I love flipping through color books and paint swatches, it totally brightens my mood and gives me energy. Sometimes I bring some of my color books to a client’s home to help them figure out what look and mood they’re drawn to before I recommend paint colors for their home.

That is, if I’m doing a color consultation as part of an interior redesign discussion.

When I’m choosing colors for home staging, I don’t really care too much about what the client likes or will feel comfortable living with, because in a staging situation it’s all about decorating for home buyers.

Over the past week, I’ve done two color consultations and this book by Leatrice Eiseman came in handy. It’s called Colors For Your Every Mood: Discover Your True Decorating Colors and has sumptuous photos of different rooms in a variety of decorating styles.

My first appointment was at a luxury home in Forest Hill that had been totally gutted top to bottom. It was really a challenge because the place was still a construction site, with none of the furniture or final lighting installed! The owner had her iPad with photos of things she liked, and we went from there.

In this case, I had to stay fairly neutral because I had no idea what precise colors her furniture and art actually were.

And in some cases, I didn’t even have floor color as a reference because the hardwood hadn’t been installed yet! For this home I relied exclusively on the colors I recommend in the Staging Diva Ultimate Color Guide: The Easy Way to Pick Color for Home Staging Projects. I know they work in a wide variety of homes and with different lighting and furniture styles.

Standing there with the wife (at a workbench in what will soon be the family room off the yet-to-be-built kitchen, shown in the photo above), wearing my coat because there was no heat, I somehow managed to choose a color palette for this 5 bedroom, 3-story home in only two hours!

Since her husband had written out my check in advance before driving off to keep their son amused during our meeting, there was no way I wanted to go over-time. I believe in being paid for my advice, so I kept it short and sweet so we could finish within the deadline!

One of the ways I made it easier for myself to work in this situation was by opening one of my color fan decks and having her help me choose what color she thought the furniture for each room was.

Naturally, her visual memory of the actual colors may not be accurate, but I needed something to go by! When evaluating wall color options, I’d put them up against the “red” of the couch, or the “blue” of the dining room chairs, for example.

For my second color consulting client, I did a home in the Beaches area that was built in 1919. It had lots of dark wood trim (which they didn’t want to paint) and leaded glass windows.

The couple was very nice and the husband really warmed up to the whole process about 30 minutes into my visit.

When I arrived he had his arms crossed over his chest, but once we hit the kitchen and he got to show off his new restaurant-style 6 burner gas stove, and tell me about the chef certificate courses he’s taking for fun, he became much more open. It turns out he’s a very talented (amateur) photographer and we had fun hanging many of his works in various rooms of the home.

His wife served tea, and together we finalized which glass tile to use for their newly renovated kitchen, selected drapery for the living and dining rooms (from the many options she’d bought ahead of time), and selected paint colors for the entire house. In this client’s case we could have more courage with color because I could see what they liked and all the furniture and lighting were in place.

We came up with a fabulous color palette that really pulls the rooms together and works with the dark wood trim.

It was a lovely afternoon for all of us (I know because she hugged me at the end and said all her questions were answered) and I left with a check equal to what many people make in an entire week after only 2.5 hours work. I don’t say this to brag, but to emphasize that it’s possible to be REALLY well paid for your creative talent when you understand the business of home staging and color consulting!

It really is a joy to do work that you love, help people and be well-paid for it at the same time. If you’re struggling to get paid what you’re worth, I encourage you to listen to Course 2 of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program.

I hope you enjoyed this behind-the-scenes look at two of my color consultations for clients who aren’t selling their homes and I’d love for you to share some of your own experiences by commenting below.

Also, I’m taking a poll and you can vote by commenting below. The question is: Do you have trouble choosing colors for your own home even if it’s “easy” to do it for a client? It’s really hard for me, how about you?

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®

Debra Gould has been an entrepreneur since 1989 and knows how to make money as a home stager. She developed the Staging Diva Training Program to teach others how to earn a living doing something they love. There are now more than 7,000 students in over 20 countries learning from her many products and services for home stagers.

