Recently a client called me about Staging his designer decorated 2-bedroom condo in West Hollywood. The catch was that he only needed one bedroom and a patio Staged. The rest of the home had beautiful furniture and looked great. The 2nd bedroom, however, had become a sort of catch-all storage room and lacked the appeal of the rest of the home.

So we brought in a daybed and desk setup, as well as art and accessories, to show buyers how this room could be used as either a guest bedroom and/or a home office. We were even able to use a couple of the seller’s own pieces as accents in the room so he didn’t have to put them in storage.

Here are the before & after photos of this guest room and the small patio we Staged as well.

Guest Bedroom Before

Guest Room After

Patio Before

Patio After

*Did you notice how I said that the “short answer” was yes in the first paragraph above? Well, here’s the fine print… The rental companies I use have a minimum monthly rental amount. So, for instance, if you just needed a sofa and nothing else, we probably wouldn’t be able to Stage it for you (well we could, but you’d still have to pay the monthly minimum even if you only needed 1 piece). However if you need at least two rooms worth of furniture, we can make it work! Incidentally if it’s just a bed that you need, we do carry camping beds that we stack on a frame and dress to make them look like real beds. These are in our own Staging inventory, so we don’t have to go to an outside rental company…hence no minimums!

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.

It was very timely since I encountered this very issue while previewing a beautiful new construction home in Sherman Oaks just last week. The developer built 2 gorgeous, side-by-side, high-end homes with luxury upgrades and beautiful finishes. The homes were identical in layout, but the builder wanted to Stage only one – the less desirable one. Why was it less desirable? Was it smaller? Did it have fewer rooms? Ummm…no. This one was less desirable because of the next-door neighbor.

I didn’t take a photo of the neighbor’s yard, but you can probably picture it. It looked like a junk yard, filled with old appliances, lumber and debris. And the home itself looked like it should’ve been condemned. It hadn’t been painted in decades, the yard was overgrown and it looked a bit like, well, a crack house. Hardly the sort of neighbor the buyer of a brand new luxury home would be excited about.

photo courtesy of yoyogod

Of course my Staging plan included large potted plants and window treatments to block the view of the neighbor’s home from the bedrooms and patios. But at some point a potential buyer will open the curtains or peer over the fence, only to find that their future neighbors live in a dump.

So what do you do if you are trying to sell your home and your neighbor’s house isn’t quite as presentable as you’d like?

1) Approach your neighbor about the issue in a non-threatening way.

Attempt to solve the problem amicably (I find this is always the best way to deal with any issue). The article suggests that it might be a good idea to tell the neighbor that a Realtor or potential buyer made a complaint.

2) Offer to help.

Have a solution in mind and offer to help with any labor or costs involved. Simply offering to rake leaves or take a bunch of old junk to the Goodwill may be all it takes to solve the problem. If you don’t want this to seem too personal, try organizing a neighborhood cleanup with all the families on your block. Rent or borrow a truck to take everyone’s extra items to the dump or donate them. Tackle unfinished yard projects and pick up trash around the neighborhood. If everyone is taking part your neighbor won’t feel singled out.

3) If you are uncomfortable talking to your neighbor, ask your real estate agent or home staging professional to make the initial contact.

It may be less threatening if the news comes from a third party. You could even ask your agent or stager to say s/he is speaking to them without your prior knowledge. I am not one to condone lying, but if you are trying to preserve good relations with a neighbor, this type of white lie may be unavoidable.

Once again, make sure your representative addresses your neighbor respectfully (without trying to pick a fight) and offers to help in any way possible.

4) If all else fails and your neighbor refuses to comply, contact the local code enforcement office or neighborhood association. This should be a last resort, as it’s much more pleasant to get a friendly call from your neighbor rather than a complaint.

Just know that you may not get any satisfaction going this route. Oftentimes what may seem like a code violation is actually not against any rules. And filing a complaint doesn’t guarantee a quick fix. Your neighbor could file an appeal or simply drag their feet.

Another important recommendation from the article:

Ask the homeowner before doing any work yourself!

You don’t want to be accused of trespassing.

For keeping your home safe in other areas of California, check out ADT Palo Alto CA.

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!

Yes I said 500 square feet! The home consisted of a tiny living room, a small bedroom and bath and a surprisingly large kitchen (for such a tiny home).

Now if you’ve ever read any of my other posts on Staging loft style spaces, I’m always saying there are 3 important things that buyers are thinking about when they walk into a small or an open floor plan type space:

1) Where will I eat?

2) Where will I watch TV?

and

3) Where will I work?

If you can’t show a buyer a space for each of these 3 things they are never going to purchase the home.

Well you may have noticed I didn’t mention a dining room in this place, so #1 was something to be tackled.

Though the kitchen was relatively large and did have a bar for a couple of stools, that wasn’t a comfortable or realistic space for eating an actual meal. So we had to utilize some of the already small living room for a dining space. You’ll see in the photo below how we accomplished that by using a small scale drop leaf dining table and 2 chairs in front of a beautiful window.

Dining Area

Now for #2 – the all important TV…

There wasn’t much of a choice as to where to place the TV in this home. There was only 1 wall that was long enough to hold a sofa, which meant that the TV would have to go opposite that wall. Luckily there was enough space on that wall for a console table and a 42″ plasma.

Living Room TV

On a side note, as if this wasn’t a tough enough room to Stage, on the opposite side of the sofa you’ll notice a heater vent which stuck out into the room so the sofa could go no further than this heating unit, effectively cutting off some usable corner space. On the up side, it’s a convenient place to set down your drink.

Living Room Sofa

So this is how the entire room (including living/dining and TV space) looked once it was Staged.

Living/Dining Room

Now for the last crucial element for Staging a small space…a place to work!

Since there is no 2nd bedroom in this bungalow, a full home office space was out. Luckily the previous owners had given us something to work with:

Master Bedroom

Built-In Office

This cabinet was built for a small TV (in fact the top shelf was built on a slant which made it very tricky to get my vase and plate to stand up straight). But on the bottom there was a pull out keyboard tray and a space for a small chair or ottoman. Home office space – check!

Since I know you’re dying to see the rest of the home, here are a few more photos. As I mentioned the kitchen is quite large and the bedroom and bath were a good size as well.

Though this was a challenging space to figure out, I was very pleased with the outcome. What might have scared buyers off when it was empty is now a completely livable, warm and inviting home. It just needed a touch of imagination!