am analyzing those unusual spaces that buyers find difficult to understand upon first glance and finding possible functional uses for those spaces.

In the end, my mission is to help the potential buyer see how they could dwell in the possibilities of this house!


Thursday, March 31, 2011

Accessories - The Best of Times, The Worst of Times

Today, we will examine Accessories, the final home staging area of concentration. 

Accessories in a home for sale remind me of the opening line of Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities --it was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . .”  

For most homes, the accessories are the family’s signature imprint on their home.  These accessories often include family photos (usually in great abundance), memorabilia, items of great personal meaning, and things they purchased for a myriad of reasons that are special to the family.  For the seller, their accessories often reflect the “best of times” that they had together and in this house.

For the realtor and professional home stager, these same accessories represent the “worst of times” because they have to convince the seller that these personally valuable accessories need to be removed and boxed up for their next home.  The house needs to be cleared of these personal items so that the potential buyer imagines living in this house and does not become distracted by the seller’s “stuff”. 

It takes great tact and concern to make this case to the sellers (and that process is good fodder for another blog in which I share some stories about the emotional side of removing personal items before staging).

There is another “best of times” part to accessories that is illustrated by today’s pictures of the recent staging of the Evergreen house (http://www.transitions-home-staging.com/Projects.html).  I believe that one of my most valuable set of resources for professional staging are the towels, table clothes, place settings, waxed fruit, lamps, paintings, floral arrangements, mirrors, and lamps that I use to stage a house.  You can see their affect in this recent project.

Like frosting on the cake, these accessories give life, color and charm to the house.  They make the online photos pop.  Accessories accentuate the best features of the house.

The art of staging involves the placement of accessories to help the potential buyer understand the function of the space, to feel comfortable being in the space and most importantly, to imagine living the next chapter of their life in that house.  When it works like it did with the Evergreen house, great results happen.

PS – last week’s Homeowner of the Week received an offer on his house the first day after staging.

Dwell in possibilities!

Cindy
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