So you have a creative eye, you love re-arranging your furniture, you’ve watched EVERY home renovation reality show, and you’re ready to launch into the world of home staging! Where do you start?
Since home staging is not a regulated industry, technically you can wake up tomorrow and decide to be a home stager and *poof* – you’re a home stager! But is that enough to sustain a career?
Talent is certainly key to a successful career in this industry, but it’s not enough to establish you as an expert, and it doesn’t mean that you can make it into a successful and thriving business. Training will help you with understanding the home staging processes, how to manage your clients, as well as some “techniques” for showcasing and merchandising a space. Home staging and home decorating are quite different, and understanding buyers and buyer perceptions, as well as how to effectively prepare a home to best showcase it will come through your training.
That said, not all training programs are created equal, so do your research and select the one that provides you with the most comprehensive information, as well as fits your learning style.
How to merchandise a home to make it a sellable product that your buyers will want to buy
How to “sell” – sell the house, sell potential clients on your services, and sell your home sellers on your recommendations (what good is it if you know what they need to do, if you can’t convince them to make the changes necessary?)
Home styling trends and styling tricks
Post-training support to help you to successfully launch your business
Current and up-to-date information regarding industry standards, trends, and expectations
Talent gets you started – it’s what drives you to turn a passion into a career, but it’s the training that will help you to properly hone your skills. Your certification also tells your clients that you are serious about home staging as a career – you are an expert in your field! The investment in the proper education provides credibility to you, and will be recognized by your peers as well as your prospective clients.
I’m a firm believer that you should never stop learning. Unless you already have a ton of experience running a business in the real estate industry, and you’re right at home working with and managing various types of clients, during one of the most stressful times of their lives, you’ll want to review your options for professional training!
Have questions about becoming a Home Stager, or just starting out and need an extra boost in your business? Join our Facebook group, To Be a Home Stager – our very own Shauna Lynn Simon is live online every Thursday afternoon, answering your most pressing questions!
As a home stager and designer, I often get questions from clients, friends, and family about how to ensure that artwork is hung properly:
How high should they be hung?
Should we stagger groups of artwork, or align?
Should the art go behind the bed, or behind the lamps, or both?
Is this piece big enough/does it work well in this space?
What type of screws, nails, and tools do we need?
Hiring a professional designer to take on the task of hanging the artwork answers all of these questions, and more. We have the tools, the training, and all of the equipment (including a ladder that works great on stairs)!
That said, if you are interested in tackling this task on your own, these tips will help you to (almost) hang artwork as well as the pros do.
Nails, hooks and more
Picture hanging hooks come in a variety of sizes, based on weight handling capabilities, so be sure to select the one that best suits your needs. Standard single nail hooks will hold up to 30 lbs. There are 2 and 3 nail hooks that will hold more weight, so be sure to review what your needs are before purchasing.
An alternative to the standard picture hooks is the fairly new Monkey Hook®. These do not require a hammer, and are simply thread through the drywall, holding up to 50lbs on their standard hooks! We recommend using ONLY on drywall.
Once you have found the perfect wall art for your space, and you’re ready to hang, you need to purchase my ultimate favourite picture-hanging tool – I can’t leave home without this, and clients are mesmerized when I use it. I know, it’s starting to sound a bit like an infomercial, but trust me when I tell you that this little tool will change your life, regardless of the type of artwork that you are hanging.
Ready?
It’s called the Hang & Level™, and I’m pretty sure it’s magic. I have included a link to buying this online, just in case you want to see what the fuss is about. If you choose to purchase one, there are some handy instructions on the back of the packaging, but I’ll sum it up for you in 5 quick and easy steps:
1. Hang your artwork from the hook of the Hang & Level™ tool.
2. Position on the wall where you wish to hang the artwork.
3. Once in position, remove the artwork from the hook, and press the “button” on this hook into the wall (you’ll notice a small indentation mark on the wall).
4. Place your nail, or the bottom of your picture hanging hook if using a hook, on this marked spot, and hammer in your nail/hook.
