Design & Build

Staging Your Home to Sell or Enjoy

At Driftwood Designs, our mission is to stage, organize, and decorate your home to create a living space without distraction that’s ready for resale, the rental market, or your own family to gather.

Potential homebuyers aren’t just looking for a structure to occupy–they’re looking for a way to fulfill their lifestyle dreams. They need to envision themselves living in a space on a daily basis and enjoying the benefits that the home offers. As the seller of the home, it’s important to capitalize on the assets and play down the distractions. This is best done through home staging.

When real estate agents talk about home staging, they are referring to the method of decorating a home to showcase its best features. Realtors understand that by doing this, you can impress buyers and likely attain a quicker sale at a higher price. According to Consumers Guide to Real Estate Staging, homes that had not been staged before listing sat on the market an average of 143 days. Once these homes were staged, they sold in 40 days. Homes that were staged pre-listing averaged 23 days on the market.

Driftwood Designs is a mother-daughter design group that focuses on home staging. Misty says, “One of our client’s homes appraised at $495,000. Driftwood Design was called in to stage the home and it sold within a week for $525,000. As professionals in the field we are able to visualize your home the way buyers will view it. We declutter, neutralize, and beautify your home so buyers can imagine themselves living there.”

When staging a home, what you are actually doing is appealing to the emotional side of the buyer. Whether you like it or not, the things that fill a home–like furnishings, lighting, textiles and general clutter–contribute to the overall impression of the home. Even though these things will be gone when you leave, the buyer connects them to the space. If there is too much furniture, clutter or color, a buyer can quickly get overstimulated and ready to walk out the door. You also have to remember that not everyone has the same taste as you, so creating a neutral space is key to appealing to a wider majority.

Should you hire a professional home decorator?

Home decorators save you money by searching for the items you need for your home while staying within your budget. They will fill those blank walls with an eye catching print, basket, or gallery wall, add some plants, and give your space the WOW factor that draws the buyer’s attention. A home decorator also has access to a variety of styles from Minimalist Modern and Coastal Bohemian to Modern Farmhouse, Modern Industrial and Traditional Southern.

Why do you need to get organized?

A well-organized home frees up space and makes it look bigger. Getting your home in order has many benefits from relieving stress to ridding your home of allergens. When everything is in its place, a potential home buyer sees a tranquil, clean and stress free environment as opposed to chaos.

Misty, Kelsey, and Karley have been designers from the very beginning! It runs in their blood three generations deep and between them they have just over 40 years of combined experience. Their family grew up going to Daufuskie Island and now Karley and Misty both live there. Driftwood Design exists to update, stage, and re-design homes on Daufuskie for resale, but they also desire to see their work spread among Beaufort County in homes across the Low