At Spade and Archer Design Agency we do things a little differently. It started with leaving calling cards like our vintage radios and culminated in an entire revolution of our industry with things like Guaranteed Home Staging® "Pay-At-Close" home staging and our instant pricing, and booking tools.
One of our innovations along the way was the "Buffet Set Up." Many stager "set" the table with place setting of dishes at each chair. We found this look to be too contrived and predictable. It felt forced and fake. The last thing we want is for our buyer to feel like they are being bamboozled into buying a house.
So for a few months we tried only putting a single center piece on our dining tables. We found that this left the tables looking like a massive empty void in the listing photos. The listing photos are the first thing a buyer sees, so vacant empty dining rooms in the listing photos was simply not going to cut it.
Our compromise was to stack the dishes as if the table was about to be set. A nod to interior design photo shoots and giving the photos a bit of interest without being overwhelming and predictable. We called it the "Buffet Set Up" and it has been wildly successful.
Under each of the top dishes is a sassy note asking folks not to set the table for us. It explains that we left the dishes this way on purpose. We find sellers get a laugh out of the note and understand why they hired us the first place.
Houses staged by Spade and Archer sell for more money and faster than the general market. So what are you waiting for?