My beloved friends Anna-Lisa and Scott are moving. It is a good thing for their family and I’m very excited for them. Over the past eight years, we have worked together transforming their home. I think it was on the second playdate for our kids that I rearranged their living room! I do not think there is a single room in their house we haven’t worked on together. We built our friendship partly through transforming their home. When they made the decision to put their house on the market, I asked them if I could give them some home staging ideas.
For this task I utilized the same philosophy Reclaiming Home always employs when styling other people’s homes: using mainly what a client already owns and filling in the gaps with thrifted and new items. All three of us put in a lot of work to get their house ready for market. I did style the home differently than I would have if I were doing it for a normal client. I styled it so that potential buyers could see not only the best parts of the home, but also want it for themselves. That included a LOT of editing. I touched almost all the rooms in the house, so I’ll break it down into smaller sections.
Let’s start with the entrance, front music room, and attached dining room. You can see my other home staging ideas for bedrooms here and for living spaces here.
The Entrance
The only thing we added was a rug from HomeSense for $70. Everything else was achieved by simply removing items. The coat rack is beautiful and functional for when they are living in the space, but our goal was to make the entryway feel and look as bright and spacious as possible so we moved it out. The new, lighter, textured rug makes a big difference.
The entrance transitions to the front living area. We wanted this space to feel very much like a library/music room, and the seating vignette is the perfect place to read a book or listen to the piano.
The Music Room
My friends love books and they have a lot of them. So in order to stage this room I edited. I went through all their books (many of which I have borrowed and read) and I reworked all the shelves. One of my best home staging ideas is that when you are trying to sell a home, styled bookshelves with room to breathe have a big impact on buyers. We also removed the cat tree that was in the front window. There isn’t a tonne of furniture in this room, but when buyers walked in they knew its purpose — music and reading — and it draws you into the house.
The Dining Room
All we did in this room was edit. We removed everything from the built-in sideboard and the chair from the end of the table. A giant bowl of red apples makes a centrepiece. These are tiny changes but they have a huge impact on how buyers perceive a home.
If you are selling your house, this is a new option that Reclaiming Home is offering. I can stage your home using mostly what you already own and make your house feel like a place people can see themselves living in.
