You walk up to the home and it looks like a great property. In fact, you can’t help but wonder why it’s been on the market for so long without 
any interest whatsoever. The curb appeal is fantastic; the gardens are gorgeous and well-manicured, the lawns are mowed and there are no toys or chalk drawings on the driveway leading you to believe children live here.
You enter the house and you can’t recall ever having such a physical reaction to color before. Suddenly you understand why they’ve scheduled a home staging consultation. It’s obvious that the couple living here has a love affair with bold color – the kitchen is painted a brilliant turquoise and opens up to a hot pink living room.
Because these are the first rooms a potential buyer is going to see when they walk in the home, you’re trying to figure out how much primer you’ll need to cover it so when the wife says, “We love color and we get tons of positive comments 
from people who come in here so we know we don’t want to paint,” you panic.
These clients are proud of their colors and are not in any rush to change them, despite the fact that they’re selling the house and they haven’t seen an offer yet.
I’ll tell you what I would do in this situation later but first I want to know what you home stagers would do in this situation. Please let us know by adding your comments to this post.
(Psssttt… if you can’t wait to find out the answer, check out the Staging Diva Ultimate Color Guide!)
Debra Gould, The Staging Diva®
President, Six Elements Home Staging
Debra Gould knows how to make money as a home stager and she developed the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program to teach others how to earn a living doing something they love.
Well Debra – great question because we see wall color challenges everywhere! 🙂
I did buy your Color Guide and in addition to helping home stagers respond to this situation, the guide is also a valuable business operations resource.
I agree with your strategy to first focus on building trust with the home seller as you do the walk-through of the home and then the room-by-room hands on work. After spending time with a home stager and seeing the positive results of your expertise and ideas, the client may feel more open to recommendations for changes to wall colors. Trust in itself is a powerful tool to helping clients succeed.
I also like that you would validate the client’s choice of colors but open them up to changing wall color by focusing on the value of doing so as it significantly reflects the sale of their home. Peronally, I love color but I can now appreciate that the color I love to be surrounded by in my home is not the color that others want to buy or be surrounded by when they move in.
This weekend I was looking through the MLS and noticed several homes showing online photos with TONS of wall paper, and bold – even wild colors. It caused a reaction in me and I’m a home stager! All I could see or think of was the number of hours, cost in dollars, and actual phyical pain required to remove all the wall paper or buy and paint multiple rooms so I could live in a new home! I believe prospective buyers looking at the same online photos would feel as I did and would pass the listing by to look at others.
As you say in your color guide, “Decorating a home to sell is the art of creating an environment that the maximum number of potential buyers will fall in love with.” With that in mind, I would work with my clients to change their wall colors because doing so will NOT limit the number of potential home buyers they attract. I would also ask my clients to tell me again what their goals are regarding the sale of their home (I’m guessing it would be to sell fast and get biggest bucks), then help them see that they are supporting their own goals by agreeing to change wall colors so others can’t wait to buy their home.
Stacy, thanks for sharing your thoughts and I’m so glad you found the Staging Diva Ultimate Color Guide so helpful. The “how to” story continues in the Staging Diva Ultimate Design Guide: Home Staging Tips, Tricks and Floor Plans.
I would share in their excitement about the vivid and wonderful color choices they have made for themselves because after all, that’s just one of the many perks of home ownership — the freedom to paint any room any color your heart desires! I would quickly follow up with, “Hey, why not entice buyers by offering them the same home ownership perk you have so enjoyed? Let’s start them out with a blank palette though, one that’s more neutral so that they will be able to use their own imagination — just like you did when you bought this beautiful home — and envision for themselves what color choices they would like to make and enjoy for years to come when they purchase your home!”
… of course a “blank” or neutral palette doesn’t mean a bland palette! On the contrary, there are plethora of beautiful neutrals from which to choose — just take your cues from nature such as warm browns, yellows, grays, greens and ocean blues!
Peggy, I love the way you put that and also totally agree that neutral needn’t be boring! Thanks for adding your comments!
I agree with everything you’ve said here, Stacy, and I’ve also bought the Color Guide. I would also tell the owners that they won’t be living here much longer, that repainting the walls in more neutral colors will not only help them get offers, but can also help them start to separate themselves mentally from seeing it as “their home” and start seeing it as a product that needs to be sold to accomplish their goals. I would definitely point out that bright colors can scare buyers off because everybody has different colors they love, and bright colors affect everyone’s emotions differently. IF they still refuse to re-paint, I would work at minimizing the colors by putting large canvases with browns, grays, blacks and whites — nature prints especially — on the walls, and bringing in those same colors in pillows and accessories to downplay all the bright colors.
Can’t wait to see what you have to say, Debra!
Amy those are great suggestions and I’m so glad you enjoyed the Staging Diva Ultimate Color Guide!
Wow this is such a great topic!!! It is amazing what a little color would do! That is so great Amy that if the client insist on keeping their outlandish color that you would minimize it with large canvases and painting showcase neutral surroundings. Yes Stacy it is crazy when you as a stager come into a home or when you look at a MLS listing and are offended by the bold color. I can agree; having bold color narrows the target market and doesn’t pertain to the masses. Though it is advantageous to cater to “your” target market, bold, elaborate colors limits “your” prospects!!! I definitely want to see what Debra has to say.
Wynette
A newbie stager asked me accompany her on one of her first consultations at a semi-friend’s house. When you stepped inside, the two story foyer and great room were painted a faux marble in lime green, baby blue, lavender, and pink. The painting extended through all the public rooms. With something resembling horror, I listened to the newbie saying she understood the sellers were not going to repaint – It turned out they had paid a local artist over 50K to do the faux painting. They made all of the other changes we recommended and it did help. But not enough. It has been almost a year and the house is still on the market….and the newbie has closed her business saying she is no longer convinced staging makes a difference. I still have nightmares about those walls and listening to her ‘support’ her clients by assuring them the walls would not matter all that much to a sale.
Nancy, thanks so much for sharing that absolutely perfect story!!!
What a great illustration of the perils of enabling our client’s bad decisions by not speaking out honestly or giving sound home staging advice (even when it’s uncomfortable to do so).
Well, I’ve had this happen twice out of the six jobs I’ve had this year — two people who didn’t want to repaint because in one case, they’d just also paid a faux finisher to sponge-paint the living room, kitchen and dining room, but at least it was done in cream/beige/ochre. That house took under 2 months to sell, so it worked out OK, but they were so upset when I walked in and suggested they needed to repaint, I back-pedaled on it and said we could work around it. Another couple whose house I staged two months ago decided not to take down huge, busy, out-dated wallpaper borders in their kids’ rooms, because a) their agent, mother-in-law and sister-in-law told them it’s not necessary; and b) it’s too much work/money because both large rooms would need to be re-painted after. I must have mentioned why they should do it 4 times, and finally said “I won’t mention it again, because I think I’ve made my point — listen to your stager, not your in-laws!” (notice I didn’t mention the agent) They have done 90% of the other things I’ve suggested, but I still feel they need to re-paint the red walls on the bottom half of the DR — I’d be interested what you think about having a half-red (half-white) wall in the DR, Debra or anyone else!
Amy, thanks for sharing your examples, I know they will help others.
As to your question, “what do you think of having a half-red (half-white) wall in the DR”?
Holy Christmas!
Let’s pray the red is at least on the bottom half of this dated scheme and that the red is a very deep tone. As a compromise to repainting the entire thing you could try Quincy Tan (Benjamin Moore HC-25) to cover the white and update it a bit. This would take far fewer coats than trying to cover up the red, hence faster/lower cost. Of course I don’t know what red you’re working with, the lighting or any other colors, but this may work or at least put you on the right track to adapt from there!
I have a marble story……after my consult…neighbor and husband convinced her that it was beautiful and not to paint over it. She did repaint the green marble wainscoting on lower half of dining room. She already had a beautiful butter color on the top half. All the crown molding is still faux painted in peach/grey/white marbliing. I told her that people will stear away from her house for the same reason you don’t want to paint it….cost and/or labor involved. The owners have moved away and the marbling is still there and the house is still on the market. There is also fruit stenciled on bulkhead over kitchen cabinets….she is an artist and wouldn’t paint over that too……neighbor told her not to……she was a delightful homeowner and I continue to keep in touch with her and gently encourage her to make these changes. She has many memories in the home and is having trouble letting go….I think maybe deep down she doesn’t want to sell??
Recently I was booked to give advice in a very nice, average home around Brussels, with lots of curb appeal in comparison to the other homes. When entering the living room I thought I was in Schönbrunn palace: everything was roses from the wallpaper all around the walls to the artificial roses in the vases, an enormous amount of limoges objects, too big Venetian glass chandeleers, all in pale extremely feminin colors and on top of that in one corner of the room there was a built in bench of the kind you find in a blockhouse somewhere in the mountains: they just forgot it was there.
It was very obvious that the lady of the house made the choices when it came to decorating the house and the husband’s role was to make it all happen for her.
The husband booked me for the obvious reason that he knew their house wasn’t going to sell for the price they had in mind.
So my strategy was to say what I had to say (they were paying me to do so) and explain double why it would be so important to make the changes and I made good use of my portfolio showing before and afters.
It first had to sink all in with them. Just wait and see now what they will decide to do.
The husband attended a workshop about home-staging organised by plusmagazine and I was asked to explain the benefits of home-staging to an audience that had never before heard of home-staging.
Great story Marleen, thanks for sharing!
Debra
As to color crazy folks…you gotta love em because they tend to be interesting and passionate people. I just give lots of affirmation and then go into the spiel about – when you live in a house it’s all about you; and your home should be a reflection of your personality, style, etc…but when you put a home on the market, it becomes a commodity that needs to be marketed to the greatest number of potential buyers…and while some may love these colors; they will be too personal a choice for most.
Absolutely the right approach Lisa, thanks for sharing!