See How a Stager Made 3 “Dark, Dated” Rooms into Bright, Cozy Oases

Home stagers are experts in helping home buyers imagine their dream homes — no matter what home they’re standing in. They can not only transform the whole feel of a space into something that’s completely the opposite of how it felt before, but they’re also experts at leading prospective buyers to see themselves in a living room, a dining room, a kitchen — so much so that buyers will pay top dollar to try to obtain it and make it their own. 

San Antonio-based home staging company and winner of multiple Real Estate Staging Association awards Staging Studio knows how to do this well. I spoke with its CEO, Andress Eichstadt, who walked me through how her team changed three different rooms in three different homes on the market from dark and cramped to bright and airy — and helped all three get sold, fast.

The first room, a living room, was formerly “dark and dated.” Eichstadt says, “This home needed so many updates prior to listing it on the market, but the sellers had no budget for major improvements.” However, with the addition of furniture and a few cost-friendly tweaks, the stagers completely changed the house. 

“First, we took down the drapes,” reveals Eichstadt. “That was free!” She goes on to explain the reasoning behind this small change with a huge impact: “Doing away with the window treatments significantly brightened the room and made it look more like a new-construction home, which do not typically have curtains.”

In addition to removing the curtains, the stagers wanted to get rid of the wallpaper. Eichstadt says that “removing the wallpaper was not going to happen, so we had the homeowner dig out leftover paint from the garage and paint right over the wallpaper.” This was another free change. In fact, the only thing the owners had to pay for to transform this room was a chandelier from Amazon, which was just under $88. 

The result of these changes? The house no longer felt like “grandma’s house” and, according to Eichstadt, it sold immediately. 

The second room was in a home that sat vacant for five months. “Without staging, it looked dark, small, and downright depressing. The listing’s price was reduced by a whopping $135K and it still would not sell,” says Eichstadt. 

She pinpoints the problem as the space being left empty. “Vacant homes look smaller and it can be difficult to visualize where the furniture would go,” she explains. Prospective buyers wonder if there’s enough room for a dining table or where you’d watch TV. “Staging answers those questions,” Eichstadt states, explaining that it’s “essential to show how the space can be used and to breathe life into the home.”

The addition of a dining table, complete with a rug to define the space, shows that the space has plenty of room for buyers to cook, eat, and live. The couch facing the wall allows buyers to see where they’d hang a TV and assures them that a living room area in this room feels comfortable. Staging makes it possible to envision actually living in the home, which is key to getting the home to sell. 

And sell it did. “After we staged this property, it went under contract in 30 days for $30K over asking,” Eichstadt shares. 

The third room showcases a really fun space with an internal fireplace that felt not only dark, but also tricky to furnish. Again, this was a case of a room being left empty — it was hard for buyers to envision how the space could be used. And again, staging answered this question. 

“Strategic furniture placement shows buyers how they could use the challenging space, with traffic flow around the central fireplace,” says Eichstadt. The addition of the rug defines the living area, and soft textiles like the upholstery, pillows, and blanket soften the hard lines of the room. “Bringing in light-colored furniture, rugs, art, and accessories transformed this listing,” says Eichstadt. 

In addition, the stagers used mirrors to brighten up the space. “The mirror on the mantel reflects lights,” says Eichstadt, adding that mirrors “solve a lot of problems. They help reflect light in dark spaces like this one.” The home with the fireplace was on the market for 155 days and took a $50K price reduction before Eichstadt and her team were hired. After staging, the sellers accepted an offer in just over a month.