Since the market is competitive for sellers, we thought we would use a professional stager.

I figured we could use an hour of the person's time to walk from room to room and tell use what pillows to use where, or how to angle a sofa, etc.

Ohhh, your God.
Six hours later and the house doesn't even look like the same house inside.

All paperback books, gone
The liquor cabinet, gone
two wine racks, gone (along with all the booze)
My paintings (sob) gone
The Japanese hanging in the dining room gone, replaced by a painting from the hallway.
Speakers in the living room, gone
giant speakers in the family room, gone
Dried plants, gone
pictures going up the stairs, gone
desk in the hallway, now in a corner of the living room. (Which I barely recognize now. Every picture got moved.
Every bedroom now has flood lights aiming up in the corner.
Most amazing is the bathroom, which now has white towels, no bathmats, candles and a marble statue of a nude woman in the corner, over the bath. (The wife and I are looking forward to using it)

Why do we always wait until we are leaving a place to make it perfect?

I have some before pictures and will take some after pictures and post them. It's pretty amazing.

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Peace Out, Philly!

You had a Japanese hanging in your dining room??

I hope it was by a harness and not their neck.

No wonder it's been on the market for awhile.

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Learn the truth about Danny Faulkners
murder and his murderer here:

http://www.danielfaulkner.com/

I thought the diminutive size made the room look bigger

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Peace Out, Philly!

I'd love to see them. I'm totally bored with the way my living room, dining room and master bedroom look but every time I try to move things around, it doesn't seem to "work," so I've been considering hiring an interior designer for a few hours -- but a stager would be even better.

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---Shosh

What was the name of the professional staging company that you used?

When I was looking it seemed that every "staged" house was done by BusyBee Design and they looked great. *http://www.busybeephilly.com/

Only problem I can see with a staged house is.. Who can live like that? There's never a TV, computer or entertainment center. And there's no way I'm ever going to be able to artfully arrange all my shirts, since they're not all the same style and color.
But .. their houses did look great, and I know a staged house a little smaller than mine came on the mkt and sold for about 40k more a few days after I had bid on mine.

(*If they want to sponsor this post, I am open to it)

I'd love to see the before & after shots too.

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Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis

When I was selling my home in AZ, I watched a bunch of episodes of "Sell This House" which is either on TLC or HGTV. They have really good pointers, including putting those floodlights pointing up in corners of rooms, making everything relatively neutral, adding "conversation areas" throughout the home to make it seem like there are more rooms.

A good Realtor should help you with this when you list your home. Go through the house and ask them to be brutally honest with you about what relatively minor things you can do to the home's appearance to get it to move.

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http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/be30300653

You have hit the nail on the head there.
Bedrooms have uplights to make them look bigger.

Living room is now in three conversation or activity areas. We basically had all the furniture around the walls in the living room. with a 22 x 18 living room, this never really worked. There was too much room between people.

<<will insert pictures here as soon as they are uploaded>>

I interviewed 7 realtors in the fall, asking each of them to give suggestions. 3 more came through later.

Brooke and team and one other where by far much more knowledgable than the rest. The other realtor specializes in new condo buildings.

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Peace Out, Philly!

I had BusyBee come by to help me try to redecorate my house. It wasn't for staging, this was to see if I wanted to work with them to redecorate it for us to live in.

Two designers showed up and the first thing they said was to get rid of all the toys in the living room. (They're in wooden bins and baskets in a corner). They had no practical suggestions (I have 2 toddlers; neither of them had kids), and I could practically feel the disdain dripping off them. I got their written proposal a day or two later and they never followed up (nor did I). $150 down the drain. They might be great as stagers, but for decorating a house to live in, they really seemed to have a very cookie cutter approach.