What a stunning home this was. We were thrilled to be called into this home to adjust the clients furniture. Our Agent/Broker knew that something was not quite right with this but was unable to tell what it was, so he brought us in to look at it. Immediately we were transported to all corners of the globe with the decor in this home - and indeed the sellers had travelled a lot. This gave us a beautiful eclectic mix of wares to use, but the rooms felt unbalanced and blocked the views and flow of energy.

In this image, behind the couch is stunning waterfront views out to the ocean, but it’s hard to see that with the current lounge room configuration. The artwork in this room also dominated a lot of attention and you felt compelled to look at this, rather than the views.

In this after photo, we have reoriented the living space around to create a tunnel that takes your vision right out to the water. By positioning the couch off the the left instead of in the middle, it also made the space feel a lot larger and more inviting and welcoming. We shopped the rest of the house to find suitable side tables and used the existing coffee table and trunk. To finish off the look, we swapped out the artwork with a simple gold palm with a white background and added a plant to the background and some cushions to finish it off. Everything else was sourced from around the house.

This landing at the top of the stairs felt so underwhelming, but has so much potential to be a beautiful sitting space. The space itself was not very large, but felt even smaller with the position of the chairs (even though it made sense to position them looking out to the views).

However from a selling perspective, it made the room smaller as furniture needed to be placed close to the glass balustrade to allow enough room to walk from the stairs (behind) to the bedrooms on the left or right. Not having any artwork and having dark timber furniture also helped make this space feeling small.

We moved the two chairs off to one side, and shopped the house for what was needed. We found this stunning coffee table tucked away in a bedroom, along with a bed bench that was not necessary in another room and used the art from the downstairs dining room up here to create a wow piece. We found a plant from the study that was too big and moved it up here and With the addition of a faux palm and floor lamp, doubled the seating area in this space, made it practical, functional and opened up the views to the outdoors.

The kid’s bedroom was shopped. Both coffee table and telescope seen here were used in different rooms (the coffee table out on the stair landing shown previously and the telescope into the ocean view bedroom). We opted to remove entirely the corner chair as this was very well worn.

With the existing furniture repurposed into different rooms, it gave us space to swap even more furniture around in the house, using the console table that was originally out in the stair landing and side table as well. We brought in the hire chair to replace the damaged one previously in this spot. Bringing the console/hall table into this room made more sense than the coffee table and took up much less room. It was a better height to connect with the TV above and gave a practical surface to put everyday objects on. Repurposing the side table from the stair landing in here also created the mini-scene of a little sitting/reading nook in the bedroom.

This master bedroom has all the makings of being amazing, but was disproportionate in a few areas. Being such a large room, and having a higher than standard bed, made the bed bench at the end feel out of place and lacklustre compared to the rest of the home. The outdoors setting also felt out of balance for a master bedroom and gave the overall impression of a job not quite finished.

We were able to almost completely change the scale and impact this room had simply by swapping out the small bed bench into a guest room and replacing it with the large trunk that used to sit at the entry of this home. As the trunk was much larger in scale both visually and size wise, the super-king size bed felt proportionate and filled the room to scale. We were able to repurpose the existent outdoor dining setting into a guest room balcony and bring in a replacement outdoor setting and to finish the look added some blue colour to the bedding to tie it all together.

One of the rooms that we extensively shopped was the guest room. We used the side tables down in the lounge space as they had the right size and scale and character to go with the decor downstairs. We also moved out the bed bench into the stair landing area as another seating option. This was great as leaving the furniture in this room made the room feel cramped and busy compared to the rest of the house.

Because we had reused most of the furniture into different rooms, we need to bring in some new bedside tables and lamps for this space. We did bring the outdoor chairs and table into this guest room from the master and the telescope from the green guest room. To finish the space we added some blush and navy bed linen and created a calm, bedroom that no longer felt cramped.

This is the before of the exterior. The real estate agent asked us to color consult and provide new colors, light as well as numbers for the home.

