Living Room Before

As you can see, when you walked into the living room you were immediately faced with the back of a sofa and the TV was the focal point of the space.

Our solution was to bring in some smaller scale furniture and to reorient the room to open up the space and invite buyers in.

Living Room After

As you can see, not only did we create more seating in the space, but the space suddenly feels a whole lot larger when it’s’ not dominated by an oversized sofa.

This property sold for full price the same day it went on the market!

Here are a few more before and after photos from this staging success story:

Master Bedroom Before

Master Bedroom After

Display Ledge Before

Display Ledge After

Patio Before

Patio After

For more information about Stage to Sell, vacant or occupied staging services, consultations, paint color selection, or furniture/accessory rentals, check out our website at www.StageToSell.biz!

So after 3 months of sitting on the market and $100,000 in price reductions, the seller finally agreed to stage it.

One of the issues with showing this home empty was that the second bedroom was directly across from the dining room and had no door.

Downstairs Bedroom Before Staging (open to dining room)

According to the agent, most buyers of this floorplan had sliding doors installed to wall off the room and create privacy, but this one had not been upgraded in that way. So as potential buyers finished their tour, they inevitably asked “Where’s the 2nd bedroom?” When the agent pointed out the open space across from the dining room, which was visible from most of the downstairs, buyers balked.

The space also felt a bit cold, as modern spaces can tend to when they are not furnished.

Our first task was to create a division so that the second bedroom actually felt like a bedroom. We accomplished this with a simple room divider to create privacy. Adding bedroom furniture, as well as a desk, also helped buyers envision how they could use the space.

Downstairs Bedroom After Staging

Next we added warmth with furniture, art and accessories.

Did it work? Well, after 3 months on the market, this place is now in escrow! I call that success.

Here is a testimonial from the Realtor. I’ll admit I got a little teary reading this one.

“I can’t say enough about Annie…not only is she a real professional, she goes beyond the call of duty… This home was vacant and the seller was out of state, so all the correspondence was conducted via email, and having a very particular seller, details were a big part of it…She did not disappoint either myself or my seller!  The staging was done on time and our first Broker’s open brought out a huge turnout due to the fabulous photos that I was able to post after the staging was complete in enough time to tantalize the buyers. We had four offers right away and it was in escrow within 5 days of hitting the market, I say that’s a REAL SUCCESS STORY! Thank you Annie once again for making me look good and doing what I promise my clients, have the home in the best condition you can, and they will come! Looking forward to the next opportunity to work with you!”

-Claudia Border, GRI

Living Room Before

Here was the living room in its original state. The piano took up so much of the space that there was no room for a proper seating area. The furniture was not in scale with the size of the room and did not draw your eye to the beautiful fireplace or the high ceilings.

Living Room After

By removing the piano and adding two large sofas flanking the fireplace, we focused the buyer’s eye on the features of this room that we wanted them to notice. A rug and throw pillows warmed up the space and added some much-needed color. We used the homeowner’s coffee and end table that were originally in a different room.

Family Room Before

This room had a perfectly good sofa set, but the coffee table and end table blended into the rug and didn’t pop at all. There was also no cohesiveness between the colors in the rug, throw pillows, and art.

Family Room After

By adding new occasional tables in a dark espresso finish, the light sofas didn’t feel as washed out. We tied in the black and gold in the rug with the art and throw pillows to create a finished elegant look. New lighting and accessories finished the transformation.

Bar Before

This is how most occupied homes look when I first come to see them – they are chock full of family photos and personal items. Remember sellers… we are not selling your stuff, we are selling your house. And with all that stuff everywhere, buyers won’t be able to see the features that DO come with the home.

Bar After

By removing the clutter we were able to see the added functionality of this wet bar. We also tied this space into the adjoining family room by using the same colors in the art.

Master Bedroom Before

This master bedroom felt anything but restful. The bedding did not fit the bed properly and the extra lamp and chair felt out of place.

Master Bedroom After

We added a chest dresser to show buyers there was plenty of room for storing their clothes. Then we moved the seating area to the opposite wall (you can see a chair and end table peeking out in the foreground of the above photo). We updated the bedding, art and pillows and used a plant to create this luxurious and restful space.

Guest Bedroom Before

This headboard and matching bedding felt like they belonged at grandma’s house, not in this elegant and updated home.

Guest Bedroom After

We switched out the headboard and bedding for more neutral ones, added updated lighting, a reading chair (the same one you saw in living room “before” shot) and a plant. That’s all it took to transform this room.

But the proof is in the pudding.

According to the Realtor,

“I got an offer on my sister’s home at the first Broker’s Open…The wife came on Friday, she brought her husband on Monday. They fell in love with everything in this home.”

