Putting a Party Dress On Your House

On Saturdays, the Daily Breeze runs features on interior decorating and gardening.

Last Saturday, the entire front page of this section concerned itself with how to "stage" your home if you are selling it.  It's much like dressing a stage set for a play or movie.  Professional "stagers" visit your home and make suggestions about furniture placement, accessories like new table lamps, sofa cushions, etc.  And then you pay them and they go away again.

Suggestions are not limited to heaving the furniture around but might include painting a room or two or updating your bathroom.   This in addition to the industry-average price of $2,500 for some stranger to come in and tell you how to decorate your home.  Do you sense that I am against this practice?

I'm not the only one.  Wil Herring, president of the Inland Valleys Association of Realtors, says it isn't necessary because the real estate market is strong now because there is less inventory available to buy. 

I think you can do "staging" if you insist on doing it by yourself.

Get rid of clutter -- you're going to be moving anyhow so don't put this off.  And, getting rid of the clutter will remind you that yes, you are selling the house you are standing in.

Look seriously at the way your furniture is arranged.  Would it look better to put the sofa closer to the window?  Mess around with different placements of the chairs and lamps until it looks perfect.

Our house was not staged when we bought it; every room was empty.  (And the first thing I did was paint the shiny wood kitchen cabinet doors a lovely turquoise.)  I liked "empty" because an empty house is a blank canvas, just waiting for the artist to come and make it comfortable and interesting.  

Keep it all spotlessly clean.  Speaking for myself, the best thing we could do is deep clean thoroughly and then pack our personal items, the cats and the bird and move into a hotel.