How a stager reimagined a large Beaches home

Neighborhood: The Beaches Listed for: $2,499,000 Sold for: $2,407,000

The stager

Red Barrinuevo was a pharmaceutical rep and, later, a banker, before his passion for interior design led him into the home staging business. In 2010, he founded his company, Redesign4More.

The property

This four-floor home is located across the street from Woodbine Beach, and both of its balconies face the water. The sellers were a couple who used much of the house as an art studio, with the master bedroom functioning as their main living area. They travelled a lot and frequently picked up souvenirs, resulting in an assortment of beautiful yet mismatched pieces. The result, as Barrinuevo describes it, was “heavy and dark.”

The strategy

The home was large, so Barrinuevo decided that he needed to give every room a function, in order to prevent buyers from being confused by the unusual floor plan. He also wanted to brighten up the interior and highlight the house’s proximity to the beach. “I wanted to make it feel like a vacation house in the city,” he says. To contrast the dark floors, he added white furniture, all of which he arranged to highlight the windows.

The entranceway was the most challenging section of the house to stage. The sellers had been storing their art materials in wall-to-wall closets. “I decided on daybeds facing each other,” Barrinuevo says. “That made it feel more like a loungey space—more like you’re receiving guests.”

Barrinuevo wanted to make sure the house’s big windows weren’t blocked, and that the second-floor balcony was accessible, so he got rid of unnecessary furniture and pushed the drapes aside to allow in natural light. He matched the blue-and-white-striped awning to patterns and colours inside the house, to create a more cohesive and connected effect:

In the third floor living room, Barrineuvo made sure to furnish the space with quality pieces. “Every piece of furniture should justify the price you’re asking for,” he says. “You cannot just bring in an IKEA chair for the sake of having a chair. It doesn’t make sense.”

The master bedroom takes up the entire fourth floor and includes an ensuite bath, office space, and walk-in closet. Barrinuevo decluttered the space and added colour-coordinated pieces to create symmetry: