Ready, Set…Sold! – A Living Blog

I once had this kitchen. You’ve seen it before, haven’t you? Or was it just a Montreal home-builder’s brainchild? You know, that beautiful (?) almond-coloured melamine cabinetry and then, for a pinch of the organic, a strip of oak at the bottom of each upper cabinet door and at the top of each lower door and drawer. Beautiful? Ummmm, how can I say this … NO. Dated? Just by about two decades. I don’t think anything screams ‘late 1980s’ more to a home buyer than this kitchen. What to do, what to do, what to do?

Here’s an idea that worked well for me: paint out all of the oak strips in the same colour as the cabinetry and then install beautiful hardware on the doors and drawers. Et voilà ! You’ve just been teleported out of the late ’80s and into the new millenium – not quite 2008 but close enough.

Now, what to do with those blasted grey melamine and black tiled bathrooms that had their day back when we all had big hair and kept a bottle of Final Net (a.k.a. Final Helmet) in our purses to cement the effects of all of that hair teasing. Ahhhhh, the good ol’ days…

On a recent staging job here in Montreal, Canada, an ordinary dining table went from good to great with the injection of a bowl of real, live fruit. Unfortunately, the cat found the new all-you-can-eat buffet atop the table simply irresistible. And somehow, while strawberries with little chunks taken out of them might qualify as “art nouveau” to some, it’s just plain creepy to most.

On my next shopping trip, I went to Pier I and found really great fake fruit: green apples, red apples, red and green apples, amber pears, green pears and lemons. They were quite pricey ($4 each) but apparently each piece is hand-painted so that they don’t all look the same. And they are beautiful – not at all cheesy. Now the cat’s not quite as happy, but I am and so is the homeowner.

No, that’s not a typo in the title of this blog. Staging benefits not only sellers/vendors and the listing real estate agent, it also benefits potential buyers. How many real estate agents out there have had clients turn down properties that had strong selling points and good “bones” because of the bad decor, or the clutter, or the dated finishes? And how frustrating has that been for you?

And how many potential home buyers out there have walked into a home, taken one quick look around and walked right back out without a second glance because of the “horrible” wall colours, the dated furnishings, the pet or cigarette odours, or the cramped layout– without even noticing whether the home had good walls, windows, floors, layout or space ?

Now, I put the word “horrible” in quotation marks because what is horrible to one person may be beauty to another. Take the colour orange, for example. My dining room is a dark, deep orange, and I love it. But would I sell my home with orange walls in the dining room? Absolutely not! For every person who loves orange, I’ll find another who doesn’t. And as a home seller, I can’t afford to be unappealing to one in two potential buyers.

As a potential BUYER, I need to be able appreciate all that a home has to offer, and this is where staging comes in. Staging removes the factors that can be unappealing to potential buyers, allowing the home to be judged for what it is, rather than the picture it’s presented in.

Too often, we focus only on the benefit of staging for sellers. I think it’s time we appreciate what staging can do for buyers as well, leveling the paying field, as it were, and allowing the best features of a home to be noticed and appreciated.