How a pair of stagers refreshed a Leslieville condo in one day

Address: 1201 Dundas Street East
Listed for: $498,000
Sold for: $480,000

The property

An 800-square-foot, two-bedroom condo in the Flatiron Lofts, in Leslieville.

The stagers

Flo King and Nicole Babb, a pair of childhood friends, co-founded Rich & Poor Home in 2016 after taking staging courses at Seneca College. Their office is in Scarborough.

The strategy

King and Babb worked with the property’s listing agent, Priscilla Facey, whose clients covered the cost of the staging. They had just one day to redecorate the condo.

Right away, the pair knew they needed to give the space a softer touch. “We added some wood elements and little pops of colour to warm it up against the cold concrete,” Babb says. Their other major concern was the second bedroom, which was being used as a storage space. “We tell all of our clients to use bedrooms as bedrooms,” says Babb. “That’s where the value is.”

In the kitchen, they brought in a tall glass table and some transparent chairs. “We did this so people’s eyes would just float straight through,” Babb says. “You can see that a dining area exists, but the space feels bigger.” They added recipe books, a fruit bowl and salt and pepper shakers to make the room look slightly more inviting.

Babb and King don’t mess around when it comes to bedding. Usually, they’ll put about $600 worth of items on a bed. In the master bedroom, they used two sets of sheets, two duvets from H&M, several pillows and a grey comforter cover from Walmart. They also added a headboard and tray accessories with candles, to give the room a hotel-like appearance.

They had to make this smaller room, which has no window or closet, look and feel like a bedroom for two. So they brought in a double bed instead of a twin, put in two side tables, added mirrors that resemble windows, and stuck with a neutral grey theme to make the space seem more inviting.

In the living room, they were going for a modern luxury look—hence the Tom Ford coffee table book. The owners had removed the ceiling light fixture, so Babb and King brought in floor lamps from William Ashley. They replaced the owners’ couch, which Babb says was too dark, with one from Gus* Modern, and they bought the wooden sideboard table at Pavilion, even though it cost quite a bit more than they had budgeted for. “It hurt so bad,” King says. “But we were striving for a certain look and we just had to bite the bullet on this one.”