Blog - New Interior Solutions

Staging an occupied home during the pandemic

Not even two years have passed since I decided to leave behind my more than ten-year career as a traditional home stager to start working as a virtual home stager. Despite my departure from the world of traditional staging, I still try to keep in touch with my former colleagues. A few days ago, talking to one of them, I asked her how the situation is now that the real estate world (and not only) has been turned upside down by Covid-19 and we are in the midst of a pandemic. She told me that at the moment she is only staging empty houses, for obvious reasons of hygiene and contagion. That made me wonder: what are the options if you need to stage an occupied home?

In my opinion, these are the possible solutions:

Hire a professional for a virtual consultation

The first option is to hire a professional to give the seller the instructions to do a DIY staging. If the consultation cannot be done in person, the alternative is to offer a virtual consultation. Today many stagers provide this kind of service, either by working with the photos that the seller or the agent provides or by making video calls.

Provide a standard checklist

The second option is to give the seller a standard checklist with basic but important information on how to prepare the house for the market. Many agents already have such a checklist in their files. Here’s an example from my old staging days that you are welcome to use.

Offer virtual staging

The third option is to use virtual staging. Actually, it would be better to call it virtual furniture replacement in this case since the house is still occupied by the owner and their possessions. The process consists of taking photos of the rooms as they are and replacing the real furniture and accessories with virtual ones (you can find more information here). The benefit of this service is that you can also change the finishes of the room to recreate a very attractive space. The result is a powerful image that helps the buyer visualize the potential of the property.

Here’s a recent project I worked on explained in three basic steps.

This is the photo the client sent:

This is how we “erased” the real furniture and changed the finishes (wallpaper instead of paint):

And this is the final result that shows how the living room can look after a light remodeling:

How have you handled the home staging of occupied properties during the pandemic? Have you considered any of these options? If so, which one?

Bathroom design for a couple with completely different tastes

Recently Richard contacted me because he wanted to remodel his master bathroom. Richard is a very good friend of mine. We met about 10 years ago. He used to be a real estate agent and one day he called me because he needed my help to stage one of his listings. Richard is a very outgoing person and we soon became friends.

One day he invited me out for lunch. He wanted my help to gather some ideas to remodel his master bathroom. His wife couldn’t make it that day, so the two of us talked about his project. He showed me some photos and a sketch of the floor plan. Richard also shared with me what finishes he wanted to use, what colors, and the structural changes he wanted to apply to the shower and the bathtub.

There was just one thing he didn’t tell me. And that was that his wife Sandra had a completely different idea about the remodeling.

While Richard wanted marble like tiles, two big sinks, a half wall shower, and a deep bathtub from where he could watch the TV, Sandra preferred beige tiles, a make up vanity station, and most of all she wanted the bathtub and the shower enclosed in the same space, which is a very popular trend nowadays.

I liked both ideas, but I particularly liked to see how two different people approach a home project in two completely different ways. They were both trying to convey their taste and needs into the same space. And if you think about it, this is what interior design is all about. There’s no right or wrong design, because the space you build reflects your unique personality and desires.

At the end, I presented two designs for the same bathroom.

This is Richard’s vision:

While this is Sandra’s vision:

And this is the make up vanity station Sandra would like to install in the master bathroom:

In case you wonder, Richard and Sandra are still tying to find a middle ground for their master bathroom design. But at least now, thanks to the 3D renderings, they can better understand each other’s vision for what concerns the remodeling. Do you and your partner have the same design taste?

Lights on or off? (Real estate photos)

I recently read many articles about the dilemma of light temperature in real estate photography. For light temperature I mean the different color of light emitted by fixtures such as table lamps, sconces, chandeliers, etc. I’m sure you have heard about warm white, soft white, cool white and daylight bulbs…

The real estate photographer’s approach

There are many aspects to consider before deciding whether to turn the lights off or leave them on. From the photographer’s point of view it is much easier to photograph a room with the lights turned off. When the lights are on they spread some color cast around the light fixture that is very hard to correct, especially if it is reflected on the wall. Moreover, if the bulbs within the same room are either a different type or, even worse, are missing, the challenge becomes a real problem.
This last scenario happened to me once: I had to photograph a bathroom vanity and one of the lights above the mirror was burnt out. Luckily I was able to fix it in Photoshop, and it was a pretty easy fix but still time consuming. However, I think that we all agree that a room looks much more inviting and welcoming if the lights are on. For this reason real estate agents always require them.

Here’s an example

The photo above is a clear example of what happens when the lights are on but the bulbs are different. The color cast emitted by the floor lamp on the left is much warmer than the one emitted by the table lamps on the right. Now, is it really a huge problem? It depends. For some photographers this is not acceptable from a technical (and artistic) point of view, but for some others this is ok because their main goal is to deliver an image that is welcoming and clearly shows the details of a room.
This room in particular was quite dark therefore, in my opinion, the lights on did make a difference, but as you can see we also incurred in the problem of having the light fixtures emitting light with two different temperatures.

Are you a real estate agent? If so, what do you think? I’d love to hear your opinion!

PS
If you like this photo and would like to use it for your marketing material, go ahead and download it from my Unsplash account