A bit of theater helps sell your house

Getting rid of clutter, painting walls, putting candles in bathroom are among useful tips

By Mary Beth Breckenridge - Beacon Journal

When you sell your house, it becomes a product. And just like products in a store, your house can be made more appealing through effective merchandising.

That's essentially what home staging is. Staging is preparing a house for maximum market appeal, and just as its name suggests, it involves a bit of theater, said Sharon Kreighbaum, a Hudson interior decorator who specializes in home staging through her company, Staged Makeovers (330-472-6607 or www.stagedmakeovers.com).

Staging, Kreighbaum said, is "making a theatrical statement that represents a lifestyle." The most aggressively staged home will approximate a newly built house, with stylish furniture and accessories arranged to accentuate the house's features, freshly painted walls and lots of suggestions that the people who live there lead a funfilled, carefree life.

It's important to separate the way you live in a home from the way you stage a home for sale, Kreighbaum stressed. When you're decorating a home for yourself, you add lots of personal touches and incorporate your own taste. When you stage, she explained, you erase your personality and your taste, and you instead aim to appeal to the greatest number of people possible.

Even her own home would be changed significantly if she were putting it on the market, she said. When she walked a reporter through all the changes she'd make to stage her home, she ended up with three pages filled with handwritten notes.

Kreighbaum said she can assess a house and provide a list of staging suggestions in as little as an hour. Her typical staging job, including moving furniture, takes one to three hours, at $75 an hour.

Staging tips

It can be hard for an untrained person to see his or house house objectively and stage it effectively, Kreighbaum said. Nevertheless, anyone can use some of the staging tricks she employs in her clients' houses. Here are some of her favorites:

Place white towels and a trio of white pillar candles in graduated heights in the bathroom to suggest a spa feel. Fill the tub, and float plastic lilies in it. Hide soap, tissues, wastebaskets, toilet brushes and scales.
In the kitchen, put away dish detergent and scrubbers. Clear the counters of appliances, paper towels and other utilitarian items. Unless your wastebasket is kept behind closed doors, put it in the garage for a house showing.
Remove leaves from dining-room tables to make the room seem bigger, and surround the table with only four chairs.
Remove tablecloths, place mats and runners from tables.
Eliminate noises that remind people of work, such as the sounds of dishwashers, clothes washers, dryers and dehumidifiers. Have soft music playing or no sound at all.
Get as much extra stuff out of closets and cupboards as possible, and make sure what remains is displayed neatly. If your storage areas are organized, Kreighbaum said, potential buyers will get the subconscious message that if they buy your house, they'll be organized, too. Even the food in your kitchen cupboards or pantries should be thinned out. Line up boxes or canned goods as they would be displayed on a store shelf.
Make your front hall closet look like it's ready for guests, with nothing more in it than a few seasonal jackets no games, toys, boots or other objects. A back closet should have nothing on the floor, with the exception of a vacuum cleaner if there's nowhere else to store it.

Think tasteful

Appeal to the buyers' sense of taste. Set a cltear glass bowl filled with lemons in the kitchen, a bowl of apples on the kitchen or dining room table, a wine bottle and glasses in the family room, glasses and a pitcher of lemonade with real lemon slices on a patio table, strawberries and glasses of fake champagne in the master bathroom and a tea set in the living room.
Make your master bedroom look like a retreat. Move out extra furniture as well as office equipment, craft centers and anything else associated with effort.
Remove bookcases wherever you can.
Put away laundry baskets, and take down bulletin boards.
Have fresh flowers in the house for a showing. You can buy them inexpensively at some grocery and discount stores.
Store all your makeup and accessories in a container under the bathroom sink.
Treat wood floors to make them shine. She suggests a product called Floor Revive by the Hope Co. It's sold at some Bed Bath & Beyond and Linens 'n Things Stores, as well as on the Internet.
Pull window shades or blinds all the way up, and move curtains or drapes to the side. If window treatments are out of date, remove them altogether.
Update bathroom lighting fixtures. Home centers usually carry some affordable choices.
Replace cabinet hardware, or update it with metallic paint.