A couple weeks ago I started this series with tips for staging your home to sell, and real life examples from listings I’ve had. My first post was about clearly defining rooms and spaces, and the second was about scaling down and scaling back. On to the next…
Staging principle #3 – Lighten & brighten
Try to imagine the living room below with dark brown walls — that was its “before” stage. Luckily, the owners of this charming Somerville condo understood that when selling, brighter is better, so they got busy and painted most of the condo, going with the same pale spring green they had used in the dining room. I also had them remove some heavy curtains on the front windows, and just stick with the white wooden blinds to let in more natural light. Then we pulled out the large fall-colored rug from the dining room and replaced it with a smaller grey one. This not only substantially brightened up the space, but also showcased their gleaming hardwood floors. Voila!
Here’s another example of a nice light open home — this one in Cambridgeport. My clients had already moved out prior to listing, which made it easy to bringing in a painter to give the rooms a refresh. We went with a very “on trend” pale grey (Benjamin Moore’s Stonington Grey, if you’re wondering). It’s hard to believe when you look at the space, but there was actually very limited natural light coming in, so staying light on the walls was critical. We also took down all the curtains, to maximize the light we did get.
Stay tuned for more next week, when I talk about decluttering & depersonalizing!