Successfully selling a house comes down to making your buyer feel comfortable and at home from the moment they walk through your front door. A major part of preparing your house for photographs and showings involves a great deal of minimizing, which sometimes leaves rooms feeling bare and unwelcoming. Thankfully there’s an easy fix, and it might even help you with the stress that comes with selling a home.
Flowers have a therapeutic effect on us, the site and smell alone can lift your spirits and soothe your mood, perfect for that stressful time of buying or selling a home. Flowers also tie a room together, complement furniture, or act as an accent on an otherwise uninteresting surface. Here’s a quick guide to how flowers and greenery can, and sometimes can’t, help your home selling experience.
FOR PHOTOS
Professional interior photographs, be it for a magazine or for a real estate listing, are generally shot from around waist height. This means that tall or bulky arrangements on tables and countertops usually end up blocking the view of a room rather than complementing it. Flowers come in all sorts of arrangements, but those that work the best are usually slim, small and minimalist, allowing the room to be see through them.
Tall or complex arrangements work well against walls or in floor vases where they aren’t blocking anything important. Entry ways for example look great with tall floor vases with long sticks as they don’t block the passage and add a vertical accent making the ceilings almost feel higher.
FAKE VS REAL
There’s nothing wrong with fake flowers, provided they’re used tastefully. Professional stagers typically use small accent greenery on side tables, office desks, shelves and in bathrooms. These can be found at most furniture stores for as little as $5, making them a cheap and easy way to liven up an otherwise stale shelf or surface. Fake orchids are popular for staging as well as they are thin and unobtrusive while adding great visual appeal. They can also be found at almost any furniture store or even grocery store.
The biggest advantage to fake flowers of course is the fact that they won’t go bad, and depending on how long your home stays on the market this could be a big money saver.
FRAGRANCE
Smell is very subjective and I recommend going the safe route and keeping to relatively odorless flowers. Be it allergies or a different sense of smell, the last thing you want is for your potential buyer to remember your home as the one that smelled or the one that made them sneeze uncontrollably. Stick with Dendrobium, Cymbidum and Vanda Orchids, Gladiolus, Calla Lily, and Lisianthus flowers to avoid these problems. These look great and they are more or less odourless.
LIFESPAN
Selling a home is an unpredictable undertaking. Some houses sell in hours, others in weeks or even months. Despite my most sincere hopes that you experience the former I have to cover the less appealing scenario in the event of your home spending more time on the market. Most flowers can live comfortably in your home for one to two weeks, obviously depending on the specific cut, season etc. Some flowers that require little to no maintenance are Phalanenopsis orchid Plants, Pin Cushions and Spider Chrysanthemum, which are great if you have already moved out or are spending limited time in the home. Avoid spring flowers as they typically do not last very long and are the most fragrant.
Greenery and sticks are perfect for long lasting decorative arrangements as they require little to no maintenance at all. Remember that arrangements can also be made to look full or larger using sticks and greenery. Choose a type of flower and surround a few of them in greenery, complemented by various length sticks to make a $50 arrangement look like a $500 arrangement.
***TIP***
Renting a vase is a fantastic alternative to buying those big expensive vases you see in magazines and showhomes. Some flower shops rent out vases for a fraction of their original price. Save money and space when you move by returning the vases you rented instead of having to pack them.