5. Hang your artwork on your nail or hook, and use the Hang & Level™ built-in level to ensure it’s straight.
That’s it! Seriously! No need to measure how far down your wire or sawtooth sits on the back of your frame. It’s that easy!
Now, unfortunately, this handy tool won’t work for all pieces, but it does work well for most, and will significantly reduce the amount of time needed for your art hanging project.
Moving on, here are a few basic guidelines for positioning your artwork:
Gallery Walls:
These do not need to create a nice, neat square or rectangle – consider an offset shape that creates a visual balance.
Hanging pieces side by side or stacked
Be sure to leave 1” – 3” between pieces, depending on the size of the piece (larger items can have more space between them).
How high should you hang it?
Standard:
Most pieces should be hung at a standard eye level (60 in from ground to centre of artwork).
Above a sofa or bed:
Minimum 6” above the back of the sofa or headboard, and no more than 10”.
Above a console table or sideboard:
Generally 4” – 6” – there may be exceptions, especially if there are other artwork pieces in the room, in which case you’ll want to align the centers of the pieces of artwork with each other.
Above a mantel:
For most mantels, we recommend 3” – 6” above.
Additional tips:
For hanging artwork on plaster walls, place a piece of painters or masking tape where the nail will go BEFORE hammering – this will keep the wall from splitting.
Carry a magnet in your tool pouch or pocket – this will give you quick and easy access to nails, without the risk of choking on them!
Remember scale when selecting which pieces will be hung where – ensure that large walls have a large piece or grouping of small pieces, and smaller walls are host to smaller display pieces.
Have questions about becoming a Home Stager, or just starting out and need an extra boost in your business? Join our Facebook group, To Be a Home Stager – our very own Shauna Lynn Simon is live online every Thursday afternoon, answering your most pressing questions!
We get it, you’ve watched all of the home renovation and home sale shows, read all of the online articles and tips regarding setting up your home to sell, and you have found every home selling checklist available online, so why would you need to take a home staging course? I have often heard future home stagers say that they shop for home decor all the time, they have decorated and redecorated their home a gazillion times, and my favourite, “I don’t need to take a course, I watch HGTV all the time, and I know that home staging is all about removing clutter and personal items.”
These reality shows have really put the home staging industry in the spotlight over the last few years, and have helped homeowners to better understand the importance of preparing their home prior to listing it for sale. But, while these shows provide the basics of what this preparation involves, they don’t provide the full picture of what it really takes to properly style and STAGE your home in order to evoke the emotional connection that your prospective buyers are looking for.
Every home is one of a kind, and it should be treated as such! You as a home stager are providing a value to your clients, so you need to show them that you are a trained expert, qualified to assist them with their home. Each home deserves the right attention with specific recommendations, geared towards their home, from an expert that specializes in doing just that, in order to highlight the home’s greatest features.
So what are these articles and lists NOT telling you? The following are just a few of the things that a trained home stager will learn, through our professional home stager training program, and many years of experience:
1. Where to place YOUR furniture so that the room remains open and inviting, while maintaining function and flow
This does not mean simply moving all of furniture to the edges of the room. This means understanding proper traffic flow, as well as the latest furniture styling trends. We help you to evaluate what should stay, what should be removed, and where to properly position furniture to optimize flow, eliminate awkward spaces, and highlight the best features of the room.
2. Shelf Styling
By far one of the trickiest decorating techniques to master, this is the art of filling the shelves to catch your eye, without diverting attention from the room. This means selecting the right size and style of pieces to compliment the space and the shelving unit, and understanding the balance between too little and too much.
3. Paint Colour selection
Just because a colour is popular or trendy, does not mean that it’s the best one to use when selling a home. Colours should be selected based on lighting, home style, and the colour of the finishes of the home. Sure, we all have our favourites, but each colour is selected to best suit the home.
4. How to find the best local trades to provide your clients with the best services, at the best value prices
A successful home stager will spend time forging valued relationships with highly skilled trades to ensure that all clients receive quality work, every time. Working with professionals will also allow you to build a reputation within the industry for your designs.
