Transforming Faded Gilded Age Into A Whimsical Child's Room

Staged Ryte and 26 other designers, landscape architects and visual artists are transforming the Cassilis Farm property in New Marlborough into a Designer Showhouse to raise funding for affordable housing in the Berkshires.

Construct, Inc. will renovate and convert this house into 11 much-needed affordable housing apartments near Great Barrington, Massachusetts.

We’re not gonna lie…it’s a lot of work…but we’re feeling so creative and proud to be part of this initiative! It’s worth every moment of planning, coordinating, designing, buying, and staging.

Scroll down to see “in process” photos and the Staged Ryte team in action.

Learn more about this project, buy house tour tickets, and consider a donation to Construct. The month-long Showhouse is a timed, ticketed walkthrough and will be open to visitors through five weekends in June. Additional events surrounding the Designer Showhouse include a free New Marlborough community day on May 31st, as well as a special Opening Night tour and reception at Cassilis Farm on May 29th. 

Wonder and Whimsy

We’re designing a child’s bedroom for Construct’s Designer Showhouse. We used AI to translate our mood board into a fantasy “mood image” — a retreat where the lines between the indoors and the great outdoors blur and encourage a child’s imagination to roam free.

The Designer Showhouse pays homage to the theme “Nature in the Berkshires,” so we think our design fits right in. Our goal is to bring the outdoors in and make it a place of wonder and not just a nice kid’s room.

This project has given us the opportunity to work closely with our staff and family, get to know amazing designers, and be part of a very important affordable housing project. Thank you to Construct for inviting us to be part of the Designer Showhouse project.

Check out our final transformation Instagram Reels…then follow us to see our home staging in the Berkshires, Connecticut, the Hudson Valley, and beyond.

BIG Staged Ryte Warehouse Sale!

Come to our BIG Staged Ryte Warehouse Sale for antiques, vintage, and modern furniture and accessories. Our 5,000 square foot warehouse just can’t hold it all; so when we need to get new pieces, something else has to go.

Details

Grab a friend and come shop for furniture and accessories!

• Friday, May 5, 12-5

• Saturday & Sunday, May 6 & 7, 10-4

Location: Staged Ryte, 21 Business Park road, Ashley Falls, Massachusetts

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Should I Stage My Small, Moderately Priced Home?

We get asked some version of this question often, “Should I stage my small, moderately priced home?” Or “Do I need to stage my home? It’s not a luxury listing!” “Does home staging really matter for moderately priced homes?” Yes. Yes you should. It matters!

No matter a home's price point, staging makes a SIGNIFICANT difference because ALL homes need to appeal to a buyer.

First, the statistics

Here are some statistics from the most recent Profile of Home Staging by the National Association of Realtors (NAR). But keep reading for examples of stagings for homes listed around $400,000.

• 91% of buyers' agents say home staging had an affect on most or some buyers. Only 7% said it has no effect!

• 82% of buyers’ agents say that staging a home made it easier for a buyer to visualize the property as a future home.

• 83% of agents say that [great] photos are more important than ever. Let’s face it, buyers are shopping online and the photos need to eye catching or they are swiped away. Home staging creates great photos!

Watch this as Dawn talks about a few of our stagings.

Now the specifics

Now on to specifics about why to stage a smaller and/or moderately priced home. Home buyers in moderate price ranges care just as much about where they live as those hunting for million dollar listings. Who doesn’t desire a place where we can see ourselves living our best lives?

Moderate Home 1! This home received an above asking price the first week on market. We staged; we un-staged; and were very happy, as were the realtor, sellers and buyers.

Staged Ryte staged two homes in 2022 priced at or below $400,000. And they were relatively small. In both cases, the realtor told the home owners that he could sell their homes for one price if they didn’t stage, and he could sell for a greater price when staged. Both owners agreed to staging (who doesn’t want more money?).

• Moderate Home 1 was a complete renovation. We came in and fully staged the home…and it received multiple offers over asking in the first week. This was one of those homes where we stage…and then come back in short order to un-stage. We love when this happens and don’t mind one little bit.

• Moderate Home 2 was an older lake cottage. We styled the home and it received an offer in the first week. The home owners ultimately decided to take the property off the market and keep the home.

• On another note, we staged a luxury property that had been removed from the market because it wasn’t getting much interest. We came in styled and staged it, and the realtor tells us showings have more than doubled.

Moderate Home 1: Empty to Homey.

Staged homes at any price show more and…

Our staged homes show more, receive offers more quickly, and sell above listing. You don’t need to have a luxury home to benefit from home staging. Any sized home can benefit! Most important rooms to stage? Living room, primary bedroom, and kitchen.

How is your home going to stand out from the rest? Do you need a refresh for your home to show at its best in photos and when home buyers are visiting? We dove into our archive for this blog post, “The Biggest Home Staging Mistakes.” Some good tips for styling on your own.

Want to understand our process from walk-through to proposal to staging? Read this blog post “How Does Home Staging Work?”

2023 is different

2023 is going to be a tougher market than the past three years. Home sales have slowed; there’s more inventory than there was just after COVID, when so many people were moving to the Berkshires, Northwestern Connecticut, and Dutchess Couny, NY. Each home needs to stand out from the rest.

Bottom line, home staging matters for all homes at all price levels. Follow us on our socials especially Instagram @stagedryte to see our stagings and staging life. And contact us when you’re ready to stage!

Staging with NFTs

Staged Ryte First to Stage with Digital Canvases & NFTS

We’re VERY excited about this project! In cooperation with digital canvas company WHIM (onawhim.com), we staged a unique property in New York City’s Oculus Center using 20 WHIM Digital Canvases, and curated NFT digital art, to create a one-of-a-kind new living space experience. We bet you have questions…

Digital Canvases + Home Staging + NFTs. Digital Canvases replace traditional pictures, paintings, posters and photographs.

What’s a Digital Canvas?

For those of you who don’t know, a digital canvas is a specialized display that replaces a traditional wall hanging picture, poster, painting or photograph with the added ability to change what is seen through an App on a smart phone. Think of it as a smart speaker for your eyes!

What are NFTS?

NFT’s are a new type of secured digital artwork becoming influential in the crypto-currency collector art scene. We were able to design a space at the Oculus Center that changed its feel and esthetic to accommodate mood and taste. We used WHIM’s Digital Canvases, NFT art and an almost limitless access to wall art and photography, and added in the right furniture and decor, for an intriguing installation. (You can see Dawn in action here.)

Digital natives want to buy properties that showcase their lifestyle and culture. Some of the luxury homes that we stage will benefit from staging with digital canvases displaying NFTs. Interesting!

Why Stage (or Design!) with Digital Canvases and NFTs?

• Up and coming digital natives, those who identify with crypto currency, NFT and Web3, will want to buy properties that reflect their lifestyle and culture. It’s now common to have smart home technology, fully connected home and smart appliances: digital canvases on the walls will become equally as common - especially for luxury properties. We are the first to incorporate digital canvases and NFTs into some of our stagings.

• For the traditional home buyers, having the ability to adapt the pictures, posters, paintings and photographs on the wall to their taste will add to a home’s perceived value. By allowing a broker to pre-set what is seen on the walls to a particular client will make the property more appealing and personal.

More to Come!

We’re honored that Staged Ryte is the first home staging firm to incorporate digital canvases, NFT art, and digital art to enhance the stories we tell with staging. And we're planning to incorporate NFTs and digital canvases into curated home stagings in NYC, the Hudson Valley, NJ, Connecticut and the Berkshires of Massachusetts. Stay tuned!

We loved collaborating with WHIM and look forward to bringing digital canvases into our home staging in New York, the Berkshires, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.

In the News: Why it helps to stage a house if you want to sell it

We appreciate the new article in The Lakeville Journal! The focus is on our new home staging facility in Ashley Falls, Massachusetts, and why it helps to stage a house if you want to sell it. Dawn and editor/realtor Cynthia Hochswender also get into some detail on the three stages of staging:

1. Fluffing

2. Staging

3. Interior Design

Read the full article here.

Here are Dawn’s recommendations for zhuzhing (or fluffing) a home to ready for photos and sale, as she shared them in the article. Of course, we always recommend you bring in a home staging professional…

EDIT

“Too much big furniture in a room is not a good thing. Two recliners and a huge leather easy-sofa might be comfortable for you and your friends but it won’t help you sell your house.”

LET IN THE LIGHT

“‘Take down the window treatments. It lets in more light, which is important.’ The curtains or shades can also dominate the way a room looks and feels. It’s possible but unlikely that a potential buyer will want the same window treatments as the seller.”