Now that’s what we like to hear!

"Shift" Author Gary Keller on Good Morning America

His most publicized quote from this interview (which has set Stager Blogs around the nation afire) is as follows:

“Price gets you interest.

Staging it gets you offers!”

Keller hit on a point that I often emphasize with my Los Angeles Home Staging clients. Right now we’re in a buyer’s market, and you’re kidding yourself if you think your buyers aren’t well aware of that fact!

Unless you create a sense of urgency for buyers to make an offer, they are likely to sit back and wait for your first (or second, or third) price reduction!

So how do you create a sense of urgency? That’s simple! Gary Keller has already told us:

1) PRICE

and

2) PRESENTATION (or STAGING)

Let’s look at both of these factors:

Price

If buyers perceive that the home is listed for an already competitive price (versus at or above market value), they are much more likely to move quickly to make an offer. Why? Because despite the market slump, everyone knows that eventually real estate will rebound. And if your buyer is looking for a long-term investment, s/he will have time to wait that out. If a home is perceived as a good value for the money, savvy buyers know they will not be the only ones interested and will be quicker to write an offer.

Presentation/Staging

The second way to create a sense of urgency with buyers is to make your home stand out from the competition. And the best way to do that is with Home Staging.

If your want your home to stand out from other similar homes on the market, you have to make your buyer fall in love with your home. Without that emotional connection, your house will just be one of many a buyer might consider based on price, condition and location. BUT if a buyer walks into your Staged home and falls in love with it, she will begin to “mentally move in” and to envision herself and her family living in – and loving – your home. Once the buyer starts picking out which room little Johnny will sleep in and which room she’ll use for her home office, you can be sure an offer will follow!

As a professional Home Stager in Los Angeles, I can attest to the fact that the well-priced single family homes and condos that we Stage are selling QUICKLY and in MULTIPLE OFFERS for OVER ASKING.

Want proof? Here are just a few of our recent results:

So remember when you’re preparing your home for sale that there are two important factors to consider if you want results like these. As Gary Keller so nicely put it, “Price gets you interest. Staging it gets you offers!”

The townhome had been painted and remodeled, so we had a great canvas to work with! Unfortunately the awkward layout of the living room, a not-so-neutral paint color, and a seemingly unusable loft space above the second bedroom were making it difficult for buyers to fall in love with the home.

Living Room Before

Without furniture, the living room felt tiny. The awkwardly placed fireplace didn’t help. Our first order of business was to make this space feel large enough for a regular living room set so buyers could see themselves entertaining in the space.

Living Room After

Properly scaled furniture made the space feel open and inviting and didn’t shut off views to the dining room. Relocating some installed surround sound speakers in the niche above the fireplace allowed us to put in a 46″ faux plasma TV so buyers could imagine themselves snuggling up in front of the TV for a relaxing evening at home. And with furniture in the space, the built-in wine cabinet didn’t feel like an afterthought.

Master Bedroom Before

This bedroom was fairly large and had beautiful built-in cabinets (not shown), but the purple color on the walls felt a bit too taste-specific for most buyers.

Master Bedroom After

Since there was no budget to paint, we brought in a black, white and silver color scheme to neutralize the space.

Guest Room Before

The guest room was small, mainly because of the spiral staircase that took up a good chunk of the usable space.

Guest Room After

By using a daybed with a smaller footprint, this guest room now feels spacious and functional.

Loft Before

What buyer wouldn’t love to have a bonus room in a 2-bedroom townhome? Unfortunately the sloping ceiling made this room feel like its only possible function could be storage.

Loft After

Luckily Stage to Sell came to the rescue with some properly scaled office furniture that gave this space a whole new lease on life!

Well our hard work has paid off. This townhome is now in escrow with a backup offer!

Congratulations to the owner and Realtors on a quick sale.

I am a proud board member of the West Los Angeles IAHSP chapter and have been lucky enough to participate in this wonderful event for the last several years.

This year our chapter chose the Richstone Family Center‘s Transitional Living Program as our beneficiary. The program serves young women (ages 18 – 24) from LA County, who have been emancipated from foster care. For the young women in the program, this is often the first time they have experienced a safe, stable and healthy home environment. Richstone’s program provides housing, case management, counseling, life skills, referrals and 24-hour support for residents.

Much of the original furniture in the main house was ripped and filled with holes and the art and furnishings were a mish-mash of hand-me-downs. The walls were stark white and the ceilings were damaged. Thanks to very generous donations from Brook Furniture Rental and Fashion Furniture, paint and supplies from Sherwin Williams and Lowes, fabric from Beach Drapery, cleaning services from Ready Clean, and labor from local painters Carlos Lopez and Albert Hernandez and contractor Brad Erwood (as well as about 10 of our members), our chapter was able to pull off an amazing transformation in record time!

