When staging a home, each room should delight potential buyers by displaying the home’s natural charms. In the bedrooms, this means making a beautiful and welcoming bed. Of course, if the homeowner has already moved out, they likely took their beds with them. To bridge the gap, it is a common “staging trick” to throw a few pillows and comforters over cardboard boxes and air mattresses instead, but should you?
Professional staging is about making a house feel like home to touring buyers. If you take this shortcut, it could result in safety risks and a negative perception of your staging quality.
The Risks Involved in Using Blow-Up Beds and Cardboard Boxes
Staging is not just about photographs. Many buyers want to tour the home in person during a private visit or an open-house event. This means that each staging choice you make must be not only beautiful, but also safe.
If you stage your bedrooms with blow-up beds, there is a high risk of deflation over time and punctures that are inconvenient or costly to fix. Air mattresses, especially the type large enough to stand in for an entire bed, need daily top-ups which, if neglected, can cause your entire bed staging to slowly sink.
Using cardboard boxes or a deflating air mattress also poses a significant safety risk. Imagine a buyer, weary after a climb up the stairs, takes a seat on the edge of the bed only to tumble as it gives unevenly under their weight. Or a buyer’s child who flops onto a bed that collapses beneath them.
In addition to the safety risk, you may also give a negative impression to both your client and their buyers if presentation issues occur during showings. This can potentially damage the stager’s professional reputation if staging elements begin to fall.
Perception of Staging with Non-Traditional Materials vs. Traditional Beds
When showing a beautiful home, each piece of furniture you stage with should also be beautiful. There is a big difference between staging with makeshift materials like boxes and blow-up beds compared to making a lovely presentation with a traditional bed. Blow-up beds and cardboard boxes give a temporary and unprofessional appearance to your staging.
It is important that staging play a role in elevating a listing to create an emotional connection with buyers through elegant and traditional furnishings. Your goal is to influence buyer perception to see the best in the homes you have staged. Traditional furniture creates a more aspirational and luxurious ambiance, while temporary and faked furniture subtly gives the impression of a makeshift and less desirable lifestyle.
Elevating Listings: The Role of Staging
Home sellers rely on staging as a strategic marketing tool. Each home you stage should show its best when your work is done, using artful furniture arrangements to accentuate the architecture, light, and flow of a home. Well-executed staging can create a lifestyle narrative that resonates with potential buyers, causing them to imagine a bright and promising future ahead.
Carefully selected furniture and decor can help tell a compelling story about the lifestyle that a property offers to future residents and owners. This means you require a cohesive design, color scheme, and layout to enhance the property’s natural features and inspire each buyer’s love for the space.
Best Practices for Effective Home Staging
Without taking any shortcuts, stagers still face the challenge of setting beautiful beds in each staged bedroom. One option is to use the homeowner’s own furniture. Another is to rent bedframes, then pay the rental company to assemble, then disassemble, the beds when they are transported.
However, many stagers put together their own collection of lightweight furniture that can be used across many staging projects. ZINUS bedframes, for example, consist of a simple frame that is easy to transport and assemble. The minimalistic style provides stability while lifting the mattress off the floor so that the pillows and comforters can do the rest.
These methods can allow you to always prioritize safety, aesthetics, and the emotional connection of buyers to the space.
Inspiring and Responsible Bedroom Staging
When staging bedrooms, there’s no need to take unprofessional shortcuts like boxes and blow-up beds. Staging should aim to elevate the listing and create a positive impression. Invest in quality materials and thoughtful design to achieve the desired impact. With the right strategy and style, you can achieve the potential long-term benefits of effective staging through property value and market success.
By avoiding the use of blow-up beds and cardboard boxes, stagers can uphold professional standards, prioritize safety, and create a more impactful and aspirational experience for potential buyers.
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