staging

Can’t find pillows in colors that you need or want in your price range? In the words of Tim Gunn – “Make It Work!”  You don’t have to make the pillows from scratch, simply upgrade solid pillows and make them fabulous.

I was in the need of accent pillows for a brown and red room, to be used in an upcoming home staging project. But I was having zero luck finding pillows at local stores.  So when I stumbled upon a window panel at a local retailer, the wheels started turning.

I filled my favorite shopping bag with a pair of red pillows and this great window panel (in the discount section of course) with my project in my head . My idea was to sew a panel of fabric onto each pillow. Fortunately, I inherited a metal Singer machine from my aunt some years ago, and I was not afraid to use it! Away we go!

My vintage sewing machine – still works great!

The fabric is bright and colorful but needed to be ironed.   After I ironed out the folds, I decided to cut the pieces in 4” by 7” strips to lay on the red pillows. Since I couldn’t sew fabric directly on the pillow covers with the machine, I used the machine to neatly hem the sides of the patterned fabric. The last picture is of the two patterned pieces, after the edges were sewn.

My chosen fabric, prepping it for sewing, then the finished panels.

After the fabric was sewn, I took a needle and thread and hand tacked the fabric to each pillow cover.  I didn’t realize it at the time of purchase, but having pillows with a zipper closure made things much easier.  It would have been harder to affix the patterned fabric to the pillows without removing the inserts.  Not impossible, but harder.

Voila,  a pair of brightly colored pillows, perfect for the staging project.  I think my grandmother and late Aunt Gloria would be proud.

The final pair!

And here are the pillows as we used them in the space!

Last year, most of the properties we staged were inside the DC city lines but a realtor recently reminded us of a ranch home that we staged successfully in 2011.  Here are some great pictures of a ranch home in Silver Spring, where we used some of the sellers furniture and added our own to finish out the space. And a bonus – this one we had work done on the yard too!!

Curb Appeal Matters!

When we arrived for our staging preview, we were greeted with this very dated front yard. Well corner of the yard.

Can you see past the white rocks? the dead hanging plants? We felt like this yard was telling buyers that everything inside the house was old and dated too.   My go-to gardener was able to rework the space and it turned out much easier on the eyes.

Now you barely even notice the space that was an eyesore before. Now come on in!

Dressing up the Kitchen

Next up was the kitchen. The kitchen was sort of a weird configuration and it was hard to tell exactly how a family might live in the space.

We wanted to show a family could feel comfortable in this space, and not fall on top of each other.

I think we accomplished that!

Using sellers furniture in the living and dining rooms

So the seller had moved out most of the furniture but left a few large pieces in the dining room and nothing in the living room. And the furniture was antique and traditional and VERY heavy.

Notice how heavy the furniture is and how the china cabinet is hindering the table from being centered under the chandelier? Well we did and made some moves. Here is the final product

We were able to find a place to use all of the furniture that was available and keep to the scale of the room. And now the chandelier can shine above the table like it was meant to!

Late last year, we responded to more requests from development companies to stage their new-to-market properties inside of DC. We have noticed a trend of the companies  buying older rowhomes, completely updating their interiors (and exteriors too in some cases) and returning them to the market looking and feeling brand new.  These are happening all over the city, not just in one corner, from Southeast to Bloomingdale in NW.  As home stagers within the Washington DC market, it is imperative that we make potential buyers say ‘Its soooo cute/clever rather than “Its so small”.

First up is our blank canvas in the vacant property.  This house is in NE DC on a block with 2 other houses under construction, meaning competition is only few doors away.   It is important that our property stands out against others on the same block!  We walked in to find a small family room, as pictured here..

After touring the rest of the small home, we set to work figuring out how to stage such a small space. Although I rarely use love seats, this room was perfect for one.  So that was easy to solve. Next was colors. The wall color was nice and there was no need to change it. But we always add more color to the space and thus life with our furnishings, art and decor. We created a moodboard, via Olioboard to start the inspiration and juices flowing.

For those who are not familiar, Olioboard  is an on-line moodboard software tool, which uses real furniture, art and decor to help with interior design for homes, parties or anything else you can think of. This was a great tool to use for crafting a cool space in this new home.  We started with our own artwork and just freely pulled ideas from it.

We love the Olioboard that we created for the space, even though we already knew there was no way that size furniture could fit in the space. But it gave us a great starting point, then we rummaged through our own warehouse to pull the room together like so…

 and our art inspiration piece helped to make the room ‘cute’ family room.  The piece is titled ‘Clever Women are Dangerous’ which is the perfect title for this room now!

We loved the space and think it turned out really cute! The chevron rug was one that we made earlier in the year, and the lemongrass mirrors were a last minute DIY, using a few wooden mirrors and spraypaint.

Today’s post is a part of a monthly #Oliohop, featuring 10 selected bloggers who blog and tweet about the same topic on the same day. Learn more about OLIOBOARD and their free moodboard/inspiration tool – use it for your next home project! It doesn’t have to be for staging!

You are encourage to hop from one blog to the next via the links below.  This month, the featured topic is staging! Check out my fellow hoppers and their blog posts here!  And leave a comment if you like what you read above! Thanks for stopping…I mean hopping in!

Lisa Mende, Design

Frances Newman, As You Like It!

Stephanie Weeks, Interior Design HQ

Marilyn Russell, Design Magnifique 

Williams Sonoma Interior Designer Marketplace

Lynda Quintero Davids, Focal Point

Linda Merrill, Surroundings

Ronique Gibson, Stagetecture

Kristin Barnett, The Decorologist  

Don’t forget to follow Olioboard on Twitter and Facebook and YouTube too!