Though the planning took several months, all the work was done in the course of a single week. Chapter members Kevin Htain, Adrienne Sherlock and Karen Keating handmade the window treatments from donated fabric. Our contractor repaired damaged ceilings and installed new ceiling fans to bring in air and light to dark and hot rooms. Our painter painted almost every room in the main house. And Brook and Fashion delivered all their donated items, all before our chapter members arrived en masse this morning!

All the chapter members donated items from their own inventories to add the finishing touches. I brought in art, throw pillows and plants, vases and kitchen decor. Others helped with miscellaneous decor items, even running out to purchase a few last minute items we were missing.

The result was nothing short of astonishing! The board members of Richstone Family Center and a few of the residents arrived once every last piece was in place. As they toured the new house, you could see the amazement in their faces. They noticed every detail, and all agreed that the changes in their environment would make residents take pride in their home and work harder to maintain it.

There is nothing like the feeling of giving back in your community. I encourage each of you reading this post to reach out to a local soup kitchen, battered women’s shelter or senior center – whatever gets you excited about helping. Even a small gesture can bring smiles you will remember for a lifetime!

Entry Before

New paint, art, lamp and accessories and now this entry says "Welcome Home!"

Living Room Before

Paint, art, throw pillows and some new ottomans warm up what was a lackluster rarely-used space

Dining Room Before

Once again, paint, art and accessories completely transform this space

View from Dining Room into Living Room (notice we added a small 2-seater table in the niche to the left of the larger dining table to allow for more seating options)

TV Room Before

New furniture, paint, art, drapes and accessories add life and color into this much-used den

TV Room After

Kitchen Before

Paint, drapes and accessories make this kitchen feel more inviting

Notice the homemade art above the microwave. It was made from leftover donated fabric that matched the curtains in that room

Kitchen After

Counseling Room Before

Counseling Room Before

This may be the most dramatic transformation of all. The counseling room was so drab and uninviting, filled with mismatched furniture and functional, but ugly, file cabinets. New furniture and some creative use of the existing pieces allowed for the necessary seating and storage. Paint, window treatments and accessories created the warm and calm feel that we hope will encourage residents to open up in their therapy sessions.

Working in the kitchen

Dan Keating and I hanging art above the sofa

We almost couldn't fit the new loveseat into the counseling room

Unpacking

Kevin & Adrienne even Stage the Scrabble Game

Stagers never forget the details!

Living Room Before

Do these blinds scream luxury home to you? No, they didn’t to me either. First thing on the list to go: vertical blinds. For budgetary reasons we could not install custom window treatments (especially on the large bay window in the front of the room), but simply removing the dated blinds helped immensely. We used inexpensive tension rods to add drapes to the side windows and left that beautiful bay window free and clear so buyers would be able to see the Observatory when they looked out.

Living Room After

On a side note, there was an issue with buyers having to look at the busy traffic passing by out the bottom half of that front window. Solution? We brought in two ultra-high-back chairs to block the lower half while opening up the beautiful hillside views above.

Bay Window View

As I continued my preview of the home the next thing I noticed was the powder room and its dueling vanities.

Powder Room Before

See that cute built-in vanity? Now granted it’s not the latest in bathroom decor, but it was clean and had some charm. But what’s up with the other vanity that butts up against the first one? It makes this room look like a botched makeover. I suggested they rip out the wood vanity and replace it with a pedestal sink. After all this is a powder room – no storage required.

Powder Room After

Now isn’t that better? We used the homeowner’s stool that had been relocated to the kitchen, some art and decorative accessories to bring out the room’s charm.

If you follow my blog, you may already know one of my many mantras: “Paint the paneling!” So you can imagine what I thought when I walked into this bonus room near the pool. This was a huge room with an attached bath and laundry room and a separate entry. A perfect place for a mother-in-law, a guest or a renter. But with all that dark paneling and the outdated ceiling fan it was completely unappealing.

Guest Suite Before

They painted the paneling and replaced the fan with a ceiling mounted light fixture and voila! Now, I would never have chosen white as the color – too stark. But hey, at least they painted! With furniture, art and accessories, we’ve just added tons of value to this space.

Guest Suite After

These were all relatively simple and inexpensive changes that made a HUGE difference in the saleability of this home.

The result?

We finished Staging on the Sunday of July 4th weekend. They had their first offer by that Wednesday and another shortly thereafter. We have already picked up our furniture less than a month after the initial Staging because the buyer was so anxious to move in!

