Brian Siqueira's house was making him blue. The wrong shade of blue. The St. Laurent businessman had been trying to sell his Nantel St. four-bedroom for two years with no luck. Little did he realize that the wrong paint palette was keeping him from seeing any green.

"The real-estate agent's strategy was that I reduce the price. I didn't think the lower price reflected fair market value for the property," Siqueira said in a recent interview.

After many months, the owner received exactly one bid, a $320,000 "lowball" offer from another agent.

"I suspected that she thought she could get it cheap and flip it," he said. "That made me more determined than ever to stand firm on price."

Siqueira decided to sell the property himself. Cutting out the agent would put more profit in his own pocket but only if he sold at a price higher than the market seemed willing to offer.

Enter Danielle Schryer. She saw Siqueira's For Sale By Owner ad in The Gazette and decided to pitch her services. Schryer isn't a real-estate agent. She's an interior decorator with a home staging business. She talked her way into Siqueira's house with a promise that she could help him bring out its fullest potential.

That was last November. He wanted the house ready for early January. Schryer had six weeks and a small budget.

"There was no way I was spending a lot of money on things I wouldn't need after the house was sold," the homeowner said.

The initial budget was $2,000. That covered paint and painters and the services of handymen who repaired cracked plaster and replaced worn carpet. It also covered Schryer's fee.

She set to work.

"The house I visited seemed very sad," Schryer told me. "There were beautiful pieces of furniture and lovely artwork, but it didn't feel like anyone really lived there."

Guilty as charged, said Siqueira, a divorced father of two.

"I'd been in the house for 10 years and I'd never paid much attention to decorating or that sort of thing. I had no time and, frankly, no interest."

Schryer zeroed in on the overall look. What it needed was a head-to-toe paint job to banish the dated and wishy-washy palette of whites, beige and chilly blues.

"The colours did not do anything for the place," she confided.

A case in point, the living and dining rooms were a wimpy shade of beige that wouldn't have worked in a walk-in clinic. The stager startled her client by proposing a vivid blue instead.

"Sometimes with owners there's an emotional tug-of-war," Schryer said. "You have to persuade them to let go."

The first rule of staging a home for sale is to make the space pleasing yet neutral so that buyers can more easily imagine themselves living there. Siqueira saw little point in repainting beige rooms another shade of beige. He balked. She countered. A compromise was struck.

"Ordinarily, I wouldn't have chosen blue, but the colour worked with his green leather sofas and the other upholstery," Schryer said.

She edited Siqueira's furnishing, which included some lovely Oriental carpets and South Asia art. She augmented with inexpensive sheers and a new shower curtain from the dollar store.

The work was finished by the first week of January. The total cost: $4,000.

Siqueira put the house up for sale on Jan. 7, priced at $359,000. He had 15 visitors during his first open house. A sale was quickly struck. On March 12, the sale closed at the notary's office for $347,000.

"My plan all along was to get $350,000, so I'm pleased," Siqueira said.

You might get the idea Siqueira is tight-fisted. Not so. He was so pleased with Schryer's hard work, attention to detail and ability to work within a small budget that he sent her another cheque after the house sold to thank her.

Everybody walked away a winner. Except for the real-estate agents who didn't get to sell the house. Or buy it.

maryjlamey@yahoo.ca

Brought to you by Sharon Kreighbaum, Staged Makeovers