About The Founder:
Stacey Cowden was born in Vancouver, Canada as Stacey Wright. Her mom (Shelly), born a true South African in Kimberly met her dad (Barry) who was born in Britain, Chesterfield.
Her school life started in Jan Kemp Dorp a small town about an hour from Kimberly, in an Afrikaans school, but they soon moved closer to the sea where Durban became their home town, where she now lives with her husband and daughter.
Her passions are in marketing, project management and procurement, interiors and art. Stacey loves space and all things beautiful, so she can’t help but to create things that work well together! This has always been a part of who she is and it has all built up to what she does today.
So in 2012 her love for art, interiors, assisting others with ideas in the home as well as marketing, all gave birth to a space called Black+WRIGHT Interiors.
What staging means:
Staging is the styling and preparation of a private residence or office space for sale in the real estate market. The main target of staging is to make a home or office more appealing to the highest number of potential buyers, thereby selling a property more swiftly.
Staging techniques focus on improving a property’s aesthetic appeal by insuring it is a welcoming and attractive product. Many buyers start their searches online, which means the first impression they get of your property are the pictures that are posted. They say a “picture is worth a thousand words”, but in this case a picture can be worth thousands of rands, it entices people to come tour the property on sale and put in an offer. If people don’t like what they see online, there’s a good chance they won’t see it in person. If there’s more than one property for sale in your immediate area, staging can also help yours stand out from the rest. This can be especially important if your property is older and going up against new constructions.
The benefits of staging:
- Focuses on the potential, not the present
- Prioritises key spaces
- Increases the value of a home
- Decreases the amount of time a property is on the market by up to 80%
- De-cluttering
- Deep cleaning
- Minimal cost – small repairs, such as paint touch-ups and a bit of caulking – should be done during the staging process. These little fixes are quick, easy and cheap to take care of, and can be a bit of an eye-sore for buyers if they are not.
- De-personalising – this means creating a blank canvas, and for that, family photos and any other personal items of the current owners will need to be put away or in storage – including things like a toothbrush in the bathroom or a pair of slippers under the coffee table. It can be difficult for a buyer to picture themselves in a home if they are constantly seeing the personal items of currents residents.
Black+WRIGHT uses design and conceptualisation techniques. Our objective is to have a buyer walk in and envision the property as their home. It’s all about creating a space that makes buyers connect emotionally to the property. They should feel as if they are already the owner and see themselves living and entertaining there. As a seller, in order to do this effectively, you need to make the house as impersonal and attractive as possible to stimulate the buyer’s visual acuity, this is where we come in!