The agent, Randy Troup of Coldwell Banker Brentwood West, often hires me to do Staging Consultation reports for his sellers. I preview the property and spend a couple of hours giving the sellers detailed recommendations of low-cost things they can do to (using mostly what they already have in the home) to Stage their property for sale.

I met with this lovely couple and gave them quite a list! Their home was actually quite beautiful to begin with, but there were many things I recommended they do in order to enhance its appeal to buyers. For instance, though the home had plenty of square footage, it only had one actual bedroom inside the house (there was a guest house out back). The second room inside the home was being used as an office, despite the fact that there was a full suite of offices (which housed the client’s landscape design business) off the garage. So my first recommendation was to transform this office into a usable bedroom. We brought in a camping bed which the owner Staged with her own bedding, and we brought in a dresser from another room to complete the look.

Guest Room

This home also had a huge laundry room downstairs. Unfortunately it had a concrete floor and felt very cold and industrial. So we brought in a rug that was rolled up in the storage area and some unused storage cabinets (which the homeowners Staged with some of her folded towels and laundry supplies) to make this space more inviting.

Laundry Room

One of the most important transformations, however, was in the kitchen. Though the kitchen was quite large, it was a bit labyrinthian in its layout. In the very back next to the back door, the owners had a HUGE china cabinet that reached from floor to ceiling and wall to wall. It was chock full of their extra dishes, vases and other items that wouldn’t fit into the kitchen cabinets or in the dining room. As I pointed out, having a huge piece like this in the kitchen (rather than in the dining room where we might normally expect it to be) clues buyers into the fact that there might not be enough space in the dining room. In truth it wasn’t the square footage that was lacking in the dining room, but the fact that the room’s walls were actually curved! Though the unique shape gave the room a beautiful look, it precluded the owners from putting any sizable storage pieces in the space. So rather than draw attention to something which might have been viewed as a negative, we removed the large cabinet and added a small table and chairs in its space, creating a new feature… eat-in kitchen!

You can't see it very well from this angle, but the table and chairs are in the back of the kitchen on the right.

The homeowners worked really hard to prepare their home for sale, tackling every “to-do” on my Staging list. They did it all themselves and though they were a bit exhausted, I assured them that all their hard work would pay off. Well, I was right!

In the first 10 days on the market, they had 6 offers on their home. They have since moved on to their new Palm Springs abode and are true believers in Staging to sell!

(Photos ©2009 PostRAIN Productions)

“I am happy to tell you that I got an accepted offer on the Pelham condo in the first week. It’s in escrow & inspection and I’m looking for a backup offer.”

It must have been fate that I hadn’t yet blogged about this project, because what better news to share than this Staging Success Story! It’s one for the record books. Though this was considered a vacant Staging (everything had been moved out before we came to Stage), my before pictures only show how this condo looked when I first previewed it.

BEFORE

First we chose new paint to lighten the walls, sheer curtains to let in exterior light and lamps to brighten the room. Next we completely reversed the furniture arrangement so that the fireplace was the focal point, while at the same time solving the problem of where to put the TV (which is of utmost importance to home buyers). Then we added art and simple accessories to appeal to all types of buyers. Lastly and most importantly, we showed this room as a living room – and ONLY a living room – with plenty of room for conversation and entertaining.

BEFORE

The dining room had both an adult table AND a kids’ table, both of which were covered with stuff. The chandelier was too small for the room, and the china hutch overpowered the space.

STAGED

By adding a console table in place of a kids’ table, we show that the space (although open to the living room) can be a large and functional dining room with extra room for a buffet or china hutch. Replacing the chandelier with an inexpensive larger one, and placing a mirror on the wall behind the table, makes the space feel bigger.

BEFORE

The master bedroom was pink and crowded and felt anything but restful.

STAGED

Painting the walls a neutral color allows buyers to bring in whatever bedding or art they already own, knowing it will work in the space. Replacing the tall and bulky armoire with a regular dresser and mirror brings the room down to scale and makes the bed the focal point. And lastly, replacing the huge chair that used to sit to the right of the bed with a smaller scale chair in the far corner of the room makes this room feel much more open and spacious.

BEFORE

The seller’s friends had told her to leave the expensive wallpaper in this tiny powder room rather than paint.

STAGED

I disagreed. Enough said.

BEFORE

This tiny room in the entry to the condo was confusing – was it a library, a home gym or a storage space?

STAGED

Now the agent can list this as a 2 Bedroom PLUS an office! Voilà – added value!

For more information and photos of this gorgeous condo, check out the property website.