Is The Furniture In Your Home Eating Up the Real Estate?
One of the biggest challenges for homeowners, when living in their home while selling, is understanding what goes and what stays. Another challenge is understanding whether it makes sense to repurpose a room. Let's review both challenges:
Deciding on what stays and what goes:
- Always begin by standing in the doorway of the room (specifically, the doorway that buyers would be at when they enter the room).
- Decide and remove those items that serve no purpose. It could be an inherited piece that you spent hours refurbishing and want to proudly display. If it doesn't serve a purpose, you're better off storing it.
- Have a bedroom that leans on the small side? Try removing one of the night stands.
- Remove all stacks. Whether it's a stack of bills, or a stack of magazines or newspapers - stacks of anything take up real estate.
In this particular home, the homeowner had converted her living room into a dining room. As you can see below, this entertainment room was absolutely gorgeous. I'm quite certain that friends and family enjoyed many a great meal or two.
Here's the before picture. And while I'm standing pretty close to the dining room table, you can see that it's large and is capable of seating up to 10 guests.
Another before picture taken with the dining room table and chairs removed:
The end result: This is how the room appeared after we repurposed the room as a living room. By repurposing this room, we a) show more of the beautiful flooring, and b) you can see more clearly how much real estate the room has to offer.
Click on the following link to see how this Atlanta kitchen was transformed:
Home Staging Atlanta - Kathy Nielsen - 678 522 8392
RESA Professional Stager of the Year - Southern Region 2011
Whether your home is vacant or occupied, this Atlanta Georgia Home Stager, Kathy Nielsen, understands what it takes to sell a home quickly. Her homes have graced the pages of several publications, appeared in TV commercials as well as on HGTV's hit program Sleep On it.
With years of experience and a massive inventory - Kathy makes the perfect choice.
Home Staging Website: Home Staging Atlanta
Before and After Pictures: Atlanta Home Staging Portfolio:
Email: Kathy@HomeStagingAtlanta.com
Blog: Atlanta Home Staging
- Kitchen Transformations
- Short on Space? Keep it Simple
- Tips on Selling Your Home From a Professional Stager
- Curtains. Should they stay or go?
- How to dress up your coffee table and end tables when selling
- Quick tips for table settings
- How will buyers remember your home?
- Atlanta Home Staging Consultations - Check out what the homeowner did
- Atlanta Loft Gets Home Staged
- How to ensure your home appeals to a broad base of prospective buyers
I love the before and after pictures.Great job.
Kathy....a TRUE transformation! It's perfectly merchandised!!
Good re-purpose. What a beautiful living room - with the fireplace as a focal point! Funny how most buyers still look for that formal dining room, even though they may seldom use it! Still, if that's what they're looking for...it better be there!
Kathy- Again... another beautiful staging. It was an interesting dining room but when you returned it to a living room it added a big "wow" factor.
Kathy, very nice work. Nice to have a stager that can see these types of visions. Well Done.
hi Kathy -- this living room looks spacious and very interesting. When it was a dining room, you couldn't "see" the room's best features and the beautiful wood floors, fireplace, etc. I remind my clients about showing as much "real estate" as possible, too!
Hi Kathy--it's interesting how much smaller the room looked with the huge dining room table in it. As Maureen says, the architectural features of the room are lost when it is used a dining room. Beautiful staging, as always.
Furniture can definitely have a way of eating up "great" real estate. Removing the table and chairs, albeit, they are beautiful, truly opened up the room.
Thanks to everyone for your comments.
Kathy
Space is just as valuable as location, location, location. Great post.!!!
Awesome transformation! So what happened to the original living room? Wish we could see the whole house, betcha prospective buyers want to see the whole thing too.
There are two living areas within the home. I converted the "entertainment room" into a family room. The formal still exists.
As for seeing the "whole" house. It's going to be listed shortly and I'll be sure to post a link.
Kathy
Shazam-transformed like magic! Love what you did!! Truly magical!! Great work!
I don't believe that is the same room, looks like some kind of photoshop trickery to me... ;) But seriously, I can actually tell what the room looks like now, great work Kathy.
Thanks, Cathy and Iran.
No photo trickery, just a little staging magic (smile).
Kathy
Well said, Kathy. This makes it easy for sellers to evaluate their own rooms.
Excellent notes, and the photos "speak" a thousand words.
I'm not selling right now, but just having crown moulding installed, which meant moving everything away from the walls and pushing items into the kitchen and spare rooms. Wow, I had forgotten how much space I had. The room looks 50% bigger....and I was surprised even though I do this for a living! Now my challenge will be how much "stuff" I can leave out so my living room looks bigger every day for my enjoyment, not just for when I sell.
Thanks for your reminder!
Oh that living space is now gorgeous Kathy. A much better use of Real Estate for sure!
What a difference in how this room shows. The beautiful floors were not getting the attention they deserved when it was a dining room. Wonderful job!