My Personal Take - Designed or Staged?

By Claudia Gentzkow | SaltWater Homes

I often get asked, what is the difference between Home Staging and Interior Design? Over the years, I’ve fine-tuned my design craft to that of staging! With a five-year degree in Interior Architecture, I spent time in architecture school and several years thereafter designing with function and style in mind, which varied for each client: residential or commercial. I designed spaces for business meetings, movie theaters, and movie-goers, gatherings, retail, and with the point of purchase and impulse shopping in mind; as well as for residential clients, where cooking, living, sleeping, and so on, is the focus.

Fast forward to a career switch in Real Estate. – When staging, I would soon learn that this type of design involved careful decor, strategically placed, and definitely not how you picture someone living in the home.

For me, to fully be aware of both sides of the design spectrum, it took selling my own home where I had invested so much of myself into its design and architecture. I knew I needed to be removed from the process and hired a colleague to direct the staging and handle the sale. Through this exercise, I truly understood how painful it can be to have the rugs pulled out from underneath you! Literally! Gone were all the personal photos and a few paint colors changed. I’m now strong in my belief that staging works, yet very empathetic with my sellers, and therefore, handle each situation differently. For some sellers, it’s very emotional and adds to that the stress of selling. I am on board to help alleviate that!

So What is Home Staging?

I liken it to preparing a product for sale. It’s retail! Arranging, adding, and deleting to highlight everything that is great! To downplay anything that might be less desirable. Most importantly, to strike an emotional connection with that potential buyer. We want them to picture themselves in your home! At times I may do minimal staging if a seller is living in the home or if the home itself is smaller. For vacant large homes, I have various professional stagers I call upon whom I direct. The design products they use are trendy and current. It’s what we are used to seeing in design magazines, websites, social media – they feel current with today’s trends.

A professional home stager’s goal is to emphasize the positive features of a specific space in order to achieve a quick and profitable home sale. For example, a professional house stager might incorporate more natural light into an area. Additionally, they create visual square footage by arranging furniture in a more inviting way. I’ve been known to choose a neutral color palette for the home or a given space as needed. This will appeal to a larger number of potential home buyers. Lastly, and very important to me, is visualizing the end result! The delicate balance of prepping the home for photos and for buyer walk-through. Buyers see photos online and when they visit they orient themselves by what they’ve memorized from the photos. That arrangement needs to work for both! Photoshoots are not several day events and the stage needs to be ready. Knowing from past experience, how spaces appear once photographed and not having to have the photographer back saves time and energy for everyone!

What is Interior Design?

An interior designer’s job, rather, is to ensure that client’s personal aesthetic is incorporated with the functionality they need for their particular daily life. This includes customizing things in the home like furniture, tile, and flooring to reflect the homeowner’s personal style. Merging aesthetic and functionality is what an interior designer aims for.

It’s really true that preparing a home for sale is really much different than how you live in the home. If you live in your home while staged, it may not feel too much like home anymore as some of the functionality and your personality you so carefully created over time may be tweaked slightly!