HOME STAGING CONSULTANTS, LLC

My husband and I saw Mary Inden (owner of Home Staging Consultants) at the Home Remodeler's Show when she gave a presentation at State Fair Park. We were very impressed with her "before and after" photos and picked up her business card. Late last winter, my husband and I decided that we wanted to sell our home in the next year or two and gave her a call. Mary was so easy to work with. She told us right away that she wasn't an interior decorator but would tell us what needed to be done to sell the home quickly. Our home had been well maintained but needed some updating as we had lived there 23 years. Mary explained that most people want to move into a house that has already been updated. They over-estimate how much something costs and automatically deduct that from the price of the house. Buyers might think that replacing the carpet will cost $3000 but if you do it for only $1000 you've made the negotiating of the sale price simpler and cleaner. Mary came to our home and walked from room to room. I took notes of her suggestions. She stopped at the jewelry box on my dresser and turned it 45 degrees. Wow, it looked so much better - why hadn't I seen that before? Many of her suggestions were simple like that. Others involved more work..... Such as updating light fixtures and hardware, removing window treatments and painting walls etc. Most of the work my husband and I were able to do ourselves and it was comforting to work off Mary's list. Mary even met me at a local lighting store for an hour to help me pick out new light fixtures. With her measuring tape she knew what the perfect size and style was for each spot. Fortunately, we had updated our kitchen two years earlier so that looked great. But, we knew that we needed to update our master bathroom. I had had two bathroom specialists come and give us ideas and bids. Wow, very expensive. Mary said that we didn't need to do most of the things they had suggested. We updated the counter, sink and toilet for a fraction of the cost of what the renovation could have cost. Mary encouraged us to switch the furniture in the master bedroom with the guest bedroom. I didn't want to but my husband said "let's try, it won't cost anything, and if we don't like it we can always move it back." Well, it looked so much better! Why didn't I think of that myself. Mary had a great eye for things like like that. As my husband and I checked off things on her "to do list", we realized that if we worked hard, we could even get the house on the market by late spring. Which we did. Some of our furniture was very dated and Mary encouraged us to rent some furniture and artwork just before we listed the house. She explained that people look at photos on-line and if photos looked dated, buyers assume the rest of the house is not up to date and might not bother to visit. The last thing Mary did was to "go shopping in my cupboards". She pulled out books, bowls and other things that I already had, and tastefully decorated with them. Three months after Mary first came to our home we put it up for sale. Six weeks later we had an accepted offer. We are so grateful for Mary's practical suggestions and thoughtful ideas. She was fun to work with, never pushy. She saved us from a lot of mistakes, kept us on track and kept me from second guessing my decisions. I am convinced that if it weren't for Mary's help, our house wouldn't have sold so quickly for that price.