One of the things that makes Seattle such a fascinating city is the presence of so many unique and charming neighborhoods. Queen Anne is one of those, sitting beautifully on top of a hill and filled with distinctive and interesting homes. When we receive calls to stage Queen Anne homes, we get super excited.
Last month, I received a call from a new agent from RE/MAX Realty. She told me that in the previous year she had seen one of my staged homes in Queen Anne and had picked up my card AND had kept it all this time. Now she was ready to work with a new home stager and wanted me to look at her upcoming listing in Queen Anne.
This house had much of the old world charm and a bit of an unusual floor plan due to a later remodel. This agent told me from the beginning that the house had challenging floor plans and that it needed a very thoughtful design, otherwise it would not appeal to home buyers. Without even seeing it, I knew immediately that I wanted to stage this Seattle Queen Anne neighborhood house. After all, I love a challenge!
And yes, the agent was right — the living room did have a challenging floor plan:
- The addition didn’t flow into the existing space smoothly, but from the start, I knew how to make this work. We needed to divide the living room.
- The large windows, even though very beautiful, were totally off-center and the window seat made it difficult to place the furniture in this space.
- The fireplace was in the far corner and this focal point competed with the windows.
Solution: Divide & Conquer! To stage and define this house for the potential buyers, we had to define the new addition separately from the rest of the living room, yet still create a sense of flow. We decided to use the same sofa and love seat in both of these rooms as well as the same color palate. This manner of repetition in staging homes is an effective way to make these difficult types of floor plans work.
A week later, the agent called to tell me that her listing was in escrow and that from then on she would have all of her listings staged.
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