How Does a Home Stager Spend a Workday?

A home stager's average day varies depending on what the schedule might be. If she is actually staging a house, that can be an all day job. Other days are typically taken up with providing consultations, doing estimates and shopping for home furnishings. The first area that a home stager will take care of is the consultations. A stager may be booked through a realtor that they may work with, or directly through the home owners. The stager will make an appointment to visit the house to assess its needs. This appointment can take 1 to 2 hours.

The stager will look at a variety of aspects of the house. Does the house have curb appeal? Is the yard overgrown? Is there enough lighting in the house? Does the furniture make sense for the size and style of the house? Does it need a fresh coat of paint? Does the house need to be de-cluttered? Is the furniture old and worn out? The stager will also be making notes about anything they might have that might work for a particular space. After the consultation the stager will then give the owners a list of instruction to help them prepare the space. This could mean hiring a storage space, and packing up everything but the essential items the owner might need. It may mean having the owner's do a fresh coat of paint or bringing in a professional cleaner to give the house a top to bottom cleaning. The stager will follow up the consultation with an estimate.

When an estimate is accepted, a stager will spend part of her day inventorying her own furniture. Most stagers have a basement or storage unit filled with furniture and accessories that they use for staging houses. If they don't have the right pieces to go with the style of the house they're working on, they will have to go out and shop for it. Accessories such as pretty ornamental pieces to fill up a shelf or a painting or small table might be something that a stager will buy because they can use again and again.

The actual staging of a home can take all day. The stager will spend a good deal of time, bringing in plants, furniture and accessories to brighten up the home. This may take several trips if the stager is bringing a lot of accessories. The stager may need to do some last minute shopping, if the decorating hasn't gone to plan, for instance if an owner offered up a piece of furniture, then packed it away at the last minute. The stager may also have to wait on rental companies to deliver large pieces of furniture, like a sofa if they are staging an empty house. They may try the décor in several different ways before they find a way to show the home in the most pleasing way. Some stagers prefer that the home owner isn't around for this. Once the home is staged, the stager will photograph the place for his own portfolio and lock up.