Setting the Stage for Selling Your Home

Home staging by Stage It!

When Realtor Karen B. Mendenhall entered the real estate business in 1993, she envisioned working alongside her husband in the field forever.

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) surveys show 77% of buyers’ agents said staging a home made it easier for a buyer to visualize the property as a future home.

However, by 2005, she saw an opportunity to capitalize on both her love of furnishings and her love of real estate by entering the field of home staging. Around since the 70s, home staging has gained popularity in recent decades thanks to the proliferation of real estate reality TV shows. The goal of staging is to make the home appealing for a faster sale and, theoretically, for more money. In home staging, a variety of techniques are used, ranging from adding furniture and accessories to painting and renovations. The end goal is to give potential buyers a more attractive impression of the property. “It is a fallacy that only high-end houses need or deserve this 'facelift' in order to get top dollar,” Karen said, adding that, “all houses deserve it.” Within one year of starting her business, she secured another employee, and by 2008 she decided to quit real estate altogether and go all in with home staging. She has never looked back. 

Home staging by Stage It!

According to the NAR, staging the living room for buyers was found to be most important, followed by the master bedroom, then the kitchen.

Today, her company, Stage It!, in Matthews, is one of at least 30 Charlotte-area home staging companies.

Tina Whitley, a local realtor with Allen Tate, agrees with Karen. Whether through a professional stager or simply taking advice from a realtor, every home needs a thorough decluttering. Tina elaborated, “Every home should be "staged" to some degree before putting it on the market. I tell my sellers that they are moving, so pack up what extras are in the house, make it look like a magazine and get ready to move!” That well-appointed, pared down interior helps buyers see their own furnishings in place, creating a more dynamic connection.

According to several sources, 2019 is trending toward creamy whites with pops of mid-tone blues, natural materials such as rattan on furniture, brushed gold light fixtures and hardware on cabinets, wood flooring, and quartz or marble counters.

Though trends may change, Karen doesn’t see staging “going by the wayside. The way you live at home, and the way you sell a home and the way you market [it] are two different things. I think we’re almost a relief in allowing us to do this work for them.”

RAW to Reclaimed Woodworking

“I do love the smell of wood. All wood does something: it reacts differently, cuts differently, smells differently.”

— Ryan Watkins

Photo by Cyma Shapiro

To Matthews resident, Ryan Watkins, owner of “RAW (his initials) to Reclaimed Woodworking,” each piece of lumber, each piece of wood has a story to tell. “You can [often] feel the history of the wood,” he says as he looks around his new 2000 square foot warehouse (4002 Matthews Indian Trail Road) with wonderment and pride. On this day, he’s looking at pieces of ash, maple, walnut, oak, and antique pine.

As he’s working with these pieces, he says, he imagines the pilots standing around smoking cigars – a recycling of history and of raw materials, now used in another place and time.

Photo by Cyma Shapiro

He’s most proud of the 1840s pine planks resting in his shop, which came from Minnesota after being torn down from a barn originally used for WWII glider pilot training. As he’s working with these pieces, he says, he imagines the pilots standing around smoking cigars – a recycling of history and of raw materials, now used in another place and time.

“I do love the smell of wood. All wood does something: it reacts differently, cuts differently, smells differently,” he said. For Ryan, utilizing all his senses when creating something out of wood gives him both fulfillment and purpose. It is now also his undeniable passion.

In 2017, Ryan hung up his Matthew’s Fire Department captain’s uniform and fireman’s gear for the last time. With 17 years on the force, he was tired, injured and in need of a Plan B. He had a wife and two children; their well-being was foremost on his mind.

Although Ryan had always tinkered with his hands and with materials like wood, about one year earlier, a designer-friend asked him for his help with some small custom projects. This would be a weekend and night’s project.

Photo by Cyma Shapiro

Later that same year, he was offered the opportunity to make 24 table tops with oak veneer plywood, for a South Carolina group opening a restaurant. He was game, but only had his 250 s.f. of work space in his garage. A scramble to find an appropriate location landed him in his new warehouse and his new life-path was soon carved out. Joined by his wife, the office manager, this became a team effort.

Photo by Cyma Shapiro

To Ryan, using both new and reclaimed wood, recycling has become a metaphor for starting over.

“Taking a pile of lumber and turning it into something, that’s where the satisfaction is,” he said. “A lot of it is to put it on the workbench and see what you can do with it.”

He is working hard and diligently to chase his dream. “I’m nowhere near the peak where I want to be,” Ryan said, adding that he watches other long-time woodworkers who are successful and is following their lead. “We’re going to grow; we’re going to reach for the stars. Watch out IKEA!” he said with a laugh.

We’re watching.

RAW to Reclaimed Woodworking
R2Rwoodworking.com
704-200-5374
@raw2reclaimedwoodworking