Eleven Expert Tips To Make Small Rooms Feel Larger
March 8, 2010
As a professional home stager in Pasadena and Los Angeles, one of my primary jobs is to make smaller homes feel larger, or at least, feel as large as they really are.
Here’s a list of my tips for making a small home feel larger. You can use these tips whether you are staging your home to sell or if you are planning to stay, but just need some help dealing with smaller rooms. These tips will work with either vacant or occupied homes:
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Pare down what you need to have in a smaller room to the essentials. Do you really need a chair in your bedroom, or can you sit on the bed to put your shoes on?
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Clutter makes a room feel smaller. Lots of smaller items, like your Hummel collection or your bowling trophies displayed on every horizontal surface, eat up visual space. Only display 3-5 items at a time. Store the rest and rotate them out of storage throughout the year. Not only will the room feel larger, but each item displayed will stand out more.
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Use fewer pieces of furniture. Its better to have one larger dresser than 2 smaller ones.
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Use appropriately sized furniture. Having a large sectional in a small family room will highlight how small the room is.
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Cooler colors recede, so painting a room a pale blue, green or gray will make it feel larger.
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Show more hardwood. The larger the expanse of hardwood, the larger the room will look. See how the room looks without an area rug.
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Try using one larger area rug instead of several smaller rugs.
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Use fewer patterns on upholstery and bedding. For instance, use a solid color blanket or bedspread on a bed in a small bedroom to make the room feel larger.
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Strategically placed mirrors make a room feel larger.
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A well lit room feels larger.
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Minimize window treatments. The simpler the better. Shutters, blinds or simple drapes (no flounces, ruffles, strong patterns or complicated valences) take up less “visual space”.
These home staging tips work if you are staging to sell or just want to make the home you are living in feel larger.
If you need some help figuring out how to make your home feel larger, consider hiring us for a home staging consultation. You’ll get some expert home staging and interior design tips from the Real Estate Staging Association 2010 Professional Stager of the Year. Prices start at $250 for a verbal consultation or $350 for a comprehensive written consultation. Its the best “bang for your buck” and it’s a great investment in preparing your home for sale, or making your home more livable if you are planning to stay.
A Real Estate Agent Gets Real About Home Staging
February 26, 2010
Here’s another animated video about home staging. In this video the real estate agent talks to her client about the necessity of hiring a professional home stager. The homeowner is a do-it-yourself home stager, and the results are, well, interesting.
©Copyright 2010 Michelle Minch & Moving Mountains Design. All rights reserved. Copyright includes video, script and contents. Be original, don’t copy!
Pasadena Based Home Staging Business Gets Results!
February 21, 2010
This article recently appeared in the Pasadena Star News, on February 9, 2010. Very exciting!
Just click on the article to be taken to a PDF of the article.
Los Angeles Home Staging Video – A Real Estate Agent Talks About Home Staging
February 20, 2010
Here’s a video I created about home staging. A real estate agent talks about home staging to their client.
©2010 Copyright Michelle Minch and Moving Mountains Design. All rights reserved. The contents of this video, including the dialog (spoken words) are protected by copyright. Please do not copy. You can create an original video at Xtranormal.com
Altadena Home Staging An Occupied Home
February 18, 2010
I was hired to stage a beautiful Altadena home this week.
The homeowners are moving to a larger home to accommodate their growing family. I was called in by the real estate agent to help the homeowners prepare the home for sale, to maximize the size of the rooms, accentuate the beautiful architectural features and give each room a clearly defined purpose.
The formal living room was being used as the master bedroom, which worked fine for them, but might have caused some confusion for potential buyers.
I suggested they move the master bedroom to one of the large, airy bedrooms, and gain a living room in the process.
The piano was moved from the dining room to the living room. It made the dining room feel larger and there was plenty of space in the living room to accommodate a piano.
Here’s a few shots of the bedrooms after staging:
And a lovely vignette shot:
For more information about this beautiful Altadena pool home, contact the listing agent Bettina Rosenfeld, Coldwell Banker, at (626)827-6114.
This Los Angeles Home Stager Has Earned Her RESA-PRO Designation!
February 14, 2010
I’ve earned the RESA-PRO designation. Yay!
