Setting the Stage: Telling a Home’s Story Helps It Sell

Pittsburgh Tribune Review – August 28, 2009
“Setting the Stage: Telling a Home’s Story Helps It Sell”
by Bob Karlovits

Excerpt from Pittsburgh Tribune Review:

. . . Debra Gould, a Toronto, Canada-based stager, author and staging instructor, says staging can be known as “house fluffing” or “home merchandising,” but basically it’s the effort to make a house irresistible.

“The better job you do, the better chance you create that someone will just fall in love with the house,” says Gould, the author of several guides to staging whose ideas are on three Web sites: debragould.com, stagingdiva.com and sixelements.com.

. . . Gould admits there is an element of theatricality in the term “staging.” It hints at setting the stage in a home and suggesting action and events that could happen there.

“A well-staged home will not look staged,” she insists. “Take the dining room table that is set for a dinner. That isn’t realistic. You suggest things. You take a lamp, a chair, a book and hint it would be a good place to read. But I don’t add the tea set on a folding table.”

It is important to make statements mildly enough that you “don’t tell people how to live,” but suggest what could happen in a space, Gould says. . . .

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