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

Often times when I am asked to give an estimate on a vacant home I give clients recommendations beyond what rooms to stage and what furniture to rent. If the home decor is too personal I will often tell the client to repaint a room, remove wallpaper or replace outdated carpet in certain rooms. I am not paid for this advice but I realize that simply adding furniture will not transform the space into something less personal. What can you do then as a stager when a client's home is overly personal or due to time and/or budget constraints they simply cannot get all the tasks done before the staging day?

 I often use color combinations to play down rooms that are not neutral and to tie colors from room to room to create flow to a home's decor.  I recently had the pleasure of helping a home seller in Berwyn, Chester County PA get his home ready for sale. He was relocating for work and had a week to get the home on the market.

He was a pleasure to work with- he had the carpets steam cleaned and the wallpaper in the dining room removed and the walls freshly painted. There was not time however to repaint the kitchen that opened into the family room.

The color he had chosen for the family room was a lovely gold but it was a deeper color than the rest of the rooms in the home and gave this space a boxy feel (the value of the color was off). The kitchen was a pale plum or purple color and was a light watery pastel- since the rooms were side by side the difference in the depth of color felt awkward making the family room fee heavier and the kitchen feel like it was floating away. I recommended repainting the kitchen a green color that would work well with the rest of the home's decor and to make it the same depth (or value) as the family room. Since there was not time to do this I incorporated the color from the Family room into the kitchen to give more balance to the space.

One simple trick you can do to balance the color in a space is to use the complement of the main color in the space or the main color in the adjoining room. Since the color in the family room was gold and the color in the kitchen was plum, I introduced yellow and golds into the kitchen since yellow and purple are complements. If the kitchen was green and the family room was red I would have brought red tones into the space. If the family room was teal then I would have introduced a splash of this color into the purple kitchen to create more balance to the space.

Try this the next time you are staging or simply redecorating your home. Below are some photographs to show this concept.

Ask any new stager what their favorite part of owning a staging business is and they will answer "Shopping!" Ask that same stager a year later and they will answer "Anything but shopping!"

While initially the shopping aspect of staging may seem like a dream job- you actually get paid to go buy items for peoples homes- the reality is that selecting inventory is a very serious task and at times can be quite stressful and overwhelming.

Shopping is much more complicated than running over to your local TJMaxx and throwing things in a cart. As a staging business owner there are a lot of factors to consider such as:

1. How will I finance the inventory I am purchasing? 

If you stage vacant homes one of the most exciting things is selecting all the items that will go into the home. I liken it to Barbie's Dream House for grown ups! The reality is however that Santa is not bringing you the plastic furniture, you have to pay for the items that are going into a client's home usually before the staging job has taken place. 

Purchasing staging inventory is part of running a business. Just as any other contractor has to purchase their tools to do a job, you have to purchase inventory to do yours.  Since you do not charge your client the full retail cost to rent your items per month, often times you spend much more on the inventory you are putting in your client's home that you actually make on the staging job.

Decide how you will finance your shopping efforts and track how much you are spending on inventory. Will you use a credit card? If so make sure it is a business credit card so you do not commingle personal purchases with business purchases. Also use the same card for all purchases so you can track what you spend. Will you get a small business loan? If so make sure to understand the payments and interest structure. Often times you will pay much more in interest than a credit card. Need cash flow? A simple way to come up with funds for inventory is to ask clients for a deposit upfront before you begin planning the job. Usually I ask for 1/2 of the staging project total. You can then use these funds to purchase the items you need. Come tax time Uncle Sam will want to know the assets your business has and inventory will be your most valuable asset.

2. Make sure to select items that are versatile yet in keeping with the price point of the home:

There is a delicate balance between selecting items that are in keeping with the style of the home you are staging and selecting items that can used universally. This is a mistake that stagers make time and time again.  You want to select items that work with the architectural style of the home you are staging but you do not want the items to be too period specific so that you can not use them again in another home. Unlike interior designers we do not showcase the furniture or the accessories we are placing in the home. We are using the items to better highlight the space or architectural details the home offers so we want to choose items that will work with various styles.

Time and time again I have seen the perfect item that would look great in a particular home I am staging. I would then purchase that item, use it in the home and then never use it again because it was too specific to that particular home. 2 years ago I purchased a large metal dress form to use in a dressing room in a Victorian home. It looked perfect and we had a lot of fun staging with it but now that thing is collecting dust in the back of the storage unit and would look pretty scary in some of the more modern homes we are staging. I have also fallen victim to buying various bedding sets that worked perfectly with a client's wall paper and would look ridiculous in other homes I am staging. These mistakes are costly so think carefully before buying things that only will work with a specific decor.

On the other hand make sure to choose items that will work with the price point of the home you are staging. More expensive homes require more expensive inventory. I recently gave an estimate on a home and lost the job to another stager who charged less. Three months later the builder asked me to come over and take a look at what the stager had done. He was less than thrilled. The home was staged BUT the decor that the stager selected was entirely too modern for a renovated farm house and looked way too cheap for a 4 million dollar property. He needed oriental rugs, oil paintings, lamps and mirrors. She had installed photos mounted on foam core- not quite the look in keeping with the tastes of the target buyer. Her staging was not bad-  I loved the colors but the items would have worked better in a condo in the city than a historic property.

3. Size Matters!

Scale is essential when selecting inventory and it is even more important when you are staging a vacant home. Since often times we are not fully furnishing spaces it is important to consider how the items will work in a partially vacant space. A series of small prints will look like they are floating away on a large wall with no furniture. A larger painting will anchor this space much better. Small delicate items will get lost on a coffee table but 1 or 3 larger items will make more of an impact. The same with lamps. Adding larger more interesting lamps make much more of a statement in a vignette than lams from a box that are too small and look awkward. Another factor to consider when purchasing items is installation time and loading time for your jobs. It takes much more time to load and carefully measure and hang a series of artwork than it does to pack and hang one larger piece in a home.

4. It isn't all about you- its about the furniture you are using.

So many times when I have purchased items I find myself thinking how great this would look in my own home. True, one of the perks of the job is that I can "borrow" things from my inventory for my own home but you have to constantly remind yourself that you are not decorating your home. Take a step back and think about the space you are designing and whether or not that item can work in that space and complement other items in your inventory. Today when I look at my inventory I would not use most of it in my own home. The items do not work with my decor but instead work with the rental furniture that I use most often. When you select items take into consideration the rental furniture that you will use and select items that work with those pieces.

Below is a list of must have items for your inventory:

Pillows in all colors and textures- pillows can instantly dress up neutral rental furniture and bedding.

Greenery-ledge plants, trees and floor plants are essential as are faux or "permanent botanicals" I prefer orchids because they are timeless and do not look too fake.

Lamps- let there be light. Select pairs of lamps and try not to break them up. You will be so upset when you are looking for matching lamps for a bedroom and discover that one of the lamps is at another home. By the time the inventory comes back the other lamp will be out and they will never match again.

Large Artwork and large mirrors- larger pieces make more of a statement are easier to hang.

Area rugs-Sisals, Orientals, Persians- these can add instant color to a vacant room.

Bedding- This can make or break a master bedroom. Select bedding that looks luxurious and works well with the rental furniture and your artwork- not the client's decor.

Large Accent items-Try not to get caught up with itty bitty items. A larger colorful piece makes more of a statement and is less items to pack.

To learn more about selecting inventory and other ways to grow your staging business visit my website at hartstaging.com

Don't just stage, stage smarter! ^TM

© 2007 - Hart & Associates - All Rights Reserved

One of the many questions I am asked by stagers that have got their businesses up and running is "How do I form a staging team?" As small business owners we are faced with the same challenges as other growing businesses. There is a delicate balance between giving your client's your personal service and attention and knowing when to add new team members so you can service a larger pool of clients. Below are some suggestions on how to add new team members and what types of service to hire:

1. The first step in determining whether or not to hire an assistant or add another stager is to ask yourself if you are ready for help? 

Depending on the type of staging services you offer you may be solely responsible for:

• marketing your business,
• servicing your clients,
• designing and sourcing spaces,
• packing and transporting items, 
• installing properties and destaging properties and
• managing the business tasks such as accounting, billing and financing.

That is a lot of hats to wear! If you are just starting your business you may be able to manage these tasks yourself but as your business grows it becomes harder and harder to maintain a business by yourself.

Ask yourself which areas you enjoy the most? Is is marketing, giving presentations, giving estimates,  and forming relationships with clients and Realtors? Then perhaps you want to focus your energy on the sales aspects of your business.

If you enjoy the design of the spaces, shopping and sourcing items, installing the project or rearranging the client's items then perhaps you want to focus on the design areas more?

Maybe the behind the scenes business aspects are most appealing to you. Do you love finding new business opportunities, financing ways to invest in inventory and creating deals with vendors? You may want to focus on the business building side of your staging empire.

Most stagers enjoy a combination of the above and want to delegate certain aspects of the business.

