Increase sales, listing price, and viewings with the power of light!
“Staging” a home is a term that means using interior decoration, home accessories, and the layout of furniture to increase the appeal of a property. An often overlooked aspect of this is lighting. More than just using the main ceiling light and maybe a lamp on a sideboard, lighting can show off your home’s best features (and hide its worst) to maximise your market appeal.
Lose the lived-in look with lovely luminaries
When you live in a home for a while, it becomes more comfortable than chic, more familiar than fashionable. Unless you’re one of those lucky people who can be bothered to keep every part of your house looking like a showhome across the years, you’ll need to take some time to stage your house to appeal to the buyers. And lighting is an important part of that mission.
Using light design can increase the positive feelings your buyers get from online listings, or when they come to a viewing. Light gives texture and dimension to your interior decoration scheme and makes your house look cleaner.
What techniques should you use to light your staged home?
Give people a better sense of the space by varying the types of lighting. Having only table lamps, or only standard lamps can “flatten” your room, so vary it up. We recommend three sources of light of different types. A practical reading lamp by an armchair, an elegant standard lamp in a dark corner (also emphasises the height of the ceiling), and an avant-garde chandelier from Laura Ashley up above, for example.
Rope lights, like the type you can get from glow.co.uk are another way to add a warm glow to the room. Adding these type of low-energy LED strings of lights to a recess in the ceiling give a great uplight effect. Just try to make sure you don’t have a flashing Christmas light look or you could put off more people than you attract!
If you’re scratching your head about all of this, there are plenty of interior designers in Scotland with a wealth of experience in lighting design. Some specialise in house staging, so call in the cavalry! Oh, and make sure you’ve got the best light fixtures in place for your property photography session, in order to get the most impact on your real estate listing.
Use nature’s lighting – the sun
Never underestimate the positive effect of natural light. Glasgow houses are lucky that they don’t have deep eaves to throw too much shade, and windows are generally huge. However, surrounding buildings and unfortunate interiors can reduce the already weak Scottish sunlight, so use these tips to boost it:
- Get your windows cleaned, inside and out. The difference it can make can be surprising! If you live on a road with busy traffic they get even dirtier, so clean them regularly.
- Use tiebacks to gather voluminous curtains — especially the blackout type — so they are pulled away from the glass.
- If you have access and permission, trim overhanging branches that shade the windows. Just make sure it looks neat and not too brutal — trees make a lovely view.
- Watch what happens during different times of the day. Remember, people can request viewings at odd hours, so cater for a range of natural light angles.
Of course, all these tips can help anyone who wants to attract people to their property including landlords who wish to advertise to the right kind of tenant, and even home decorators who just want to zhuzh up their pad for themselves.
Enjoy this lightbulb moment.
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