Toronto skyline viewed from Etobicoke. Credit: Chris McPhee

I have a client in Toronto, Etobicoke to be precise, who is struggling to accommodate her 5 kids in a 3 bedroom home. She doesn’t want to move right now but needs interior redesign help to make the home work better for her large family. I’m too booked up with my own staging clients to help her and I’d love to refer this project to a Staging Diva Graduate.

The homeowner prefers to use her own furniture in new ways, but is also open to new purchases.

She’s also anticipating that some renovations may be required. Personally, I look at renovating as a last resort and find with some creativity you can often make the existing space work better.

Plus, when clients are able to avoid the considerable expense and inconvenience of renovating based on our advice, they have no trouble investing in what we have to say!

I haven’t seen the house but I’m guessing it’s a fairly high-priced property since it’s in Etobicoke, where properties and lot sizes tend to be larger. In fact, did you know that in Kingsway South, which is part of Etobicoke, over 50% of households earn over $100,000/year?

It’s very common for home stagers to get asked to do interior redesign projects and often it’s the clients who would never dream of hiring an Interior Designer who call us! That’s why I’m really happy I decided to become a home stager instead of going to Interior Design School.

If you’re a Staging Diva Graduate and you’re interested in this interior redesign project, it’s really easy to apply. All you need to do is complete the form at the Staging Diva Home Staging Project Referral Service.

Please be sure to include “Toronto Interior Redesign Project” as the project location in the first line of the form.

This project will be referred first to members of the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers at no charge. If there’s not a Directory member available for this project, it will be open to any Staging Diva Graduate with a professional Internet presence. (It’s difficult to convince a client to hire you if they can’t review your home staging portfolio, after all!)

If you get any paid work through this referral, there will be a $250 referral fee, which you can build into your redesign consultation fee if you’d like. It’s entirely up to you. Remember you’ll be making money on this project from not only your consulting fees, but referrals to painters or handymen, plus you can make a commission on any furniture they buy if you follow the advice I give you in Course 5 of the Staging Diva Home Staging Training Program!

Because of all the traffic generated by my many home staging websites, I get lots of leads on staging, color consulting and interior redesign jobs from all over the United States and Canada, and as far away as England, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, South Africa and Israel! I will only refer jobs to Staging Diva Graduates.

I generate tons of traffic for anyone listed on the Directory. Just one good project would more than pay for your entire training program plus building and hosting your web page on the high-traffic Directory of Home Stagers for an entire year! When clients find you from your listing in the Staging Diva Directory, I do not charge you a referral fee.

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®

Home Staging expert Debra Gould also known as The Staging Diva is president of an internationally recognized home staging company that is frequently profiled in the media in both the US and Canada. Debra Gould developed The Staging Diva Program to create opportunities for others to grow their own profitable home staging businesses.

One of many fab color palettes from CIL Man Caves Collection

Wait until you see what paint company CIL has done to reposition their paint colors for a new audience! It’s a brilliant stroke (pun intended) that I just had to bring to your attention— not only for the marketing genius of it but for the delicious visuals. Are you as passionate about color as I am?

But first, let’s set some context as it applies to marketing lessons you can learn for your home staging business!

If you’ve been following my blog, newsletter or home staging training program for any length of time, you know that I place a  very strong emphasis on the importance of marketing. Aside from the fact that I’ve been recognized as one of Canada’s top marketing experts since the early 1990s, I’m passionate about marketing because it’s THE thing that will set you apart from your competition and win you business.

To put it bluntly, it doesn’t matter if you’re the most talented stager in the world, if you suck at marketing you won’t be in business long!

