Would you hire the stager who promises the most furniture per room? Des Moines sellers have a long list of stagers to choose from, and judging them by how much furniture they bring points toward the wrong one. At Sell It Well Home Staging, we're a Boone company that stages homes for Des Moines sellers and the agents who list them. A stager's judgment shows in the pieces they choose to leave off the truck, and those choices are worth asking about.
The Best Stagers Know When to Stop Adding Furniture
Some sellers expect a top rated real estate staging company to fill every room with as many good pieces as it can hold. Every extra chair covers floor a buyer wants to see, and open floor is what makes a room read as spacious. In smaller spaces, we never add a piece for the sake of adding; each item has to define the space or help a buyer read it. Downtown condos and four-bedroom houses call for different amounts of furniture, and the skill shows in finding the right amount for each. In a small downtown condo living room, that can mean a sofa and one chair with open floor between them and the window.
The Right Neutral Depends on the Finishes That Stay
A safe neutral sounds like the easy call for a staged room. Every house has finishes the seller isn't changing, like honey oak trim or a speckled granite countertop. Gray pillows or throws that look calm on their own can clash with those finishes and make the whole room look dated. Because we also work as color consultants, we choose the textiles and accents for staged rooms around the finishes that are staying. Honey oak next to warm cream looks like a choice, while the same oak beside cool gray looks like a leftover. Get that match right, and the oak trim photographs as warm wood a buyer wants to keep.
Strong Staging Is Planned for the Listing Photos
Many sellers assume a room that looks good in person will look the same in photos, and a wide shot from the doorway shows otherwise. Wide-angle lenses exaggerate whatever sits nearest the camera, so a chair by the doorway looks bigger in the shot. Our furniture placement lets the camera catch the room's full depth, with no tall piece blocking the view across the floor. We can also shoot the listing photography ourselves, so the camera sees each room from the spot we planned it for. During the shoot, we'll shift a lamp or a chair whenever it blocks a window in the frame.
Starter Homes Get the Same Level of Planning
Some sellers believe top rated stagers only take luxury listings, so their starter homes go unstaged. First-time buyers stretching their budget study every square foot, so a well-planned room matters to them as much as to anyone. A top rated stager plans a starter home around those buyers, many of them moving from an apartment and furnishing a whole house for the first time. Staging shows them how each room works with ordinary furniture, so the house feels like a place they can furnish one room at a time. At a starter-home price, that confidence is what gets a first-time buyer to write the offer.
Staging Clears Distraction Out of the Buyer's Way
Staging gets mistaken for dressing up a house with rented furniture. Good staging also takes away whatever pulls attention off the house, and sellers rarely notice that half of the job. Your gallery wall holds photos you love, and a buyer studies the frames instead of the room around them. A single striking piece of art on that wall shows its size, while a gallery of twenty frames hides it. Top rated stagers measure success by how quickly a stranger understands a room.
Your Des Moines Finishes Come First
Set up a consultation for your Des Moines home by calling Sell It Well Home Staging at (515) 238-3795. We'll start with the finishes you're keeping, since they set the palette for every room we stage. By the end of that visit, you'll know how few pieces each room needs to look finished.
