I once had this kitchen. You’ve seen it before, haven’t you? Or was it just a Montreal home-builder’s brainchild? You know, that beautiful (?) almond-coloured melamine cabinetry and then, for a pinch of the organic, a strip of oak at the bottom of each upper cabinet door and at the top of each lower door and drawer. Beautiful? Ummmm, how can I say this … NO. Dated? Just by about two decades. I don’t think anything screams ‘late 1980s’ more to a home buyer than this kitchen. What to do, what to do, what to do?

Here’s an idea that worked well for me: paint out all of the oak strips in the same colour as the cabinetry and then install beautiful hardware on the doors and drawers. Et voilà! You’ve just been teleported out of the late ’80s and into the new millenium – not quite 2008 but close enough.

Now, what to do with those blasted grey melamine and black tiled bathrooms that had their day back when we all had big hair and kept a bottle of Final Net (a.k.a. Final Helmet) in our purses to cement the effects of all of that hair teasing. Ahhhhh, the good ol’ days…

Tanya Nouwens Gurberg
Ready, Set…Sold!
www.readysetsold.ca
514-919-8468

On a recent staging job here in Montreal, Canada, an ordinary dining table went from good to great with the injection of a bowl of real, live fruit. Unfortunately, the cat found the new all-you-can-eat buffet atop the table simply irresistible. And somehow, while strawberries with little chunks taken out of them might qualify as “art nouveau” to some, it’s just plain creepy to most.

On my next shopping trip, I went to Pier I and found really great fake fruit: green apples, red apples, red and green apples, amber pears, green pears and lemons. They were quite pricey ($4 each) but apparently each piece is hand-painted so that they don’t all look the same. And they are beautiful – not at all cheesy. Now the cat’s not quite as happy, but I am and so is the homeowner.

Tanya Nouwens Gurberg,
President, Ready, Set…Sold!
www.readysetsold.ca

No, that’s not a typo in the title of this blog. Staging benefits not only sellers/vendors and the listing real estate agent, it also benefits potential buyers. How many real estate agents out there have had clients turn down properties that had strong selling points and good “bones” because of the bad decor, or the clutter, or the dated finishes? And how frustrating has that been for you?

And how many potential home buyers out there have walked into a home, taken one quick look around and walked right back out without a second glance because of the “horrible” wall colours, the dated furnishings, the pet or cigarette odours, or the cramped layout– without even noticing whether the home had good walls, windows, floors, layout or space ?

Now, I put the word “horrible” in quotation marks because what is horrible to one person may be beauty to another. Take the colour orange, for example. My dining room is a dark, deep orange, and I love it. But would I sell my home with orange walls in the dining room? Absolutely not! For every person who loves orange, I’ll find another who doesn’t. And as a home seller, I can’t afford to be unappealing to one in two potential buyers.

As a potential BUYER, I need to be able appreciate all that a home has to offer, and this is where staging comes in. Staging removes the factors that can be unappealing to potential buyers, allowing the home to be judged for what it is, rather than the picture it’s presented in.

Too often, we focus only on the benefit of staging for sellers. I think it’s time we appreciate what staging can do for buyers as well, leveling the paying field, as it were, and allowing the best features of a home to be noticed and appreciated.

How many of us arrived back home after our gruelling yet excellent Canadian Staging Professional (TM) training only to put the 20-pound manual on our bookshelf and then forget about it for a while? Though many sections of the manual have been extremely helpful at various stages of my business start-up, one in particular came in very handy before I went for my first “real” job.

It’s one thing to talk about staging with friends and family members — and to do pro bono jobs for them. It is quite another to do a job for a “real” client for which you will be paid!! To help deal with the nausea and the butterflies that set in before you do this for the first time, you might find it helpful to revisit your CSP (TM) manual, particularly the section on “Sealing the deal.” In this section, we learn about how people move at different paces (and therefore make decisions at different paces) and how they focus on different things when making decisions – while for some the focus is on the facts, for others their relationship with the person (i.e., you) is more important. Of course, most of us fall somewhere along the slow-fast and facts-people continuum rather than being at the extremes.

I found it helpful not only to try to categorize my client but also to categorize myself. And this is why: the approach that might work to sell me on a concept may not be the approach that will work with someone else if their style is different. So do a bit of homework before you deal with a client, and remember that the way you like to be approached may not be the way that will lead to success with your particular client.

Tanya Nouwens Gurberg
Ready, Set…Sold!!

514-919-8468
Montreal, Quebec