In the Simple Marketing Plan Companion: A Stress-Free Approach to Promoting Your Staging Business, I share a full analysis of how the 5 P’s of Marketing must work together. These are:

1. Product – For home stagers, that’s our staging, color consulting and redesign services.
2. Positioning – How you want your clients and potential clients to think of you and your company.
3. Pricing – How much you charge, how your pricing packages work and how you communicate about your rates.
4. Packaging – For home stagers, that’s how you look, sound and act, plus your company name and the appearance of your business logo, cards, advertising and website. In other words, your entire business image.
5. Promotion – Home stagers, this includes anything you do to showcase your expertise from your website and online activities like blogging, Twitter, Facebook, etc., plus all your advertising, newsletter, brochure, special promotions, strategic donations, public speaking, public relations etc. — all the “stuff” I talk about in Course 4 of the Staging Diva Training Program.

Now to our Paint Colors Befitting a Man Cave lesson!

What a perfect example of the 5 P’s of Marketing working together to bring some excitement to business category that hasn’t seen much innovation (except for new finishes and formulations). CIL is a Canadian company (available through Home Depot) that decided to go after the male market. While most paint color decisions are ultimately made by women, men still have a say in mixed households and what better way to get them involved than to cater to their sensibilities and interests?

While I’m the only one making decorating decisions in my home because I’m single, I can imagine it would be much easier talking one’s husband into painting a a powder room “Rust On My Truck” rather than “Classic Liberty Red.” And if I were doing a Color Consultation on it’s own, or as part of my home staging recommendations, I know a man would feel more comfortable agreeing to “Center Ice” rather than “Tracery,” or “Iced Vodka” rather than “Cloud Nine,” for the living room.

So check out the wonderful color palettes inside the CIL Ultimate Man Caves collection. And while you’re there, step back and consider the marketing by noticing how they’ve got the product, packaging, promotion and positioning all working together so brilliantly! It’s in the:

• layout
• photography
• color selections and room choices
• all the sell copy in the brochure
• styling of the fonts and text
• naming of the colors themselves

What do you think? Am I a total marketing and color geek to get so excited about this?

Now, think about how you market your home staging business. Are all your visual elements and your text working together to convey the right image? Please share your thoughts below.

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging

Debra Gould has been writing about marketing for small businesses since the early 1990s as a frequent contributor to Profit Magazine. A home stager since 2002, she developed the Staging Diva Training Program to create opportunities for others to grow their own money-making home staging businesses. Debra is the author of several guides including: “Sales and Marketing Secrets to Boost Your Home Staging Business,” “14 Marketing Ideas to Rev Up Your Home Staging Business” and the “Staging Diva Ultimate Color Guide: The Easy Way to Pick Color for Home Staging Projects.” These can be found in the Staging Diva Store.

Sarah Richardson holiday decorating idea as featured in the Globe and Mail.

Home stagers, the holiday season is definitely upon us and this means a gradual slow down in your home staging business over the coming weeks.

A great way to bring in extra money at this time of year is with holiday decorating. A TV News producer contacted me to appear on camera this week with my tips to “deck the halls.” They know I’m an expert home stager, yet I have never promoted myself as a seasonal decorator.

I declined the tempting offer because it’s totally not my expertise and something I personally feel intimidated by.

Everything I know about holiday decorating is what I pick up from reading news stories, like this one in the Globe & Mail featuring Sarah Richardson’s festive decor tips. She suggests combining orange and pink for an alternate festive color scheme which I found clever.  I also loved what she did with the urns pictured in this post.

For my own media opportunity, I put the word out to Staging Diva Graduates who might be interested in appearing on camera this week instead of me. As always, first dibs went to members of the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers.

If you’re not a member yet, you should be. It’s not only a great place for clients to find your staging and redesign business, but it also leads to media coverage and guest speaking opportunities.

We build a professional webpage for you within 7 days of when you submit your Directory materials for less than the cost of a nice blender (I happened to be reading Christmas sale flyers filled with kitchen gadgets so I know!). You even get a custom company brochure that website visitors can download, and a print version that you can hand out in meetings— it’s included in the cost of an annual hosting plan! Get the full scoop on how to join the Staging Diva Directory of Home Stagers here.

Anyway, back to seasonal decorating . . .

If you’re more comfortable than I am with the art of decorating for the Christmas season, and you love doing it, consider how many people are too busy or overwhelmed to take this on themselves. You might decorate the inside and outside of their home, decorate for a Christmas or New Year’s Eve/Day party or even transform an office or showroom for the holidays!

