Cost & Value · 6 min read
How Much Does Home Staging Cost in Columbus?
Every house has its own scope. Here is what we review before preparing your custom proposal.
By Johanna French, owner and head stager
Ashmoore Court | Powell
If you are researching home staging cost in Columbus, Ohio, you have probably noticed that most stagers, us included, do not post a price list. That is not coyness. A two-bedroom condo in the city and a four-bedroom house with a finished lower level in Powell are different jobs, even when both are called “staging.”
Here is what goes into a custom proposal and what you can send us to help us understand your property.
Why every staging proposal is different
A consultation and a full staging installation are very different scopes. One is advice delivered in person; the other can include furniture, art and decor delivered, placed and left in the home for the staging term.
The right scope depends on the house in front of us. Size, room count, access and the amount of inventory required all change the work, which is why we begin with property details instead of a published price list.
The things that actually move the number
Square footage and room count
More rooms means more furniture, more art, more rugs, more lamps, more hands on moving day. This is the biggest single driver, which is why our first estimate is based on size and scope.
Vacant or occupied
A vacant house needs furnishings brought in. With occupied staging, we work with the seller's own furniture and fill in the gaps from our inventory. We call that supplemental staging. The scope of either service depends on the property.
Which rooms you stage
For vacant homes we recommend focusing on the entryway, living room, dining room, kitchen and primary suite. Those are the spaces that carry the listing photos. Adding secondary bedrooms, an office or a lower level is possible, and it adds to the scope. Our post on which rooms to stage first goes into the reasoning.
Access and logistics
Stairs, narrow hallways, a third-floor walk-up, a long gravel drive, tight parking on a city street: all of it affects how long delivery and setup take. Distance matters too. Our studio is in Newark, so Granville is a short hop, while Commercial Point or Urbana is a longer haul for the truck.
Term and timing
Our standard staging term is 30 days, with extensions available if the house needs longer. Installation usually takes one to two days. If you need a very tight turnaround, that affects scheduling, so tell us your target listing date early.
Why we quote every home individually
Every house differs in square footage, layout, access, number of rooms and logistics. A flat per-room price would either overcharge the simple jobs or undercharge the complicated ones, and neither is fair. So our process runs in three steps:
- Free estimate. You request one on our website and we send an initial estimate based on the home's size and the scope you want.
- Onsite assessment. A team member walks the house to confirm measurements, check lighting and layout, plan installation logistics and fine-tune the design strategy. This is also where we catch furniture-selection mistakes before they happen. You then get a final proposal.
- Approval and scheduling. Contract signed, payment collected, install dates secured. Then we deliver, style and set up, ready for photos and showings.
Where the money goes
- Inventory. Furniture, rugs, lighting, art and accessories chosen for this house, not pulled from a single template.
- Design time. Planning the layout and palette around the home's features and the buyers it is likely to attract.
- Delivery, installation and pickup. Usually one to two days in, plus the return trip at the end of the term.
- The term itself. Thirty days of the pieces living in your home through photos and showings.
We work from reusable, well-kept inventory and eco-friendly materials wherever we can. That keeps waste down, and it means you are paying for thoughtful placement, not for someone to buy new things that end up in a landfill.
Ways to keep the cost sensible
- Stage the priority rooms and leave secondary bedrooms simple or empty.
- If you still live in the home, start with a one-hour advisory consultation. You get a written checklist and can do much of the work yourself.
- Line up photos and the listing date before install, so the 30-day term is spent on showings rather than waiting.
- Do the free prep first: clean, patch, swap mismatched bulbs, wash windows. Our guide to preparing your home for staging has the full list.
If you are still weighing whether it is worth spending anything at all, read Is Home Staging Worth It? and Stage or Sell Empty?. For vacant listings, our vacant home staging page explains what a full install includes, and the Ashmoore Court project in Powell shows what that looks like in a vaulted living room with a marble fireplace.
The fastest way to a real number for your house is a free estimate.
The service behind this article
Vacant Home Staging →Full furnishings, art and decor for an empty house, focused on the rooms that sell. Installed in one to two days.
