Which plants, what furniture, which scatters... weighty questions in the world of home staging.
"Bring nature in" is a sacred design principles in home staging. In my opinion, one of the most important. Modern furniture, great art, luxury linen - all great and necessary, but fill a home with plants and buyers feel instantly happier, more relaxed and connected.
Home stagers have three choices when it comes to plants and flowers:
Fake
Dried
The real deal
1. Fake it ... or not?
The home staging world is divided on using fake plants. Some professional home staging companies stage multiple properties at once. Sometimes these are far from their headquarters, so they're not able to return to the properties after staging to water plants. Good quality fake silk plants are the obvious answer for them.
I also use some fake plants, especially orchids.
These gorgeous flowers add luxury and femininity to bathrooms, but they need water and don't flower that long.
In this very plain bathroom below, I used two kind of orchids - so pretty against the green foliage. It really feels like nature is all around.
2. Stunning dried flowers
Driving aimlessly in an industrial area one day, I spotted a new dried flowers shop. It turned out to be magical. The incredible array of dried flowers blew me away. Every colour was represented - from natural organic neutral to wild and wonderful purples.
There were very tall branch like stems perfect for big pots; yellow shaggy grasses and green dyed cornflowers; orange dried hydrangeas - what a choice. My credit card suffered that day. But, like the fake plants, you can use them again and again. Here's one of my arrangements.
3. The real thing
Real live greenery is first prize. Over the years, I've discovered which plants can go for ages without water (succulents especially spekboom are a winner), and which can survive solely in water with no soil (Monstera cut leaves but also the whole plant roots and all).
For height, choose ficuses with thick stems. My hands down favourite for its bright green leaves and sculptural form is ficus elastica. I've had this one for around three years and (ab)used it in around 20 properties, with erratic watering and varying temperatures. Still, it lives!
Where do you stand on the plants and flowers question?
1. Fake?
2. Dried?
3. Alive?
Share your favourite tips and varieties in the comments.
Chat soon
Liesa xx