It means the house will show better without her furnishings. Most likey her things are overcrowding, not attractive and/or worn.

Can't say unless we can SEE the house as she lives in it. It makes me suspect quite a messy, filthy place. Around here window covering stay with the home.

No, it does not make any sense to me, but what do I know. I would think if it was really such an awful mess then maybe it would make sense as they are going to repaint and clean flooring. If they didnt mention anything like that, then to me, it makes no sense.

I could see a house being cleared out for that, but to leave beds?

It may be that the rooms are small...my mother's rental property was small and without a bed in the bedroom, people would look and wonder if a bed would even fit. With the bed in it, it actually made the room look larger.

When I staged our old house for sale, I converted the smallest bedroom from the study back to a bedroom and put a twin bed in there to help define the purpose of the room and show the space it had.

Where i am a lot of homes that go for sale have window coverings removed to emphasize the natural lighting and windows, especially if they are new.

my house was the original owners for 50 years and they wanted to sell quickly. they left just the main case furniture in their bedroom and the second largest bedroom then a desk in another and a small sitting chair in the fourth. they also had the entire home freshly painted in SW agreeable grey. they also had all the hardwoods redone so left no rugs to be able to show the floors off. and the formal living room and then family room with just a sofa and formal dining table. there was no clutter so you could easily see how large and bright everything is and for those that need help visualizing how a room can be used. i find this is typical in my area and if you trust the realtor i would go this route. makes the home look larger, brighter, neutral and cleaner.

And of course you want people looking at the house, not at your stuff.

Selling our family home, the realtor suggested removing all the furniture and windowcoverings. They would stage with just minimal furniture, especially to suggest use of unusual spaces. We ended up taking down most of the window coverings, and the roller blinds stayed. I took them down before a showing, then put them back up, mainly to keep out the hot afternoon sun. It does look so much brighter without the windowcoverings. We kept some sheers up, though. They actually look better, especially opened.

Yes, it makes sense. Very few people want others' window treatments, if they want any at all. IMHO WT are out unless you need them to block views or for privacy. I have almost none.

In re beds, yes, as Annie says, I've often heard people say to show the biggest bed that will fit, so that people don't need to imagine it.

With the last house I sold, I removed all the window coverings other than custom roman shades in bedrooms which were new-ish. I liked the living and dining rooms without the formal curtains - those curtains were starting to look a little tired ;)

I've never been one to 'clutter' or overdecorate, but with all art removed from walls, windows bare, fresh paint everywhere - that house was appealing again even to me.

Your friend will want to allow in the very best light possible. If a buyer thinks they will need something to block sun or provide privacy later, they will buy and install something of their choice.

(The woman who bought that house put up floor length bold large floral panels on the dining room windows....they were ghastly in the photos I was shown. Nothing I would have done might have pleased her)

It’s a 4 bedroom house — not small, not cluttered, and not dirty. She does like her layers of curtains though… sheers plus panels everywhere, which is dated, so that’s probably it.

I would first check out local listings to see what others in comparable homes are doing. i like perusing listings in my town to see what’s going on.

So far, I have never seen a house partially pared down. Either it is empty because people moved out or it is a brand build. Otherwise, all furnishings are in place. They of course might have taken out things, but it certainly isnt noticeable to that extent.

i totally agree that leaving furnishing gives prospective buyers a sense of what fits.

In your friend’s case, maybe just remove the window treatments. Unless she is moving out, how can she still live there and only have minimal furniture?

After you described her curtains, I can understand removing the layers. You would still need something for privacy perhaps if she is still living in the house, as well as other furniture pieces. I can’t understand moving out everything if she is planning to stay until it is sold. Being more specific would help her. Many people do remove extraneous chairs, tables, art, and general clutter and just leave main pieces.

It is really interesting on stagers they are all over the place. My aunt’s house sold last year and although she is older her house had been redone in the last few years. She has always had the currently desired white kitchen. Her style is traditional which is appropriate for her neighborhood. Her realtor’s stager wanted her to move out, they would repaint all the rooms gray and stage with their “modern” furniture. She refused, she offered to remove all the decor and did. With only the decor replaced by the stager, she had 28 offers within 3 days of the house being on the market.

My MIL ‘s house went on the market last week, the stager asked her to remove some decor and a sewing machine. That was it. My MIL’s house is filled with older custom floral bedding, curtains and wallpaper. Quite the showplace in 1990. I told my husband that I thought they missed the mark not getting her to remove all the curtains and use solid color for the bedding. I understood that this would not eliminate the early 90’s look, but at least it would take it down a notch. The realtor came back and looked at the stager’s changes, she made a few more including removing the valances and flipping the floral comforter over. The opposite fabric was solid color. it looks so much better. Just wish the realtor has made her changes before the photos. My MIL did not have good timing, the market has really slowed down the last month or so.

Thanks for the replies, everyone. The decision to sell came about suddenly after she met with a lawyer, and she moved out immediately. It all just happened and it sounds like the realtor just wants it ready to go ASAP. The house has an ideal location and lots of great features, but I agree that the market has suddenly slowed. I hope she has good luck (and a good realtor). eta: and a good lawyer. lol!

