How to choose furniture rental for the perfect home
Furnishing a house is not as simple as it may seem… you need to think of each room separately, and the property as a whole.
Some helpful questions to think about:
- How many people will be living in the house at the same time?
- Will you be entertaining? How often?
- If so how many people do you expect to entertain?
- Will you be having overnight guests? If so, how often?
- Will you work from home?
- Will you need to set up an office?
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How to choose a Home Stager for successful sale
Not all home stagers are created equal. Before hiring a Home stager, there are some things you should consider:
At this time there is no independent national organization such as ARIDO for interior designers, or OREA for Realtors that certifies or licenses Home Stagers, and no government oversight or licensing.Therefore, just like hiring a contractor… you need to choose carefully…after all, you are selling your most valuable asset, YOUR HOME!
Here are some tips to help you select the right stager to help you sell your home:
- Experience and professionalism. Hire the stager with the most real world experience, not the stager with the most letters behind their name, although they may be one and the same.
- Ask to see their portfolio - either on line or hard copy. If they don't have a staging portfolio, in all probability they have never done a staging job, or have never done a good staging job.
- Are you really impressed? If you were looking for a house to buy like the ones in their photos, and you saw those photos on MLS, would you ask your Realtor to make an appointment to see that house/condo?Range of ability Does their portfolio show a wide range of properties in different price brackets or is it all one house/condo? It is important the stager understands what YOUR home needs, and is not just repeating what they do in every home.
- Are the photos of their own work? Ask questions about the house in the photo, such as area etc. You will see by heir answer if they staged that house by their knowledge of the details in it.
- Does the Stager have a good source for furniture? Find out if the stager rents furniture from another source or owns the furniture they will be using in your staging project. Make sure that the furniture that they will be using is appropriate to the style of your home and not just what they happen to have in their inventory at that time.
- Ask for references! Including phone numbers and/or email addresses. Check those references. Ask the reference if they would hire that stager again. An experienced stager will be more than happy to give you a list of Realtors or home owners they have worked with in the past. Calling Realtors is easier – they are usually easier to get a hold of, and probably have worked with the stager more than once so they will probably have a better overview for you.
- Ask to see a house that is on the market at the moment - a busy stager will always have something on the go, they can get you the address and you can visit with your realtor. Yes it requires some time on your part, but if you are un-sure, this is the way to be sure. It will also give you indication if the stager is busy or has been off for a while/starting out.
- Liability Insurance - find out if they have liability insurance. If the stager is not insured, then the homeowner may be liable for any damages or injuries that may occur as a result of the staging. All employees and helpers the company uses should be covered by Workers Comp insurance – this is the law in Canada.
- Is there a contract? Make sure you are given a clearly written contract and that you understand all aspects of the contract. If you don't understand something, or something that you discussed is not in writing, ask for clarification.
- Extra fees - If you are renting pieces for your house, find out what the fee is for extra months if needed. This may change your mind of the original price.
- Gut feeling - Do you get a good feeling from meeting the stager? Do they seem to know what they are talking about? organized? Do they answer all your questions? Do they make notes or take photographs?
- Remember - YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR. You are selling your most valuable asset, your home. Look for the staging professional with the greatest competency, experience and professionalism, rather than the cheapest price.
Home staging As a Profession
Professional home staging career may seem pretty tempting. You don’t need to spend years at the university, you can be your own boss with free time management, the market potential is huge (there have been almost 10,000 sold houses and condos in Toronto just in July) and your income doesn’t have to be limited at all. Everything sounds so wonderful, doesn’t it?
There is actually a lot more to it. You need experience! To be a good home stager, You need to know about Real Estate value in the area you will be working in, you need to know trends, and you will need to be a part time counselor! You must have an eye for space, and attention to detail. You must take a staging course and obtain a certificate you can present to your clients and a great portfolio with good photos to show them your work. With options to rent furniture, you need capital for the beginning. Then your real skills come into question. But first, you have to understand what home staging is.
135 Fallingbrooke
Home staging is NOT home decoration, it’s quite the opposite! While decorating, you inject your client’s personality into his home to suit him the best. On the other hand, home staging means removing the client’s personality from the place. You don’t know who the potential buyer will be – young professional? Elderly couple? Philosophy student? You have to present the opportunities that the property offers, but you have to leave some space for buyer’s own imagination.