This is the after exterior with new paint colors, light fixtures and house numbers.

This beautiful house could not be fully appreciated by buyers because the owners had so many very nice, but plentiful, antiques and primitive pieces in every room. The first time I saw this room was during a consultation when I knew I would be coming back to style and stage it, arranged by a very smart realtor! The owners were very willing to do whatever I told them to do to prepare for the sale. You can see here that there are quilts on the loft railing (she was a quilter and had machines in the basement), and all kinds of related decor and furnishings.

There was an extra light over nothing hanging from the low ceiling behind the large chair, extra furniture pieces along the glass doors, far wall, and backs of furniture, as well as dark colors on furniture and rugs which made the space feel small and closed in. I wanted to lighten it all up and really showcase the timber framing and gorgeous, plentiful windows, while not losing the rustic but elegant feel of the house.

I came back to style and stage this house after the owners had done their consultation homework. Their homework mainly consisted of remove, remove, and/or move! I had them keep select items that I felt, on the fly, I could use in my design. I was stunned by the difference that was already made in the house! The timber frames stood out, the light poured in, and the room felt 3 times larger! I moved items around according to my plan and added some things to put the icing on the cake: I kept their couch, brought a different, smaller coffee table in from another part of the room, had them remove the large cabinet from the back wall and move in its place a hutch from the dining room (now on back wall under wall light). In the entry, I switched tables around, and moved the mirror from down the hallway, using their accessories as possible. One of their checkered chairs was moved to the loft for a reading corner, and of course the large quilts were removed to showcase the loft space! And Wa-lah! Rustic yet still elegant, while using as much of the owner's items as possible, a new room was reborn before my eyes!

I love this before photo, as it shows more of the house the way it was "lived-in."

This after photo was taken from the same angle, but a little closer to the fireplace. I replaced the art with my own (which my boyfriend handmade), as it was large and made a statement, yet fit the rusticness of the room. Now the timbers stand out against the walls, and the room just feels lighter and brighter without the dark rug and furniture. I lightened up the darker couch by putting on some lighter but natural-looking pillows, and tied them in with the textured poofs. To bring in some color, I accented with yellow forsythia and yellow in the coffee table centerpiece and pillows. You can see the owner's quilts on their ladder to the right of the photo. I thought they were so fitting to have as accents in this home.

This was the dining room and part of the kitchen during the consultation. You can see the hutch off to the right which was used to replace the large cabinet mentioned earlier in the family room. There is a wonderful old church pew on the back wall.

This is one of my favorite rooms I have staged, ever. Its rustic simplicity is just what it needed. It just feels restful now! The hutch was removed to around the corner, and I used some of their pieces to fill in the decor gaps. I replaced the dark rug and removed the dark valances and antiques on the back and right walls. The items in the glass cabinets were pared down, and I had the owners remove the extra light that was hanging in the middle of the space between the two rooms.

This was the master bedroom during the consultation. I loved how the quilts were highlighted by the owner. The rug was in good shape and light, so I knew I would keep it there. I also wanted to use the quilt as the bed covering if possible, and her matching quilt artwork. 

I used all their furniture and most of the accessories, after removing the curtains and extra storage. We removed the bedskirt because it was a beautiful bed frame that looked great just bare. Their lights were bare-bulb lights and were also fitting for the room. We added a few black accent pieces on the dresser that worked well with their mirror and bed frame. Restful!

This is a portion of the loft, with the stairs going down on the left of the photo. The two kids' bedrooms are off to the right of this photo. (Not in the picture, but to the left side of the loft, were exercise machines.)

After removing a number of items, the timbers now really stand out in the loft. I pared everything back up here, and had them remove everything (the exercise machines on the left were replaced with a game table and reading chair from the room below), except the quilts and rack. You can see more quilts on the kids' rooms beds; I felt it was fitting for this house, and wanted to bring in some "classy" rustic elegance.