It can be hard to pin down exactly what a day in the life of a home stager demands. The duties can seem limitless; ranging from expert declutterer, to interior design guru, to logistician. One moment can be spent lugging a wardrobe up the stairs and the next curating the perfect centrepiece to complete the look for a viewing.

Fortunately, Chanelle Knapp, director of Zest Home Staging, has shared with us what a typical day’s work looks like for her and her team. With the help of her business partner Ruth, the duo deliver home staging and property styling across Herefordshire.Chanelle has a background in professional photography and brings a strong sense of warmth and familiarity to her work. “We appreciate that a house isn’t merely bricks and mortar, but in fact the exterior for a complex concept known as home” she explains, and it’s easy to see how Zest’s projects reflect this. Every makeover brings a new sense of intimacy to a space, and responds deftly to the uniqueness of each client and home.

We follow Chanelle on one of her recent projects staging a penthouse for IE developments. As expected, it all begins with making a detailed plan.

“We start with a telephone conversation with our clients, followed by a site visit.
We draft a proposal of what we would do to increase the potential of the currently empty property. Then we outline a list of inventory that we will need, taking into consideration what we currently have in storage, and what we will need to source.

Finally, we begin ordering our stock, keeping delivery dates in mind, and check if we are able to have items sent straight to site for the days we’ll be working there.”

Next comes staging week, and the practical task of transporting furniture and decor to the client’s property.

“We meet at our storage unit and begin going through which items we would like to take and which need to stay. We often take more than we need, which gives us the opportunity to make decisions on smaller items like cushion colours or accessories on site. Home staging is all about responding to each individual space, so our choices can often change as we become more familiar with a home.

Once we have everything ready, our removal guys load up and take it over to the site. As it was a penthouse, this particular property had a lift, but we still ended up carrying a lot of the larger items up the stairs due to their size and shape.”

It’s clear that staging a home is a creative process at its heart.

“On site, we start by building the new furniture and then deciding where the largest items will go. On this occasion, we were waiting for a carpet to be laid in the living room, so we had to work around that and adjust our schedule.

Once we are happy with where the furniture is placed, we begin making beds and figuring out where medium-size items like lamps will go. Then, we mess around with accessories, and think about where we would like to hang wall decor. We don’t put wall decor up until the final hours, as this is something that can change right at the last minute.”

Zest’s clients are at the centre of everything they do.

“We make sure to take into consideration how we can transform a space to meet our client’s needs, and how we can make a house really feel like a home.With this particular project the developer wanted to be quite involved in the whole process, and there were a couple of initial items that I could sense he didn’t like that much. We made sure to ask him which of the pieces he would like to reassess and take in another direction, and then we sourced some new options for him. It was clear how thrilled he was with the results.”

Chanelle and Ruth work hard to create an experience. The result is an atmosphere that is equal parts inviting, balanced, and luxe.

“The accessories, flowers, and plants are the fun final touches. We use a lot of books and candles, and play soft music in our properties while we stage; this give us – and our clients – a sense of what the home could ‘feel’ like if you lived there. We believe people buy with their senses and therefore we enjoy adding smell, texture, and sound to our finished homes. We often have a little dish of mints or wrapped toffees by the door, this is a little way that viewers can remember us.

Once everything is in place, we photograph the completed project and give our developers a tour of the apartment with a cosy lit fireplace, and freshly brewed coffee and croissants. Needless to say, they were over the moon with the results. We LOVE what we do!”

You can check out the finished penthouse and other projects by Zest Home Staging on the Home Staging Association’s website: www.homestaging.org.uk

To chat to Zest Home Staging about an upcoming project visit: http://www.zesthomestaging.co.uk/