Home Staging Pennsylvania- Hart & Associates Servicing the Main Line, Philadelphia, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery Counties.

I thought I had seen it all until today.....

I have found moldy food, panties, money, jewelery, illegal substances, naughty bedroom items but I have never found what I saw today.

Our team went into a client's home to destage it since it had sold. The homeowner was at work and left me the key to let myself in. After we had packed up the accessories, lamps and artwork we then got to work rolling up the area rugs. I had to move the family room sofa to get the rug out from underneath it. When I moved it I found.....

Yes a GUN!!

To be honest I was not sure it if was real or not- maybe it was a squirt gun or a BB gun? It looked real.  My assistant and I decided not to pick it up and I immediately called the homeowner. He told me that he had left it there last night and FORGOT about it.

 The problem was that I did not want to leave it there since the rental company was coming to get the furniture and I did not want them to A. touch it or B. take it.

The homeowner informed me that it was real and it was LOADED.

I did not realize that they were so heavy. I wanted to do a Charlie's Angels Pose but I did not want my prints on it! Definitely this was above and beyond normal decluttering and not part of my staging props.

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of helping a family in Montgomery County, Haverford PA prepare their home for sale. The home is a stunning historic Tudor in a coveted zip code. The sellers had recently moved and the Realtor felt it should be staged to allow buyers to better envision how they could live in the home. Typically when I do a proposal for a vacant home I only provide the client with a proposal for our services and rental items, however, in this case I could not resist giving them a free bit of advice about the decor of the space because no amount of staging could hide what I saw.

The home seller had spent TENS OF THOUSANDS of dollars having a local artist paint a mural in their dining room, a mural in their daughter's bedroom and faux finishing the ceilings and walls in the foyer. In the family room they had also done a lot of creative painting and had decked out the powder room in a lovely gold and red polka dot pattern. My problem was not that the murals were ugly- they were actually beautifully done-by a skilled artist but they were a perfect example of how a home can be so overly personal that it makes it difficult for buyers to imagine how they can make this space their own.

Instead of seeing the mill-work, the high ceilings, the large windows and open floor plan, all you could notice when you entered the space was the mural- the one in the dining room even depicted the owner and his dogs making it hard for one to imagine himself dining there. Imagine the conversation during a dinner party: The guest would ask, "Wow what a great mural! Is that you riding through the English countryside on the wall with your yorkies?" The host would reply, "No, it is the previous owner. Nice hat though!"

Fortunately, however, murals are an easy and inexpensive fix for sellers looking to put their home on the market. Paint got it there and paint can remove it. I have had many heart wrenching conversations with young mothers about how the hand painted scene of Winnie the Pooh in the nursery had to go because the new owners may have teenage sons or may be a young professional couple with no plans for children.

My client did take a lot of my advice- he replaced carpet, installed new countertops in the kitchen, repainted some rooms, but DID NOT PAINT OVER THE MURALS! So in the end I had to rely on staging to make these areas feel less personal by diverting attention from the walls to the furnishings. You can take a look at my pictures below to see the results. The good news is they have had mutiple repeat showings  and hopefully they will get an offer..... and hopefully they will have a little girl with the same name...

 Talk about day in the life of a stager! Guess who came to stage with me in Philadelphia 2 weeks ago? Ladies who are in the picture below and Kimberly (you already know) you are not allowed to tell!

The mystery stager!

 Val, Kate and Phyllis

I have gotten several emails this past week from stagers asking what exactly "staging naked" means- besides the obvious!

Staging naked means that I do not align myself with one designation or consider one designation better than another. 

Staging naked means that I am not anti designation - if you have earned those letters use them in your marketing materials but realize that other designations exist.  We are all stagers regardless of the letters (or lack of letters) after our names.

Staging naked means I rely on my portfolio, experience and education to grow my business not my designation and putting other stagers down because they have not earned a certain designation.

Staging naked means that I value education to grow my business whether it is formal education in a class room setting or through networking and sharing on active rain and with others in the industry.

Staging naked means that I can create my own rules and standards and do not allow the creators of designations to tell me how to run my business.

If you are a naked stager what does it mean to you?

Staging it forward- naked......

Property investors concerned with the bottom line often cut staging when their budgets become tight thinking it is a non essential part of selling their homes. Staging however is often the key factor in differentiating a property when it has to compete with other similar homes in the marketplace. Our team worked with a developer today in Manyunk, Philadelphia County Pennsylvania that had used our services a year ago. His home had been on the market for 18 months, after staging it sold within 2 weeks! For his current project he did not even hesitate to have us prepare it for sale. The showings start on Sunday but you can take a look at it now:

In addition to assisting home sellers with preparing their homes for sale, our team also works with builders, developers and property investors looking for new ways to market their properties. Furnishing a model home is an expensive proposition for most developers who are working on a tight budget. We meet their needs by designing models that can be moved from property to property as each unit sells. Builders with multiple units can invest in staging one property and continue to install the furniture and accessories in each successive unit without paying costly redesign fees, storage fees or purchasing new furniture. Below are some pictures of a recent project we worked on in Merion Station, Montgomery County Pennsylvania. We designed the first unit- it sold within 30 days, we moved it to a new unit and in 10 days it was under contract, we then installed a third unit and it sold in 7 days. Last Friday we moved it to another unit and the word is that they have already received a contract. I will keep you posted when we move it again next month:

Have you ever entered a home that did not have ENOUGH clutter? Recently our team worked with a client in Berwyn Chester County PA that had purchased a new home and decided less than a year later to relocate. The home was stunning and had every upgrade imaginable- the problem, however, was that it somehow felt hollow or empty. It was not completely vacant but it did not have a personality about it that buyers would remember. This was a quick fix for us- we brought in some furniture and accessories to give it a memorable quality. Usually less is more but in this case more was more. Take a peek for yourself:

Take a look at this recent staging our team did in Glenmoore, Berks County PA. It is a charming new home with gorgeous architectural features but without staging it felt too vanilla- the selling features did not pop. After staging buyers are better able to connect to the space. Take a look for yourself:

Scandle, scandle scandle. I just saw this article about the star of flip this house being a fraud! Thought it was an interesting read. KH

Flip Fraud