Designed to Sell

In July of last year, I started a business as a Professional Organizer. Recently, I completed my first “home staging” job and thought you might like to see the results.

Home Staging is a relatively new area in real estate. Home Staging involves decluttering, de-personalizing and organizing your home to show off it’s best features while eliminating the negatives. More often than not, this involves doing much needed repairs along with painting and cleaning. Most people don’t know where to start and that’s where a home stager comes in. Examples of a home stager might be: an Interior Designer, a Professional Organizer or a Real Estate Professional.

Recently, I was called to this home to assist the seller. The seller was recently divorced and the husband had removed most of the furniture and left the home with many needed repairs. She had a few real estate professionals who advised her to sell the home “as is”. I had met this client to help her organize her home office and I mentioned that this home could be fixed up and that she could get a lot more money. I’ve always had the ability to take the worst room or house and see it’s “potential”. In this case, I think it turned out quite nice.


Let the Staging Begin

For this client, I helped her declutter, organize, created a space plan for the furniture, and selected a color palette for each room. We agreed on a budget and I shopped for each room. In addition, I organized all of the kitchen cabinets and placed labels on every one as an added feature for a buyer. No more moving in and not knowing where to put anything!



The Kitchen



"Before" Pictures

"After" Pictures

These are the "after" pictures of the kitchen. The baseboards and moldings have been repaired and painted white. The floor has been updated. I made custom valences and drapes to go over the window and patio doors. I found a striped tablecloth at Target that tied in the kitchen and living room colors so I decided to use it and make the drapes and valences. I don't sew so I managed to make them all by using the finished edges of the tablecloths and then used an iron on mending tape. I measured precisely and then matched the stripes so the "repeat" was correct, much like you would do if you were hanging wallpaper. I made both window treatments, napkins and the kitchen towel that is hanging on the stove. I stayed within the household budget by doing all of the window treatments, curtain rods, rings, wood for the valences and "L" brackets for $65. You can see part of the window treatments below. I had to close the patio door drapes in order to take the pictures since the outside light was so bright. I added a matching cotton rug and fresh tulips to complete the staging. In the plant window, (I don't have an "after" picture of that.) I purchased some white pots from IKEA and planted an herb in each pot. I thought perhaps a buyer who likes to cook, might want to have their herbs in the kitchen and cook with them. I know I'd like that since I love to cook with fresh herbs.

The Living Room

This is the "before" picture of the living room. The client preferred to keep the bright yellow color on the walls instead of neutralizing it. I worked the color palette around this and chose white, yellow and brown as the colors with aluminum as the metal element. The walls and roses are yellow, the baseboards, drapes, vases and candles are white and the sofa, curly willow and decorative accents are brown. The client had the armoire in the basement and the desk in the foyer she was going to toss. It was painted a dark green. Instead, the desk was repainted and I built the wood elements of the room around the color of the armoire. I added a coffee table, baskets and side table from IKEA, along with white vases and candles. I added metallic table lamps with modern white drum shades. I chose aluminum elements in the curtain rods and floor lamp. Drapes were from Pottery Barn. I made the rose floral display in the foyer.

The Lower Bath

Here is a "before" and "after" picture of the lower bathroom. The bathroom was decluttered, organized and then "staged." I used accessories the client had in her home, just used them in new ways. The vanity was painted white and the handles on the cabinets were updated to a polished chrome.

An Upstairs Bath

I didn't have a "before" picture of this bathroom however here is one of the upper bathrooms "after" staging. All that was done, was painting the walls white, using a new set of towels the clients purchased and then adding some fresh tulips and a candle to make it nice. I chose the tulips because the green in the leaves matched the green stripes on the towels.