I’ve met all the requirements, passed all the tests, and now I have the right to use the RESA-PRO badge on my website. As a home stager in Los Angeles and Pasadena, I need to prove to my clients that they are getting the best of the best. The RESA-PRO designation proves that I am experienced, I am professional, I am ethical, I am insured and I recognize the importance of continuing my education.
RESA-PRO home stagers:
- Must adhere to the Real Estate Staging Association Code of Ethics
- Must pass the RESA Ethics Exam with a score of 80% or higher
- Must be in business for at least one year
- Must show proof of home staging business insurance
- Must prove they have a business bank account in their company name
In addition, RESA-PROs must complete a number of home staging contiuning education classes over the course of 2 years in order to maintain their RESA_PRO status
As a home owner or a real estate agent, seeing the RESA-PRO designation gives you an extra measure of assurance that I’m a true professional (not a hobbiest) and you’ll be treated ethically.
If you’d like to find out more about the RESA-PRO designation, visit the RESA-PRO website.
Los Angeles Home Stager Voted RESA 2010 Professional Stager of the Year!
February 2, 2010
I’m very excited to announce that I have been voted the Real Estate Staging Association (RESA) 2010 Professional Stager of the Year!
The announcement was made at the RESA 2010 International Stagers Conference in Las Vegas on January 25, 2010. The conference was a smashing success, and I’m so happy I got to share my big moment with over 200 of my fellow home stagers. Its a HUGE honor to have been selected for this award by my home staging peers.
Professional home stagers were nominated by home stagers and real estate professionals throughout the US, Canada, Europe and Australia.
The nominees were then voted on by members of the Real Estate Staging Association and 5 finalists were selected.
Each finalist had to create a 5 page entry which demonstrated excellence in home staging, best home staging business practices, a proven track record of ethical conduct and commitment to raising awareness about home staging.
The winner (me:o)) was selected from the 5 finalists by a panel of celebrity real estate and home staging judges.
The judges were Bethany Souza from HGTV’s Designed to Sell, Matthew Finlason from HGTV’s The Stagers, and Womens Council of Realtors National President, Deborah Gilmore.
Click here if you’d like to see my winning entry for Professional Stager of the Year Pro Stager of the Year 2010.
Click here to read the press release
Staging Your Closets With Feng Shui
January 20, 2010
If you’re like me, the thought of tackling a major job like cleaning out your closets makes your head spin, whether you’re doing it to stage your house to sell or for better Feng Shui energy.
In Feng Shui, having orderly closets and dressers is a very good thing. Having closets and dressers that incorporate some empty space is desirable because it allows room for new energy (and Jimmy Choos 
) Holding on to old, damaged or unused items creates clutter, which slows down the flow of energy (Chi).
In order to get started organizing your closets, many professional organizers advise you break the project down into small chunks, so its not so overwhelming.
Only have a half hour to spare? Clean out a drawer. 15 minutes? Get rid of all the wire hangers and dry cleaner bags cluttering up the closet.
- Remove everything from your closets. Assess everything and determine if it is really useful. With the exception of some seasonal items, if you haven’t used it in the past year, you should get rid of it (donate, give away to a friend, recycle or throw it away). If your closet is full of outdated, ill fitting items, there is no room for anything new to come into your life and it is a drag on your energy. The goal is to get rid of clutter and make space.
- Vacuum out the closet once it is empty. You will be amazed (and grossed out by all the accumulated dust and dust bunnies you’ll find).
- If you have the time, energy & money ($20-$50 depending on the brand of paint and what supplies you already have on hand) repaint your closet. It will look soooo much better when you’re done.
- Put the items you are keeping back in the closet in an orderly fashion, and in a manner that allows the item to be useful and of service to you. No matter what anyone tells you, if the organizational system is not organic to your way of doing things, you won’t be able to maintain it and it will devolve into chaos quickly. I invested in Elfa type closet organizing systems for all our closets, and I consider it one of the best investments of time and money I have made. I can see everything I own and can choose what I want to wear quickly and easily. Stores like the Container Store will help you design your closets for maximum efficiency and you can install the elements yourself to save money. Need something even less expensive? Check out the closet organizing systems at IKEA or Target.
