White Plains Home Staging: Call in the Cavalry

by Susan AtwellHome Staging Success Stories

With only three days to stage this 4,200-square-foot White Plains home, we call in the Cavalry—in the form of Shelley Wells of Altered Interiors in Bedford, NY—to help finish the job she began.

This project starts almost five months prior to AtWell Staged Home’s arrival on the scene.

Project Manager Shelley Wells of Altered Interiors in Bedford, NY, lays the groundwork for our eventual collaboration in home staging. A staging partnership that leads to a dramatic transformation and a truly epic final sale.

We recently presented this project as a case study via Zoom to our Decorating Your Home to Sell (or Dwell) workshop attendees—an audience filled with home sellers, real estate professionals, and anyone with an interest in home design.

At the end of each workshop, we like to feature a special or unique project. For this program, we invite Shelley Wells because she is involved in this transformation from beginning to end and is a key player in the success of this sale.

Before Renovation

After Renovation & Home Staging

Shelley explains how she becomes involved after the original Realtor gives the home owner the following option:

“You could walk out right now. Pack your bags. Step away…I [the Realtor] obviously can’t put any interior photos on the Internet…I can get you $750k. I’ll put one photo up of the front of the house, and I’ll have the photographer take it from 50 feet away…We’ll bill it as a handyman special.”

After hearing this, the home owner consults with Shelley regarding selling the home “as is” versus investing in some fix-ups. Knowing that if the home is fixed up, the true value could be as high as $1.2M, the home owner takes the chance, invests $80k, and the work begins. This is January.

As Shelley describes it:

“We repaint inside and out, face-lift and repair the kitchen, refinish hardwood floors, remove popcorn ceilings, landscape the front yard, eliminate the window treatments, get rid of a tremendous amount of stuff. At this point, the home owner says, ‘I think we’re ready.’ So we call the new Realtor, and he says, ‘We need more help, we need Susan.”

AtWell Staged Home arrives on a Monday in May. We learn that photos are scheduled for Thursday. The prospect of trying to complete this amount of work, with our current resources, on such a short time line is understandably overwhelming, even for a seasoned professional.

Learning that more resources are needed to meet the deadline, the home owner calls in the Cavalry—as I refer to it—in the form of Shelley Wells and her army of four to assist.

We work for two full days. Unwanted items are put to the curb, while other items are stored in the attic and garage. The remaining contents are rearranged to create warm and inviting spaces that buyers will love.

Wednesday is cleaning day, and Shelley and I take a much needed break from the whirlwind of quick decisions and decorating that took place on Monday and Tuesday. We return on Thursday morning with clear heads and refreshed eyes to set the stage for final photos.

The result? This 4,200-square-foot, 6-bedroom, 5-bath White Plains, NY, home listed at $1.1M, sells to the first people to view it for 11 percent over asking price.

To prevent a bidding war, an over-asking initial offer of $1.25M is made and accepted. The final sale price is $1.225M after home inspection and negotiations. Net profit? $395k from an $80k investment. Not bad.

Here’s what home owner Rachel has to say about the results.

“We raised our family of five children in an enormous old Victorian home, gradually accumulating bits and pieces of furniture and a huge collection of possessions. When we decided to sell it, we realized that we needed to do a significant amount of repair work, so we hired Shelley Wells, a construction project manager, to organize and supervise the repairs. Shelley was very efficient and got the repairs sorted in short order, but the house was still packed to the rafters, dark, dingy and disorganized. It was obvious that the next step was to transform our remodeled house into a home that would appeal to potential buyers.

Fortunately, our Realtor recommended that we hire Susan Atwell to take the lead on this part of the job. Susan, with assistance from Shelley and her crew, utterly transformed the house from a randomly furnished, incredibly cluttered dwelling to an elegant, delightful, well-organized and beautifully appointed home. The house became inviting and literally glowed with light. What was so amazing was that Susan accomplished all of this in just two days, using items and furniture we already owned.

Frankly, the transformation was so overwhelming, my husband and I seriously considered taking our home off the market because the beautifully staged spaces were so appealing!

However, we had little time to think about that option because the house sold to the first people to see it. Needless to say, we immediately hired Susan Atwell again to set up our new apartment!”

Rachel F.

White Plains, NY

Before Renovation