Most of the prep for a staged Ames home happens on one visit, while we walk your house with you, long before any furniture is loaded. We cover the outside, curb appeal included, along with every room inside. At Sell It Well Home Staging, based in Boone, that walkthrough is where the room-by-room plan for your home takes shape. The first room a buyer will see ends up on the first line of our list, because each step gets ranked by how much it changes your listing.
From the Front Door to the Room That Leads the Photos
The list takes shape as we walk, and by the last room every step on it has a rank. The first interior photos in a listing show the first rooms of that house a buyer sees, so the room that will lead those photos goes to the top. Say your living room sits just inside the front door, with the big window facing the street. That room gets planned first, and a back bedroom that appears late in the photos waits its turn. Ranking matters most on a short calendar, since the top lines name the steps that change the listing most. Once that list is finished, we talk through our Essential, Deluxe and Premium packages with you. You keep a written plan that names the rooms and the work we'll do in each.
The Stair Landing Gets Measured Too
Before any piece is chosen, the attention turns from the rooms to the way into them. A professional stager measures each room and also the route a piece has to travel, because a door frame or a stair landing can be the tightest point in the house. A sofa that suits a long basement wall still has to tip on end where the stairs turn, and the ceiling there sets how far it can tip. Door height is easy to overlook, and on a narrow stair the space between the handrail and the ceiling counts as much as the width. A piece that cannot make the turn on installation day would push back the photographer, which is why the route is measured as carefully as the rooms.
Every piece we bring is chosen for the size and the colors of the room it goes in. In a furnished home, your own furniture forms the base of each room, and we add pieces of ours only in the rooms that need more. Standard practice is to sort the owner's chairs and beds into the plan before installation, with some staying put and some moving to a room where they fit better.
The Afternoon the Furniture Arrives
We plan the schedule back from your photo date, which is why we ask for that date on the walk. Once the agreement is signed, a full installation typically takes one to two weeks, and the rooms we stage are ready ahead of the photos. If you're still living in the home, staging usually takes one visit, roughly three to five hours long, set for a time that suits your household. You don't move out, and you don't empty the rooms first. In a full staging, beds come in made up, and lamps go on the nightstands the same day.
After that afternoon, the staging remains in the house until an offer is accepted, typically for a span of three weeks to as long as three months. After the house is under contract, we pick a date to collect the pieces we brought, while the furniture that belongs to you stays in its place. Removal is included, and we coordinate it so our pieces are out before the new owners move in. Through the showings in between, the rooms keep the arrangement planned on the walk.
Have the Photo Date Ready When We Walk
Every decision on the walk gets easier with that one date in hand. Call Sell It Well Home Staging at (515) 238-3795 to set up a walkthrough of your Ames home, and mention the day your agent hopes to photograph, even if it may still move. We'll finish the visit with a ranked list and leave you a schedule that works back from that day.