Home Staging is not equally busy all year round because it follows real estate cycles.

In the Staging Diva Program I discuss ways for you to even out your cash flow by combining your staging business with things like:

• interior redesign
• color consulting
• professional organizing
• seasonal decorating

What you choose should not only come from your desire to make money but also be a function of your interests. I don’t believe in starting your own business only to do things you don’t like! If you’re going to make the effort to be your own boss, make sure you consider what your interests and natural talents are.

If you love holiday decorating and have a natural talent for it, then why not go for it?

There are no rules when you’re an entrepreneur. If you see an opportunity that inspires you then why not take advantage of it? The idea that you should only build a business that you’ll REALLY want to work in, is a theme that runs throughout the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program, especially in course 4 “Staging Diva Sales and Marketing Secrets to Boost Your Home Staging Business.”

I don’t act on every opportunity that comes my way, but I certainly consider the ones that inspire me. When it’s something that just isn’t “my thing” or I’m too busy to take it on, I refer those inquiries to Staging Diva Graduates as I did with the TV News story for this week.

To be honest, I don’t even plant my own outdoor urns for winter and I always hire someone else to do it for me. I’ve never used little white lights in them but Sarah has given me the idea to try it out this season!

Home stagers and redesigners, have you been approached by potential clients to help them with their seasonal decorating? Do you do any marketing of that service?

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging

Internationally recognized home staging expert Debra Gould is President of Six Elements Inc. and creator of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program. An entrepreneur for almost 25 years and author of several guides, Debra has staged millions of dollars worth of real estate and uses her expertise to train others worldwide.

I’ve been addicted to decorating since I was a kid. I remember insisting that my room be painted a deep turquoise, and my rattan headboard white, because I could totally picture how one would stand out against the other and compliment the pale creamy-yellow duvet. At the risk of revealing my age, I’ll admit it was the 1960s. Even now I can see that decorating scheme in my mind’s eye, and it still looks cool.

As a teen, I painted murals on my bedroom wall and also the high school cafeteria. In my first marketing coup and “payment” for my creative talent, I managed to convince the vice principal of the high school to exempt me from swimming as reward for decorating the cafeteria. Hey if you don’t ask, you never know!

Then came adulthood and a series of rental apartments.

Finding the perfect bedding, shower curtain and towels were always highest on my list of priorities since I had almost no budget for furniture and painting the actual walls was against my rental agreements.

When I finally became a homeowner with my first real estate purchase at the age of 29, I was in heaven! There was still no real decorating budget for my tiny condo, especially since I had just quit my 6-figure job as a Marketing Director to become an entrepreneur. No matter; with a few cans of paint and the right accessories, I could create magic. I even managed to get about 12 years of use out of the ugliest sofa you’ve ever seen by putting a piece of plywood under the sagging cushions and covering it with a huge canvas painter’s drop cloth. Sounds like something a home stager would do, right? I hadn’t even heard the term at that point.

About 7 years later, I had created as many different looks as I could think of for my condo and it was time to move so I could get my next decorating fix.

Condos and houses seem to speak to me and I knew I had reinvented the same space as many times as I could. Within the next 4 years, I bought, decorated, and sold 5 more real estate properties, living in them all along the way! It was not until the last one that I realized I was born to be a home stager, and launched my home staging and redesign company Six Elements Inc. with no more information than:

• Knowing I was talented at quick makeovers and decorating on a shoestring
• Knowing I could decorate a home to appeal to buyers
• Wanting to keep decorating without having to keep moving all the time
• Believing I could use my marketing talents to market myself and my home staging services
• Believing I could make relatively easy money selling my knowledge and expertise to home sellers who wanted to sell their homes fast and for top dollar

Many Staging Diva Students and Graduates have told me similar stories of knowing they were born to decorate. Some rarely played with dolls because they were too busy decorating and redecorating their doll houses. When I heard that, visions of cut up Kleenex boxes and creative uses of empty toilet paper rolls came flooding back to me as I remembered the complex floor plans and “furniture” arrangements I’d lay out on our basement floor! Even then I recall thinking real Barbie® houses and furniture were kind of lame because there was no creativity to it (or at least that’s what I told myself because there was no way I was getting the real thing!).

