Hi, I’m Karen Prince, author of Secrets of Home Staging: The Essential Guide to Getting Higher Offers… Faster!
Why did I decide to write a book about home staging? When I was a home stager, I met a lot wonderful homeowners who were hungry for information on how to prepare their home for sale. Since their home was usually their largest investment, they had a lot riding on the success of their home sale—and it totally stressed them out! They were desperate for someone to walk them through the home staging process and were looking for advice. Having also worked in book publishing, I searched for a book that would help them out but I didn’t see one that I feel fit the bill.
Then, after 6 years of home staging in the New York City area, with a warehouse of rental furniture and more work than I could handle, I realized that to move the business forward, I either needed to scale up and hire full time staff, or scale back and cut costs.
So I decided to scale back. Way back. Hauling furniture and accessories in and out of homes and in and out of the warehouse is hard work, sometimes in 100 degree weather, other times into unheated homes in snowy January. Plus doing home staging consultations, paint color consultations, quoting, buying furniture, assembling furniture, invoicing, chasing money, book keeping, working 7 days a week, interior design side jobs, (and still managing to work part time in book publishing as well). It may be heaven for some, but I kept thinking about the need for a great staging book.
And I decided to write a book about home staging—full of home staging tricks and tips. That way I could sit on my butt in a comfy chair and still help people stage their homes! Bliss!
Now that Secrets of Home Staging is done, I’m creating this site. In it, I’ll have a lot of the info that is in the book, plus more. So if you’re curious about how to stage your home, how to hire a professional stager, or all the things you can do to help your home appeal to buyers, stick around! Of course, if you want all this info in one place and you want it now, you can always order the book.
Life Before Home Staging
As well as home staging, I’ve had many other design-related jobs. Advertising art director, logo designer, book designer, as well as home stager and interior decorator.
The first ad I ever worked on was for Benjamin Moore paints. Little did I know that many years later I’d be be doing paint color consults specifying Benjamin Moore paint colors!
I’ve staged homes of every size and price range: from tiny affordable cottages to $10 million Manhattan apartments.
As much as I love great design, nothing I’ve ever seen is better than what can be found in nature. I love being outside. Maybe it sounds corny, but seriously, nothing beats spending time around trees, rocks, clouds, mountains or water.
I became certified as a home stager through Home Staging Resource in 2014.
Want to see a portfolio of my staging? Here is the website of my staging company, Rivertowns Staging, when I was still offering full staging services.