Cherry Lane has sold, but I did want to share the photos of it staged to sell to show how much decor can change a house.
In case you’d like a quick re-introduction to Cherry Lane, click here to meet my old friend, click here to see the plans I made for her and click here to see all of the before and afters.
I don’t stage a house exactly as I would decorate it if it were my own home; I’m not fully decking a house out. Instead I try to keep the decor to a minimum, simply using it to highlight what I consider to be the best features of the house. I want to show buyers how furniture could work in a space and to give them a narrative for each room so that they are able to picture themselves making memories in the home. Personally when looking at houses, I don’t like to see them staged. I prefer them empty, clear of all the things that distract me from what I could and would do with the space. But I’m in the minority there, so alas, I stage.
Without further ado here is Cherry Lane, with jewelry on.
EXTERIOR
This is a reminder of the home’s exterior. All that I added here when staging was a front porch rug that you can’t see in these photos. When staging a home to sell, my own past personal homes included, I always purchase a new, clean front porch rug that has the word “Home” on it. Simply the word “home” by itself, or “welcome home,” or “home sweet home.” Some version of that but always with the word “home.” This is critical. It’s my master manipulatory trick to plant the word HOME into the buyer’s brain cells before they even enter the house: THIS IS YOUR HOME. YOU ARE HOME NOW. STOP SEARCHING. I have absolutely no objective evidence to show that this trick works, and exactly zero persons have ever said to me, “do you know why I bought one of your houses? It’s because of the front porch rug. It straight up hypnotized me, you evil genius. I would have bought a different house altogether if it weren’t for you and your meddling staging.” But in my head it’s a thing,
ENTRYWAY
I simply added a cute bamboo mirror here in a wood tone that compliments the lighter wood toned floors and the living room ceiling fan (visible in the next photos).
LIVING ROOM
When staging a house I come up with an imaginary family that I could see living there, and I stage the home according to their personalities and tastes. It’s a marketing strategy. Who are you marketing this product to? Who do you see buying it? Picture actual people. It may be real life people that you know, or maybe made up people, but most importantly come up with their age and demographic. Then market/stage the product for them.
Some of the fixtures and finishes that I put in this house were a bit more trendy and edgy, so naturally I pictured a young hipster family living here. The dad wears a beanie and incredibly tight jeans and has facial hair that would make Abe Lincoln blush with envy. The mom has some rad arm tats and lavender hair. They met at Paycom, obvi. Their two kids have names like Rainstorm and Ichabod, and though one is a boy and one is a girl they have matching haircuts and dress androgynously so that you don’t gender stereotype them, so naturally you don’t know which is which. (Spoiler alert: I totes gender stereotyped and gave Ichadod a room with purples and pinks, which we all know she loves.) My overall theme for this house was a very liberal take on what I shall call “mid century mod meets boho junaglow.” Well now she’s just making stuff up.
I love this living room. If that wasn’t clear from my previous posts about this house then hear me say it now: I love this living room. And I know, I know, if you hear me say “arched fireplace” one more time you’re going to set my blog on fire. But looooooook at that cute arched fireplace. Squeal. Ugh. She kills me.
This particular living room can appear tricky when empty. It is long but on the narrow side, and there are not enough walls to place furniture on- which I love, but people get spooked without defined furniture placement walls. If this was my personal house I would float the couch with its back to the entry way, facing the fireplace. But for staging purposes and realty photo purposes that chops the living room in half. It visually annihilates the view from the front door to the fireplace. Staging vs real life. What a bummer. Also, the asymmetrical fireplace here can make you go “huh.” while scratching your head when trying to picture how to decorate. Hear my cry: YOU MUST STAGE THE TRICKY ROOMS! If no other rooms, stage the tricky ones alone. If you even remotely feel confused by a room, STAGE IT because I can promise you THE BUYERS WILL BE CONFUSED BY IT ALSO. And if they are confused by a room it will lower their chances of buying. Especially a room as important as the living room. So get creative and come up with a way to arrange the furniture in an inviting way to show that it can be done.
In my personal situation I own a single, neutral staging couch that I move from house to house. Because homegirl doesn’t have an unlimited staging budget. So I have to make it work in whatever home I’m staging. I just change up the accessories from my “accessory inventory.” Part of my budget for flipping each house is a very very very small fund dedicated toward staging the house. I have staple large items: a couch, kitchen table, beds and nightstands for the bedrooms, etc, that I move from house to house, and I reuse a lot of accessories, but I have a small fund with which I purchase some items to stage that particular house. Items that will highlight an architectural detail or give a pop of color or interest to an otherwise bland room. It is very strategic and always always, in my opinion, worth the money that I set aside out of my reno budget.
I wanted a cool color scheme for my hipster family. I went with green. I chose some mid century mod looking accent chairs because this family is cool, guys. I internationally incorporated several bamboo elements like the side table sitting between the accent chairs, and many of the shelf accessories, and the largest mantel piece. The bamboo tone of these items compliments the ceiling fan and draws your eye toward it, because it’s one of the great, unique features in this living room. NOTICE IT, PLEASE.