5. Where to shop for the final touches and accessories that your home needs
Home Stagers spend more time than anyone shopping for home décor items and finding the best deals. This is valuable information for your clients, regardless of whether or not they’re selling their home. Of course, the easiest solution for your clients would be to simply hire you to provide them with the accessories and accent pieces that their home needs. We’ll show you how to build and maintain your inventory so that it continues to bring in profits.
6. Which updates/upgrades will most benefit YOUR house in YOUR market, neighbourhood, and price range
Home Stagers not only evaluate what upgrades and repairs would add to the value of your home, but we look at what will help to increase it’s overall sell-ability – upgrades are not worth much if they’re not the right ones to entice the specific buyers of the home you’re working in. I once consulted on a home that spent a great deal of money replacing their kitchen, but for their target market, their funds would have been better spent doing other repairs to the home and minor updates to the kitchen. Understanding the value of each of these recommendations for every type of home, and the return on the investment into these, is critical to the success of any home stager.
7. How to make a bed
Forget what your mother taught you – making your bed before work, and styling a bed to sell a home are completely different! I can’t tell you how often we see this common mistake in listing photos.
8. How to utilize a piece of furniture for an alternate purpose
This does not mean putting an end table in an office and calling it a desk. It’s about thinking outside of the box when it comes to finding the right piece, often within your home already, to fulfill a purpose for a room and help to clearly define the space. A quality home stager provides solutions to their clients, especially when replacing all furniture with rental items is not an option.
9. How to enhance curb appeal
Yes, cut the grass, trim the trees, and mulch the gardens, we know that you have that covered. But there is so much more to exterior styling. If buyers are not engaged with the home before they get to the front door, your sellers could potentially lose out on that sale. We are property stylists, and we want to be sure to create an inviting space, inside and out.
10. How to maintain function and daily life, while living in a staged home
We understand that it’s not easy to maintain a show-ready home! Experienced stagers have seen it all and are prepared to provide clients with easily implementable solutions to help them to get through the day-to-day. Of course the best part is, in a professionally staged home, your clients won’t have to maintain it for long before it’s SOLD!
A Professional Home Stager provides the specific recommendations that will help to bring in the buyers and sell their clients home. Learn everything you need to know to be successful in a home staging career. You won’t just learn WHAT you need to be successful, but you’ll learn how to build on your experience, your knowledge, and provide quality service every time.
Have questions about becoming a Home Stager, or just starting out and need an extra boost in your business? Join our Facebook group, To Be a Home Stager – our very own Shauna Lynn Simon is live online every Thursday afternoon, answering your most pressing questions!
To learn more about our home stager certification training program, click here.
A glimpse at Shauna Lynn’s upcoming book! The following is an excerpt from the only home staging book of it’s kind – learn the truth about the home staging industry!
Expected release date: Winter 2017
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Most home staging courses will sell you on the big picture, selling you on the opportunity to put your creative style to great use by transforming homes and producing magical masterpieces, but the truth is that there is a lot more to it than that. While I list the following as the “cons” of the business, the truth is that they can actually be the best part of the business; they’re simply not the part that gets most new home stagers excited. I can remember the first time I booked multiple consultations on the same day – I had truly arrived! My business was really picking up, and I was getting more and more comfortable with each client meeting. I still wasn’t doing a great deal of larger projects, but I was enjoying watching these houses transformed, and I knew that I was providing a valuable service to these homeowners. I was establishing myself as an expert in my field, and homeowners and agents were taking my recommendations as intransigent. I was enjoying meeting the homeowners, learning their stories, and assisting them with preparing their homes, regardless of the scale that I was doing this on.
