Solarium Redux: Staging a small space for resale.

One of the challenges when you decide to sell a house is to "let go" of your own personal style. Your own like and dislike may not translate to the demographic you are trying to sell to and often that requires restyle and restaging of a space.

This enclosed porch/solarium provides an outdoor feel indoors.

One of the great things in smaller houses is found space. Such is the case with the solarium. This space is only 7x13 feet but three sides are windows making it appear visually larger than it is. This space was originally planned to be a small study and we selected darker richer colors, however we re-envision this space as being overflow for the living room, perhaps a small office space.



Fabric is a quick and easy addition and it provides some sound deadening from street noise.

Our first decision was to go with a lighter color on the walls and trim, This creates an architectural paneled effect. We also determined that the "focus wall" which is seen from the street above the architectural paneled space needed something special, we found a fabric with a French theme. This material is a bleached linen and if sun fading were to happen would simple "patina' the fabric. Note: we covered the switch plate to make it recede visually with the wall

The other decision was to take advantage of the floor which was done in a simple wood parquet. We chose a tile with a nice scale which would visually expand the space and relates well to the new exterior color on the house. There is also a side benefit that this will warm up in the evening and provide some thermal storage which is beneficial on cooler days.

The classic tile floor creates European feel to the space

We decided to use a French style area carpet continuing with the theme and paired that with an old mahogany buffet, which allows for lots of extra storage.

The sideboard and a couple of chairs are more than adequate for this space.

Because the space was small we used smaller scaled side chairs with lighter wood. The fabric matched our paint color too. Total cost of this restage was inexpensive about 100.00 for the tile plus about 50.00 for the fabric and paint. We kept the simple reed blinds which control light. We will throw in a couple of house plans and a fern or two to give it that solarium feel and feel like your outdoors on a cooler day.