Home staging contest winner gets a new look for the market, June 15, 2009

Home staging contest winner gets a new look for the market

 

By JENNIFER GISH, Staff writer

First published: Sunday, June 14, 2009

Neil Bindelglass moved the sofa one last time, shifting the smaller loveseat into its place -- positioned at an angle at the entry of the dining room.

He stood just inside the double-door entrance and surveyed the home as though he were a buyer, appreciating the smooth traffic pattern through the living room and the view into the kitchen that extended -- via the windows behind the neatly set table -- into the backyard.

Suddenly, Penny Trieb and Jay Emerson's 1,900-square-foot Colonial in Halfmoon was a different house from just a few weeks ago when Bindelglass, professional home stager and organizer, toured the house and suggested what changes the couple could make to inspire a quick sale.

Trieb and Emerson were the grand prize winners in the Times Union's "Save or Our Sale" contest, in which Capital Region homeowners explained why they were in need of home-staging help.

Their problem? A home built in 1979 that hadn't quite shed all of its '70s design details, like the avocado green bathroom fixtures and a kitchen that looked like it should be serving up lots of casseroles made with canned soup and sprinkled with celery salt. They listed the house on Craigslist at the end of March, but have had no serious offers.

Their "Save Our Sale" prize was free home staging by Bindelglass, whose Hudson-based Let Me Organize You serves the Capital Region. Typically, buyers pay him between $1,500 and $5,000 for his staging services, which can also include organizing.

Trieb followed Bindelglass with notebook and pen as he toured their house, offering up a list of suggestions for how to make buyers overlook the home's flaws and concentrate on its assets. A couple of weeks later, Bindelglass returned to stage the house by moving furniture and setting tables in a way that would make potential buyers view Trieb and Emerson's four-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath house as their own home sweet home.

The changes were evident right from the foyer. He'd asked Trieb and Emerson to neutralize the decor by removing family and vacation photos from the entryway's walls.

Buyers need to be able to see themselves when they move right in, so family photos make buyers remember they're in someone else's house, rather than visualizing it as their own.

Vacation photos and college degrees also had to come down throughout the house, he said, because they lead buyers to make assumptions about the homeowner and then compare themselves to those assumptions. If a potential buyer isn't as well-traveled or well-educated as the seller, they can't envision the home as theirs, Bindelglass said.

Trieb and Emerson's home also suffered from limited natural light, so Bindelglass offered a quick fix: Take the curtains down. It made rooms that seemed small and closed-in -- like the otherwise tastefully decorated guest bedroom upstairs -- look larger and fresher.

And, Bindelglass said, removing curtains isn't a bad idea from the start because buyers -- even knowing that window treatments and wall colors are easily changed -- will dismiss a house over decor.

"You want to give (buyers) as little ammunition to dislike as possible," he said.

Of course, the largest challenge in the home was overcoming the dated elements, like colorful bathroom fixtures and drab kitchen cabinets and countertops. In a house priced at $225,000, as this home was, the couple doesn't need to invest in renovations, Bindelglass said, but needs to stage it well.

Trieb and Emerson followed all of Bindelglass' low-cost, limited-work suggestions. Trieb painted her cabinet doors (previously wood-finished) with high-gloss white to match the face of the cabinets. She painted the lower half of the kitchen walls, previously dark wood, in the same crisp color. And she replaced the dated knobs on the cabinets with inexpensive brushed-nickel options.

Suddenly, the copper-toned laminate countertop looked modern and as if it belonged there.

Removing a small kitchen island and the pot rack above it also showcased the kitchen's ample space. If the couple were willing to invest in new appliances -- even basic models -- Bindelglass said it would make the kitchen appear even more modern.

As for the bathrooms, all of them received new lights and medicine cabinets, drawing the eye away from the dated fixtures.

The robin's egg blue toilet in the master bath was replaced by a white one, and switching out the shower curtain with a fresh one (and new curtain rings) disguised the blue bathtub/shower.

In the living room, Bindelglass had the couple remove two large pieces of furniture and he arranged the furniture on an angle and away from the walls, showcasing the room's ample approximate 12-feet-by-19-feet dimensions and creating a lane that leads buyers into the dining room.

Abandoning the instinct to position furniture against the walls and instead moving it toward the center of the room actually highlights a room's space, Bindelglass said. It makes the buyer believe that a room is "big enough that you can have furniture in the middle of the room and still walk around it," he said.

After logging many hours painting and packing, Trieb, who has listed the house with the For Sale By Owner Web site, said she's ready for an open house and is hoping they'll be able to sell soon.

"If nothing else it's not necessarily the way I would have it, but I like the way it looks," she said.

And hopefully, she said, buyers will, too, allowing Trieb, Emerson and their 3?1/2-year-old son to move on to their own dream home.

Jennifer Gish can be reached at 454-5089 or by e-mail at jgish@timesunion.com. Want an up-close look at Trieb and Emerson's home? They're hosting an open house from 1 to 4 p.m. today. The address is 106 Staniak Road, Mechanicville.