Home stagers, especially those who haven’t been in the home staging business for long, often write me about their fears of being asked to stage a luxury home. If you don’t live in a luxury home and you didn’t grow up in a wealthy family, it’s natural to worry that you won’t know the right things to do.
My very first home staging project was in one of the most expensive areas of the city. When I heard the neighborhood and the fact that they would also need rental furniture for home staging, I was instantly terrified.
I have only ever lived in modest homes. I grew up with a single mom and very little money. Plus, I wouldn’t know a Louise XVI from a Queen Anne desk, which is what I imagined I’d find in this luxury home.
So I walked into my first staging appointment thinking “they’ll spot me for an impostor any minute and throw me out.”
That might have been what I was thinking, but I certainly didn’t let it show.
I rehearsed several things I might say to the client in the car on the way there. For example, how I’d describe my process for staging their home, how rental furniture worked, etc. All the kinds of things I now teach my students today in course 3, Taking the Mystery out of Home Staging Consultations, only back then there was no one to teach me so I learned it the hard way!
Luxury on the outside might now mean a luxury home on the inside
Imagine my surprise when I got inside the million dollar plus home and found things liked flipped over plastic milk crates for end tables in the master bedroom. Remember this was an “executive home” in one of the most expensive neighborhoods.
I remember thinking, “These rich people live like students in their first apartment. Even my place is furnished more tastefully!”
With the experience that comes with visiting thousands of homes across North America, and having personally staged hundreds of them as a professional home stager, I’ve come to realize:
- Almost no one lives the way you see in Architectural Digest.
- Rich people don’t necessarily have any taste at all.
- Most people have no clue about where to put the furniture, what color goes with what, or how to hang art.
- Many people live in big near-empty homes.
- Your biggest target market as a home stager won’t be the very rich. It will be mostly middle- and upper-middle class families.
So don’t let the address, or what a home looks like from the outside, intimidate you and scare you into thinking you won’t know how to handle the staging project!
Have you had a similar experience you can share? I know your comments will help inspire and educate others. Please share your thoughts by hitting the “Post a Comment” link at the very bottom of this story.
Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Home Staging and Redesign
Author and marketing expert Debra Gould 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.
Thank you Debra for posting this. I have discovered that you really should not be nervous about staging a luxury home. Essentially, all homes for sale need to do the same thing at all price points: appeal to the largest amount of buyers utilizing a neutral color scheme, furniture placement and flow, and emotional appeal. It’s great to have a Queen Anne dining room set, but not if it is too big for the space. Louis XVI chairs are nice, but not if they are blocking the doorway. Even luxury home owners can benefit from the knowledge of professional home stagers. As you say in your program, even if you walk in home and think it is perfect, you can always find something to do.
Thanks for adding your comments Thayda, most insightful!
Thank you for posting this Debra and for showing us that even the best people have had ‘fears’ and nerves at some point in their career.
Having just started out in my home staging business, I often get nervous that I’ll walk into a home and suddenly forget everything I have learnt and the home owners will catch on to this. Having read your post and Thayda’s comment made me see that we just need to take a step back and have a look at all the things we know and have learnt and relax to put them into practice. Every home no matter how perfect it may seem, will always have something to do. It’s up to us as home stagers to use our talents and make the best come out. Thank you.
I was really shocked to think that in a luxury home they would use cheap crates for end tables in bedroom also, clothes left draped when a Homestager was supposed to arrive and see all the messiness….. That part of homestaging in luxury homes really taught me something. Don’t judge a house by what you see on the outside. You would think this with people that are middle class or lower income….
The process and principals of staging are exactly the same whether you are staging a 100 thousand home or a million dollar home.
Often times when people are paying a hefty mortgage on a big luxury house they sometimes have little money left at the end of the month for anything else. I haven’t seen this so much as a stager, but more so in my past. Back then I had co-workers I thought were very well off, due to the size and style of their home, only to find out when invited to their Tupperware party that their home was vast open spaces of emptiness! I was shocked to see that the furnishings they did have were old out dated hand-me-downs, or “assemble yourself” pieces. I’m talking about a house as grand as Tara in “Gone with the Wind” furnished with Sauder bookcases and dining sets!
