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Whether you are looking to update the look of your home or planning to put your house on the market, you can use the following ideas to stage your home for the every day.
Design to Your Taste
What’s interesting about the following design techniques is they work for traditional, transitional, contemporary and modern homes. I always encourage my clients to design to their own taste to make a house feel like a home. No matter what your design preference is, you can always improve or tweak the look and functionality of your home with these simple design principles.
Select a Color Scheme You don’t have to be super strict about this, but using a color palette throughout your home can create an overall sense of continuity. The example below shows how blues, creams and fun accents of yellow, red and pink were used as a color scheme. Notice how the blue on the kitchen walls transitions to an accent in the family room. Selecting a color scheme and then sticking to it at various levels as you move from room to room creates an overall ‘look’ for your home.
Staging Works - I sold this gorgeous home in 2016. It had 10 offers as soon as it hit the market and went for $60,000 over asking.
Use Pillows for Accents
Those little pillows that come with your couch look like just that – they came with the couch. This is nice, but consider those pillows as a base for your accent. Invest in two sets of contrasting and different sized pillows to make the couch and room pop. (The photos above are a great example of this technique in action) Try to add texture whenever possible! Invest in Focal Points If you have something you absolutely love, hang it where it will be seen! Places that should have amazing points of focus include: Above the fire place, over the dining room table, a special place in your bedroom, and any configuration of furniture that draws the eye to the center. If you don’t have something you love in all of these places, you have my permission to treat yourself. Having focal points in your home that display what you adore helps create that feeling of love in your home. Here is an idea I use: Displaying adorable photos of your children, grandchildren or pets. You can utilize a service like Shutterfly or Snapfish to edit and print photos and then find interesting and unique frames to display the photos on coffee tables or shelves to create meaningful focal points.
Splurge on The Sofa
You can spend years going through poor quality sofas because you told yourself various stories about why you shouldn’t have a nice one. Or, you can get a nice, quality sofa that you actually love and live happily ever after. Think about it! Put your money in the comfort. You don’t have to go overboard on expensive fabrics to achieve your goal - the accent pillows can take care of that! Hang Mirrors Wisely Mirrors are an awesome way to create depth in a room and reflect light. What you don’t want a mirror to reflect is dark space, a plain wall or the laundry room. Try to hang mirrors so they reflect your favorite focal points – art, chandeliers, stained glass and textures.
A Word on Staging
Before I became a Real Estate Agent, I owned a successful interior design studio that catered to some of the most distinguished and discerning clientele in the market. Design is a passion of mine and has been invaluable in helping me market my client’s homes. What I enjoy most about my skill set is I don’t have to refer my clients off to third-party interior designers to stage their luxury home for the real estate market.
I always use the above concepts to help stage a home with the buyers of a particular community in mind. I am a Hopkinton resident, but have studied surrounding cities and towns for over a decade to best understand the buyers coming into these lovely New England neighborhoods. When people walk in to a home I am representing, I want every inch to speak to them. I want to expand the footprint of the home and show buyers the value they’re getting. As a Realtor, I am aware of what the primary and secondary market is for buyers, and I work design in from there. Buyer preferences do change, and I love tracking trends and applying them to the homes of my clients. In terms of what’s "in" now - it’s all about contemporary style. People want clean lines and simplicity. In New England, we like to mix antiques with this minimalist style to create a stunning and unique look. If you're interested in learning more about incorporating contemporary design in your home, be sure to sign up for my newsletter!
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