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This is the tale of how a house for sale went from being dismissed as "too small" to being "too big" through the magic of home staging.

While in the process of listing our own home, our real estate agent, Kathran Helps, mentioned another home she had listed. Despite having a lot going for it, the house just wouldn't sell.

Fuelled by a glass of Pinot Grigio and scenting a challenge, I made an offer. If the owners were willing, I said, I'd stage the house and waive my fee as long as I could write about it.

A deal was struck and a week later I was touring the house. I too was puzzled why this house hadn't sold. It ticked all the boxes you'd expect would be important, like number and size of rooms, location, and condition. And, given comparables in the area, it was priced right.

It looked like a classic case of buyers not being able to see past the decor to really appreciate what the house was offering. This was evident in the comment of one potential buyer who found the house too small for her family of four.

I sat down with the owners anxious to stress the motivation behind home staging — that any changes I would propose were not an indictment of their taste. The goal was to make the home more generic looking so that it would appeal to a wider audience; to move the decor to the background and the architecture to the forefront; to make the rooms look as large as they were.

The first step was choosing a new colour palette. Starting with the kitchen, I suggested brightening the yellowed wooden cabinetry with off white, the same colour as the countertop. To add contrast using the kitchen walls and backsplash I recommended they be painted the same colour I'd suggested for the adjacent dining room, a greyed-down blue that had a distinct heritage look. The colour would also complement the original plank floor that had been painted a deep, dusky blue with a green undertone.

The centre hall and staircase walls were left as is, a light neutral that set off the natural wood flooring and dark wooden staircase.

On the other side of the hall was the formal front parlour. It presented the biggest challenge, having been sponge-painted a reddish-burgundy with a wallpaper border at wainscot height and stripes painted below. It was a dark and busy treatment that made the room shrink into itself. As the carpet was a neutral colour,

I chose a greyed green for the walls which, again, evoked a heritage feel and would work well with the new colour of the dining room, visible across the hall.

Next came the family room. Again, the carpet and furnishings were all in neutral tones so I suggested we repeat the green of the front parlour to reinforce a sense of continuity and harmony. This colour was also used in the main floor bathroom. Its repeated use also reduced the number of different paint colours the owners would have to buy.

Upstairs, I suggested two bedrooms and the bath be painted the same colour they'd already used in the fourth bedroom, a warm neutral taupe-grey that looked wonderful with the room's light laminate wood grain flooring and white trim.

If the budget permitted, I suggested they continue the laminate flooring into the hall and the other spaces upstairs that didn't still have original wood flooring.

Two weeks of heroic effort followed. With help from family and friends, the owners removed six layers of wallpaper from one bedroom alone; they sanded, repaired, primed, and painted to the point of exhaustion. When I toured the house again, every room looked fresh and fabulous, some even graced with new light fixtures.

Next we tackled decluttering and rearranging. Window sills were cleared, rooms were emptied of extraneous furniture, traffic paths were laid bare, knick-knacks were stored, and furniture, much of it antique, was rearranged so that potential buyers could get a true sense of the size of each room. This house "too small"? I think not!

A viewing was scheduled for the next day and, with huge anticipation, we awaited the feedback. And what did we hear? I'd hoped to be able to report that the owners received an offer that very day. What vindication for stagers everywhere and for these homeowners that would be! But no. What we heard instead was, "The house is too big."

Does that mean we did too good a job and therefore our efforts failed? Despite the irony of this latest feedback, I don't think so. As with any real estate sale, it's simply a matter of getting the right buyers into the space. And now the pool of potential buyers who will be drawn to this home is significantly larger than it was.

Colours

Benjamin Moore's Aura paint was used for the kitchen cabinets (colour Mascarpone AF-20) and on walls in the kitchen, dining room (colour Tranquillity AF-490), front parlour, family room, and main floor bathroom (colour Flora AF-470). Upstairs, the owners used Home Hardware's Signature Series paint (colour 7100W).