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Home Staging Services

Designed to Appeal offers many services to improve the appearance and attractiveness of your home, whether for you, a buyer or renter. In addition to staging vacant, estate-condition and owner-occupied homes, we also offer home staging consultations, quick staging for photo shoots, open house preparation, and the staging and marketing of rental properties in the Hamptons. And if you are not selling or renting your home, we offer interior redesign services to make your home comfortable and attractive to you, with an eye towards future resale value.

It’s important to start with a Consultation because:

  • All owner-occupied homes, before being put on the market, can benefit from professional advice and an objective eye.
  • The basic goal is to make the home “move-in ready” and remove buyer objections, but ultimately have the buyer fall in love and have to live there.
  • While some homeowners take our recommendations and do it all themselves, a consultation is required before we are engaged to stage an owner-occupied home.

During these uncertain times due to the threat of COVID-19, we are also offering virtual staging consultations to protect both us and you.  Using photos, or better yet, a video chat via FaceTime, Zoom, or Skype , we will do what we normally do in our in-person consultation.

A Consultation includes:

  • Discussion of your goals and expectations
  • Walk-through of the house or apartment with “buyer’s/renter’s eyes”
  • An assessment of furniture, decorative accessories, artwork, room focal points and balance, paint color and condition, flooring color and condition, lighting adequacy, traffic flow, clutter, curb appeal, and updates and repairs needed, among other things
  • Completion of a detailed, Action Plan for each room and outside
  • Paint color recommendations, if required and time allows
  • List of qualified, preferred resources provided (e.g., painters, handymen, etc.), if required
  • Transformation of a portion of a room to several rooms if time allows
  • Proposal of staging and other services, including estimated costs, for those recommendations you don’t want to do yourself

The Consultation is a minimum of 2 hours including the time to prepare the report, but can take longer for large properties. Our fee varies depending upon the location of the property and the amount of time. Contact us for more information on our fees.

A Home Staging Consultation is required before we are engaged to stage your home. Working from our detailed Action Plan we prepared in the Consultation, we implement some or all of what is necessary to get the home in show-ready condition:

  • Clutter elimination, organizing and storage, or a referral to a professional organizer
  • Arranging for enhancements and repairs such as painting, plumbing fixtures, lighting, flooring, window treatments, landscaping and curb appeal enhancement
  • Spending time evaluating what furniture and decorative accessories are needed to fit the style of the home and the profile of the target buyer
  • Room makeovers using existing furniture and decorative accessories (for example, decorative objects and artwork)
  • Furniture rental or purchase, if necessary, to supplement existing furniture
  • Shopping for additional decorative accessories (for example, bedding, throw pillows and towels)
  • Placing all of the furniture and accessorizing each room
  • Once your property is listed, promoting the listing through social media (Instagram,Facebook, twitter), in our newsletter, and on our website
It’s important to stage vacant spaces because:

  • Empty rooms appear smaller than they really are
  • Without a frame of reference, it’s incredibly difficult to tell the scale and size of a room
  • Vacant houses and apartments appear soulless and no emotional attachment is felt when the buyer walks into a room
  • Small defects will stand out because the buyer will have nothing else to look at
  • Buyers think the owner is “desperate to sell so they don’t have to carry two mortgage payments, taxes, utilities, etc.”

Transformation of a vacant or model house or apartment includes:

  • If necessary, recommending and arranging for enhancements and repairs such as painting, floor refinishing, plumbing and lighting fixture replacement, landscaping and curb appeal enhancement
  • Taking careful measurements and photos of each room
  • Spending time evaluating what furniture and decorative accessories are needed to fit the style of the home and the profile of the target buyer
  • Working with a furniture rental company with whom we have a relationship, we choose furniture, lamps, area rugs and non-original artwork
  • Selecting for rent by you original artwork from an art gallery with whom we have a relationship (optional service)
  • Renting to you or purchasing for you additional accessories such as bedding, throw pillows, towels, decorative objects and some non-original artwork, and delivering these to the property
  • Waiting for the furniture delivery and properly placing the furniture
  • Placing all of the accessories and hanging the artwork
  • Packing up our accessories, and in some cases, supervising the removal of the rental furniture, when the property is sold
  • Once your property is listed, promoting the listingthrough social media (Instagram, Facebook, twitter), in our newsletter, and on our website

Contact us to schedule a free visit to your property in Manhattan and the Hamptons so that we may provide you with our formal proposal with more detail on our services and your investment in staging.

