Bedroom Home Staging

When you stage a bedroom, you have to consider who will be using the space and how to best target your staging theme to best meet that user's need for a tranquil retreat.

Task 1. Assess the color palette

When we stage a bedroom, we choose a color palette that is calm such as sandy beiges, pale blues, and soft greens. These colors are all found in nature and have been shown to have a calming effect on people. Just what we want when we stage a bedroom. But we don't want to put our prospective buyers to sleep! So we add interest in the form of texture, contrast and accessories so that the bedroom is memorable.

1. Choosing wall colors

We will usually choose from four paint colors when we stage bedrooms. These (all Benjamin Moore colors) are:

• Cedar Key OC-16 - A rich, soft capaccino beige which allows white mouldings to really stand out.
• Cape Hatteras Sand AC-34 - Our go-to taupe when we want to add drama or just mix up the colors between bedrooms.
• November Rain 2142-60 - The most versatile soft shade of sage green we've ever found - it goes with anything.
• Whispering Spring 2136-70 - Our favorite soft, barely blue shade is the perfect color to impart a restful mood to a bedroom.

Using a specific color set allows the bedrooms to flow from one to another more easily than having distinct color sets for each room.

We always use an "eggshell" finish when we paint walls. It has a slight sheen to the paint which allows light to reflect off of it making the room brighter and it cleans up much better than a flat paint.

2. Choosing moulding colors

With very rare exception, we will paint mouldings a semi-gloss white. It is a bright white and makes the trim and moulding more noticeable. Stained wood mouldings are usually just cleaned and gone over with a furniture quality polish to let them shine.

3. Dress the bed

For bedding, we prefer to use colors you would find in fine hotel linens - white or off white. Choose sheets, pillowcases and bedspreads in these neutral shades. We also like to buy new linens if possible. They will look crisp and clean if you keep them just for showings. If you have a down duvet on your bed, consider folding it at the foot of the bed, or storing it under the bed in a box for showings. It is practically impossible to make a down bed look neat on short notice. Just dress your bed with a spread right over the sheets. It will lay flat and you will not have to worry about the bed looking messy or lumpy.

The bed is where you can add punches of color to provide interest and contrast to the room. Throw pillows are much less expensive than buying shams and come in a rainbow of colors. Here is where you can add your navy, persimmon, or sunshine yellow. Punches of color add a personality to the space without being taste specific. (We try and coordinate these punches of color on the bed with the window coverings whenever possible. It helps continuity and keeps the space from becoming too busy - remember, it's supposed to be a restful retreat.)

Most of the time you will need a bed skirt which will hide the box spring and all the stuff you've stored under the bed! We prefer tailored bed skirts and not gathered ones. They are neater. Better yet, look for a bed skirt that is heavyweight such as matelasse or canvas-like. Bed skirts are very hard to iron and never look good unless they are perfect, so opt for a tailored one that doesn't need to be fluffed perfectly to look good. Choose white or off-white to match the sheets you've chosen. Clean, crisp and fresh.

We always want to keep the room as bright as possible and natural light from the windows is always the best light to have.When you dress windows, you are looking to frame them and soften the hard angles, not cover them. Adding a fabric window treatment also provides texture. We will usually try and coordinate the window coverings with the bed pillows - it is an easy way to add color without going overboard. Stick to simplelong panels that hang on either side of the window or a very simple valance over the top of the window. We like the simple window treatments and basic color selection at Country Curtains.

During the decluttering step, you eliminated furniture other than the bed, nightstand(s), and one dresser. This will keep the room looking spacious and the pathways clear. For the master bedroom photo shown here, we have included a sitting area in front of the fireplace. This happens to be a huge master bedroom, and having a sitting area by the hearth shows how the space can be used. Notice also that there is nothing blocking the view through the windows or the pathway to the windows. In staging this master bedroom, we have kept the color palette neutral. The eye is drawn immediately to the beautiful view out the window. The off-white bed linens do not distract from the key selling features of this room: its size, the fireplace, the beamed cathedral ceiling, the huge windows and the cleanliness of the flooring and the room itself. Not shown are the periwinkle pillows at the head of the bed which coordinate with the book cover on the coffee table and the agapanthus blooms on the fireplace hearth. Repeating the

periwinkle blue allows the eye to move through the room. This bedroom beckons you to "come and sit down and rest a bit". Just what you want a bedroom to be. What home buyer could resist the temptation to linger awhile in this room?!

With all the decluttering you've done in the bedroom, you don't want to fill it back up again!

• We usually put a live plant or simple fresh flower arrangement on a nightstand or on the dresser. Fresh plants and flowers give life to a room.
• In a case where there is a reading chair (such as in the photo above), we usually will display a hard cover book without the jacket that picks up on our accent color (used on pillows or draperies). Make sure the book is not taste specific - cookbooks are good choices, perhaps a current novel or something on history are fine.
• An alarm clock is okay on the nightstand but all furniture tops should be cleared off.
• Lamps will provide lighting for the bedroom but can also be considered accessories. Make sure that the lamps you choose coordinate with the overall decor of the room and are not too ornate or thematic. Clean and interesting lines on lamps make for great pieces to stage rooms, such as in the bedroom example shown below.

Every staged room should have wall art of some kind. Art can add more color and texture to a room that you are having trouble finding the right accessories for, and it can be used as another device to keep the eye moving around the room. By having different elements in the room (furniture, draperies, art, lamps, etc.) all at different heights, the eye will keep panning up and down as it moves through the room. It makes the space less monotonous.

Choosing art for a staged room need not be hard. You may have the perfect framed piece in your home right now. Landscapes, abstract art (such as the piece in the photo on the right) and astill life are good, non-taste specific choices. On our resources page, we give you a few of our favorite places to purchase inexpensive art for staging. You will want to choose art that "makes a statement", rather than just something that fills the space.

If you've been staging more than one bedroom following our detailed instructions, it might be a good time to just step back and take a brief break. Walk down the hallway that connects your bedrooms and look inside, like a prospective home buyer would. Do the bedrooms look and feel spacious? Are they inviting - do you want to walk right in? Do they flow nicely from one into the next? If the answer to these questions is "YES!", then you are done staging the bedrooms.

After your well-deserved break, continue on to your next rooms. Do you want to clean, organize and declutter your living and dining room? Or are you ready to stage the living and dining room?

A few more rooms and you will be a staging pro!

As you have now learned, staging a home is different than interior design. Staging homes is about removing your personality and replacing it with a generally appealing look. Good interior design reflects the homeowner's personality in its scheme.

To find more home staging samples, go to our main staging page and choose another space to stage.

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