DEPERSONALIZE

“The wall of family photos and awards is too much. The buyer needs to focus on imagining themselves in the space, not be distracted by your diplomas.”

MAKE IT CLEAN AND FRESH

“Buy new white towels and new shower curtains. Use fresh new bed linens (and iron out any wrinkles or creases). Many bestselling house photos show stark white rooms, often with black trim. Trachtenberg feels that might be getting overdone. ‘How many people want to live with all-white walls? You want to draw people in’”

We Launched Our 5,000 Square Foot Home-Staging Facility in the Berkshires

We did it! We welcomed realtors, developers, friends and family to our new storage space in the Berkshires on Friday, October 15. Our 5,000 square foot home-staging facility houses over 10,000 pieces of furniture and accessories and, we’re proud to say, visitors were pretty stunned by what they saw. (We’re still feeling pretty stunned ourselves…)

Our new facility is located at 21 Business Park Road in Ashley Falls. And it’s a very important piece for our continued growth! It’s now a warehouse, showroom space, and office perfect for our  woman-owned company serving the Berkshires, Western Massachusetts, Connecticut, Eastern New York State, New York City and New Jersey. 

“Because we have enough furniture and accessories in stock to stage 15+ homes at a time, we have a lot to manage,” Dawn Trachtenberg said at the grand opening. “I can’t tell you how many times we’ve had to remove eight sofas or multiple tables and chairs just to access the one particular piece we needed for a staging project. Now we can see everything at a glance. This storage facility is a game changer for us.”

We’ve always been thrilled with the outcome of our stagings, it’s just that the process was often challenging. The term “making the sausage” comes to mind here…the final product is amazing, but you didn’t want to watch it being made. This new space makes all items accessible.

The new storage facility houses:

• 10,000 pieces of furniture and accessories

• 1,000 books

• 500 pillows

• 90 dining room chairs

• 30 sofas

• 450 pieces of wall art, including over 200 original works.

Sofas, cocktail tables, chests of drawers, and other large items needed to be organized and tucked away (as well as you can tuck away a large piece of furniture and still have it visible for easy access). The shelving structures necessary to organize all of this stock were a vital component for this project’s success. The massive shelving units are out of the former C. A. Lindell Hardware and Lumber yard in Canaan, CT. We figured if the shelves could hold hundreds of pounds of lumber, they could hold our furniture and accessories.

Unlike some home-staging companies, we own all our stock: no additional furniture rental costs are passed on to clients. Our philosophy is to never stage in a “cookie cutter” style. Dawn says, “We believe that every home tells a story – and you need to tell that story to the right buyer. Our attention to detail and ability to understand what buyers want is unmatched.”

A special thanks goes out to the team that worked lots of hours to get everything in place. Lot’s of elbow grease, muscle, creativity, and endurance made this home staging dream come true.

Thanks to all who came to our open house. If you’d like a tour, contact Dawn Trachtenberg at 917.543.4590 or contact us (button below).

Read a Berkshire Eagle article about our business and the new space.

It takes a team to tackle a project like this. Thank you to our hard-working staff!

See Where the Story Begins! Staging Facility Open House!

For YEARS we have successfully staged homes for sale while storing our ever-growing collection of furniture and accessories in multiple storage spaces. We’ve staged dozens of houses, estates, cottages, apartments and condominiums and done it well; from NYC to the Berkshires and in between. We have dreamed of having one large facility where we could house our thousands of items, pick and pull for any property regardless of location, and see all of our inventory all under one roof. We have good news…

We look forward to telling you about our home staging process and how we manage over 10,000 pieces of furniture and accessories (much better now with a 5,000 square foot storage facility)!

We will launch our new home staging storage facility on Friday, October 15, 4pm and 6pm 21 Business Park Road, Ashley Falls, MA in the beautiful Berkshires.

And YOU are invited to our open house.

Stop in for a tour, enter our raffle for a stunning 24” x 36” custom commissioned abstract painting by Staged Ryte’s artist-in-residence Kari Kroll, and enjoy bites and beverages catered by Rubiner’s Cheesemongers.

You can Follow Kari Kroll on Instagram and see her amazing art.

Questions? RSVP below or call or text Dawn at 917.543.4590.