Leah, I’ve always found this too. It’s sad really that people choose to live in big empty boxes rather than scaling down the size to what they can comfortably afford to live in with style!
Debra’s right about most of your business coming from middle class folks, and it being a bit scary when you do get a high-end house to do. That said, when approached by one of my regular REA’s to do the first daughter of South Korea’s home in posh Potomac, Maryland, I trembled. To further my angst, she said the home had been professionally designed by a famous interior designer and sold to them lock, stock and barrel with all the furnishings. So, what did they need me for?
Well, the current owner, sweet as she was, seemingly occupied only a tiny fraction of the 5,000SF, $1.5M home, and the rest of it looked anemic. Though it was probably previously very beautifully designed, all the finishing touches had been removed and only the furniture was left. It had no lamps for example, and she had never brought any in.
So, my job was suddenly simple. Bring in light, texture, color, interest through lamps, rugs, pillows and artwork to bring it back to life. It turned out to be one of the easiest jobs I’ve had! So, don’t judge a project by its address or price point. They all need us and for the same reasons, our talent.
Patricia, that’s a great story, thanks for sharing. I too have found the bigger the house, the fewer rooms people actually live in!
Before I was a home stager, I spent over 20 years as a stylist for print ads and film. When we would do a shoot at a gorgeous estate or other luxury home, 9 out of 10 times it was half empty and horribly furnished. During our location scout, I would realize that I had to come up with some real magic to make the decor in the home work for our shoots. Having lots of money does not mean one has good taste…I’ve seen that time and time again.
One of the first homes I staged after starting Cole House Design was a 5,000 sq.ft. home in a very high end neighbourhood of Mississauga, ON. Upon arriving at the home, the size and beauty of the exterior amazed me. However upon stepping inside the front doors, there was a drastic difference! The home was extremely cluttered and messy. Half of the house was unfurnished with huge empty rooms, while others only contained a few sparse pieces…some of them hand-me-downs from the 70’s or flat-packed specials. The formal living and dining areas, were being used as diaper changing stations and to house playpens. The expansive master bedroom had been turned into a storage facility for moving boxes. However, the bones of the house were good and that’s what I went off of to stage the home. I brought in tons of rental furniture, packed up the clutter, made sure each room showed its true identity, and made the crawl space in the garage into the storage facility for boxes. Overall, it was a great learning experience…and I have staged many more million dollar homes since…some that only needed a little help, while others a little more. Thanks for the post Debra!
Nicole, I think I staged the same house you did! Just kidding, but I’ve seen what you describe SO often with 5,000 sq ft plus homes. It really makes you wonder why people buy so much space when they clearly aren’t comfortable living in it, they’re carrying huge property taxes and mortgages and what a pain to keep organized and clean!
It’s so funny the articles I am coming across that you’ve written here. I have come to these conclusions myself and it’s nice to know that others have shared my fears and kept plugging away at it.
I, too, have long since discovered that wealthy doesn’t translate to taste or any sort of decorating sense. Like you, I grew up very modestly. Mine was a very small town and there was really no such thing as “upper class neighborhood”.
When I moved to the “big city” (2 hours away from my small home town) I worked for a luxury real estate agency and many times I caught myself thinking that my modest ranch style home was much more tastefully decorated and furnished than many of the more “high end” homes.
I don’t let “luxury” real estate listings intimidate me. It’s just a larger scale house with more square footage to stage. I actually target higher end listings because those are the sellers more likely to have money to pay for my staging services.
Great articles. Sometimes I feel like I’m reading my own articles! LOL. Keep them coming.
Awesome article, Debra! Your voice and tone is professional but hilarious and right to the point! I write SEO and blog content, so I cruise around sites like these looking for sources/inspiration. This is one of the best posts I’ve seen so far, no joke.
Thanks Jarrod, glad you enjoyed my article.