- If possible use all the same hangers (you can buy nice wooden hangers from IKEA and they are inexpensive)
- Have the hangers facing the same way (most people prefer hooking hangers over the top of the bar from front to back as opposed to under the bar back to front)
- Separate the types of clothes – group shirts with shirts, pants with pants, dresses with dresses
- Organize by style – group all short sleeve shirts with short sleeve shirts, long sleeve shirts with long sleeve shirts, etc. Go one step further and organize by color (all white shirts together, blue shirts together, etc.)
- Organize by color – after you’ve separated the clothes by type and style, the gold standard is to organize by color – all white short sleeve shirts together, all blue slacks togehter, etc.
- Put all shoes on shoe racks, hanging shoe organizers, or clear plastic shoe boxes.
- Whenever possible don’t keep anything on the floor of your closet except shoes and those should be neatly organized on shoe racks.
Home Staging Tip:
If you are staging your closets because you are planning on selling your home, then the closets should be no more than half full. Pre-pack any clothes that you want to keep but won’t need for the next few months. Put the unneeded items in storage. Label every box well so that you can grab a particular item in the event you need it. Follow the tips above regarding what to keep and how to organize the remaining items.
Charitable Clothing Donations:
If you have women’s business clothing you no longer wear, please consider donating the clothing to an organization like Dress For Success - The mission of Dress for Success is to promote the economic independence of disadvantaged women by providing professional attire, a network of support and the career development tools to help women thrive in work and in life. Another great Los Angeles area orgnization is Clothes The Deal. They provide business training and appropriate business attire to men, women and at risk youth job seekers in need.
We’re here to help. Contact us if you need help organizing your closets or for more Los Angeles home staging or practical Feng Shui information.
Listen To Your Home Stager – Part 2
January 18, 2010
Today was the first open house for our home staging project in South Pasadena.
I spoke to the listing agent after the open house and he was ecstatic. Despite the rain, he had a great turn-out and the comments were overwhelmingly positive. He said he got many comments about how the home appeared move-in ready (top on my list of the comments I want to hear about a home I stage) and how pretty everything was.
Dining Room before home staging
The dining room had too much furniture, and the furniture wasn’t really suited to the style of the house.
Dining Room after home staging by Moving Mountains Design
A fast recap of this home staging project:
The listing agent hired me for a home staging consultation on his South Pasadena listing. I met with him and his clients and we discussed everything I felt needed to be done to get this home ready to sell. The homeowners and listing agent were diligent about doing everything on the list, and they got it done in record time. The clients moved out, the house was repainted, re-carpeted, and cleaned over the course of a week!
Living Room before home staging
The living room furniture was too casual. It was better suited to a family room.
Living Room after home staging by Moving Mountains Design
Here’s the family room transformation:
Family Room before home staging
There was so much furniture, I wasn’t able to take the before and after shots from the same angle!
Family Room after home staging by Moving Mountains Design
Looking at the photos, I almost can’t believe its the same house or how quickly it was transformed.
Listen To Your Home Stager
January 16, 2010
Over the past few weeks we’ve done several home staging consultations in Los Angeles and Pasadena.
In 2 cases, the listing agents paid for the consultation and both agree it was a great investment based upon the transformations that resulted. In both instances I suggested repainting and new carpet. In both cases the interior of the homes had not been painted in several years and the paint looked tired and soiled. And in both of the homes the carpet had become so soiled and worn that it was not salvageable.
I’m happy to report that both homeowners made the investment to get their San Dimas and South Pasadena homes sold quickly and repainted the interiors and recarpeted.
I’ll be posting pictures of the South Pasadena home we staged later today (we haven’t staged the San Dimas house yet) so you can see what a difference listening to your home stager can make. But in the mean time, here’s some before and mid-way photos of how the South Pasadena home we staged was transformed by new paint and carpet.
Here’s the before shot:
South Pasadena Living Room before home staging
Now here’s the living room mid-transformation after completing the suggest work in the home staging consultation:
South Pasadena Living Room mid-transformation
BTW, the paint color is Sherwin Williams #7571 Casa Blanca, which is a very soft golden tan.
Stay tuned for more pictures!
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