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!

As things go in the “small world” of Los Angeles real estate, the buyer’s agent for that property loved my work and hired me to stage one of his listings…and another and another. That agent has been a steady client ever since and tells me he won’t take a listing unless the seller agrees to have me stage it! Aren’t those type of clients the BEST?

So last week this agent calls to tell me that his clients (the ones that bought that Santa Monica townhome) are now selling, and it was time for me to “work my magic” again! It’s not often we get a second chance to stage the same home, so I was excited – especially since it was such a great experience the last time! We both agreed not to mess with success (so to speak) and to keep the basics the same in terms of furniture placement, but I just had to mix it up a bit.

Check out these photos of the home how I staged it in 2008 and now how it looks today. Which do you prefer?

View from 2nd floor 2008

View from 2nd floor 2010

Living/Dining Room 2008

Living/Dining Room 2010

Dining Room 2008

Dining Room 2010

Master Bedroom 2008

Master Bedroom 2010

Office 2008

Office 2010

Guest Room 2008

Guest Room 2010

Master Bath 2008

Master Bath 2010

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.

When I first previewed this property, my biggest concern was the size of the 2 main living spaces. The townhome had both a formal living room and a family room on the main level, but both rooms felt very small, especially without furniture in them.

The formal living room wasn’t as much of an issue because those rooms tend to be used only rarely. But the family room was open to the kitchen and dining room, and was going to be the heart of this home where the family gathered to watch TV and relax. But because of a layout issue and patio door placement, there was not much room for a lot of seating.

Family Room Before

As you can see from the photo, there was another issue – a strange bump out next to the patio door that significantly shortened the amount of space we had along that wall for seating.

Family Room After

Luckily I was able to find a small scale sectional sofa that fit PERFECTLY in the space! It looked almost as if we had it custom made.

With a strategically placed floor vase, that odd bump out didn’t feel so odd. And we even had room for an accent chair across from the sofa.

As you can see from this shot of the Staged formal living room, this home was filled with niches! There were so many niches that I was initially concerned about how to fill them all! But as you can see from the next couple of photos, I figured it out.

Hallway Niche

Another dilemma was that the kitchen island had great shelving/storage space. However the shelves were VERY narrow and also curved around the edges, so it was near impossible to fill them with cookbooks the way we normally would. However, by standing the cookbooks upright and strategically placing smaller, more narrow spice and condiment jars, crackers, teas and even a small plant, we were able to show buyers a great way to use this built-in storage space.

We created a dual use home office/guest room in the 3rd bedroom to show buyers it could be a flexible space depending on their needs.

The master bedroom was spacious and had not only a fireplace, but also room for a seating area as well as a chest of drawers.

Master Bedroom Reverse

We were so happy with the way this job turned out and look forward to this building selling out quickly! If you’re interested in learning more about this home, click here for additional info.