It’s a 4 bedroom house — not small, not cluttered, and not dirty. She does like her layers of curtains though… sheers plus panels everywhere, which is dated, so that’s probably it.

Since there are no photos, did you mean her curtains are dated? I can understand her wanting to keep sheers so they can be pulled for privacy and/or block sunlight (and heat) while allowing for a view. They can be opened for showings.

I just assumed that the use of curtains and sheers is a dated look. Maybe I'm wrong. In any case, she's always been a curtain junkie.... constantly hanging new curtains. lol!

The most commonly staged properties here are new construction. (As in staged like they want you to do it on TV). I think this is, in part, to distract from the poor finish quality of the new construction.

Empty houses are occasionally partially staged. It's not uncommon to show what size beds will fit in the bedrooms here because the bedrooms are on the small side at least in one dimension. SO is marketing a 2BR now and people say "Only a twin bed must fit in here" when the reality is even a Queen fits.

It's extremely rare here for people to take out their own furnishings and do heavy duty staging. It's expensive and people don't want to pay for it. People will paint over unpopular paint colors.

There is a group of 6 houses down my block with giant expanses of glass and in some of the houses I have never seen the window treatments in any position other than completely closed in the 8-9 years since they have been built.

We have a neighbor up the street whose road-facing windows are always covered. I've never seen the blinds up at all...gotta wonder what they're hiding, what they're afraid of or why they bought a house with windows at all. Maybe at night you want your privacy, but during the day people can't see in anyway, it's a rural street and it's set back from the road by quite a bit.

Then again, when we were on the high line in Manhattan, we walked past a new building, the interior still under construction, great big glass windows and you were looking right into the bathroom. Really?

Now that I think about it, I cannot recall the last time i saw anyone use sheers. It used to be de rigeur. Even when I see WT today i do not see sheers.

There are a lot of sheer shades here.

One of my friends lived across from someone else I knew, and she went to work in his office.

She told me. "I didn't care seeing him walking around naked in his house when I didn't really know him. Now it's kinda awkward.

I had sheers with draperies in our last home because the windows were enormous, the sun is bright and would heat the rooms (and fade furniture, rugs and discolor flooring). I was able to see the trees tops/outside through the sheers. Very common in many southern states.

mtnrd, last time was when you were in my guest room. I have the sheers closed as the windows are south facing and they let diffused bright light in which my orchids love. Of course that has nothing to do with whether it's up to date or dated...only that it's useful. Form follows function. 😊

In 2018, a different market than we have now. My realtor hired a stager. She put my Blue Dansk bowls ALL over! She put a HUGE potted plant in my BIG kitchen sink, that filled it completely. Arranged my shelved curios, more stacked and orderly.

My house was listed for three weeks. People sat on the deck & admired the view....for an hour. I got cards with the clients comments saying the carpet was old, dated the house, the forest surrounding the house was a fire danger. On a whim, I ripped out the carpet while DH was @ work, on a Thursday. Hauled in Hickory flooring Friday. Painted white baseboards, went down Sunday. The house sold Monday to the first couple who saw it with the new flooring! All the furniture was put into storage while we laid the floor.

Pal and Annie’s stories remind me of the new modern glass-walled house that was built near here around 30 years ago. The moment the build was complete, they covered the glass walls with bright red (probably velveteen) curtains from ceiling to floor and I have never seen those curtains open. The sun faded the curtains to a bright pink in no time. :p

Well I know people hate sheers, some people hate all window treatments. But the reality is that not everybody lives on acreage with privacy, not everyone loves to get up at sunrise, and some people need to deal with light pollution at night.

I had a client who could read, with some eyestrain, perhaps, at midnight with the lights out in his bedroom. And in the daytime, he and his across the alley neighbor could see all the way through each others houses and out the back. He needed sheers, he needed blockout shades and he needed blockout curtains to manage the light leakage around the shades. I was in a nearby house that had a more expensive solution of blockout shades that went up and down in a track which blocked the edges.

I had a friend in Manhattan who lived across from a very glassy new construction and watched one half a a couple leave for work every morning and the other half of the couple have extremely vigorous sexual encounters on an almost daily basis with a variety of different people in the living room. Maybe the bedroom was sacrosanct.

In my parents house there was a copy of a religious icon in the internal hallway across from my sister's bedroom door. Her room faced west. The picture had a series of vertical lines bleached in it from the sun burning into it during different seasons of the years. And it was in the middle of the house.

My house was designed well enough that I don't need window treatments for privacy on my first floor even though the public sidewalk touches my house. But the sun is so bright at certain times of the afternoon that you can barely keep your eyes open.

And out the back we face a courtyard through a wall of glass but in the winter it's bleak, so those windows will get sheers, because just because you don't want to look at the non-view you may still want to let light in.

They talk all the time about window films in the BAH forum. I work in two commercial places with window films and on a regular basis a patient will come in the room, sit down and say "Oh crap, it was so nice when I came in, is it getting ready to rain?"