Just Don't Do It. . . Please!

In my many years of experience in the design field I have come across quite a few things that countless people try in their homes that just boggle my mind.  Out of all those bizarre attempts at enhancing one’s home, it is surprising how many of them are staging “techniques.”  Here are three of the top staging don’ts that are done way too often.

Place Settings

Come on, I am all about table-scapes (a well thought out decorative display on a table), but this just looks like the owner’s trying too hard.   A well-staged home should look like it isn’t staged at all.  The home should look as if it is clean, kept up and, of course, stunning, without much effort at all. Who wouldn’t want a home like that?!  The place settings are a dead giveaway the home is being setup to look better than it may. 

Everything is on an Angle

Don’t get me wrong; certain furniture pieces look great on angles in certain places, but every furniture piece on an angle in every room is just bizarre!  I am not sure how this trend came about in the Staging field, but I would love to see it go.  Let’s take a bed, for example.  Often times angling a bed in a room actually makes the room look smaller due to the wasted space created behind it.   As many artists know, horizontal lines are calming, vertical lines come across as strong, and lines at an angel are jarring and grab attention.   This being said, furniture on an angel grabs attention.  We want the room to grab the attention, not the furniture.

Wrong scale

  

Often enough, people are selling vacant homes, or homes with rooms without any furniture.  To these sellers I must advise, it is far better to keep a room empty than have the wrong scale pieces in it.  A significant goal in staging is to help the buyer visualize what could be.   If you are choosing to do this by adding distractions that the buyer would never chose to place in their home, you are missing the point.  Honestly, I think the examples speak for themselves.  Would you decorate your dining and living room like this?

Marty Boyle ,
Interior Designer