Don't Try This at Home

Have you ever tried to stage your own home? I did.

As an experiment I tried to stage my own home. The goal was to remove the design personality I've created over the past several years and try to view it as a potential clients' home. Open up the space, remove unnecessary furniture and clutter. Right? Rearrange the remaining furniture to make a better seating arrangement.

Do you know what I discovered? It's not easy. In fact it's almost impossible to look at your own possessions objectively and decide which can stay and which can go. Oh you can remove the personal photos and make that fireplace mantel a work of art, but at the end of the day, it's hard to know where your style ends and the staging begins. Once you've lived with your stuff for a while it takes on a mystical quality. It's part of how you see yourself and how others see you.

The trick to successfully staging an occupied home for sale is to be able to view it with a buyer's eyes. Buyers look at your stuff and see your personality and your lifestyle. It's hard for them to see your home as theirs when all they see is you.

The look you want to acheive is a clean palette - one where anyone who walks through the door can viusally paint themselves into the picture!