A dining room we staged.
It was THE MAGAZINE RONA, Winter 2009. The headline on the cover proclaimed “Home staging: it’s a breeze!” Inside, on page 38, the article was entitled “Home staging made easy.”
With legs quivering and cramping from a full eight hours of bounding up and down 10 foot staircases on a staging job, I thought maybe I had missed some fine point in my training as a Certified Canadian Staging Professional(TM). Maybe I am staging the hard way, I thought.
The first sentence, “Home Staging isn’t rocket science!” goaded me. But, I must agree, by definition home staging isn’t rocket science any more than is running the marketing department at RONA, or any other job in the world except rocket science itself. Excuse my catyness. I was tired and sweaty, remember?
No staging isn’t rocket science. However, as common sense as home staging seems, you would be surprised by how many home sellers can’t see the common sense impediments to sale in their own homes. Or, when they do see the problems, don’t grasp the rationale for investing in fix-ups to avoid disproportionately huge price cuts. And there is science behind staging. It’s based on the applied psychology of marketing.
Next, the full page illustration to the article caught my eye. How could it not, with the most acid yellow green walls, an animal skin area rug, a baby’s photo and way too many items in the vignette. It’s probably a fairly well done example of visual merchandising – but it’s certainly not staging. Stagers normally use wall colours which fade into the background so as to provide the blank canvas for any homebuyer to embellish with his own art and furnishings.
Stagers, who didn’t seem have been consulted in the writing of Marthe Martel’s article by the way, would remove family pictures for safety reasons and to avoid viewers lapsing into speculation about the homeowners, their possible reasons for selling and ultimately their willingness to take low offers.
De-cluttering and removing collections is another standard procedure in staging. The RONA magazine illustration shows a wall with four mirrors, a table holding six objects, four more items on the floor. That’s cluttered to say the least, and, with more than three of a kind, qualifies as a collection.
As for the animal hide rug on the floor, stagers sometimes use area rugs to add some warmth, pull together a seating area or provide underfoot comfort in an entry. However, we are ever carefull about offending animal lovers, even subliminally. Hides and taxidermy are not safe staging items. Also the particular carpet in the RONA illustration appears to be a likely tripping hazard. You want buyers seeing their lawyer to prepare an offer, not a lawsuit.
Most of the twelve tips that made up the article are relevant to preparation for staging, although perhaps a little superficial. Resentment ate at me as I lay exhausted after my day of staging. Does she imply these little tips were all there is to staging your own place? No buyer psychology required? Nothing mentioned about researching the market, understanding target buyers and what features they want. No mention of lifestyle selling. I fumed on!
The staircase as I left it
And then there is tip number eight which, as an example, recommends painting a white stairway with a narrow band of red colour to make it appear wider. I can imagine that stairway transposed to the house I just staged, greeting buyers at the door in all 10 feet of straight run glory, overshadowing all other thoughts of the house as they pondered ithe mystery of the stripe. Maybe it would have made my 101 climbs a little easier. Probably not.
Oh well, at least the article gave me an excuse to tell you more about what staging is and is not. And as they say, any publicity is good publicity. Thanks Marthe and RONA.
Author, Martha Stanton-Smith, owner of Rearrangements, is a Certified Canadian Staging Professional who helps serious home sellers in Kingston, Ontario get full worth for their homes. She completed her staging training in 2006. Visit her profile here:
