Living Room Staging Makes Entertaining Seem So Easy

Living rooms need to be as spacious as possible

Clear off the end tables, coffee tables, book cases, mantel of everything. Do you really need a sofa and 5 chairs? No.

One of the things staging tries to accomplish and what home buyers are looking for is square footage. They want to get the most for their real estate investment and that is square footage. Staging won't give you more square footage, but it will make the area that you have seem larger and more functional. That means removing as much as possible, especially in the living room.

The living room is one room where we tend to accumulate over-sized furniture, plenty of family photos and our personal collections. None of these will help your house sell faster and for top dollar. Clean up and clear out everything that isn't absolutely a necessity.

Remove everything off the floor except the major furniture pieces. One sofa, 2 side chairs, end tables for the sofa, and lamps as necessary. Remove the stereo, dried flowers and wreaths.

When replacing items, think THREE. Three is an odd number and it seems to work with our minds to be less stressful. When you have 2, then they seem to be in balance with each other, except they never are in balance and we feel uncomfortable. This is call asymmetrical. In design, asymmetrical is preferred. Because it is obvious that it is not meant to be equal, your mind is more comfortable with the setting. This will hold true for most of your staging situations.

Try to keep everything off the floor. Windows should not have blinds or anything else that will block natural light. Each window should have a minimal window treatment.

The goal in staging the living room is to show off the space in the room. This is best accomplished with as few major items as possible.

The focal point of the room can be the fireplace if you have one. Arrange the furniture so it works off this focal point. If there is no fireplace, then it should just be a minimal conversation area.

To finish off the living room, add some greenery to balance the various items positioned in the room. Avoid plastic plants like the plague. Live plants are good, cut flowers, stems are good. Bowls of fresh fruit are also good, and they last longer than cut flowers, but certainly the fresh fruit is not as dramatic. One caution: you may be tempted to have multiple vases of cut flowers all over the place. Don't do it. One per room should be plenty. Otherwise, it might look like a funeral parlor.