LET'S SELL YOUR LISTING!

Welcome to Spade and Archer Design Agency! This blog series is designed to educate our clients on how best to use our services because we operate pretty differently than most home stagers. 

If you are new to us, welcome aboard! If you are already a loyal client of ours, save some of these email topics if questions from your home sellers ever arise. 


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Selling your home in an unpredictable and ever-changing market can be maddening. Doing everything you can to successfully sell a home these days starts with a strong digital presence.  Buyers are browsing hundreds of online photos everyday looking for the perfect home. In our "swipe left or right" culture, we’ve become extremely efficient in our decision making as consumers. How the home looks in pictures is critical, and home staging is the boost you need to make a great first impression to create momentum for a quick and lucrative sale. 

Selling a home is one of the most stressful things you can do in life. Home sellers come to us overwhelmed and uninformed about how to prepare a property for market every day. Luckily, this is our specialty! We've made the process of getting your home ready to become a gorgeous listing as easy as possible. Listen to first-time home seller, Craig, tell his home selling and home staging story while moving his family of six out-of-state at the same time!

In this Blog series introducing Spade and Archer, we’ll talk about some major points:

  • Why home staging works

  • What return on investment you can expect from staging

  • How we're the no-risk home stager

  • How you can get an Instant Price at any time

  • How to re-list a stale property and actually sell it

  • When you'll receive discounts from us

Choosing the right stager for your home is a big decision.  You have to trust a professional to design for the ideal demographics of home shoppers. Spade and Archer design managers are staging experts with more than a decade of experience selling homes quickly and for a higher asking price.

We’re looking forward to getting to know you as well. Always drop us a note with your questions!

WHERE IS INTERIOR DESIGN GOING NEXT?

It been an interesting few years for interior design. We are finally starting to see Mid-Century-Modern design start to fall out of favor with younger generations. (Every Gen-X'er reading this just gasped and every Millennial just breathed a sigh of relief). When speaking to Millennials and folks from Gen-Z I am hearing the same stories over and over again. “We are so bored with mid-century modern, enough already.” I get it, it is the next generation’s job to rail against the design oppressions of the generation that came before them. See examples: high wasted jeans, hair scrunchies, Uggs. 

So if mid-century modern is falling out of style where are we going next? I would like to introduce you to a new term… “Memphis-Deco”. I am seeing it pop up all over the place. Memphis-Deco is the combination of two distinctly different styles from two different periods of the design oeuvre. First off let’s talk about the history off the two syles that Memphis-Deco is derived.

Memphis Design can best be described as everything you saw in Pee-Wee’s Play House. Memphis designed furniture, fabrics, ceramics, metal and glass objects were wildly popular from 1981 to 1987. The style was inspired by the forms of Art Deco and the colors and patterns of Pop Art, which were popular at the time. Memphis was well-known for its use of bright colors, geometric shapes, bold patterns, curved forms and zaniness. 

Deco, on other hand, short for Arts Décoratifs, is characterized by rich colors, bold geometry, and decadent detail work. Having reached the height of its popularity in the 1920s, '30s, and '40s, the style still brings in glamour, luxury, and order with symmetrical designs in exuberant shapes.

Example of Art Deco at the Tulsa Club Hotel (1927) Copyright: ©2019 PHOTITECT LLC COURTESY OF THE TULSA CLUB HOTEL

By combining these two styles we see a toning down of Memphis and a livening up of Deco. It is almost as if the two were meeting in the middle. Memphis Deco has all of the aspiration of Deco while still maintaining the obtainability of Memphis. I have a feeling this style will be around and popular for the next 10 years and can help you design your next room with some staying power. 

Example of Memphis-Deco at the Proper Hotel San Francisco features a striking look masterminded by famed interior designer Kelly Wearstler. Photo curtesy of THE PROPER HOTEL SAN FRANCISCO

TO CHOP OR NOT TO CHOP? (THAT IS THE QUESTION.)

We have been staging houses for over 14 years, from studio apartments to multi million dollar homes, and not once, ever, never have we “chopped” a pillow. I like to describe it as a favorite writer of mine once described the “Trump Grill” in midtown Manhattan. “It’s how poor people imagine rich people live.” 

Chopping the top of a pillow was originally done when all sofas and all cushions were filled with pure goose down. After a land owner or their guests would sit on a sofa or a chair, their body weight would leave the down cushions deflated and looking wonky. Once they had left the room, the staff of servants would enter the room and fluff the down cushions back to their original shape. Some landlords wished to have a strong visual cue that the pillows had been fluffed and thus the harsh “chopped” top became the norm in some households.

In the luxury space, the chop can easily be attributed to a trend in new money circles and scoffed at by multi-generational old-money. It is now used as a tell-tale sign as to how long money has been in a family. If the cushions are “chopped” it says “We have had money in our family for less than one generation.” Not chopping the pillows says “We have had money in family for multiple generations and understand that the chopped aesthetic is… bourgeoisie.”

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HOW TO HANG ART, PART 6: ABOVE A CASE GOOD

At Spade and Archer Design Agency, we define a case good as any non-upholstered piece of furniture such as a desk, buffet, dresser, or a credenza.

When selecting a piece or pieces of art, we use art that is at least 50% as visually large as the case good but no more than 100% as large as the case good. In this shot we can see the artwork is about 75% as large as the buffet. We center the artwork on the case good, and hang the artwork about 4” above the back of the sofa to the bottom of the artwork. Note, 4 inches about the size of your fist from the pinky to the thumb. We are never afraid to place a lamp or lamps in front of a piece of art and love the way it gives the room a depth of field.

Get your instant home staging price now by clicking here.

THE NEW MEANING OF "COCKTAIL TABLE"

When it comes to furniture, there are a lot of confusing and conflicting terms that many people aren’t familiar with. This is especially true with occasional tables. So what exactly is an occasional table? Unlike a kitchen or dining table, an occasional table is one that you use only occasionally. Think of it as a piece you use when you’re lounging about or when company comes over. This includes end tables, cocktail tables, coffee tables, accent tables, sofa tables, and console tables. Let’s talk about two of them, the coffee table vs. the cocktail table. In casual conversation these terms that have been used interchangeable for a long time. But alas, there is a new type of table taking on the use of the term cocktail table because it holds exactly one cocktail. 

Photo by Crate and Barrel

For a long time both of the items "cocktail table" and “coffee table” have been used to mean a low tables meant for use in the living room or den. Usually in front of a couch (or sofa, or davenport, or loveseat or one of the 20 other various terms we use to mean sofa). They are useful for filling out a room, displaying decor or accessories, and entertaining guests. As the words “coffee” and “cocktail” suggest, they are the perfect place to set a beverage. Most are between 16” and 21” in height and should be chosen based on the height of your sofa. Manufacturers craft both types of tables from a wide range of materials; from hardwoods, to metal, wicker or glass. Also I we will find ourselves using the term coffee table in this case and the term cocktail table will now mean an entirely different type of table. 

Photo by Ballard Design

The cocktail table has recently been reinvented by furniture manufacturers the world over as a small, heavy based table with a small stem and single dinner plate sized top designed to hold a single cocktail. It is often placed directly adjacent to soft seating as shown here. I am in absolute love with the cocktail table and hope they catch on as they add such whimsy and delight to a sitting room. 

Photo by Crate and Barrel