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The Cons (Things you may not be expecting as a home stager)
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Consultations are your bread and butter
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We all want the dramatic transformations, but every large staging job starts with a single consultation. Your main bookings when first starting out are generally owner-occupied home staging consultations. This means that the homeowners live in the house, and will continue to live there for the duration of the listing until the house sells, and it is your responsibility to advise them of the areas that they should address in order to increase the value and sell-ability of their home. In these cases, it is generally not practical to remove all of their current furnishings and accent pieces to replace them with the pieces of your choice. Ideally, it is best to work with what they have where you can, and replace only what is necessary. This means that walking into every consultation your end sale may only be the price charged for that consultation (depending on your location, this can range from approximately $150 to $400). In a consultation, you are simply advising the homeowner on what they should do, but you are generally not actually implementing the recommendations on their behalf. You may offer this additional service, but most will choose to simply do this work themselves.
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In cases such as these, it’s easy to feel like you’re not a part of the process the way that you had hoped to be. You’ll need to ensure that you provide the homeowners with clear direction for your vision, and some will interpret this information better than others. In most cases, you likely will not have a return visit prior to the formal listing of the house, so your opportunity to review the changes made will be through the online listing photos only. As your business grows, you may find that you are selling more and more additional services that will allow you to return to assist with the final preparations, but if it is not cost-effective for the client, they will choose to simply go it alone.
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Not every house is clean
This was actually incredibly shocking to me, though it seems like such an obvious expectation in this business. I had been in some not-so-clean houses growing up, but nothing prepared me for what I would see. I’m not talking about the houses that have too much clutter and piles of stuff everywhere, I’m talking about absolute filth. Socks are a part of my company’s dress code and must be worn for every client meeting. While my stagers may not always understand and appreciate this, they certainly do when they find themselves standing in a pile of dirt, beside the dirty diapers left on the floor, and whatever the dog has left behind. The most amazing part to me is that all-too-often the homeowners in these cases really don’t realize that this is not an acceptable standard of clean to their potential buyers. This requires a firm but sensitive hand, to help them to understand the importance of cleaning, what that standard of clean is, and how to get their home to a higher level of clean. An effective stager is one that is respected by their clients, while they proceed to tell them everything that is wrong with their house. If you can leave the home on your terms without having the clients toss you out, and still manage to get your point across as to what is needed to be done, you can consider your efforts a success. In my bartending days, I was known for getting the highest tip average from the guests that I cut off. It is not a skill that everyone can master, but those that do will find the most success.
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…to read more, you will have to wait for the release of the book! Stay tuned for details!
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Have questions about becoming a Home Stager, or just starting out and need an extra boost in your business? Join our Facebook group, To Be a Home Stager – our very own Shauna Lynn Simon is live online every Thursday afternoon, answering your most pressing questions!
handling capabilities, so be sure to select the one that best suits your needs. Standard 
art of filling the shelves to catch your eye, without diverting attention from the room. This means selecting the right size and style of pieces to compliment the space and the shelving unit, and understanding the balance between too little and too much.
and styling a bed to sell a home are completely different! I can’t tell you how often we see this common mistake in listing photos.
This was actually incredibly shocking to me, though it seems like such an obvious expectation in this business. I had been in some not-so-clean houses growing up, but nothing prepared me for what I would see. I’m not talking about the houses that have too much clutter and piles of stuff everywhere, I’m talking about absolute filth. Socks are a part of my company’s dress code and must be worn for every client meeting. While my stagers may not always understand and appreciate this, they certainly do when they find themselves standing in a pile of dirt, beside the dirty diapers left on the floor, and whatever the dog has left behind. The most amazing part to me is that all-too-often the homeowners in these cases really don’t realize that this is not an acceptable standard of clean to their potential buyers. This requires a firm but sensitive hand, to help them to understand the importance of cleaning, what that standard of clean is, and how to get their home to a higher level of clean. An effective stager is one that is respected by their clients, while they proceed to tell them everything that is wrong with their house. If you can leave the home on your terms without having the clients toss you out, and still manage to get your point across as to what is needed to be done, you can consider your efforts a success. In my bartending days, I was known for getting the highest tip average from the guests that I cut off. It is not a skill that everyone can master, but those that do will find the most success.