I have to agree with those that are saying one should never overestimate the buyer's imagination. It's all too true. And it's very hard to look at the familiar with 'new eyes'. When my MIL sold her home, the RE market was just starting to trend down. The RE agent recommended a pro stager. So you had three sets of opinions: - the owner (80 yr old MIL) - me and DH - the stagers This firm has their own warehouse of furniture and loved MIL's house as it was a perfect 'backdrop'. I wish I had kept the photos they did, but I must have deleted them at some point. But here's what they did that might be relevant to your home: - LR curtains were removed. First, it was the only arched picture window in the house, and a real architectural plus. Sunlight streams in during the daytime - not a good thing for daily living, but ideal for market showings (and this was summertime) - Kitchen blind was removed. It's a dark kitchen and cabs were repainted white. - Rugs were removed. It is true that people want to see the floor condition. A home nearby ours sat on the market for months longer than it should have, simply because the PO did everything but refinish the floors. It was a jarring incongruity during showings, and showed me that our RE agent (friend) was correct when she said that people's eye go automatically to the worst/cheapest detail, and it affects the home price proportionately. - Light sheer curtains went on the bedroom windows. - Plants were placed strategically, but not in every room - ALL living spaces, such as LR and den, had one or two pieces of art hung. I brought my family to see MIL's home right after the first Open House. They were struck by the difference in how it looked - gracious, elegant, inviting, warm, spacious...instead of dark, cluttered, nondescript, despite the many nice things my MIL did own. What I did notice about each room, even if I might have preferred a few different details, was that each room had a distinct "story". It looked like someone actually was using each room. What the stagers put in was not just different furniture, but also the little details, as someone pointed out above. The desk in the den had a desk set and a potted plant; an upholstered chair in the corner had a contrasting velvet pillow. The house now had a consistent style of decor. And here's the key: even if it wasn't the exact type of decor you or I or MIL would have picked, what was there helped you envision being there and making a few changes as 'your own'. I don't see enough visual interest in the rooms. But as you said, these are extra bedrooms. The bathroom is clean lines and contemporary, and the use of materials have a wonderful, engaging textural contrast. But it makes the bedrooms look 'flat' in comparison. They don't tell a story; they look like storage for unwanted furniture. Everything is separate from what's around it, and feels lifeless. It's a fine line between 'personal' and 'inviting'. I agree you really have to think of magazine shoots. After all, you want to use these photos for the listing, right? We all know kitchens, for example, don't really look the way they do in magazine photos. But if you study them, there are always two or three personal details to focus on, to give warmth and life to the room. Everything else is cleared away, but you need those details to focus on - whether it's a beautiful lamp, a lush potted plant, a bowl of fruit - whatever. Otherwise, the eye wanders around, feeling unsatisfied without knowing why.

Funny this thread was resurrected! I still dont' have anything over the bed, but I know what I am going to hang. :) We used to have a little basement room with a couch and table - kind of a hang out when I was growing up. My mom put a cotton tapestry kind of thing on the wall. it wasn't of a scene, it was just colorful. I know I have it somewhere. I am going to use that once I find it. :)

when we bought our house the broker, a LIFELONG friend of the family(her daughter and i were born on the same day in the same hospital just minutes apart), highly recommended that i go with an ARM to keep my payments low. she said research showed that most folks either refi or sell within 5 years anyway, so my rate should never change. i flat out refused this because i had seen my grandmother almost lose her house back inthe early 90's to an ARM adjustment. i don't think SHE was trying to con us, i think she fell for the industry wide hype of this is what is best for MOST people. i really think that is the problem, too many people wanted to buy big and an ARM was the only way to do it. they figured the house would continue to appreciate and they could either sell or refi before the ARM hit. in many cases they were just glad to get a home and did not even realize that they had an ARM. yes, a good bit of this was predatory lending. and yes, a larger portion was simply a furtherance of the American way of life, spend money you don't have cause you can pay it back cheap(at least at first)! i feel sorry for the people who were tricked into ARMs and for people who have had life changes that made a once affordable payment no longer possible. but i do not feel sorry for people who made the largest purchase of their life based on what they pay a month RIGHT NOW, and totally ignore what they WILL pay down the road. i almost wish that the law required all potential buyers to take AND PASS a financial planner course that specifically educated them on how things can and will change on a mortgage. BTW, i never have believed in buying a "starter" home. in my region of the country you rent a home for a few years and then buy your home you plan to live out your life in. this is what my wife and i did, we rented for 6-7 years adn then bought. before buying, we did a lot of research and found we could afford more than we thought. we were pre-qualed for over 250k, but bought a 145k house because it suited our current and future needs. that 145k got us ~2400 sq ft on 4 acres. we could have bought a house in town for half that and still been in a good neighborhood, but we wanted outside city limits.

I used to have a large picture about the size of Allison's picture over my bed that I bought from an Estate sale and loved until I got new bedroom furniture and my headboard is so tall that now I have nothing over the headboard but I think about it all the time. I am thinking now of a few smaller pictures over my headboard so my 6 feet iron headboard can remain the star. I still have the beautiful flower picture that I have nowhere to hang.