Cushing creates a comfortable- looking setting using furnishings she either owns or has rented. The design combines the need for generic appeal and the 'wow factor' that will set this house apart in the minds of prospective buyers. SKY GILBAR/THE FREE LANCE-STAR View More Images from this story Visit the Photo Place

staging: Part of the plan for selling a home s

Staging provides an edge to home sellers when so many homes are on the market

Date published: 11/17/2006

By RICHARD AMRHINE

SO YOU HAVE a house for sale. When potential buyers walk in the door, can they picture themselves coming home? Or are they ready to do an about-face?

This decision could take place in as little as 15 seconds.

The difference can be as subtle as a scent, as obvious as a pile of old mail sitting on a table. You might think your home says "warm and hospitable." But you live there, and maybe you don't even realize what's turning buyers off.

Whether your house is full of furnishings or completely empty, the art of staging can help it stand out among all those other houses on the market.

Leslye Cushing is a certified interior redesigner whose local business, Creative Room Makeovers (creativeroommakeovers .com), aims to do just that.

"You have to consider what the house looks like through the buyer's eye," said Cushing, as she showed a vacant house she has staged in Fredericksburg's Idlewild subdivision.

"The first thing buyers ask themselves is, 'Can I picture myself living here?' Then they think, 'Could I move in Friday and go to work on Monday?'" she said.

For this house, she has combined furnishings she owns and has rented to give several rooms appealing looks.

"Empty houses don't sell. People want an idea of how furniture would fit, or to see a dinner table set and ready for people to sit down," she said.

Located at 1102 Pickett St., the house was built in 2005. The buyer was unexpectedly transferred shortly after the sale and listed it with Joy Jordan, an agent with Weichert Realtors in Loudoun County.

"There are so many houses for sale in there [Idlewild] that I had to do something," said Jordan. She said the $570,900 asking price for the five-bedroom, 3-bathroom home is very negotiable. "You can't just put the sign up anymore and expect a sale. Staging it was part of the game plan from the beginning."

Jordan said she Googled for staging services in Fredericksburg and came upon Cushing's Web site.

"It was just luck," Jordan said. "And it looks so much better than it did just sitting there empty. She told me what she had in mind and I told her to go for it. I don't know anything about that sort of thing."

Follow us on

Date published: 11/17/2006