When I get a call to do a staging consultation I ask the standard questions: how big is the property, location, number of bedrooms, finished basement or not, etc... the usual. But no matter how detailed this information can be, until I see the property in person, the property is just an address and a consultation time in my Blackberry.
Then the connection happens: I "meet" the property, the Real Estate Agent, then the homeowners who let me go in every room and open their closets:). This is when I feel I become a member of the "selling team": the agent, the homeowners and the staging consultant. It happened when I "met" the 26 Foxwood Rd., Thornhill Woods.
This property was a stager's dream: sparkling clean, great rooms, plenty of original art and some great antique pieces. The living room needed some furniture as it was almost empty and the family room needed an update. These are the only rooms where we brought rental furniture, in rest we just borrowed some pieces from other rooms and some of the existing furniture went in the basement, where we created a Rec Room. The homeowners were open to my suggestions and did their homework: pack and store the China Cabinet and the hutch from the Dining Room, lots of packing and storing, moved and stored the furniture from the family room...
There is a challenge in each staging project. Here I wanted to use as much of the homeowners' original classic art and antique pieces, but I needed to make the property appealing for the buyer's demographic, average age: 38. We had to stay very formal in the Living/Dining Room as we used the existing altique pieces in the dining area, but we went a bit more contemporary in the family room. We brought in some mirrors, art, coordinated accessories for the entire house and the end result is shown in the link below.
Were we successful?
www.26foxwood.com
This is the virtual tour provided by my agent partner, Arsen Gullesserian. I will post the Before pictures in my next entry.