Tag Archives: Home Staging in Minneapolis

April Showers Bring Staging Flowers!

It’s almost May here in Minnesota, and that means we are crossing our fingers and toes hoping that spring, and the beauty it brings, will be arriving soon! There is nothing better than the blooms of a magnolia tree, the bright colors of tulips and daffodils emerging once again, or the sweet smell of lilacs in the breeze. Close your eyes: imagine the scent, the joy, the warmth a fresh bouquet of flowers brings!

When staging a home, or during a staging consult, we suggest using plants and flowers to bring additional color and life to a home. It is a simple, lower cost way to add color, texture and freshness to a home.  Consider these basic methods for sourcing and displaying greenery in your home.

Trader Joe’s is A Home Revival staff favorite for sourcing fresh flowers and house plants. They have a variety of sizes and styles of plants and flowers, and tend to have a reasonable price point! A few ideas for Trader Joe’s greens:

  • Grab some baby blue eucalyptus and baby’s breath, toss them in a simple, neutral vase, and you have yourself a centerpiece that will last for weeks! Center it on the dining table, an entryway credenza, or on the dresser of the primary bedroom.
  • Take home a few succulents to stage bathrooms. Set small succulents in the corner of the vanity along with a candle or soap pump for a fresh, spa-like effect!

Treat Yourself to Fresh Flowers - The Purple Hydrangea

The Purple Hydrangea

  • Toss a mixed bouquet of bright, fresh flowers in your cart and use as a focal point in the kitchen or dining room during your home photo session! A fresh bouquet is also a nice touch for showings, but should be replaced when blooms begin to wilt. Bonus? They smell great without the overpowering effects of fresheners and spray (which we do not recommend using for showings).
  • Use a variety of house plants on coffee tables, nightstands, sunrooms, etc. to add interest and livability to the home. Plants tend to reduce stress and increase creativity, just what a potential homebuyer needs to envision their new life in your property!

Maybe you’re not into live plants, I get it! For vacant staging, we use artificial plants and stems for the sake of maintenance and longevity. A few favorite spots for faux plants:

Ikea – low price point, good variety of plants and stems, and cute pots and baskets to boot!

FEJKA Artificial potted plant, indoor/outdoor/lavender lilac, 4 ¾ "

World Market – great for artificial trees and larger house plants.

Target – wide variety of styles and price points available.

Medium Ribbon Fern Leaf in Pot - Threshold™ designed with Studio McGee, image 2 of 10 slides

Nearly Natural – an online retailer that has mastered the art of the faux plant. At a higher price point, this is a great option for investing in faux greenery you can incorporate into the design of your new home.

spring captions when in doubt add flowers

Good Housekeeping

When deciding whether or not to incorporate greenery in your staging design, just remember, plants are lean, mean, selling machines! They are one of the simplest, low cost ways to freshen and brighten a space. Not up for the effort of purchasing and placing plants? No problem! You can always reach out to us to do the heavy lifting with an occupied or vacant stage of your home.

 

Guest Blogger: Katya Larsen, Stager, A Home Revival

 

Continuity and Flow in your Home

Just the words “continuity and flow” makes you want to take a deep breath doesn’t it? To just be calm. And that is what your home should be, a calming place that your shoulders drop down a couple inches when you walk in the door. This calming factor is important to keep in mind when selling your home as well. You want the potential buyer feeling a sense of calm as they walk through your home. Not chaos or a sense of being unsettled.

There are many ways to create that feeling of calm, one way is with a “less is more” approach with your decor and large furniture pieces.

But the single easiest way to create continuity and flow in a home is with color.

To do that, have a touch of the same color running throughout the home, especially in the main living areas. You can have a different accent color mixed with this main color in a small amount, but that main color appears in all the rooms as you walk through them.

The best way to explain this is with pictures. For the home in the photos below, the main color I chose was navy blue and I used it to create a flow throughout the home. This does not mean it has to be strictly navy, it can be different shades such as smokey blue or even a more vibrant shade.

In the living room I used navy blue pillows and accent pieces of blue on the coffee table.

 

I added a touch of blue on the dining room table:

 

 

The mudroom has blue accessories:

 

 

In the primary bedroom I have blue on the bed as well as a blue velvet chair in the corner:

 

 

In the lower level family room I brought in a bold statement of blue to create a focal point with the color.

 

 

Continuity and Flow is about connecting your rooms, that they seem to work together not against each other. There are some exceptions. Kids rooms can be different, fun and full of color. Laundry rooms can also be a bit fun. The goal is for things not to seem random but rather well put together, every piece has a purpose.

P.S. Did you notice in the first photo I used the gal is sitting in a blue chair? Creating continuity and flow can work in many places!

 

 

What Is Your Focal Point?

I was thinking back to when I had my Home Staging Academy to train and certify new home stagers. What I taught them applies really to anyone who is a DIY person and wants to work on their space.

Some concepts that I taught were very specific for staging a home to sell, totally different in many ways than designing to live in a space. Some concepts overlap however and I want to talk about those over the next few weeks.

First lets talk about Focal Point. The focal point is: the area in each room that immediately captures the attention. Also defined as the location in each room where the eye lands first.

In many cases the focal point is easy to see, the fireplace, a stunning vintage built-in buffet, or it can even be the view.

You want to play up the focal point and not distract from it.

What do you do if you don’t have a focal point? Create one! A large light fixture, a large piece of artwork or a large piece of furniture can become your focal point.

What happens if you have too many focal points? You basically don’t have one as your eye is bouncing to all the focal points and doesn’t know where to land.

Photo credit Spacecrafting

If you are having trouble determining the focal point in one of your rooms, have friends stop by and ask them where their eye was first drawn. Another tool is snapping a photo of the room with your phone and seeing where your eye lands when you open the photo.

Remember….try to make your focal point clear. Play around with it by adding and deleting until you have it defined.

Stay tuned for my next blog post about Balance!