The funny thing is, ever since I started my home staging business in 2002, I haven’t had the constant urge to move anymore! I’m convinced it’s because I can get my decorating fix working on my clients’ homes. And it’s actually quite creative having to make something beautiful out of furniture I might never have picked on my own.

Did you start decorating when you were a kid? What’s your first memory of decorating or realizing it was something you just “had” to do? How do you get your decorating fix now; are you a home stager? Please share your story by commenting below!

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging

With an MBA in marketing and hundreds of home staging clients, internationally recognized home staging expert Debra Gould, The Staging Diva, is uniquely qualified to train others how to start and grow a profitable home staging business. Her Home Staging Business Training Program has over 4,000 students in 21 countries.

Are you putting off your home staging career because you freeze up at the thought of making recommendations when you get to your first staging consultation?

I want to prove to you that if you’re considering a career as a home stager, you already have all the decorating talent you need to become a successful home stager. The truth is, if you have a natural talent for decorating, you’ll always know what to do to improve the way the house shows.

Study the photo here of this very busy living room. Think about what you would recommend your clients do with a space like this and add your own comment to this post with your staging advice for this living room.

I’ll share my own observations in an upcoming post but in the meantime please share your own recommendations by leaving a comment!

By the way, you can always bone up on design for home staging with the Staging Diva Ultimate Design Guide: Home Staging Tips, Tricks and Floor Plans. In this thorough guide, I take you through each and every space in a home offering my best staging advice, complete with before and after photos from my own projects and accompanying floor plans.

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging

Debra Gould knows how to make money as a home stager and she developed the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program to teach others how to earn a living doing something they love. She is frequently profiled in the media for her staging expertise and is the author of 5 guides for home stagers.

I recently featured a poorly decorated master bedroom and asked home stagers for their tips when it comes time to decorate a house to sell.

This bedroom is very typical of what you’ll run into when doing a home staging consultation.

The reality is, most people move into their home, plunk their furniture down and never get around to decorating. Then when it comes time to list the home on the real estate market, they suddenly realize the current look won’t attract buyers.

So here’s what I recommended in this bedroom during a home staging consultation with my client:

Move the bed into the middle of the wall and put night tables of equal height and matching lamps on each side of the bed.

The night tables don’t have to be identical, though their style should be complementary. The matching height is key though so that one lamp doesn’t end up looking taller than the other. Different heights make the room look unbalanced and cluttered. Moving the bed into the middle of the wall makes it more comfortable for a couple to imagine sharing the room. Not many adults want to crawl across a bed that’s against a wall.

Raise the bed up off the floor by adding a metal frame under the box spring, or replace the box spring with a headboard/sleeping platform.

Adding a metal frame and dust ruffle to cover the box spring will be the least expensive solution. If this was a second or third bedroom that belonged to a child or teen, the bed would be fine on the floor. But for a master, it’s just not appropriate.

Make the bed a focal point.

The above suggestions will help make the bed more of a focal point, as it should be. The bedding in this case looks fine, but I’d add some accent pillows to dress the bed more thoroughly. One way to make do without a headboard (which would be more polished), would be to add artwork over the head of the bed. One horizontal image with a width of 48″ to 60″, or two or three smaller pieces in a row will work. If you use two or three pieces side by side, use matching frames to pull them together. For more advice on using art in home staging, check out my free report, “The Staging Diva’s Top 10 Tips for Using Art in Home Staging”

Clean up the clutter.

It’s not unusual to see piles of stuff on the floor, and even boxes in a room. Once you get out there as a home stager, you’ll realize that almost no one lives in a house that looks anything like what you’ll see in a magazine or any TV show or movie. In fact that’s one of the reasons people desperately need our help when it comes to home staging or interior redesign.

It’s fine to have a few books on display, especially in a bedroom, but not a whole wall of them unless it’s a huge room.

Though not shown in the above photo, dressers are often a dumping ground for too much stuff. Remove family photos, brushes, makeup etc. (to depersonalize the room).

Create a warm and relaxing setting appropriate to the price point of the home.

Sample Floor Plan from Ultimate Design Guide

There is no end to how far you can take any room. The key is to stage the house in a way that’s appropriate for the price range that the house is listed in. If you are doing a home staging consultation for a house that is at the higher end of the market, then there should be more of a feeling of luxury. If it’s a very inexpensive home, you can still make it feel warm and relaxing, but you won’t have to look like you spent as much on the contents. The photo of the room above is from an inexpensive condo, which is why I’d leave the bedding as is but add some pillows to dress it up. In a more expensive home I’d also recommend painting the room. White walls tend to look pretty cold and sterile.

Here’s a sample master bedroom floor plan from the Staging Diva Ultimate Design Guide: Home Staging Tips, Tricks and Floor Plans. This is a comprehensive resource for home stagers who are completely new to the field or others who feel they need a bit of help with design principals and ideas. The contents will also give you lots of ideas for interior redesign clients. If the bedroom you are staging isn’t as large as the one in this floor plan, you can omit the upholstered bench at the end of the bed. The Ultimate Design Guide also includes sample before and after photos from many of my home staging projects.

If you’re curious about the approach I use during a home staging consultation, check out course 3 of the Staging Diva Program, Taking the Mystery Out of Home Staging Consultations. This detailed course will take you from turning a potential buyer into a paying client, through to how to avoid doing free estimates, what to wear and what to bring to your meeting, how to conduct the actual consultation and how to make sure you get paid. It comes with a free bonus gift called, Staging Diva Home Staging Consultation Checklist with Room-by-Room Client Planning Forms (valued at $45).

Home stagers, what else would you recommend for the bedroom in the above photo? Have you run into similar rooms in your own home staging consultations?

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging

Debra Gould knows how to make money as a home stager and she developed the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program to teach others how to earn a living doing something they love. She is frequently profiled in the media for her home staging expertise and is the author of 5 guides for home stagers.

Articles on home staging or how to decorate a house to sell quickly in a slow real estate market often focus on de-cluttering and neutralizing (unfortunately, often to the point of blandness). There is also much talk of the importance of kitchens and bathrooms, but bedrooms are important too.

The right touches can take a sad room that would never stick in a buyers mind to one that is memorable and says “wow!’

Staging Diva Graduate Jayne Steuart of Colorado-based Pearl Home Staging and Redesign LLC really shows us how it’s done in this transformation of a 13 x 14 foot extra bedroom.

Before Jayne transformed this space the placement of the bed was awkward and made the room look small. The focal point was also the unattractive window.

Jayne moved the bed to go under the window to refocus and re-balance the room. At the same time she dressed both to create a relaxing and stylish haven.

Her use of muted tones and well chosen accessories create a lush environment that make the room look larger and far more elegant. I love how she handled the window. Now it looks much larger because the soft chenille panels and silky sheers are hung close to the ceiling. This is a great trick to make ceilings also appear higher, one of the many I share in the Staging Diva Ultimate Design Guide: Home Staging Tips, Tricks and Floor Plans.

Some home sellers worry about the cost of staging, reluctant to invest in a home they’re selling. This is short-sighted because selling an unappealing property costs the seller more in lost time and lower offers, than would dressing it up to appeal to buyers and attracting higher offers sooner.

It’s interesting to note that Jayne Steuart staged this bedroom with furniture the home seller already had in other rooms. The new bedding and window treatments can be used in the sellers new home, so purchasing these items was not a waste. They serve the important purpose of letting the home show well on the real estate market with the added bonus that the owners will live in much better style in their new abode.

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging

Debra Gould knows how to make money as a home stager and she developed the Staging Diva Home Staging Training Program to teach others how to earn a living doing something they love. There are over 4000 Staging Diva students around the world.

