When selling your home consider the staging psychology for how your home is perceived.
Best scents for Open House
We experience a room in different ways. The moment we enter, we have an almost instantaneous response – it can either be positive or negative depending upon how careful you pay attention to the subtle nuances of the staging psychology.
Here are 5 important marks to check off when staging your home to sell:
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• The Senses
How we perceive a room with our senses tells us what we know to be true about the room, and provides a way of describing it. Through our sense of sight we can experience colors, each of which will elicit a different impression. Our eyes also pick up on important details such as patterns, scale and lighting.Our sense of smell is tied to memory; a pleasant one will connect us with memories that inspire positive emotions.Stimulate the Buyers imagination and memories of home and hearth with fresh Flowers, lightly scented citrus candles, fresh herbs and spices, delicate essential oils will please our nose and help create a positive mental picture of home.
• Our Assumptions
We usually always have some kind of preconceived notion when it comes to interiors. This can be based on our own past experiences or what we expect from a room’s design. These expectations we have conjured in our heads can greatly impact our experience. By keeping a home predictable, it will add comfort and familiarity, but a few unexpected design elements like re-purposed antiques if used properly can add a element of delightful surprise.
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• Through Intuition
Another way we experience a room is through our intuition, though this one can be difficult to define. An example would be walking into a room where an argument has just taken place, which will feel a little less comfortable. It can also be an area of a home that hasn’t been used in a long time, so you can imagine the stagnant or cold vibe those areas give off. If you feel like your home has any stagnant or lonely corners, you can help it by placing a plant there, keeping the door open, or making sure some natural light reaches the area.Many Feng Shui tips come from following “conventional wisdom” or the things we intuitively know to be good or bad for decorating. For instance, placing a mirror directly across from your bed at night is considered bad feng shui. Intuitively we know that having a mirror across from us at night is distracting, potentially creepy, and not conducive to good sleep.
• Through Our Emotions
Our personal feelings greatly impact how we experience a room, and will usually take precedence over our ability to rationalize. With that in mind, there are many decorating details that can trigger subtle (or not so subtle) emotional responses.Decorations such as art is one example. If the subject matter features a depressing scene or sad characters, then it will definitely bring down the mood of a room. If you had some cut flowers on your coffee table, but they’ve wilted and dried out, that’s another detail that will put a damper on someone’s emotional response. It’s important to think about the kind of symbolism placed in a room and how they might influence our emotions. Other things like low or high ceilings, natural lighting (or lack thereof), and color psychology will all contribute to our emotional response.
• Through Spacial Harmony
If furniture placement and scale is out of sync or doesn’t make sense, it can negatively effect how we experience a room. Chairs that are placed too far away from each other make conversation difficult, while being too close together will make a room feel cramped. It’s important to consider how the furniture and decorations are meant to interact with each other.Choosing furniture to fit the size of the room is also important. Small spaces already have a negative effect on our psychology, so keep small rooms from becoming too crowded. Furniture that is in harmony with and the right scale for the room, and a floor plan that provides a sense of fluidity will greatly improve our perception.As you can see, there’s a lot more to interior staging than just picking a tchotchke; If you keep these principles in mind, when a potential Buyer enters your house, they may not be able to quite explain it, but they’ll know they feel good when they enter your house.