STAGING

• Bye, Bye Clutter – The most important thing you can do to prepare your home for sale or rent is to get rid of clutter. Make a house rule that for every new item that comes in, an old one has to leave. One of the major contributors to a cluttered look is having too much furniture. When professional Stagers descend on a home being prepped for market, they often whisk away as much as half the owner’s furnishings, and the house looks much bigger for it. Take a hard look at what you have and ask yourself what you can live without or at least temporarily until your property is sold / rented.

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• Furniture Groupings – There’s a common belief that rooms will feel larger and is easier to use if all the furniture is pushed against the walls, but that isn’t the case. Instead, furnish your space by floating furniture away from walls. Reposition sofas and chairs into cozy conversational groups, and place pieces so that the traffic flow in a room is obvious. Not only will this make the space more user-friendly, but it will open up the room and make it seem larger.

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• Musical Furniture – Give yourself permission to move furniture, artwork and accessories among rooms on a whim. Just because you bought that armchair for the living room doesn’t mean it won’t look great anchoring a sitting area in your bedroom. And try perching a little-used dining-room table in front of a pretty window, top it with buffet lamps and other accessories, and press it into service as a beautiful writing desk or library table.

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• Room Transformations – If you have a room that serves only to gather junk, repurpose it into something that will add to the value of your home. The simple addition of a comfortable armchair, a small table and a lamp in a stairwell nook will transform it into a cozy reading spot. 

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• Home Lighting – One of the things that make staged homes look so warm and welcoming is great lighting. As it turns out, many of our homes are improperly lighted. To remedy the problem, increase the wattage in your lamps and fixtures. Aim for a total of 100 watts for each 50 square feet. Don’t depend on just one or two fixtures per room, either. Make sure you have three types of lighting: ambient [general or overhead], task [pendant, under-cabinet or reading] and accent [table and wall].

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• Make it Bigger – To make a room appear to be bigger than it is, paint it the same colour as the adjacent room. If you have a small kitchen and dining room, a seamless look will make both rooms feel like one big space. Another design trick: if you want to create the illusion of more space, paint the walls the same colour as your drapery. It will give you a seamless and sophisticated look.

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• Neutral & Appealing – Painting a living room a fresh neutral colour helps tone down any dated finishes in the space. Even if you were weaned on off-white walls, take a chance and test a quart of paint in a warm, neutral hue. These days, the definition of neutral extends way beyond beige, from warm tans and honeys to soft blue-greens. As for bold wall colours, they have a way of reducing offers, so go with neutrals in large spaces.

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• Serene & Inviting – Create a relaxing bedroom setting with luxurious linens and soft colours that will make a potential home buyer want to hang out. Bedroom staging trick: if you don’t have the money to buy a new bed, just get the frame, buy an inexpensive air mattress and dress it up with neutral-patterned bedding. And remember to declutter. By cleaning out your closets, you’re showing off your storage space, which sells houses - it always ranks high on buyers’ priority list.

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• New Faces – If you can’t afford new cabinets, just get new doors and drawer fronts. Then paint everything to match and add new hardware. And instead of replacing the entire dishwasher, you may be able to get a new front panel. Check with the manufacturer to see if replacements are available for your model. If not, laminate paper, which goes on like contact paper, can be used to re-cover the existing panel.

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• Prim & Polished – Having tile professionally painted can make a bathroom look brand new and accessorizing it can make buyers feel like they’re in a spa. Put out items like rolled-up towels, decorative baskets and candles. It’s a great way to create a polished look, and it doesn’t cost much to do.