Staging a Living Room

If your home is like most, your living room is probably the first interior space where you can make that ever so important first impression on potential buyers after they have entered your home.  This is NOT where you want to blow your staging and we are here to help!

All the basics we mentioned in our “Home Staging Tips” blog  and video come into play when you’re staging your living room:  If you haven’t read it, click here, then come back when you’re done! Or stay here and go back to it when you finish reading this blog post.

Here is what we recommend for staging a living room:

1. Clean, clean, clean! Cleanliness is imperative in your whole house, including the living room!   Absolutely every surface, horizontal or vertical, from floor to ceiling and from wall to wall.  Don’t forget light fixtures, ceiling fans, vents and window coverings.
2. If you haven’t already done so, consider painting the walls in a neutral color. You want to make the living room look as fresh, clean and bright as is humanly possible.
3. Remove all furniture except for a sofa or loveseat, a coffee table, two end tables and two chairs. Aside from those items, remove and pack away or get rid of everything else.
4. Remove all clutter.  When you’re finished there should be nothing on the floor except the furniture listed above and all walls and other surfaces should be empty of all accessories and accents. You’ll need to keep two lamps, some accessories, including some decorative throw pillows and two pieces of artwork, all of which should coordinate with your furniture and walls.  The accessories, throw pillows, and artwork should be of broad appeal (choose the pieces you have received the most compliments on in the past and that seem to attract the attention and admiration of your guests).  If you are not sure, get your friends (the ones who have good taste!), to help you choose the pieces that work.
5. Now that you’ve cleared away all unnecessary items, find the focal point of the room.  It may be a fireplace, a window or any other interesting feature in your living room. If you don’t have one, don’t worry, we will create one with what you already have.  Arrange the sofa or love seat and the two chairs in a “U” shape around the focal point, put the coffee table in front of the sofa and the two end tables next to the chairs, place one lamp on each end table.  If you don’t have a focal point, arrange the sofa or loveseat, the chairs, tables and lamps in a “U” shape close to but not touching an available wall.  Place the accessories you’ve retained, strategically on shelves, and the tables.  Remember, arrange accessories in groups of uneven numbers of 1, 3, or 5 items.  Look around the room and determine where the artwork needs to go, generally the walls that need to be “decorated” will be obvious.  Place the throw pillows on the ends of the loveseat or sofa, one or two at each end should be plenty on most sofas but if you feel you need more, use more, particularly if you need a splash of color.
6. With that done, look around the room.  Do you need to spruce it up with color? Consider a large plant on the floor, some smaller plants that can be placed on shelves or some new accessories that will give your living room the boost that it needs.

We at the Wise Move AZ Team take staging very seriously and have plenty of experience to help you through this process.  We completely understand the inconvenience of uprooting your life and living in a show room while you sell your home and have plenty of tricks to help make the process as painless as reasonably possible.  Let us help you through it!

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