As for the rug- just whatever. Eyeroll. Nothing haunts me like a rug that is too small for a space, and I do it every time. I will never have the staging budget to buy appropriately sized rugs, okay guys? Just avert your eyes.
But look at that fireplace. Hey girl, hey.
Again, I don’t stage shelves as I would decorate my own personal shelves. The point is to get a SMALL AMOUNT of stuff on them to carry a color scheme through the room and to say “hey, we’re decorated,” but not to overwhelm the space. You want plenty of walls and shelf space for the eyes to rest so that buyers can see that there is plenty of room for all of their things.
KITCHEN AND DINING
This is my trusty, neutral staging table that travels from house to house. It was actually our dining table in our rent house. When we moved into our rent house while our house was being built our old dining table wouldn’t fit in the small dining room. I got on Wayfair and bought the cheapest small table I could find. No sooner was it delivered and set up in our rent house that I stole it to use for staging. I moved our beat up, slatted outdoor patio table into its place, and my family was like 🤨 They dealt.
I had some dining chairs that would have worked in this space, but they were more farmhouse-y in style, which I love, but it just wasn’t what I visualized for this space. Because hipster family. So I went on Amazon and found this set of mod Eames style chairs for crazy cheap. They fit the boho mod theme much better.
When staging a dining room, I set the table. It’s a visual cue to allow the buyers to picture themselves seated around the table as a family eating in the room. I keep it very simple and neutral and inexpensive. Just enough of a visual cue to whisper “your cruelty free zoodles will taste good here, and Waterfall will actually tell you all about his day at school around the table in THIS dining room”.
I purchased these bar stools from At Home, and I seriously love them. They’re really good quality and so comfortable. If they fit my home’s color scheme I would have used them in our personal house. I love them in this dining room and know I will come back to them for future flips. I like how they don’t compete with the cabinet color, and how the dark metal legs bring out the darker colors in the backsplash pattern.
I styled the floating shelves with green elements to tie into the living room color scheme and to bring a pop of color into the kitchen. I used some black and white stacked bowls and a black and white planter to compliment the backsplash tile. I kept the shelves simple, but the few items used make a big impact.
Fresh flowers (peonies, my fav) and some natural wood cutting boards and bamboo utensils add a touch of warmth and life to finish off the space without being overly aggressive.
MASTER BED AND BATH
My master bedroom staging is pretty lackluster and minimal. My staging budget, again, is small. I have just enough furniture in the room to say “hey, you could make a third baby in here.”
My staging furniture for this room consists of an inexpensive, neutral colored headboard, a fold up bed frame, and a blow up air mattress (staging hack!). I always use white bedding so that it looks clean and fresh. The nightstands were in our old guest room before we moved and wouldn’t fit in our rent house. They were a Home Goods find, and they’re really just the best nightstands. I love them in person. Some lamps, art hung with command strips, and a pop of color with a throw pillow and blanket, and that’s all she wrote. I do love how the headboard shape mimics the shape of the mirrors in the bathroom. That was purely a happy coincidence as I already owned the headboard.
I keep bathroom staging very simple. I always use a white shower curtain and white towels. I put out some pretty soaps in pretty soap dishes and let the amazing floor tile and rockin’ mirrors do the talking from there.
BEDROOM 2
Ichabod’s room.
The twin size bed is my son’s bed from our previous house. I love it and find that it works in almost any room, with any decor.
I purchased the inexpensive wall canvases from HomeGoods. I love a big piece of bright, quirky art in a kid’s room or playroom.
BEDROOM 3
Waterfall’s room. Although he’s never slept here. They cosleep. He’s 11.
This was my oldest son’s crib and then became my youngest son’s crib after we painted it green. I love it so so much. So I use it for staging because I’m not ready to not have it in my life anymore. I’m not crying, you’re crying.
When staging, again, I like to put some pops of bold color since my walls and trim will always be neutral. I keep the bedroom staging very very simple. We don’t need full bedroom sets to get the idea- just enough to say “here’s how you will use this room. Doesn’t it feel homey?”
HALL BATH
I JUST got done saying that I always use a white shower curtain when staging bathrooms. Well. I did in here, but when I got it hung it just washed out. I knew it wouldn’t photograph well in realtor photos so I traded it out for this simple, striped gray curtain.
I again added white towels, pretty soap, and in this room some greenery because the countertop space allowed for it.
BACK PATIO AND POOL
I phoned it in here. It had been a long day, and my kids were crying for me to come home, and I needed to go. So I put out our personal patio furniture that we were using at our rent house, and called it a day. Just enough to say “hi hipster mom and dad, you can totally sit and enjoy some dope local craft beer while delving into that Bukowski novel out here after Waterfall and Ichabod go to bed.”
THE END
So there you have it. The staging of Cherry Lane. What do you think? Are Waterfall and Ichabod living their best lives here? What are some of your favorite staging tips? Let me know in the comments!