Home Staging & Staging a House

Dressing a House for Success

Home staging is about illusions. It's how David Copperfield would sell a house. It's beyond decorating and cleaning. It's about perfecting the art of creating moods. Staging makes your house look bigger, brighter, cleaner, warmer, more loving and, best of all, it makes home buyers want to buy it.

Contrary to what you might think, it's about more than preparing your Evanston home for sale. Staging is what you do after you've cleaned, de-cluttered, painted, made minor repairs; it's all about dressing the house for sale. It's about adding the small details: the lipstick, mascara and, for simplicity, a stunning, single strand of Tahitian pearls.

What is a Professional Home Stager?

Professional stagers are highly skilled artists. They can take a blank canvas and paint a sensuous portrait without ever lifting a paint brush. Stagers possess the skills of a top-level designer and they create dramatic scenery that appeals to all five senses. Here are some of their secrets:

Arrange sparse pieces of furniture in an appealing grouping known as a vignette
Showcase a generous usage of soft fabrics such as silk, lambswool, satin
Display unusual knickknacks in units of 1, 3 or 5
Drape window coverings with simple lines
Add unique elements to shelving, bookcases and fireplace mantels, which draw attention to predetermined areas

What Accessories Does a Stager Use?

Stagers will bring in a vast array of items to spruce up your Evanston home. Here is a small sampling of items professional stagers often use to dress each room. How they are utilized is limited only by the creativity and vision of the stager.

Plants
Mirrors

Silk Flowers

Floor & Table Lamps

Area & Throw Rugs

Small Love Seats

Ottomans

Afghans

Pillows

Inflatable Queen-Size Beds

Baskets

Plastic Tables & Chairs

Professional Staging Tricks & Tips

An artist for 35 years, Dawna Johnson, is an Accredited Staging Professional Master (ASP) and owner of Sacramento Staging Solutions. She says the idea behind staging is to allow rooms to show themselves. "If your home is vacant, it's soulless," Dawna warns. "Without staging, it will probably remain on the market for many months." She calls the kitchen the "heart of the home," and offers this practical advice for making that space sparkle:

Apply orange oil to cabinets that appear dry, which will renew their original luster

Put out large bowls of fruit such as polished apples, bright oranges, luscious grapes

Arrange colorful and fu cookbooks on the counters

Dawna believes in bringing the outdoors inside through the use of greenery and plants; in creating clean, crisp spaces and arranging furniture with plenty of room to walk around. She says bathrooms are essential to dress well. "Bathrooms should look open, airy and delightful," says Dawna. One of her favorite tricks is to add baskets filled with spa treatments such as:

Towels tied with ribbons

Scented soaps

Creamy lotions

Moisturizing & Facial jars

The backyard needs staging, too. For patios and decks, bring in plants and potted flowers, and add additional color by setting the picnic table with bright, plastic dinner plates.

How Much Does it Cost?

The Thomas Team provides complimentary home staging to their listing clients. If you hire a professional, prices may vary depending on where you live and the local demand for professional home staging. Some real estate agents help the seller stage the home themselves. Most agents agree, however, that vacant homes show better with staging and will encourage sellers to stage their home.

We hope that these tips will help provide the atmosphere needed to make an Evanston home buyer fall in love with your home. As always, we’re here to help and would enjoy the opportunity to talk with you about selling and staging your Evanston home.

Selling your Evanston home can seem like an overwhelming process in the midst of this current buyer’s market. You want to do everything you can to help it stand out from the competition and it can seem like getting your home sold all on your shoulders.

As Evanston Real Estate agents, we know the pressure a seller feels. Our goal is to make the seller feel as relaxed as possible as we handle all the details that go into selling an Evanston home. While it can feel nerve-wracking to let go and allow us to handle the sale of your home; it’s important to remember that our expertise in the Evanston Real Estate market is going to help the process run smoothly.

The Thomas Team
@ Properties

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How to Improve Curb Appeal

Home Selling Advice to Help You Attract Potential Evanston Homebuyers

A large percentage of Evanston home buyers decide whether or not to look inside a house or take it seriously based on its curb appeal—the view they see when they drive by or arrive for a showing. You can help make sure they want to come inside your Evanston home by spending some time working on the its exterior appearance.

It's difficult to look at our own house in the same way that potential Evanston home buyers do, because when we become accustomed to the way something looks and functions, we can't see its faults. Decide right now to stop thinking of the property as a home. It's a house—a commodity you want to sell for the highest dollar possible.

Curb Appeal Exercise

The next time you come home, stop across the street or far enough down the driveway to get a good view of the house and its surroundings.

What is your first impression of the house and yard area?
What are the best exterior features of the house or lot? How can you enhance them?
What are the worst exterior features of the house or lot? How can you minimize or improve them?

Park where a potential buyer would and walk towards the house, looking around you as if it were your first visit. Is the approach clean and tidy? What could you do to make it more attractive?
Take photos of the home's exterior. If you have a digital camera, view the color versions first, then remove the color and look at it in black and white, because it's easier to see problems when color isn't around to affect our senses.

Make a list of the problem areas you discovered. Tackle clean up and repair chores first, then put some time into projects that make the grounds more attractive.

Kill mold and mildew on the house, sidewalks, roof, or driveway.
Stow away unnecessary garden implements and tools.
Clean windows and gutters.
Pressure wash dirty siding and dingy decks.
Edge sidewalks and remove vegetation growing between concrete or bricks.
Mow the lawn. Get rid of weeds.
Rake and dispose of leaves, even if your lot is wooded.
Trim tree limbs that are near or touching the home's roof.

Don't Forget the Rear View

Evanston Buyers doing a drive by will try their best to see your back yard. If it's visible from another street or from someone's driveway, include it in your curb appeal efforts.

Evening Curb Appeal

Do your curb appeal exercise again at dusk, because it isn't unusual for potential Evanston buyers to drive by houses in the evening.

One quick way to improve evening curb appeal is with lighting:
String low voltage lighting along your driveway, sidewalks, and near important landscaping elements.
Add a decorative street lamp or an attractive light fixture to a front porch.
Make sure lighting that's visible through front doors and windows enhances the home's appearance.

Landscaping Decisions

There are times that adding elements to your landscaping can improve curb appeal, but there are other times when removing something is even more effective.

Most buyers cannot visualize changes, and often won't take a second look at a house if the first look doesn't appeal to them. Home buyers who can visualize changes, and are prepared to make them, expect you to reduce the price of the house to compensate for the work they plan to do.

A Few Curb Appeal Tips

If you can budget it, a fresh paint job does wonders for a dingy house. Drive around Evanston to find color schemes that are appealing.
Install a more attractive front door, maybe something with leaded glass inserts.
If you can't justify the cost of a new door, consider replacing plain doorknob hardware with something more attractive.
If new hardware is beyond your budget, repaint or stain the door and polish the hardware?

If you brainstorm, you'll find that there's a solution to most problems—one that lets you stay within your budget. The trick is to find the areas where improvements are needed, then work on them as best you can.

As Evanston Real Estate agents, we enjoy giving you great information and tips for the Evanston Real Estate market. If you have any questions or about living in Evanston or are interested in learning more about selling a home in Evanston, please let us know. We're here to help in any way we can and would enjoy the opportunity to help you make Evanston your new home.

We look forward to hearing from you!