Michele Kurelich of Raleigh, NC stages a lot of model units. With such a blank canvas, one might want to know where she begins. Obviously the target buyer is determined by price and location, but which colors to use to tell the story? I caught up with Michele this week, which takes some doing, let me just say, and had a chance to ask her.
“People have heard many of the staging messages out there, and the one they misunderstand most is “beige”. Yes, we want to neutralize each space, but not everything has to be beige. It’s neutral, for sure, but it has no life. We incorporate color in our staging, strategically, to warm up a room and unite each room into a unified, connected, whole home.”
Michele and her team use pops of color to bring a room alive.
In model units, they tend to pick a palette from the hardscaping the builder has already selected. [Hardscaping? Tile, floors, cabinet color – the stuff that’s pretty permanent without huge expense.] Then they head towards something within the color family for more inspiration. This can be a piece of art or fabric. In this spectacular “Arrowhead” unit, it was clearly a piece of fabric. And how current were they? Anyone get their Pier 1 spring catalog in the mail yesterday?
With the color palette in hand, the team sets about giving each room its own look, but staying closely within the selected color palette. Not only does this give the home a unified look, but makes the home feel larger.
Michele Kurelich is one of the SAR trainers; you can study with her one-on-one in our workshops. Click stager training for more intel on our programs.
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