Home real estate staging- the living room

One of the things I’ve done for over the last year or so, is help real estate agents stage homes for sale. I work with the incredible team of Kathy McKinney and Rhonda Yedinak of Baird and Warner in Chicago. Not only are they awesome ladies (I love them), but it’s a perfect partnership with my surgery and recovery, I can go into a house with them and determine the set up and they can do the placement since I can’t do any lifting ( and haven’t been able to for a while.). We recently did real estate staging job on a  really nice house going on the market, and I wanted to share some quick pictures I took with my phone to show you how much difference furniture placement makes. When I  stage  =a home, I don’t bring in anything extra, I use just what the homeowner has- that’s what going to work best and most honestly in the space. The idea isn’t to fluff up a home to make it into something it’s not, but to show how the rooms work, and furniture fits so the potential buyers can easily visualize the space.

This room was a very long rectangle room with living room space a one end and dining room at the other. I would estimate the room approximately 11 feet  x 30 feet.

(Sorry for the dark pictures!)

The homeowner had mainly used this half of the space as a kids toy area. It wasn’t currently used as a working living room, but with a family room with a TV on the other side of the house and this room next to the entry, that’s what buyers would expect.

The room just felt super-empty and not really cozy.

The dining table is just to the other side of this console table.

I ended up centering the rug,scooting the couch to this wall and bringing in an over-sized chair from another room.

We just cornered the storage unit, and cleaned up the top.

The homeowner is going to either center the wall plaques or get  a third and clear out the rest of the clutter. It was nice to see how moving the furniture made immediate sense of the room and made it much cozier. A buyer could see that this space is the formal living area, and maybe even see themselves having a seat.

I hunted a bit through the house and just tweaked the console display a bit.

After that we just went around the house tweaking things here and there;moving a nightstand,changing a rug, things that you don’t notice when you live there, but a potential buyer might notice. Some changes like the living room aren’t huge full room makeovers, but they really make a difference.

 Many of the homeowners have great furniture pieces and accessories, it’s a just a matter of putting them in the correct place for the rooms.

As real estate season picks up, I’ll share more homes with you that we go in and stage. It’s fun for me to see how simple things can transform a space.

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