Last week I posted a staging savvy challenge asking your home staging advice for a busy living room. If you have some decorating talent, I hope you’ve already shared your ideas!
This week is a different (and also very common) living room staging challenge. This one is just plain blah and if you want to decorate this home to sell fast on the real estate market, it really needs added pizazz!
I normally have an excellent memory for rooms I’ve been in. But I honestly wouldn’t remember much after seeing this living room, especially if I was the typical home buyer visiting 6 or 8 properties in the same day with my real estate agent! One of the ways home stagers get buyers to fall in love with a home is by giving them something to remember and connect with. Now I’m not saying we have to go totally crazy with this living room and spend a few thousand dollars redecorating it. After all, few home staging clients would go along with such a plan.
Imagine that this is the view that awaits you when you arrive for your home staging consultation. What changes would you recommend for this room? Please add your ideas by hitting the comment button below. I’ll be posting my take on this room after giving you a chance to weigh in with your own creative comments. And don’t forget, if you haven’t tackled the busy living room you can still add your comments to that one too.
It will be interesting to see the contrasting ideas for these two very common problems for staging a living room!
Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Inc. Home Staging
Debra Gould knows how to make money as a home stager. She developed the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program to teach others how to earn a living doing something they love and she continues to develop ebooks and other home staging resources to help stagers on their path to success.
Oh Debra, where to begin…! The nice thing about a room like this is that it is truly a blank canvas and the changes required don’t cost a lot but could have very high impact. Paint would definitely help as well as updating the room with new lamps and colorful art and accessories throughout the space. An area rug to break up all of the beige on the floor would be a great option too. It is hard to tell from the picture, but a new floor plan–taking out some furniture–might spruce things up and of course removing all of the clutter on the coffee table, armoire, and bench will help as well. Can’t tell what that thing is in the right hand corner of the picture but it looks like that can be removed too. Enjoy your day & thank you for providing this virtual practice!
Too neutral, but better than the ones with blue carpet!
De-clutter the space (too many books around);
Pick up a color to anchor the room. On the wall lime green. Pillows that have green, modern stamp, brown/chocolate) and one orange pillow for the sofa;
Pull the orange chair closer to the sofa (under the window?) to create a more defined living area;
A plant on the coffee table with two or three books or magazines (art), if possible chosen among the ones that were spread throughout the room;
Create more symmetry with the side tables on each side of the couch, with the lamps;
A bigger/colorful painting on the wall with dark frame.
Store superfluous items: it is not easy to evaluate a room from a picture, but it seems that it has more furniture than it needs.
Personally, I’d love to do this room. It just has so many great features. As Nadja says, it isn’t easy to evaluate a room from a photo. But I’ll give it a go anyway.
I think that there are 3 main mistakes to address.
1.Poor traffic flow – it looks like you would walk right through the middle of the sitting area to get from one side of the room to the other.
2.The furniture grouping is too far apart. Carrying out a conversation from sofa to armchair would be easier done on the phone I think.
3.The accessories and artwork need to be used more effectively. The room is visually chaotic.
Other things I’d want to address;
•The lighting – the room seems poorly lit
•Focal point – Is there one or should one be created?
•I’ll assume it’s a wooden TV cabinet on the left inside the doorway. I personally don’t like such big furniture items right inside doorways no matter what room it is. They almost always make the room feel small and boxy before you’re even in it. I definitely would be looking for an alternative spot for the TV unit.
There’s plenty that can be done for a more appealing and functional look. I’d orientate the furniture around the focal point (not the TV if I could) and make sure the traffic pattern is comfortable. I’d pair the 2 lamps up either side of the sofa for a balanced look on matching/similar lamp tables. Unless the walls are in poor condition I wouldn’t paint them. Instead I’d add colour (based on other things already in the room, it’s cheaper and takes less time) in things like throw cushions, perhaps a floor rug, and some gorgeous fresh flowers in a single type and colour. I’d use a few of the nicer books to add warmth. The current artwork above the sofa isn’t too bad, but it is out of scale with the sofa. Adding 2 smaller artworks either side would fix that if a bigger one wasn’t available. From the photo I can’t tell what the tall stand is between the window and the sofa. I’d love for it to be a standard lamp and that would be paired up with the armchair for reading by. I wouldn’t rule out using the wooden bench with the lamp on it. This would depend on available space and most likely using it in a different way. I think the bones of this room are great and the owners have made a good start.
I’d be thrilled to make it even better for them, with little to no extra money!
It is a bit blah but a relatively easy fix. I would remove some of the dark wood furniture as there looks to be too much in the room along with the daily ‘stuff’ that is hanging around. I would move the lamp and side table (?) so that the 2 lamps framed the sofa. To add color I would recommend a large piece of canvas art over the sofa then pick out 2 colors from this for the accent pieces, cushions on sofa and accessories placed on the coffee table. I wouldn’t re-paint (the color appears to be a warm neutral) and I wouldn’t recommend an area rug either – I actually think the neutral carpet is a ‘sell’. However I would look at the window treatment to inject some modernity and a bit of accent color. This is so much fun!
My recommendations would be:
– Add a larger piece of artwork above the couch
– Add colorful pillows on the couch and chair
– Move the chair closer to the couch
– De-clutter the coffee table and add a plant
– Remove the item on the floor on the left side of the room
– Move the end table next to the couch to anchor the lamps
– Change the window treatment to modernize the room
– Remove large cabinet from the doorway to another wall to have
a focal point.
– Remove bench with clutter
– Ensure there is a traffic pattern
Gladys, that’s exactly what I recommended. Great job, you hit every problem and came up with low cost solutions. See my follow up post at:
https://stagingdiva.com/homestagingbusiness/home-staging-solutions-blah-living-room/