To become a good home staging professional, you need great visual imagination and creativity, but also the empathy with various kinds of people. You will arrange dozens pieces of furniture, art and decoration into one coherent composition. The proper eye for detail is necessary – you have to decide whether the candle, bowl of fruits or book along with a pair of glasses will underline or destroy the atmosphere. You have to catch the pros and cons of every property, which call for stressing or downplaying.
Practice a bit. Try it with your home, your parents’ house, your son’s condo and always ask for opinions. Once you are confident enough, start your own business! Leave a few business cards with the local real estate agents, buy some newspaper adverts and check for furniture rental stores around.
Hard days, weeks and months will began. But if you will be able to resist and will constantly deliver great quality with each home you stage, soon you will get some referrals, which will help you to breathe more freely. If you endure some time, home staging business will for sure reward your creativity and determination.
The Ideal Bedroom: Living a life of luxury every night
Your bedroom is the place where you spend most of your life. Naturally, as such, it should be a haven of comfort and relaxation. If you want to save some money on furniture, leave the bedroom as the last option.
Always think about the space. Your bedroom shouldn’t be cramped with furniture and electronic appliances. The centre of this private universe is the bed. It’s the most important piece and all other are subordinate. Don’t hesitate to buy a king size or queen size bed instead of a normal double and believe me, this investment will pay for itself. Match it with your preferred mattress: remember – the softest doesn’t necessarily mean the most comfortable. Your body will be healthier with firmer support.
Bedroom Kelly Wood Queen
Your bedside table or nightstand should be at comfortable height to be easily accessible from the bed. This storage place is intended just to place a book or glass of water on it, so you don’t need anything huge. Don’t place any additional table in the bedroom as you would start bringing your work here and that’s not the best idea on how to achieve relaxing sleep.
Choose lights with adjustable brightness; they will help you to create intimacy when you want to talk with your partner and help you to avoid painful flashes when you have to suddenly turn on the light in the middle of night.
Don’t forget about open space. We want the bedroom to be airy and not hitting a chair or closet after stepping out of the bed. Keep most of your clothes in another room and have just a small place to leave your evening clothes. If you can’t do this, install decent wall to wall closets. Your bedroom should look compact, not like a storage area for various pieces of furniture.
23 Delevan Bedroom
The next thing you really need are good curtains, which will keep you in darkness for the whole night, especially when your bedroom is east oriented (unless you want to wake up 5 am every morning). And that’s it. You don’t need additional chairs, tables, boxes; you even shouldn’t have a TV in the bedroom. Don’t place too many things on the walls, one painting is enough. A bedroom should be a sanctuary of relaxation, not a gallery or museum full of vases and statues. You will have plenty of opportunities to use these decorations in other rooms.
Add quality sheets (400 thread count and more) and blankets, pillows with memory foam and your Heaven on Earth is ready to be slept in.
Furniture Maintenance: Leather
Leather is and always has been the king of furniture upholstery material. Durable, easy on the eye and comfortable... However, unkept leather can quickly turn your interior’s exclusive look into a ‘cheap nightclub’ feeling. If you want your leather furniture to keep its perfect condition for years, you have to maintain it from the very first day. Leather furniture is low-maintenance, not no-maintenance!
sofa white leather
As soon as you get your new piece of leather furniture, you should put leather protector on it. This acts as an additional shield and keeps any dirt from being absorbed deeper into the material and also helps you with cleaning. Light colored leather will benefit from this procedure especially if you have an accidental spillage of coffee or even red wine.
Another dangerous enemy is sunlight. If you don’t apply UV protection, be sure to change the position of the furniture from time to time, especially when just a few particular areas are directly exposed to sun beams on a daily basis. It’s pretty hard to get rid of faded color stains later.
Another natural enemy of your leather sofa is cracking. It starts occurring, when the leather runs out of its natural oil after some time. Moistening products will help you, but you have to use them on a regular basis.
