Staging for the Holidays

With the holidays upon us, it’s time to Stage your listings to make the homes feel cozy. Although you want to keep to the plain accoutrements, there is nothing wrong with adding a bit of holiday color to your Stagings. With the right settings, you can bring a bit of holiday spirit to all that enter the home. In what ways can you add a bit more color without making too many changes to your place settings? 1. Small Adornments – Setting out a few holiday adornments doesn’t require too much investment or rearranging of the Staged areas. Simply adding red, green or white candles about the room can begin to make the entire area seem more festive. Perhaps a properly placed snow globe next to one of the candles could add more to the ambiance. There are so many little additions you can set out to compliment the stage such as bulbs or plastic poinsettias. 2. Color Coordination – Of course keeping with your home’s color scheme could be an important aspect to your Staging. Luckily, holiday fixtures can come in a variety of colors, designs and styles to fit nearly any home decoration platform. The one aspect you need to refrain from is placing holiday ornaments or decor that contrast from the room’s colors. You don’t want to focus the buyer’s attention on the items, but you do want them to see it seasonal. For example, red candles placed in a room consisting of blue hues will stand out too much. 3. Lighting Decorations – Although many of us like to go wild on the lights around the home when we are living it, but not everyone appreciates the same choices of illumination, so it important to keep any lighting modest and simple. It doesn’t hurt to add a few lights around the home or on a tree outside, but keep it within reason. For instance, a string of lights across the fireplace mantel can pull the attention of the potential buyer to the elegant features of the hearth, but stringing them around each and every window may be a bit overboard. 4. Draw Attention to Features – Too many additions to the home can take away from features that the potential buyers may find interesting. However, you can use holiday Staging that draws their attention to some of these more endearing aspects. Add a one-foot tall ornamental Christmas tree to a breakfast nook to grab their attention to the space. Perhaps a garland stretched across the top of a lavishly designed bay window can catch the eye of the potential buyer. 5. Christmas Tree – A tastefully decorated artificial tree can go a long way to represent the holiday spirit. While a tall tree can accentuate the vertical space within the room, a wide tree can make the room seem much smaller than it actually is. If you want to use a Christmas tree, make sure it is tall and as thin as you can make it without it looking like a pipe cleaner. You want your guests to marvel at the space in the room, not step over tree limbs to get to the other side. Staging for the holidays can be fun and give you ideas of how you want to decorate your current home. Just make sure not to overdo the decorations and keep the lights to a minimum. Although you want to demonstrate the holiday spirit, you don’t want it to overshadow the objective of demonstrating the home. Author Bio: This post is contributed by Linda Bailey from housekeeping.org. She is a Texas-based writer who loves to write on the topics of housekeeping, green living, home décor, and more. She welcomes your comments which can be sent to b.lindahousekeeping @ gmail.com.