Arlene - our realtor hired the stager - and she paid for it! I thnk she got a good return on her investment - quick turn around eliminating a lot of the marketing expenses she'd incur if the house was on the market longer.

Our house hadn't been redecorated for at least 15 years and we had been living mainly in Santa Fe for about 4 years prior to the sale so we hadn't focused at all on updating things, except some repairs. Definitely you could say it looked "dated" - a typical midwestern colonial, with an 80's look.

The stager was probably in her early to mid 30's. She had previously worked as a consultant. She had good taste, and was tuned in to what the target demographic (her!) was looking for and responded to. She had the MBR painted beige - I guess a happening color - which didn't go with our comforter cover, area rugs etc. So she bought a new spread and pillow shams, got rid of the window treatments and rugs, rehung some art. In one of the guest rooms (which she subsequently referred to as "the former Laura Ashley bedroom") she got rid of the spread, dust ruffle, window treatments, changed the art and put on a beige spread with brown and blue pillows. Brown is especially big now, I guess. Her biggest transformation was our basement - half our basement was finished - carpeted, with a fireplace and panelling - all done in the 50's - we never changed it - and although we had some twin beds down there for when our nieces all visited, it was enjoying life as a computer and junk graveyard - really a mess. She had that painted, put in some new track fixtures, and turned it into a fourth bedroom.

Although this is embarrasing, here's a link to her before/after pictures. (The befores were taken before I had done a thing...) She makes comments on the pictures about what she did.

before/after staging pictures

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