When I became a professional home stager in 2002, I never dreamed that I’d one day get to actually teach home staging on HGTV!

I recently finished an all day shoot for a new HGTV show to air this spring, “The Decorating Adventures of Ambrose Price.”

That’s a photo of the host and I together at our third location during the taping (which happened to be my home!).

Ambrose was one of the contestants on the last season of HGTV’s Designer SuperStar Challenge.

In one of the 13 episodes of this new show, I take Ambrose under my wing to teach him about how to stage a home.

Home Staging on HGTV

We visited three houses just before Christmas and I talked through what was done right and what was wrong in each one.

All were staged (though it was hard to tell in two of them!).

In the coming weeks, we’ll get together again on camera to have a first look at a home he will stage on his own.

I’ll be the judge in the last segment of the show.

Coming back to tour a condo Ambrose will stage and evaluate how well he applies the principals of home staging that I taught him during our tour.

We visited a couple of “staged” homes to see why they weren’t selling.

One had been on the market for 45 days, despite being in a hot market. It screamed “vacant” the minute we walked through the front door despite the attempts to furnish the main floor.

There were no proper focal points or cohesion to the design, they set the dining table badly, the house was dirty. The list of home staging mistakes was endless.

I’ve never been a fan of setting the dining table, though I know some people are. But if you’re going to do it, for God sakes make sure all the cutlery is in the right place, put some candles and flowers in the center, and don’t put dishes right down on a glass top with no place mats under them.

It just looked sad!

In another, they’d done a beautiful job furnishing the living and dining room and then left the rest of the house empty. Except for a lone desk and broom in a back room and a dirty threadbare towel in the en suite bathroom off the master bedroom!

Why bother staging at all?

Once you’re paying for the truck and the furniture for two rooms, it doesn’t cost all that much to finish the rest.

I don’t believe in staging only a couple of rooms because then all you’re doing is emphasizing to people that the home is vacant and that the vendors are probably desperate.

When I’m a buyer in that situation, I immediately think “low ball offer.” And I know, because I’ve bought 7 homes in 11 years.

It was great fun today working with Ambrose and the crew. I’ll report back after our next two shooting days in the next fee weeks and when I have the schedule for the new show.

Apparently each of the 13 episodes will focus on a different aspect of decorating. Our episode is staging of course, other topics include: cake decorating, floral design, interior design. I’m not sure what else.

Editors note: Click here if you want to watch see a clip of the finished episode.