When you hear the word “staging” you immediately think of a house for sale and, in fact, this is not wrong. Home staging is the winning weapon for many real estate agents who want to sell their listings faster and for more money. I’m mainly talking about traditional staging that has existed for decades now. However, another powerful selling tool has recently come onto the market thanks to more advanced new technologies. That is virtual staging.
The main benefit of virtual staging is that it can replace traditional staging if the budget is tight. However, few people consider it for purposes other than selling a house. Virtual staging can be applied even when you simply want to explore different design alternatives.
In this case it can be called either virtual design or virtual furnishing, but in the end the concept is the same, because we still start from an empty room, or even a furnished one, and we change the arrangement of the furniture and of the accessories.
The photo above shows a classic open space, which is very popular today. The problem with open spaces is that it is often difficult to arrange the furniture in a way that is pleasing to the eye but also practical in terms of use.
Most of the time the dilemma concerns the position of the furniture. Where do I put the sofa? Against the wall or in front of the fireplace? And does the table look better this way or the other? How should I hang the paintings on the wall?
With virtual staging today it is possible to apply all these changes even before touching the furniture and moving it (your back will thank you!).
In the example above we started by placing the sofa along the wall between the two windows and the table in the same direction. We also tried to understand if it would have been nicer to add a chandelier over the living area.
When we realized that the chandelier didn’t make much sense, we decided to install it just above the table, that, in the meantime, had also been moved in the opposite direction. Even the rug was replaced with a more neutral one, while we added some paintings to the walls.
For the third and last option we added a floor plant in the corner of the window, two paintings above the fireplace to better balance the space, and a large painting behind the sofa for the same reason.
As you can see, virtual staging is not just for the home seller but also for the buyer or the home owner who needs to see an image to understand if their design concept is going to work or not.
Do you want to give it a try? If so, give me a call or send me an email. I promise, it’s a lot of fun!
