Last week my sister, Pat, and I worked our proverbial tails off beginning the process of staging my house for sale. I have a three week period to get the house ready and there is much to do.
We worked in many areas of the house but the room that was focused upon first was the den. We both agreed that this room would be the most challenging since it was filled with personal items. It was also too crowded with furniture and lacked a defined purpose…was it a library? a room to listen to music? a museum?
Before: Books, books, books.
Before: Too much furniture.
Before: Lots of interesting things…but reads as clutter.
So, we plunged in! After The Bearded One looked over the books to select a few to take to our new, much smaller abode, Pat boxed the remainder of the books to go to auction. She took the time to box them in categories to make them more attractive to future buyers but box them she did. 30 boxes of books…nearly 1000 pounds of books!
Pat worked her tail off moving all those books!
Then we did the same with the 500 albums. (Sigh. I know. The Bearded One is a “collector”.) Finally, we had a clean slate. We washed down all the shelves and pictures left in the room. It was time to stage!
We regrouped the paintings on the wall and centered the couch.
The first vignette. Exercise tucked in a corner.
We decided that one activity that could take place in the room would be exercise. One area of the bottom shelves was stages with hand weights and a yoga mat with my stepper between the shelves and the couch.
The first vignette. Exercise tucked in a corner.
Then the shelves were staged to show that they can be used to highlight objects and store items in an interesting manner. The myriad collection of unique items that we found among The Bearded One’s belongings provided an interesting and colorful arrangement. We were careful not to pack the shelves with items but leave lots of breathing space.
Much less clutter. It is fun to look at all the interesting items.
The room can breathe now.
We continued to demonstrate uses of the room through vignettes. The second vignette is for gaming or television watching. I added the big screen television to the room (we will need it for the new place anyway) and we moved the gaming consoles into this room.
Remote control and gaming control in a vignette in easy reach of the couch.
The last vignette is a comfy reading spot.
A quiet spot to read a book.
Now, the room is clean and tidy. It is interesting and useful. It calls out to come to spend time enjoying the room. The room has become an asset to the house!
Hard work pays off!