January Olioboard Hop: A Quicker Way To Stage Your Home For Sell

I am excited to be participating in the first Olioboard hop of 2013!!!  I am one of ten designers,home stagers, architects and industry partners sharing tips on the before and after process of how to stage your home for resell.

As a designer, I don't stage many homes, but from time to time my clients ask me to help them prepare a home I have designed for resell.  I also have several builders who hire me to stage new properties for the market.

What are some tips for successful home staging?

 Let's try a little exercise and see what you think....

 Can you envision what the use of this space might be?  A dance studio, an office, a family room in a loft apartment or something else altogether? It's hard to visualize what a room's purpose is without furniture, right?

Before:

After: 

Here is an example of what the room above would look like if furnished.  Can you now envision the use of the room? 

The empty room suddenly becomes a living room with an dining area and a study with the help of Olioboard!

Can you see how this room is more appealing as a furnished room?  The furnished room invites you in, whereas the unfurnished room leaves one wondering what to do with the space. Which room do you think would most likely make this home appealing to a buyer? The furnished room is more appealing, right?

For the sake of the exercise, lets say the space above is a New York Loft and belongs to a young couple without much furniture.  It is only about 1000 sq ft,  and this is what it looked like before we staged it.  They bought a few things but didn't really want to invest in much because they felt their time in the loft would be temporary.  

Before:

As you can see the space wasn't very well utilized.  It's cold and drab. There is no comfy spot to relax.  The art was too small and did nothing to enhance the beautiful brick walls or architectural features of the room.  Without insulting the clients, I am able to demonstrate on Olioboard how this room can be more inviting and create the necessary spaces buyers would be looking for in the property.

Again here is the "After" of the Space once Staged:

Can you see how a quick visit on Olioboard can demonstrate to the homeowner the room's potential without even lifting a finger to accure furnishings?

Builders, real estate professionals and home owners  turn to designers and home stagers to stage homes to appeal to a general population and help a speed up the selling process.   There are many steps required to properly stage a home.     As I have shown you above, Olioboard can shortcut the process and allow the home stager to create a quick visual  showing the client the potential of what can be achieve before any purchasing or actual work has happened. 

Have you ever thought of staging a property using

Olioboard?  With Olioboard, a photo can be taken of any room and uploaded to the Olioboard app then used to create a visual of  the room furnished as an office, bedroom, dance studio or any way you choose to furnish the room. Below are tips I generally incorporate into my home staging process.  These are basic tips that are necessary to the process.  Each  tips can be easily demonstrated using Olioboard.

1) Have clear definitions of the spaces. 

Notice how we created a living space, dining space

 and study space above. Below, this room could be anything but unless it is defined, the buyer might not see the value of the space.  Don't make the buyer guess, show them the value of the room by creating a specific use for the room.

Before:

After:

Suddenly the empty room without purpose becomes

 a media room!

2) Remove any personal items so the buyer

 can envision themselves in the space.

Family photos, toys, etc. 

Before:

Room with Family Photographs over sofa

via

After:

Photographs are replaced with a large piece of art and a couple of throw pillows.  When you remove the personal photographs from a house, you take "you" out of the house which allows for the buyer to visualize themselves in the house.  

via

3) Remove clutter and streamline the look.

No one wants to see piles of books or

stacks of clothes.  If the room is

neat and well organized, the space

 appears to have adequate storage. Rid rooms of

 excess items, a few well placed items makes a

much bigger statement etc.  Fresh flowers add a

 nice touch as well.

Before:

After:

4)  Remove approx. 50% of the furniture to make the

space seem larger and allow for traffic flow or replace with

pieces which make the room have greater use.

Before:

Too busy!!!

After:

Remove the jumble of pictures that don't relate and make a more cohesive vignette!  Notice there is less art, and one of the table has been removed.  The floor lamp doesn't take up as much visual space as the original floor lamp. 

Cleaner lines are created in the room with a more clearly defined purpose. 

5) Choose a warm neutral paint and use it in all the rooms, the rooms will flow into each other creating unity and visual space.  This keeps the floor plan from feeling choppy. It is ok to have an accent wall but try to keep the main portion of the home fairly neutral.

Before:

Room with strong green walls

After:

The sofa wall was wallpapered in a neutral and

 only one accent wall in the strong green was left.  The wall opposite the large window was left green because it can serve to reflect nature through the large window.

Those are just a few ways Olioboard can help streamline the process of home staging.  Can you see how helpful Olioboard can be to the home staging process? 

When creating boards on Olioboard one can pick from Olioboard's list of retail partners available on the website or use the furniture the homeowner already owns, by simply taking a photo and uploading it to Olioboard.  

If the home owner decides to move forward with physically staging the room  he or she has the options of following the boards that have been created by the designer/stager and doing the work themselves or hiring the designer/stager to finish the process.   

Olioboard can be especially helpful for builders and real estate agents as well.  Instead of furnishing a spec home with costly furniture and accessories, the builder or real estate agent could hire a stager/designer to create boards for each room of the house. The boards could then be displayed in the rooms with various options for furnishing the room.  The saving created by not having to purchase furniture or paying for acquiring and installing the furniture, art and accessories can save the builder, real estate agent or home owner a lot of money.   They would simply pay design fees for the boards created for each room.  It is easy to create several options for each room and display.  For example a bedroom  could be furnished as a guest room, a baby's room or a home office.  By creating the various options for the rooms, Olioboard opens up many options for the buyer to consider.  Often there are options created with Olioboard the buyer would not dream up on their own. This could also work for the homeowner as well.  A basement room used for recreation could also make a great space for a seating area.   The homeowner could have the designer/stager create an Olioboard showing the space used as a living space.  The homeowner continue to use their recreational items while the house was is on the market, yet the buyer could visualize what the space would look like for another use.  This could also be used for unfinished spaces as well.  An Olioboard could be created to show what the unfinished space could look like finished which instantly adds value in the mind of the buyer.

The next time you must home stage a property for sell, try Olioboard and see for yourself how it makes the job so much quicker and easier. 

Here's an added tip for the seller:

Always have a couple large laundry baskets in the garage, for those times you get the spur of the moment call to show the house, you can gather any piles of mail, errant clothing, or other messes and load in your car to take with you.  It's a quick way to straighten your house and do away with any messes. Don't ever  think of cramming the messes in a closet because that will be the very closet the buyer decides to open!

Check out my fellow Olioboard Hop Participates here for their great tips on before and after home staging:

Please follow more Before and After staging tips from my fellow #OlioHop friends by clicking on their links below. Happy OlioHopping!

Frances Newman - As You Like It Redesign: Blog * Olioboard

Stephanie Weeks - Interior Design HQ: Blog * Olioboard 

 Marilyn Russell - Design Magnifique: Blog * Olioboard 

 Lynda Quintero-Davids, NYCLQ Focal Point: Blog * Olioboard

Ronique Gibson - Stagetecture: Blog

Kristie Barnett - The Decorologist: Blog * Olioboard

Roslyn Ashford - Ra ReDoes Rooms: Blog * Olioboard

Williams-Sonoma Design Marketplace: Blog * Olioboard

Linda Merrill - Decorative Surroundings: Blog * Olioboard

http://www.wsidesignermarketplace.com/content/designer/Design_Blog.html  

For more information on Olioboard, please click on the following links:http://olioboard.com, http://facebook.com/olioboard, http://twitter.com/olioboard and Olioboard's video tutorial You Tube channel: http://youtube.com/user/olioboard.Please follow more Before and After staging tips from my fellow #OlioHop friends by clicking on their links below. Happy OlioHopping!