News

With real-estate season heating up, there's a new professional getting busy.

The home fluffer, a.k.a. the stager, is becoming de rigueur for the good reason that she or he can boost your selling price. By editing out what isn't working and organizing what is into shelter-mag spareness, the fluffer can make the most unprepossessing home look chic. Call it purging instead of splurging.

The downside is that if you're selling, you don't get much time to enjoy it.

"Oh dear, I am not going to like this," a client of mine said as we went through her place, rearranging things and rehanging art, before she put it on the market. "When we finish, I'm going to love my house so much I'm really not going to want to leave. I wish we had done this years ago -- just for us."

Toronto "house jockey" Bruno Billio does just that: rearranges his clients' possessions to refresh their living spaces. Instead of feeling compelled to go out and buy, his clients fall in love with their own stuff again.

"It's like giving people more square footage and they're no longer afraid to invite anyone over for dinner," he says.

To have the same-day satisfaction of a refreshed space, here are my 10 tips for fluffing yourself.

1. Clean up The important things cost the least: cleaning every surface, especially windows (dirt is visual clutter), purging (what goes out is as important as what goes in), airing (clean air signals a healthy house).

2. First impressions count Our opinion of a place comes mostly from our first experience of it. Real-estate agents know that it doesn't matter if the roof is new and wiring and plumbing are in tip-top shape: We "know" we like a place (or don't) before we know why. Any visitor to your home is getting the same quick response. If you don't like what it says about you, it's time to fluff.

3. Use objective outsiders Familiarity makes us blind. It is hard to change what you have stopped seeing. Fluffers come up with fast solutions because they come in cold and, unlike friends, they don't have to be tactful. When Deborah Gould of Six Elements in Toronto moves furniture around, her clients say things like "I've lived here for 10 years and it would never have occurred to me to do that." To become more objective, throw a party for people who have never seen your place, and imagine it through their eyes. This gives you the built-in motivation of a deadline and you'll immediately start seeing what needs to be done.

4. Put your house on a diet What makes a place look spacious? Empty space! Edit, edit, edit. If you want to see how really full your rooms look, take some digital photos. They won't look like those beautiful rooms in decor magazines. Gould says, "Don't fill basements and garages waiting for the mythic garage sale. They aren't worth the hassle and don't feel nearly as good as just giving things away." If you want an instant fluff, put it all on the curb for the neighbours or the Goodwill to take away. Think of it as giving all these objects a new life (I know, it's hard to do).

5. Use lifestyle logic Like advertisers, fluffers organize rooms into quickly readable lifestyle scenarios -- the reading zone, the garden room, the party zone. Furniture gets arranged so that the pieces talk to each other. Low lighting from lamps is intimate and relaxing. In the public zones, personal memorabilia like little family photos are put away or grouped in more intimate places. Large ones are hung in an upstairs hall or a bedroom if they warrant display (you be the judge). Collections are relegated to disciplined areas where they can be enjoyed without taking over. This is not depersonalizing; it's replacing "me" decorating with something more universally appealing.

6. Let the light in Covered windows feel claustrophobic and deaden a room. Natural light make rooms feel bigger. If the view is not ideal, hang translucent gauze panels or mesh blinds. Or do like they do in Scandinavia, and create indoor window boxes with plants such as sansavaria to provide privacy and aesthetic relief at the same time.

7. Make it smell nice Of all the senses, smell has the fast track to our emotions. Heather Hartt, an agent at Harvey Kalles Real Estate in Toronto, puts this at the top of her list. If you haven't already, she suggests you ban indoor smoking and keep the pets groomed. Agents are known to tell vendors to bake bread on the day of the open house. For your own fluffing project, get out the Betty Crocker or light some scented candles.

8. Add some colour Okay, this one costs a little money. Sometimes a room cannot be saved without an infusion of colour to pull it together. To accentuate the positive, block a panel of rich colour behind a grouping of art and furniture that is worthy of focus. Eliminate the negative -- bad trim, a fire door, a radiator grill -- by painting them the same colour as the walls.

9. Rehang your art Even a DIY fluffer should consult an experienced eye to hang art. Start by putting out all the pieces you love. Invariably there is the perfect place for each piece, taking into consideration size, subject matter and colour. Group same-size pieces and arrange them on the floor before you hammer in the nails. Art isn't for the guests. Hang it where you can enjoy it, wherever that is: over the toaster, in the laundry room, from floor to ceiling in the bedroom.

10. Add flowers Fresh flowers and fresh fruit in a bowl are not just aesthetically pleasing. They act as vestigial connections to our original home in the natural world and one from which we are too cut off. They represent an abundance that once relieved us from the rigours of foraging. They still say "Relax, things are taken care of. You're home."

Janice Lindsay, PINK Colour + Design, 416-961-6281, pinkcolouranddesign.com.

Bruno Billio, House Jockey, http://www.brunobillio.com.

Deborah Gould, 416-691-6615, http://www.sixelements.com.