Home staging isn’t just about replacing dated furniture with modern pieces or choosing appealing paint colors. One of the most important jobs of a professional stager is to help buyers see themselves at home in your house. It’s a more complex process than you might think.

In today’s day and age, it’s not empty houses that most commonly challenge stagers, it’s empty rooms. What tricks does a great stager use to assign function to a spare room, and what takeaways can help you make your home more marketable?

Consider the Audience
Before deciding what to do with a spare room, good stagers always consider the market and in fact, the specific neighborhood they’re staging in. Do the kind of buyers who will be looking at your home need lots of storage? Are they just starting families? Are they retired and developing hobbies? Understanding the perspective of buyers is key to creating an “ah-ha!” space they can relate to. A third bedroom staged like a children’s nursery isn’t all that appealing if 90% of your potential buyers are in their 50s.

Make Up for Weak Points
It’s always smart to stage a spare room, when possible, to make up for some of a home’s other flaws. A house without a ton of storage, for example, can benefit from a spare room with built in cabinetry or a functional closet system. Think of how you can answer buyers’ complaints using the space you’ve already got. Give them a quiet reading nook if the living room isn’t huge or turn a small guest bedroom into a huge walk-in dressing room if the master lacks a great wardrobe. You’ve got options as long as you’re creative.

Go Broad
It’s great to turn a ho-hum extra room into something exciting but resist the urge to go too far. Avoid any design that’s too polarizing like a Panthers-themed Man Cave or an over-the-top sewing room. The number one rule in home selling is to always appeal to the most buyers possible. Your house is already going to strike different people differently, and the last thing you want is to alienate anyone with the décor choices in any one room.

Don’t Create a One-Off
Once you’ve decided on a plan for your spare room, determine the best way to stage it so it doesn’t look, well…staged! If you live in a traditionally-decorated home, you wouldn’t want your newly-staged guest room to look like a modernist masterpiece. It just wouldn’t fit. Every space in your home should be cohesive, from the colors to the furniture styles, and a spare room is no different. A professional stager can help you strike the perfect balance between “model home” and “Oh, we just live this way!”

Wondering what options you have for a spare room?
Reach out to the team at Creative Home Stagers for an in-home consultation right now.