Q&A With Kate, Founder of EHG and Home Stylist

Hi Kate! What exactly is a home stylist and how did you get into it?

A home stylist will present your property to appeal to your target audience in order to achieve the highest possible price in the shortest amount of time. My background is photography and property developing, so when myself and my husband brought our own properties to market we would dress them ourselves. Friends were impressed and asked us to do the same for them, then word spread and more and more people came to us for help. Our inventory grew and that was that - EHG Home was born!

Who are your clients? 

We are lucky enough to work with a variety of clients including estate agents, property developers and home owners, providing either a full dressing of a completely empty property or a home edit to get a property market ready.

What’s the biggest misconception about home styling? 

That home styling is the same as interior design when in fact, they’re very different – more on that in an upcoming blog!  Another common misconception is that home styling is just for vacant properties. Most people don’t live in their home in the way it should be presented to sell, so staging an occupied house is equally beneficial and just as necessary. The fact is, most homes could benefit from some updates, editing and rearranging to make a positive first impression on potential buyers.

This sounds like it all might be quite costly – is it really worth the expense?

Selling your home isn’t like selling an old sofa on ebay – it’s usually a major deal worth thousands, even millions of pounds and is often the single, largest financial transaction most individuals will ever experience. According to a report by The Home Staging Association, 94% of estate agents, and 100% of developers, confirmed that home staging increased the number of viewings for a property. The longer a home sits on the market, the more price reductions it will undertake, so it’s far better to spend a little money upfront to ensure the house shows well than have it lingering extensively on the market.

So what’s an average day on the job?

Our fab logistics team will collect the furniture for the property, pre chosen by me, and bring it all to site. We then work through the all-important positioning. I tend to try out a few different pieces (much to the guys frustration!) but being a visual person, I sometimes need to actually see how a piece of furniture works in the space before making a final decision on what to include and where. I always have loads of extra accessories delivered so I can pick and choose, and while there’s a huge amount of team work involved, I tend to do the final’ fluffing’ myself.

What’s the most rewarding part of what you do?

As a home styling team we have just two days to install a job and those two days can be a frantic frenzy of busyness as we get everything ‘just so’…. but when the furniture, accessories and artwork are in place, the marketing photos are done and looking fantastic, and my client is delighted, I love that I have helped them achieve the very best from their property in readiness for that all important sale.

And I have to ask - have you had any on site disasters?

We have had occasional damage to furniture and occasional damage to walls, and all manner of brain teasers getting furniture through tight corners and around sharp bends. And yes, I have turned up on a job and the furniture I’ve selected doesn’t quite work, so with a two day window it can be quite stressful! But the disaster is never the final point. We always turn any problem around so that when we close the door on the final staging, the property is looking tip top and ready to go. 

Finally - there are a number of home stylists on the market – why should someone choose EHG Home?

We give over 100% to every property and sometimes to our detriment financially - but we are passionate about what we do and giving our all to every job. EHG Home offers a very personal service, and we will stage every property in line with its style and the buyer demographic. We have a varied, wide ranging collection of furniture sourced from all around the world and we use it to bring something a little different to the generic "show home" look. In addition, we adore working with artists and artisan designers of cushions, throws, rugs etc to help promote their products, effectively offering a "shop window' through being "exhibited" in one of our jobs and via the marketing photos. Often a buyer’s eye will be caught by a piece of art or a beautiful sculpture, which they can then purchase in addition to the property!