Another home staged, styled by us and sold!
How was your August everyone? I know its not over...but there’s definitely an air of autumn here in Bristol today, and a back-to-school, get-sorted-for-the-next-season feeling. What a beautiful summer we’ve been blessed with in the UK. These images are of a house (sold with Richard Harding estate agents) that we packed up yesterday, after another successful stage and sale. This cute 1960s terraced house had been empty and on the market for a few months with another agent, and the (previous) RightMove photographs still showed it as it was when the owners lived there. While it’s useful to see furniture in a space, if it’s very personal, and maybe a bit tired looking, with your own colour scheme and style (or lack thereof), it won’t visually attract as many potential buyers.
Selling an empty house...
Then you have the ‘empty house’ issue: people come to view your home and can’t visualise themselves there because they can’t picture which wall the bed would go on, which corner they’d place the sofa in, or where their art and dining table would sit. It's a fact that 87% pf people cannot visualise how a space would look without furniture! (source: Architectural Digest - see my 5 ways to stage your own home post). Dressing a house beautifully to sell also shows how textiles (mostly rugs and curtains) plus art and objects can lift a space.
How we staged this 1960s brick house in Redland:
I’ve heard it said that staging is a disguise to hide a home’s faults, and while it’s sometimes useful to cover a stained floor with a rug (who wants to see that on a viewing?), staging actually enhances a space and shows how it could be lived in. The bonus of hiring us is that your property will be designed with your buyer in mind, with a fresh, cohesive look in each room, not just odd bits of furniture ‘plonked’ together. Back to this 1960s house project! It was really fun to stage this house; with its mid-century vibe we added a Danish mid-century sofa from Vinterior, an Aubrey Beardsley print, a 1970s table, fold-up French dining chairs, and thick-pile cream rugs. We styled the beds simply, added floor-to-ceiling curtains, and lots of oil paintings, shells, and our usual joyful medley of luxury towels and accessories!
Interiors and how they make us feel:
I think a lot about how places make us feel, that’s a big part of why I love our staging and interior work. After reading a recent World of Interiors piece "Power to the Peephole", by Alice Inggs, I’ve been looking more closely at how our emotional response to interiors translates into how we look at homes to buy. As she writes, “Interiors are, perhaps, the purest representation of individual personality and taste. We flow out of ourselves into the spaces we inhabit.” It’s a brilliant article - here is the link to read it.
Styling & Staging consultation service
Alongside our staging service, we’ve also been doing more ‘stage and style consultation’ work for clients this summer (I’ll share images when they’re listed!), it’s been a great experience (and hard work!). This service is for homes that are furnished and/or lived in, perhaps empty-nesters or long-term homes, where you’re ready to move but know you need to freshen up the spaces before going on the market.
From my own experience of sorting out our mum’s house in Clevedon a few years ago, I know this can increase value as well as visual appeal for buyers. We had an initial valuation of £400k by three separate estate agents, then, after my siblings and I made some changes, it was revalued at £450k by the same agents and sold (with local heroes Boardwalk) for £475k after three competing offers. Not every home will see that level of uplift, but with some brave decluttering, tackling minor maintenance issues (the ones you’ve probably ignored for years!), and a bit of decorating, you can absolutely transform your home. One of our recent clients said she could ‘happily stay’ in her home after completing the recommendations on our list, and that’s exactly how you want your buyers to feel when they come to view.
Here’s how our stage and style consultation works:
Contact us LINK to tell us about your property, size and scope, and selling timelines if you have them.
Book a date for us to come over and spend 2–3 hours together, going room by room, talking ideas and recommendations.
We’ll then create a beautiful, unique PDF recommendations guide with our step-by-step plan for getting your home ready to sell. We’ll also add our best trades contacts, plus clickable links and photos of pieces you could use to decorate your space.
Once you’ve done the work and you’re at the photography stage, we will come back for a 2-hour styling session before your estate agent photographs (you’ll need to have cleaned and tidied first!) to make sure you get the best possible images for your home’s listing.
Prices start at £850.00 (plus VAT) depending on the size and scope of the property.
So if you’d like our help to get your property ready for the market, with either styling for photography or with our full home staging service for empty homes, please do get in touch.
Extra info if you are interested! The C02 measurements from this staging project:
The C02 measurements are as close as possible to exact using the Fira report on measured furniture and C02:
The living areas:
Vintage sofa: 90kg (the equivalent of charging your smartphone 10,406 times)
2 x armchair: 80kg
Coffee tables x 1: 18kg
Dining table: 25kg
4 x dining chairs: 108kg
Wood desk: 35kg
The Bedrooms:
Double Size bed and mattress: 125kg
Single bed and mattress: 90kg
Chest of drawers: 43kg
Total: 614kg of C02 saved in this project!
Please note, the above list of pieces does not include small bedside tables, or textiles, art, lighting and accessories as I've not got the C02 measurements for these at the moment - I know my handsome lecturer from Uni (yes you ) has developed a great measuring system so I will investigate!
Thank you for reading this far! You can also follow us @porterandgold on instagram, or link with us on LinkedIn too.
Have a wonderful rest of the week,
Samaya
(Director, Porter & Gold)
Share this post: