My first job at a house in Greenfield:
As a couch, I always thought my days would be filled with kids jumping all over me. But when Ted & Julie picked me up from IKEA, they kept talking about a new staging project.
Rather than spending all my days in one living room, getting to know the same family day after day, I have traveled through more than half a dozen houses and heard hundreds of buyers comment on how lovely each home looked compared to the others they toured.
I love my job as a staging couch, and I have learned a number of tips and tricks to making a home beautiful for buyers along the way.
I didn’t get a chance to settle into this house! It sold in under a week with multiple offers.
Tricks to Staging Your Home for the Sale
Staging your home works—if you do it properly. Here’s what I’ve learned:
1. Less is more when staging. Two easy rules to follow: Remove half of the furniture from each room, and remove 50%-75% of items on shelves. Staging your home this way works because it removes clutter and makes the room feel bigger. Everything that stays in the room, like me, becomes the focal point.
2. Go green inside your house. Bring in a few house plants. They bring warmth, dimension, and natural color into your room.
3. Use pillows liberally in your bedroom. There’s a reason you see so many pillows on the covers of magazines like Good Housekeeping and Better Homes & Gardens! They transform a room. Each bed in your house should have at least two sets of pillows, plus a few decorative pillows on top. Double stuff your pillowcases to make the pillows look extra fluffy!
4. Add colors that pop. Throw pillows and blankets are a great way to bring out the colors in a living space. Julie and Ted always use four pillows and one blanket for long couches, and I agree that it makes me and my friends look good! The pillows should coordinate, but they don’t need to match.
5. Keep your bathroom towels simple. In the bathrooms, combine a simple white towel with a colorful hand towel laid on top. This adds dimension and color, plus it costs less than full-color towels.
6. Focus on art instead of family pictures. Take a look at your walls and bookshelves. Limit your personal photos, but keep up your meaningful artwork. This helps tell the home’s story, but it also leaves room for visiting families to imagine their own pictures on the walls.
7. Clean, clean, clean! Don’t forget the windows, baseboards, and appliances! Buyers will look everywhere, so make sure the home shines!
Need a hand staging? We can help! With dozens of successful home stagings under our belt, Julie, Ted, and I know how to make it work. If needed, I’ll even come along! Email us at theblocks@theblocksintheburgh.com or call at 412.926.7976.
Cheers,
The Couch (and Julie & Ted)