Home prices sour thanks to staging

interior decoratorsI went to a pantomime yesterday. Such fun! The people on stage were engaging, and they encouraged lots of audience participation so nobody felt left out. Well, except for lawyers, because they were the butt of most of the jokes. It was a pantomime about the first case of an animal being brought to trial in Australia, and ended when a donkey gave an impassioned, musical speech that put all the law folks to shame. I think he got executed anyway, but it was still very comedic and funny.

I wonder, how do lawyers feel with their profession being represented thusly. I suppose all jobs have their stereotypes that people might think are a little bit on the nose. Like, say…teaching. Well, you must be a bundle of nerves who hates children. Professional writer? You must smoke a pipe, drink lots of coffee and stand in the rain thinking about your tortured soul. Now Melbourne’s property styling industry is taking off and I can sort of see what people mean. Oh, interior decorating? Let’s make an amusing pantomime where the person waltzes into your soon-to-be-sold house and makes a snarky comment on the drapes, and tuts and where you’ve put the telephone chair, and makes a slight tittering noise when they walk into your room and see that you haven’t replaced the carpet since the 1970s. That’s just not on, my friends. I know this, because I was talking to my friend Tatiana and she was moaning about how this property staging person was being all harsh. I asked what she meant, and her only complaint was that she was told to fix the multiple gaping holes in the veranda, because people kept putting their feet through it. That sounds like a reasonable change that’ll get your house sold, but Tatiana said she like it that way and the person had no right to tell her anything, let along suggest that the curtains didn’t match the sofa.

Um, isn’t that what’s done by someone in property staging? Melbourne home sales are on the rise, and here we are, stereotyping…