July 11, 2006
You can't humiliate me! I do it myself. For free.
I'm afraid of my bedroom right now. Well, not the bedroom exactly. More the bed. The big, new, put-together bed.
Remember when I told you that my good friend T. was going to help me stage the house? (Like we were on Designed to Sell? Remember?) Well she came and did the bedroom. It looks great. A little too great.
I'm afraid of it now. So is K. Oh, he will be all manly and tell you that he isn't, but after he walked into the newly put together room he said, "I can't come back in here until after the house sells. None of us can."
The cats are a little put out. They used to spend all day sleeping and shedding and gooping and occasionally vomiting for good measure on my bed. And now they aren't allowed in the bedroom any more. They follow K. around the house (he is the more sympathetic of the two of us if that isn't painfully clear by now) and cry at him. Yesterday they spent the whole day perched on him. When he got up they followed, only to perch again the second he sat down.
The room isn't 100% perfect for us from a design standpoint at this moment, but that isn't the purpose of staging. The purpose of staging (as I understand it and I'm not a designer so I can't say this with absolute certainty) is to fool some poor sucker into buying your too small house by making it appear larger than it is. New light fixtures, mirrors, smoke, doors that go nowhere, it's all legal and purposeful. Our bedroom now appears to be a large, tasteful master bedroom and not a tiny, sloppy warren of bedding, towels, and clothing.
Anyway. The room. Looks great. Too bad I'm afraid to sleep in my own bed. Last night I grabbed my white-noise-maker thingy, spent 10 minutes squinting at it in the semidarkness of Z.'s room, and slept in her twin bed.
Because I'm a good sport and I don't care if the internets see how terrible the before photos are I'm sharing. Just don't look directly at the new bed if you know what's good for you. You might go blind. Your eyes might be permanently crossed. You might get stomach cramps or tremors or the vapors.
You might be afraid to sleep in your own bed tonight.
Before
Before
After
After
I feel your pain. Our entire house is like that right now, and I'm afraid to breathe. We even have little placards up that tell how great each room is, or "did you know" stuff about our neighborhood. Ugh.
Of course, as soon as I let my guard down and actually breathe, I know the phone will ring for a showing.
Wow!! That does look great -- I don't think I could sleep in there either -- wouldn't want to mess it up! Good luck with the sale of your house.
Posted by: Janet at July 11, 2006 5:47 PMWOW!!! Can you bring T. with you the next time you come to Virginia?
Posted by: dana at July 11, 2006 5:54 PMWe did that too then moved to my brother's house so we wouldn't mess it up. Ugh, the joy of selling a house.
Posted by: rungirlrun at July 11, 2006 8:09 PMTell her to come-on-a my house. That looks fabulous!
Posted by: Katie J at July 11, 2006 9:52 PMI hate to tell you but it totally works. Look at us! We're buying a house that was beautifully staged. Similar house next door for less money? Not staged. (Ok, and a dining room not quite big enough to handle our new table). But the truth was revealed today when I saw the clutter in the attic (I imagined the homeowners frantically shoveling stuff into the storage space) and the garage, repository of plastic crap.
No matter, your bedroom looks great!
Posted by: figlet at July 11, 2006 10:14 PMI just have to know...what's on the tray? Is that so that K can bring you breakfast in bed? I know how much you love breakfast. It's amazing to me that people actually live in houses that look like that. It feels next to impossible with kids in the mix.
Posted by: dana at July 12, 2006 8:31 AMWow! That's impressive. It's magazine perfect, I'd be freaked of it too.
Posted by: Stephanie V at July 12, 2006 10:15 AMWhen my daughter was selling her house, she did a great job of staging it. Then she came with her 3 children to my house and stayed until it was sold. Luckily that was only 2 weeks. I loved having her and the kids but it is always hard to have 2 Mommy's in one house. Her poor husband spent most of those 2 weeks at work so he wouldn't mess things up. Good luck selling the house. Your bedroom looks fantastic!