Estate condition apartments are ones where the deceased homeowner has resided for a long time, personal clutter has accumulated, and the furniture and décor have not been updated, sometimes in decades. We specialize in transforming these “ugly ducklings” into presentable showplaces so that the heirs can realize the maximum value of the property in the shortest period of time.
Transformation of an estate-condition house or apartment includes:
  • Recommending and arranging for enhancements and repairs such as painting, floor refinishing, plumbing and lighting fixture replacement, landscaping and curb appeal enhancement
  • Evaluating what existing furniture and decorative accessories can be used in the staging
  • Arranging for the storage, donation or disposal of unnecessary furniture and other items
  • Taking careful measurements and photos of each room
  • Spending time evaluating what furniture and decorative accessories are needed to fit the style of the home and the profile of the target buyer
  • Working with a furniture rental company with whom we have a relationship, we choose furniture, lamps, area rugs and non-original artwork
  • Selecting for rent by you original artwork from an art gallery with whom we have a relationship (optional service)
  • Renting to you or purchasing for you additional accessories such as bedding, throw pillows, towels, decorative objects and some non-original artwork, and delivering these to the property
  • Waiting for the furniture delivery and properly placing the furniture
  • Placing all of the accessories and hanging the artwork
  • Packing up our accessories, and in some cases, supervising the removal of the rental furniture, when the property is sold
  • Once your property is listed, promoting the listing through social media (Facebook, Instagram, and twitter), in our newsletter, and on our website

While we recommend a full staging, it’s important to do at least a Quick Staging for Photo Shoots because:

  • Because over 90% of buyers start their search online, the rooms must appear attractive in photographs or else you are a mouse-click or swipe away from losing a potential buyer
  • While not ideal, it can somewhat accomplish the same goals as a complete staging when time and budget don’t allow

The Quick Staging includes:

  • Editing and/or rearranging the homeowner’s furniture and decorative accessories
  • Possibly adding some of our own attractive decorative accessories for the shoot

When it’s just enough stress to get yourself, the kids and the pets out of the house for the big showing, never mind get your home in show-ready condition, we will come in and do it for you:

  • Properly make beds, fluff up the throw pillows, store away toys and last minute items
  • Quick clean the kitchen and bathrooms
  • Do anything else necessary to get your home ready for the Open House

Interior redesign involves many of the same techniques as owner-occupied home staging,however it focuses on improving the home for the homeowner, rather than the buyer, with an eye toward resale value:

  • Clutter elimination, organizing and storage, or a referral to a professional organizer
  • Implementing and/or arranging for enhancements and repairs such as painting, plumbing fixtures, lighting, flooring, window treatments, landscaping and curb appeal enhancement
  • Room makeovers using existing furniture and decorative accessories (for example artwork and decorative objects)
  • Shopping for furniture to supplement existing furniture
  • Shopping for additional decorative accessories (for example bedding, throw pillows and towels)
  • Placing all of the furniture and accessorizing each room

As a homeowner in the Hamptons, Donna Dazzo, President of Designed to Appeal, has successfully rented her home every summer since 2001. Rental homes need to be positioned attractively to potential renters just like a home for sale.

  • We start with a Home Staging Consultation (see above) and then implement our recommendations
  • We take appealing photos of your home and yard using a wide-angle lens camera,or you can engage a professional photographer
  • We prepare eye-catching descriptions of your property
  • We place photos, description, amenity list, etc. on two, high-traffic vacation rental-by-owner websites(Note: our fee does not include the website listing fees)

Contact us for the service you need and an estimated cost.

Our Approach to Staging Your Home

Our ultimate goal is to make a buyer or renter fall in love with your home and have to live there:

  • We first eliminate buyer/renter turn-offs such as clutter, dirtiness, repairs and updates needed, and smells, among other things
  • We then assess the style of the home or apartment as well as the likely target buyer/ renter demographic
  • We portray a lifestyle to them that they aspire to, through the use of just the right furniture and accessories, using what you have, or through rented or purchased furniture and decorative accessories
  • We don’t cast a wide net hoping to attract any buyer
  • Through our staging, we position your home as a product that needs to be marketed just like any other product
  • We make your house feel like a home; we don’t skimp on furniture or accessories and we pay close attention to details
  • We want to sell or rent your home for the highest possible price in the shortest amount of time (see our Staging Success Stories and industry Staging Statistics) .