One Tasteful Step for Mankind

My realtor, He-Who-Looks-Like-Anderson-Cooper, and his associate, He-Who-Looks-Like-Zachary-Quinto, came over tonight to stage the house.

After about an hour of watching two gay men judge my shabby possessions, I flaked out and had to flee to the safety of Target, leaving Precocious Daughter to preside over the proceedings.

Because if you can't feel safe leaving your 15-year-old daughter with a couple of gay realtors, who can you feel safe leaving her with?

D'awww. Also, if need be, I'm pretty sure she could kick their butts.

But seriously. I pretty much lost my shit. I can't even get a manicure because I don't want strangers touching my hands. These guys were moving my furniture around and pushing aside my decorations and replacing them with their own tasteful tchotchkes. Oh, you think they didn't actually use the word "tchotchkes"?

If those plants were real, I'd already have found a way to kill them.

So yeah, I seized on PDaughter's comment that she had eaten the last of the peanut butter and sought sanctuary in Super Target. I bought, you know, fruit and Coke Zero and said peanut butter, and by the time I paid for everything, I had nearly stopped hyperventilating.

I got home just as they were leaving. The house, guys, really does look amazing when it's staged (and I have to admit I'm just a bit proud that they found no need to change anything in my bedroom, mostly because there are Army barracks with more warmth and individuality than my room following my massive de-cluttering effort). The challenge will be to keep it that way until Tuesday, when they actually take the listing photos.

A lot can happen in five days.

So, based on what Anderson and Zachary have said and done while prepping my house for sale, here are my Top Five Tips for Staging a House:

1. The decor that will make your house look best is whatever is furthest away from your personal aesthetic, which sucks.

2. Buyers really want to see a house that's empty. If yours isn't empty (because, you know, you want to live somewhere other than the YMCA), your best bet is to distract lookers with abstract art. Ooooh, colors.

3. Once somebody buys a house, they may decide to paint all the walls black and live on yoga mats. But when they're shopping for a house, they want to see cute little vases with rope tied around the neck.

"I worship Bahomet, yet this folksy
stoneware piece really speaks to me."

4. Nobody actually likes the color turquoise, yet people are irrestistibly drawn to houses with turquoise accents.

What decade is it even. I don't know. TURQUOISE.

5. Right now, there are two things in your house that go together perfectly. You've never put them within 20 feet of each other. Your stager will put them together and make you question your entire life.

My grandma's table. My grandma's mirror. This is a
shitty picture (sorry), but they look amazing together.

And here's a bonus item: If you're selling your house because you're getting divorced, having the realtors come in and arrange everything into a sterile, tasteful version of you will absolutely drive the final nail into the coffin of your relationship with your spouse.

Still: potted plants are nice.

A few cubic feet of mulch in the flower beds, and this sumbitch is ready to list.

Tchotchkes sold separately, sorry.