Posted by: carosgram at July 12, 2006 1:14 PMSo this is T., the infamous designer who is keeping you from a good nights rest. I knew you were freaked when I left and that's okay. Just keep telling yourself, resale, resale, resale. When you move in to your new house, you can make it your own, with or without my help (and I will gladly help or butt out!) Please consider...you are allowed to have nice things. You are worth it. You are worth a bedroom ten times nicer than what I gave you. Now go sleep in that bed!
Posted by: T at July 12, 2006 5:24 PMOkay, wow. That's amazing and beautiful. I'd want to be in that bedroom if I were a buyer. You did a great job.
Posted by: Colleen at July 12, 2006 6:06 PMThe bedroom is lovely, but I can't imagine why you'd leave a house with such a nice view (from what I can see). I can see why you are afraid to sleep in there, though. I'd never be able to get the bed looking that perfect again.
We just bought a house last month and I watched far too many Sell This House marathons prior to the house-hunting trip. I had to keep reminding myself to focus on the room, not how the room is dressed. Staging helps - not only does it make rooms look big and light and airy and clean and all that stuff, it also depersonalizes the space so you can imagine it as your house not somebody else's. I didn't like going through houses with tons of personal photos all over - it felt like we were eavesdropping in their lives. I also didn't like the houses with teenagers lounging in bed at noon, but that's another story altogether!
Posted by: jc at July 12, 2006 6:18 PMWow, it looks amazing! What a cool bedroom!
Posted by: erinberry at July 12, 2006 8:24 PMLOVE it! Looks fabulous, where do I make the offer?
Seriously, from someone who's sold a few houses in my day, it totally works.
Do you happen to know right off what the paint color of those walls is? Is it possible that it's Benjamin Moore's 'Green Apple'?
I love that color, and we're painting this weekend!
Thanks!
Pam
Okay. Now *I'm* afraid of your bedroom.
Posted by: Jo at July 13, 2006 4:50 AMI'm imagining you trying to climb into bed without disturbing the perfectly placed tray...It does look like something out of a furniture catalog, though. Impressive.
Posted by: jess at July 13, 2006 1:16 PMWOW! It looks wonderful!!
Posted by: Cindy at July 13, 2006 4:40 PMWow! VERY fancy! I like it, but it would never occur to me to actually sleep in that room either.
Posted by: Amyesq at July 14, 2006 11:36 AMI've never posted a comment to a blog before (really I've only just noticed that blogs exist in the last few days) but I just had to write. I'm DTC this month (I also have a 2 year old son) and someone recommended that I read a few blogs that dealt with adoption from China. I read yours almost completely from back to front while my son was napping yesterday and then read all the way to July 12 this morning. I got a jolt when the photos of your bedroom came up and I saw two etching/monotypes of starlings (the photo is a little fuzzy but I'm nearly certain - the patterns and long dimensions are just right) that I made years ago. It was kind of wonderful (and very comforting) to see them and I had to write and say hi. I have the precursor to those prints -there were 8 of them - hanging here above my desk as I write and weirdly I can hear a starling singing just outside the window. Thank you for your blog - you write so well about the hard stuff and the joy. If you're ever in Virginia, please stop by and visit. I'm right in the middle of the Shenandoah Valley near Lexington. Anyway thanks for the rush on a rainy Saturday morning.
Posted by: Leigh at July 15, 2006 8:49 AMWow. That bed. Wow. I swear I heard a chorus of angels when the picture appeared on my screen. Amazing. The room looks beautiful. HGTV couldn't do any better.
And I understand why you don't want to sleep on it and ruin the perfection. ;-)
1. Hey! My painting was in your bedroom (the comfy before one) and that made me happy.
2. We staged a bit when we put our house on the market but nothing was as sexy as your bedroom. It is very nice! The only reason ours stayed nice enough for someone to consider, was because we were in China and no one was there to mess the place up. Ha! That plan was filled with some flaws--but it worked. They bought it.
3. We bought a house with huge single guy sofas and cheap halogen lamps in every room. I still saw beauty here all the same. Now I am working on making this place mine. I need designer help now more than I did staging my old place. I am afraid I am going to mess something up even though I am so ready to put my stamp on this house--MY house.
4. I love the color of your bedroom too.
Posted by: Tracie at July 17, 2006 8:38 PM