Staging Your Home to get more money! Before & After

     Here are some photos of a home I listed. We took a very boring, ordinary basement room with 1960's fake wood paneling, an exposed water supply line, and an old linoleum floor with rust stains on it and turned it into a warm and inviting family room.

    The plumbing line was boxed in. The walls and ceiling painted a warm color. The stained floor was professionally washed, waxed, and buffed. Then a stager brought in family room furniture and an area rug. WahLa!

    This now adds good livable square footage to the home.The home sold in a short period of time and for a higher price than if the work was not done. Call me if I can help you with your real estate needs to get you a higher price. (The colors in the third photo are truer colors to how it really looked.)

Dining Room- before and after

 This 1914 bungalow had been updated in the 1960's but was looking mighty tired. Some changes to this dining room add a lot of value to the home. The old wallpaper was removed. Tall wainscoting with a plate rail on top was added. The doors and wood trim were all painted white. Warm paint colors were added to the walls giving the dining room and  hall a sunny feel. The wood floors were refinished. Some art, a piece of furniture, and a table lamp were added. What a transformation!




What may look like wainscoting in the before photo was really just a piece of painted wood trim at chair rail height with two types of wallpaper above and below. The tall wainscoting in the after photo is vertical trim boards approximately 18 inches apart with trim molding on top forming a plate rail. The main part of the wainscoting is not made of wood panels. It is just the existing wall plaster, smoothed, and painted with semigloss white. All fairly inexpensive.

Basement Living Space Illusion #2

Here is another basement that has been fixed up to have more "livable space" for little money. The concrete walls have been painted and furniture and area rugs added. Throw in a game table and for very little money you have a place for the kids to play with the noise a floor away.  Buyers will see more value in the home.

In this basement they used a warm, sunny color on the concrete walls. Then added some artwork and some furniture to make it feel homey. One thing to keep in mind, though, when doing a bedroom in the basement, it needs a fire escape window to make it legal and safe. Check with you local building codes to be sure you are in compliance.

The Illusion of More Finished Space

When selling your home, the more livable square footage, the higher price you will get. If you have an unfinished basement you can give the illusion of more finished space with some minor changes at minimal cost. Spray paint the walls white or a light tan or wheat color to warm it up and stage it with furniture to make it function as a family room, game room, craft room, etc. If you paint the unfinished ceiling so much the better. Add an area rug to warm it up. Now you have a friendly, get away space on another level of the home! Buyers will love it!

Acid-etched, Stained, Concrete Floors

For my basement, I wanted a versatile space that could be used as a workshop and get messy with sawdust. And yet at other times I wanted to be able to use it as a big family room by adding an area rug and couches. Tile and wall-to-wall carpet do not hold up to the abuse of shop work. So going with a stained, concrete floor with several coats of wax works really well. We love it! We looked at floors in commercial stores with stained floors and found a color we liked. Something with warm tones. The photo shows the finished look

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