Staged
“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”
- Jesus
Our realtor came with a stager. She rolled through the house and quickly arrived at a short list of things that would ultimately change our lives.
- cut the contents of our closets down by half
- whittle our hundreds of books in our shelves to dozens
- make the house more welcoming from the street
- push some fresh paint on the walls in a few rooms
- get rid of a bunch of things crowding our garage
- make sure the house is really, really clean
- remove some of the furniture from our overstuffed rooms
- repair a few things I had been putting off
- depersonalize the home by removing most of the photos from the museum we had created in honor of our beautiful children
That last one was a little hard to take at first. Weren’t our children the best selling point of our family and our house? Of course, it wasn’t meant to diminish our family, but make room for the acquiring family to more fully envision their family in the home instead of ours.
Then came the real challenge.
We had to keep the home looking staged so that with very little notice, the realtor could show up to walk someone through our home. Luckily, three different potential purchasers competed with one another and the home was sold on the first day, well over list price.
Despite the fact that we didn’t have to live a "staged" life for more than one day related to the sale of our home, we’re still living a staged life over 5 years later.
- We didn’t rent storage for all the things we needed to lean out of our house, we got rid of them.
- We sold a bunch of stuff.
- We donated many things (including game tables to a summer camp and gave almost every book and DVD we owned to a library).
- We got all of our closets, cabinets, and our garage down to bare essentials.
Now, we regularly clean out closets, cabinets, the pantry, and the garage. We try to keep our home ready to receive guests at all times. A guest room with private bath is always set up and ready. The house is kept fairly lean without too much crowding from furniture or too much noise from the clutter on counters or walls.
We work to keep it tidy enough where we would be comfortable inviting anyone to our home on a moments notice. And we keep the house and especially the kitchen very clean since it opens up into our living area. We try to make anyone who comes over feel welcome.
Being ready to receive almost anyone at any time and making them feel welcomed in a comfortable, lean, and peaceful environment has changed the way we live.
How different would your home, your family relationships, even your business look, if you knew that at any moment someone might show up for a visit and take a good look around? How different would it feel to your employees or your family if you cleaned up, leaned out, and simplified some things? How different would it look to live more of a staged life at work or at home?
Consider
- Does your life feel cluttered, messy, and crowded?
- Does your business feel that way as well?
- How much more peaceful would a more "staged" life and work feel?