Technorati Tags: home staging, decorating bedroom, staging bedroom, bedroom staging, Jayne Steuart, Pearl Home Staging, Staging Diva, home staging colorado

I’ve heard people suggest home staging is actually a deceitful practice because it is meant to disguise real problems, but this is not the case.  Home staging is about letting a home’s best features shine through, not hiding serious problems that need to be addressed.

The entrance of this home says “fixer-upper” because of all the junk on the porch, overgrown hedge and peeling paint. But it’s actually a sound property that just needs some care to change the first impression from “fixer upper” to “welcome home.”

However, there are instances where home staging is sought after as a band-aid solution for much larger issues.

With certain properties it makes more sense for the owners to invest in repairs before staging and “home staging with integrity” means that the stager will point this out.

When a home is a true fixer-upper and has a long list of structural issues and obvious defects, no amount of paint or new furniture will disguise the problems.

If you’re asked to stage such a home, suggest that the owners fix what’s wrong before having it staged because any problems will be revealed in the home inspection anyway.

There’s a big difference between patching up cracked plaster and repainting after a leaky roof has been fixed, and doing the same to hide the fact that it’s leaking.

The roof issues will be uncovered in a home inspection so the home seller will be no further ahead, and may in fact watch their deal fall apart when it could have gone through had they addressed the issue in the first place.

As a stager, you should emphasize the need to fix the leak and why, and suggest once that’s done that the wall be repaired and painted. You’ll of course be picking the color, but that does not remove the responsibility of pointing out the steps that need to happen before any paint goes on the wall.

I once refused to stage a dilapidated house that had sat on the market for months without an offer. Instead of calling me, the vendor really should have called a contractor first.

I advised the client to either drop his price significantly and sell the home as a ‘tear down’ for land value, or to take it off the market during the summer, repair all the problems and then call me to stage it for the fall real estate market.

As a professional stager, you don’t want your home staging business associated with problem properties masquerading in nice paint and furniture.

There are plenty of solid houses crying out for cosmetic changes that can make all the difference in a real estate sale. Let your talents as a home stager shine on these. Don’t waste your time or reputation staging obvious tear downs, instead keep marketing your business and more clients will follow!

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging

Debra Gould knows how to make money as a home stager and she developed the Staging Diva Training Program to teach others how to earn a living doing something they love.

Technorati Tags: home staging training, home staging program, staging diva, professional home stager, home staging with integrity, debra gould

When you’re staging a home, don’t neglect the hallways of a home because they’re the paths that lead people through the house. It’s also a great opportunity to leave a strong impression with prospective buyers because most people don’t bother doing anything with the hall before they sell.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind when you’re staging the hallway of a property:

• Hallways usually take a lot of abuse so they usually need repainting.
• Long, dark hallways can always use better lighting.
• Remove all clutter.
• Add a table and floral arrangement if you have space at the end of a long hallway and a piece of art to serve as a focal point.

Whether you’re dealing with a garage, basement, attic, laundry room or hallway, remember it’s your job to romance the buyer and you must be doing this throughout the home.

If they’ve seen a dozen houses with horrible garages or creepy old basements, these might be the spaces the buyer is putting a great deal of importance on. Help your clients sell fast and for more money by being the stager who takes care with these less glamorous, but equally as important, spaces in a home.

For more home staging design tips, check out the Staging Diva Ultimate Design Guide: Home Staging Tips, Tricks and Floor Plans. It’s sure to be a great source of design inspiration (and direction) for your future home staging projects.

Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging

Debra Gould developed the Staging Diva Training Program to create opportunities for others to grow their own profitable home staging businesses. There are currently over 1000 Staging Diva Graduates around the world. Debra created the Staging Diva Ultimate Design Guide: Home Staging Tips, Tricks and Floor Plans to provide design direction to home stagers feeling they need it.

Technorati Tags: home staging, home stager, home staging tips, how to stage a hallway, debra gould, home staging training, staging diva