Staging your home for a volatile real estate market can seem like an exercise in futility. Taste is subjective, after all, and markets change - and change quickly and dramatically. Investing in massive facelifts can left you out of pocket if the market won't support your efforts.
All this said, while taste is subjective and the market ever-changing, good style is timeless. One of the easiest, most affordable and most practical ways to stage your home involves using area rugs. Not only can they add life, warmth, vitality and a fresh feel to any space, they are transferable investment. Unlike that new granite counter-top you spent thousands of dollars installing and have to leave behind, you get to take your rug with you when you move.
Here’s what you need to know about using area rugs to create a staging success story.
1) Furniture, First
You may have to have the rug in place before you can place the furniture, but you want to make sure you know how you are going to arrange your furniture before you place the rug. The rug is used to anchor the room, so you need to have an idea of what it is supposed to anchor.
When it comes to the eternal question of whether furniture legs should be on or off the rugs, there’s only one answer: it depends. What matters most is that the rug isn’t so small that it looks ridiculously dwarfed in the room, or that it is so big it is climbing the floor boards. If you’ve got this covered, then whether furniture legs are on or off is irrelevant. Instead, simply aim for spatial reasoning.
2) Bigger Rugs, Bigger Rooms
A sprawling area rug will make your room look bigger, so in an age where acreage is value, use a larger rug to increase the feeling of spaciousness. Be sure to measure the area before you buy. The rug has to be able to actually fit in your room, after all. Ideally, you want a few inches of floor space showing between the rug and the wall. In a room with beautiful hardwood floors, you’ll want to leave a little more space to showcase this asset - just don’t go too small. A tiny rug squatted in the middle of the room will decrease the size of your room.
3) Match the Decor
You want to make sure the area rug you choose looks at home in your space. When it's at home, people looking into buying your house will feel more at home - and more inclined to make an offer. A geometrically patterned black and white rug in a classical designed room will look out of place.
4) Divide and Conquer
If you have an open concept space, use area rugs to segment the rooms. This will help make it clear that one space actually functions as different rooms. Because the space is open concept, you want to ensure the rugs complement each other, though they certainly don’t have to match. The styles and colours should simply jive.
5) The Warm Up
Tile or slate or even bare hardwood floors can lack serious warmth, so add some comfort to an area with an area rug. It doesn't matter if the colour of the flooring is dark or light: a rug will add contrast and interest to an otherwise cool space. Pro tip: Since dark floors tend to make an area look smaller, use a lighter rug to create spaciousness.
Images from Designer Rugs
