WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DECORATING AND STAGING?

is important to ensure your home stands out above others in a crowded real estate market – so what is the difference between decorating and staging?

Simply put, decorating is furnishing a home for you personally to live in and enjoy for your personal taste. Staging is decorating a home for the current market. Staging is about taking your personalized spaces and making them welcoming, calming and memorable, from a buyers perspective. There’s no doubt that you would furnish your home quite differently from how you would stage a home and this is often where Sellers put up some resistance, not wanting to lose their personalized touches and the things that they’ve become comfortable with.

The first step in any home staging process is always to de-cluter. This can sometimes take a bit of time and work because it requires letting go of possessions that you discover you no longer require or have room for. Enter each room with a fresh pair of eyes and envision the room empty. Now critically ask yourself what should belong in the room if you were staging it to make the room look its best. Then remove everything but these select pieces with an eye to being as minimal as possible.

Make sure to clean out all storage areas and closets leaving only seasonal clothes on the rack. Since you will be moving, start packing away items in boxes and store them in a corner of the garage or fill a container or Pod and then have it stored until you move into your next home.

Next step is to de-personalize the home by removing all personal photos and items. The rationale is to encourage the buyer to feel more comfortable envisioning themselves in the home. Often this stage uncovers some maintenance and paint that may be required to spruce up the house once the excess items are removed. Be sure to consult with a professional Stager, decorator or your real estate agent to ensure you make the best color choice for resale.

Often a seller may work to this point themselves and this is where they will bring in a professional to see how much further they should go in staging the home. This could involve swapping out furniture if the existing pieces do not work for the room, or installing particular pieces. The Stager will often rent these pieces or furniture for an initial design fee, plus a monthly rental cost.

It is clear that we decorate our homes for comfortable day-to-day living and that this is not always the homes best face when selling. So remember that although your home may be well decorated, it most often requires staging to show the home in it’s best light and to extract the best price from the market. Leave yourself enough time in the pre-selling period to ensure that your home is decluttered, de-personalized and staged properly. At Sano Stante Real Estate we include primary staging and coordinate advanced staging services for all our valued clients. Call us for the best real estate service.