Hello, friends. My husband and I are knee-deep in preparations to sell our home. While everyone faces the same challenges of making sure living spaces are de-cluttered and tidy and prospective-buyer ready, I have found it especially puzzling to “stage” my weaving studio. I need to keep weaving while our home is on the market, but this area had to undergo some big changes before it is realtor-ready.
First: why am I writing about this? While I found a lot of information about how to stage living rooms, kitchens, and even home offices, I didn’t find much about staging creative working spaces.
Where to being? Here is an overview of my strategy:
- Sell unused equipment. I had two small looms that were mostly idle and so while it was hard to part with them (we weavers tend to get attached to our equipment, don’t we?) it made sense to find them new homes.
- Move the yarn. I have an entire shelving unit stocked with cones of yarn. I moved this from my primary work space to allow for easier movement in the weaving room.
- Off-site storage. I’ve stored all of my booth equipment in an off-site storage facility. Pipe and drape, canopy tent and weights, folding tables, booth lights and flooring are all currently accessible to me but out of the house.
- Put away sharp and pointy things. While I love to have little ones come through a demonstration area and pet yarn and soft and lofty textiles, scissors and pins are off-limits.
- Put away lightly-used items. Reeds, jersey mannequins, and other fiber-related equipment are stored in a closet, an old antique dresser, baskets, and even my loom bench.
- Limit display textiles to 1-3 pieces. While it seemed tempting to use the studio as a makeshift pop-up sales floor, I didn’t take this route. I kept things light: a small table runner on an antique dresser and a neutral, textured lace shawl on the mannequin lady.
Here are a few photos of the way things stand right now (apologies for the rather dark photos as they were taken very early in the morning):
Feel free to share your own strategies for staging a creative workspace area! Thanks for reading!
Be well,
Kate K.
Kate Kilgus 