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| 2. When you have that particular home that is barely furnished, don't fret. Contact your local rental furniture companies. You can rent a complete room or just a few pieces. It's not necessary to buy and warehouse a complete inventory of furniture and accessories. Also, it is not necessary to stage each room in its entirety ... Try this... Make one of the bedrooms into a music room. Make a chair the focal point of the room, add a music stand with sheet music, place a flute or other musical instrument on the chair and place a pretty throw over the back of the chair for color. During the open house, be sure to have classical music playing in that room. This creates great visual and acoustic ambiance, and lures the buyer in! 3. It is not always necessary to rent or purchase extra art for the walls. When I shop the home, I look in the dining room or kitchen for decorative plates to hang in sequences. For an example, in the last home that I stage, I found six pastel plates in the basement with an oriental theme. The colors matched the master bedroom color palette perfectly. I displayed the plates over the headboard on the bed in an arched sequence. This added sophistication and a finished look to the room and was inexpensive. Decorative plates can make a nice statement to most rooms. Just remember to carry extra plate holders in your tool bag! 4. I always remove family pictures from the frames and replace each photo with a picture from a magazine. Reason being, that most home shoppers are looky loos. The become distracted in looking at the homeowner's family photos and very quickly form opinions and prejudices. They suddenly see the home as someone else's. The goal is to create the perfect first impression instantly! It is the job of the Home Stager to create a fantasy home and lure the buyer in. I will cut out pictures of happy families, i.e., beautiful woman, children at the beach, a bride and groom, a grandfather holding an infant, and place them in frames throughout the home. 5. When staging a home for sale, be sure to make the closets appear spacious. Remove half of the clothing. Remove shoes and keep the closet floor empty. Arrange the clothing so that colors are grouped together and look neat. Remove wire hangers and purchase hangers that are the same make and color (I suggest using black or white). I have been successful in purchasing inexpensive plastic hangers at the local dollar store. Storage and closet space is very important in home buying and can be the determinate factor in the sale. To contact Melanie Serra - Call her at: 610-525-2473 or e-mail her at: melanie@interior-revivals.com www.interior-revivals.com |
| Home Staging Tips By Melanie Serra Interior Redesign Review Home Staging Expert |
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| In my college years, I continued to share my passion with friends, neighbors, and co-workers. They would continually seek my advice whether choosing the right dress for a special occasion or rearranging and accessorizing their furnishings to give their home a new, updated look. In my job, I would receive recognition for "possessing a flair". I was asked to participate in selecting the color schemes and furniture for the corporate office. I began my career in sales and marketing where I participated in leading marketing campaigns and in developing new ideas to promote various products. I created themes for company trade shows and was responsible for decorating the exhibits. Later I worked in advertising as an assistant photo stylist for television commercials and for print advertising. Soon I joined a studio production company and worked as an account executive and production coordinator. I was assigned the JC Penney's Home Furnishing Catalog account. My responsibilities were to integrate design direction from art directors to the studio production team. I supervised and directed the production team in set design, construction, styling, accessorizing, and lighting. Later, I became a freelance photo stylist specializing in environmental (interiors) and also tabletop display. |
| In 1998, my career took a new twist. In helping my neighbors out of a desperate situation, I fell upon a new design concept... Home Staging. My neighbors' home had been on the market for two months and hadn't attracted one potential home buyer. They asked for my help. After neutralizing, de-cluttering, rearranging and accessorizing their home, it took on a whole new appeal. Within 24 hours they had three offers. The house went into a bidding war, and sold for 20% over the asking price. I knew I was on to something... I opened my business, Interior Revivals, and became "The Home Stager", working with homeowners and realtors. I recently moved to Philadelphia to join my fiancé where I have been successfully staging homes for the past few years. My design specialty is Real Estate Staging. Here are a few staging tips: 1. When staging a home, one should be sensitive to the physiological state of the homeowner and his family. Moving is one of the most stressful events in life. It is the job of the Home Stager to make the move transition flow as easily as possible. It has been my experience 80% of the time that when a house is not moving on the market, it is usually the result of resistance within one family member. That person may be subconsciously sabotaging the move. For example, it may be a husband who received a promotion with a job transfer, and his wife is feeling resentful, not wanting to leave her friends and neighbors. She may not make an effort to carry out the responsibilities in preparing the home for market. My experience has been to meet with the family members to ask questions on how they feel about the move, and to try to help them through the transition. Most often I get the person with the most resistance involved in preparation process so they don't feel helpless and overwhelmed. I may ask them to help me with packing or some other part of the staging process. I try to pin point the task that feels most overwhelming to that individual. It's amazing time and time again, how I see the transition in personalities where the person who was reserved takes on a whole new excitement about the move. Sometimes they just need a leader to help them jump-start their motivation. And let's face it, as Home Stagers we need as much cooperation as possible! Attitudes are contagious. It takes one negative personality in the family to make or break the transition in selling a home. |
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