Regular maintenance requires you to clean the furniture every 1-2 weeks with a dry cloth (mainly to get rid of the body oils and salt people leave there) and vacuum it. Apply the moisturizing and protecting treatments 3-4 times a year on the most affected parts (seats, arms) and once a year on the whole surface, including the insides of panels.
What should you do if that glass of red wine or bowl of blueberries finally ends up on your beautiful leather chair despite all your efforts? If it’s polished leather, it’s not such a big deal if you act quickly. Simply wipe off the liquid, dry it and finally you may use a bit of oil to polish it again if needed. Unfinished leather is not a very common material for furniture; in this case you will need to play a bit with leather soap. Buy one made for furniture; like saddle soap for saddles and baby wipes for babies. Similarly, never use silicone polishes, wax polishes or other chemicals which are not intended for leather surfaces! You will avoid many additional unnecessary problems!
10 events to see during the London Design Festival
Looking for the latest furniture design trends? Magazines and websites can never deliver the best. You need to go out and see all the colors, shapes and curves with your own eyes and there are no better opportunities than design festivals. One of the biggest and most famous in the world, The London Design Festival starts in three weeks from the 19th to the 27th of September.
You would need hundreds of hours to visit and enjoy all the events, so unfortunately you have to choose carefully. As a Toronto furniture specialist I have made a list of 10 events that I consider the most interesting for anybody who is into furniture and interior design.
Contemporary furniture
The New Modernists
Viaduct, the sole UK agent for the leading top European furniture making companies, celebrates their 20th birthday with this unique exhibition. The list of designers involved is huge, including Maarten Van Severen, Bertjan Pot, Studio Job, Stefan Diez, Arik Levy and many others. If you want to know something about modern furniture, you can learn it here. It’s my personal favorite.
Molteni & C
Molteni & C have collaborated with Foster + Partners to create exceptional quality furniture with attention to design and engineering, materialized especially in the Arc Table. Moreover, Molteni & C will launch Sofa Chats on 24th September to celebrate and debate the influence of Italian design.
Exclusive furniture
Armani/Casa
As an opposition to the modernists, these traditional Italian furniture professionals offer a selection of luxurious pieces. It’s also an ideal time for the premiere of a new collection of fabrics, created in cooperation with Rubelli. If you demand exclusive interiors, you should start here.
Natuzzi
Designers from the Apennine peninsula are the world leaders in prestigious furniture, as proven by another exhibition of Italian craftsmen, Natuzzi. This year’s choice is leather, but don’t expect leather sofa sets only. Natuzzi (celebrating the 50th anniversary this year) presents the use of leather in a wide range of products from sculpture to photography.
National furniture design
Eyes On Spanish Design
9 Spanish designers offered their creations to present the selection of Spanish attitude to furniture and decoration trends. Contrast of various combinations of (non)traditional materials, simple shapes and manufacturing innovations (with the stress on sustainability) are their key features
100% Norway
If you need to cool down after digesting the works of the southern professionals, try it at this exhibition, organized with the cooperation of the Royal Norwegian Embassy, the Norwegian Design Council, InsideNorway and Innovation Norway. You can see both prototypes and commercial products from the foremost northern manufacturers.
Experimental furniture
Grassworks
Why not devote some of your precious time to this small presentation of experimental furniture by Jair Straschnow. Simple, self-assembly furniture is made of bamboo sheets, using a minimum of glue and screws. Nice and relaxing after the previous orgies of shapes and materials.
Working On Time
Lamm (hosted by Sagal Group) launches a new collection of innovative furniture. ‘On Time’ is represented by folding chairs, which are able to provide comfort together with high flexibility (let’s hope that one day they will replace the horrible chairs we know from our universities). Similarly, ‘Working’ is represented by the concept of a folding and easily storable table designed to create completely flexible working environment.
Installations
White Light
Even excellent interior designs are useless when not seen properly, therefore lights are one of the keys for every home staging professionals. White Light installation combines lighting, furniture and film. Slamp, AVMazzega, Varaschin and Fratelli Boffi have joined forces to present the best.
Colour Creativity and Verner Panton
Peter Lassen’s Montana system is the most versatile storage system in the world with thousands of combinations. With the help of Verner Panton’s lighting, he is going to present the juicy color palette of his system.