2. The next step is to determine what type of help you need.

If you want to focus more on sales then perhaps you need to hire another stager to help you with the actual hands on staging of home or sourcing of the items. If you dislike the practical business tasks then perhaps you want to hire someone to help you with billing and invoicing so you can focus your energy more on designing spaces or marketing. If you dislike hanging the artwork and moving and destaging homes then perhaps you need to hire an installation assistant to help you with these tasks.

There are many ways that you can have other stagers assist you with your staging business. You can have stagers that help you with written consultations where they go into the home and give the client a written report on how to prepare their home for sale. You can have stagers that help you to rearrange and accessorize furnished homes during hands on staging projects. You can also have stagers that help you to install vacant stagings. They can help you to select the inventory, instruct the furniture movers where to place the furniture and complete the accessorizing of the space.

Once you determine the type of help you need it is crucial to define the role that this person will play in your team so you can best focus them on what you need most. If you need someone to act as a design assistant but you hire an installer you will become very frustrated if this person cannot give you the opinion you need. Likewise, if you hire someone to help with shopping and sourcing items do not expect this person to move items for you in a furnished home. As small business owners with tight budgets we often fill many roles, but we cannot expect our employees to do the same.  If you need a mover- hire a mover, do not ask your shopper to do it. If you need a designer do not expect your billing clerk to help with it. 

3. Once you have determined the type of help your need,  you also want to decide if this person will be an independent contractor for your firm or become a paid employee of your firm.

• An independent contractor is someone that works independently without your tools, inventory, guidance from you, and has their own business. They can be a service that you hire out to perform a task such as a moving company or a payroll or billing agency. They can also be another stager that you give jobs to and they complete the job under their company name.  An independent contractor will have their own insurance and will be responsible for filing their own taxes.
• A paid employee can be someone that you place on salary, commission or pay hourly. As an employer you will be responsible for their taxes and their insurance such as liability and workmen's compensation.

You will want to check with your accountant about which format works best for your business and what tax liabilities if any you will have once you subcontract or employ this person.

There are many benefits to both employee and independent contractor relationships. With employees you are the boss and you can dictate which tasks are to be done and when they work should be completed. With independent contractors you have no say over when the job is completed and how to design or arrange the space.  As a small business owner you need to decide what relationships works best for you.

4. Once you have entered into a relationship it is important to protect the business that you have established for yourself. 

You have worked hard to build a business and maintaining quality is important. If you have employees that work directly with your clients you want to make sure to follow up with the client personally to determine how the staging appointment or furniture pick up went. I recommend calling and emailing the client or realtor and making sure that their needs were met and there were no unresolved issues. Clients appreciate that you personally make contact with them even if you have an assistant or contractor completing the work.

I also recommend that you speak with your attorney or a legal adviser about protecting your client relationships and proprietary business information. If you are contracting work out to an independent stager you want to define:

• A fee schedule or how you will be paid,
• if you will be paid on repeat jobs from the client you referred,
• if you will be paid a portion of any referral fees for example from rental companies,
• and for how long that relationship will belong to you once the contractor no longer works for you.

You would not want to hire a stager for jobs, have them help you with your clients, and then leave you, form their own business and go after your client relationships that you spent time, money and energy marketing and establishing.

 5. After you have determined the relationship you then need to give your team members guidance on how to best represent you and your business.

I recommend forming a policies and procedures guide for them to refer to. If you are working with independent contractors it can be a simple document that tells them how you want leads managed, how soon they must contact the client, a request for a copy of the invoice, a request for the staging consultation or pictures of the staging work for your review. You should also outline policy for payment.

If you are working with employees you will want to dedicate some time to properly training them. For example:

• If you have hired an installer you will want to take them on a few jobs with you to show them how you like the artwork hung, what type of hardware you use, how you like window treatments hung.
• If you are working with a destager or moving company you will want to oversee them and show them how you like things packed, which packing materials to use, how to pack the van or car and how to return the items to your storage unit.
• If you are working with another stager you will want to show her how you like beds to be made, what types of accents and artwork you favor, how you select rental furniture etc.

Taking the time to properly guide your team members will enable them to best assist you. This process can be done on the job and you may want to establish a separate training fee while you determine whether or not they can properly assist you. Staging is a very personal service and you may find that you do not mesh with some stagers and they can be better use to you in a different role such as marketing, shopping or managing client relationships.

 6. Building a team of stagers has many rewards.

Not only are you able to service more clients, you can service your clients better because you can focus on the areas of your business that you are most passionate about. Working with others also allows you to share ideas and expand creatively- no 2 people would design a room the same way! Deciding to allow others to help you with your small business is a big step- you no longer have absolute control and you also have to account for other's actions. Determining the type of help you need, establishing the type of relationship you want to enter into, defining and protecting that relationship and properly training your team members can help you to transition from a one woman operation to a staging superpower.

To learn more about building a team and other ways to grow your staging business visit my website at hartstaging.com

Don't just stage, stage smarter! ^TM

© 2007 - Hart & Associates - All Rights Reserved

The above is meant to be general business advice and in no way is meant to be legal or tax advice. Contact your attorney or accountant for the laws applicable to your state.

OOPS I DID IT AGAIN! I just got a call from  a Realtor that a home we did a consult for just sold in 7 days for $12,00 over asking!! Take that stat to the bank!

 And today another one! Client's home was on the market for 7 months. After a staging consultation they relisted it and one week later had 2 offers!

Does staging really work? In one word, YES!

This may be the most common question I am asked when I work with Realtors and home sellers. As stagers we are not selling a tangible product that the client can examine and decide to purchase. We have to encourage clients to use staging though looking at our portfolio and reading our client testimonials.  Over the past three years I have not been diligent about collecting statistics, however this Summer I am really making an effort to post them since the RE market in our area is slow and people are concerned about the sale of their home. I find that these staging statistics really show clients that staging does work.

My latest staging success was a surprise even to me- not because I did not think the home would sell but because the family I was helping had 2 children and they were pregnant with a third and putting the home on the market 2 weeks after the baby was born!

I met with this family in April as they were getting ready to put their home on the market. They had researched staging and wanted to meet with me to get some great idea on how to market their home. I gave them a consultation for $300. I met with them for an hour and walked through their home giving them ideas on how to enhance their home's selling features. This included advice about what to pack up or declutter, how to arrange the furniture, what colors to paint the walls, what minor repairs needed to be made and general advice about how to make the home look more inviting. I also addressed some curb appeal issues and made suggestions for some landscaping to be done in front of the house to make it more welcoming. I then completed a written report for them and checked in with them via email from time to time waiting for them to ask me to come back and fine tune their work.

 When I went back on Friday they had some exciting news for me- they had decided to put the home on the market the previous Sunday. It was the week of fourth of July and they did not expect much activity but did not want to miss any more time. When I got there they told me that the home had ALREADY SOLD while their Realtor was away on vacation! They had 4 showings, received 2 offers ABOVE ASKING and were waiting for a counter offer from one of the buyers.

I was so thrilled for them and so amazed at all they had accomplished. They did an outstanding job decluttering, rearranging the spaces, painting some heavy traffic areas and doing the minor landscaping. The only dilemma now was where to move!

I post these stories to encourage Realtors and home sellers to use staging as a means to market their properties. The only investment the client made was the $300 for my time, the cost of the paint and landscaping and the investment of their time and effort getting the home ready.

 So take a look at my updated stats. These homes were staged in Chester County, Delaware County, Philadelphia County and Montgomery County Pennsylvania.  All of these home sellers invested $300 on a consultation and got amazing results:

Devon Road, Paoli, PA  - sold in 1 day

Anthony Wayne Drive, Wayne, PA- sold in 1 day

Persimmon Drive, Collegeville, PA- sold in 1 day

Crosshill Rd., Royersford PA- sold in 1 week

Ardmore Ave, Haverford PA- sold in 2 days

Crestline Road, Wayne PA- sold in 1 day

Ravenscliff Road, Wayne PA- sold in 2 days

Painter Road, Media PA- sold in 2 weeks after 6 months on the market prestaging

Malvern Road, Plymouth Meeting PA- sold in 4 showings with 2 full price offers.

Second Avenue, Mayfair,Philadelphia County PA- sold in 7 days for $12,00 over asking.

Myrtle Lane, Havertown PA, before staging 7 months on the market, after staging 2 offers in one week.

I worked as an on air designer 5 years ago for a show on Fine Living called Public Places Private Spaces. Imagine my surprise today when I turned the TV on and the show was airing! Take a look for yourself. It is on right now. Here is the upcoming schedule. I had JUST HAD A BABY then so no laughing at my hips :)

Vicente Wolf (113F)	06/28/2007	4:30 AM	FLPPS-113F
	Tsao and McKown (114F)	07/05/2007	4:30 AM	FLPPS-114F
	Vicente Wolf (113F)	07/07/2007	3:30 PM	FLPPS-113F
	Tsao and McKown (114F)	07/08/2007	3:30 PM	FLPPS-114F
	Susan Caruso (115F)	07/12/2007	4:30 AM	FLPPS-115F
	Jordan Mozer (116F)	07/19/2007	4:30 AM	FLPPS-116F