on the market

You may (or not, depending on who reads this blog) be happy to know that the house went on the market yesterday. We got a stager in on Monday to work with the giant void that is the lounge room. Here are the photos after the stager finished her handiwork.....

Most of house was a mish mash of bits and pieces that were struggling to fill the space provided; the lounge room literally only had a couple of sofas in it, but look at it now.

I was quite happy to have a stager come in and do something with the area, since we aren't into the buying more stuff mode, and the lounge room is the first room one arrives to upon entering the house, so I think it is important to make a good first impression.

Anyway, the whole point of staging is to draw attention to the house, rather than the things in it, or the ugly wall paper; hideous overly mirrored walls and dog piss stained carpet...as was the case when we bought this house. Yes, the aim is to give it enough that a potential buyer can see themselves living in the space, rather than picking up the owners vibe i.e staring at their wedding photos; checking out the diplomas on the wall and the books in their book case etc. "It all has to be inviting, pleasant and reasonably impersonal...blah blah blah".

The stager was at our place for a good four hours, which surprised me. The other surprise was that she not only did the one room, like she said she would, but she added a couple of bits and pieces to most of the room to tie it all in (I guess so people weren't immediately struck by how one room looked suspiciously lovely while the others looked so so).

The stager used many of our own things, but arranged them in different ways. She mostly added lamps and pictures to our vacant walls, and added a few other decorative pieces.
In the end the changes she made were quite subtle, but made a dramatic impact. She brought in the ottoman for the living room, which gave the room a great grown up look - that room was formally dominated by the kids and their stuff.
She also gave us this kitchen table and moved our own table into a space in the lounge room to make it into a formal dining room. The kitchen table she gave us gives our kitchen much more space. She did a really good job.

I think the biggest surprise came from Ashley's reaction. He wasn't sold on the stager idea. In true blokey fashion, he couldn't really see the point and did not appreciate the potential power of soft furnishings and a few well chosen pieces of furniture, but he was suitably impressed.... I am glad, because I just kind of said "we are doing this" and that was it.

The kids have been pretty good about the new furniture and stuff, although Alex did put bite marks in one of the fake fruits in the fruit basket. The stager didn't touch their rooms, which was good. It is all a bit of a novelty still, so they are presently respecting the rules about the new things. I do know, the longer the place takes to sell, the harder it will be to maintain the pristine look, so I am praying that it sells quickly so we can give this stuff back and get back to being the uncultured slobs we normally are, ha!