Home stagers have become increasingly common in our slow market as home sellers struggle to get their property noticed amidst all of the competition.

They usually come in, clear all of your stuff out and replace it with a sterile, neutral setting that will be attractive to the most amounts of potential buyers.  The whole goal of staging is to make it so the buyer can picture their possessions in the house.

But, there is a new trend in home decoration that can be implemented whether you are prepping your home for sale, or just want to spruce it up for your own enjoyment, known as redesigning.

A redesigner is a person hired to come into a home and re-do it using all of the homeowner’s own possessions. They rearrange furniture, re-hang artwork and make the most of a person’s space using all of their old stuff.

A November 3, 2006 article posted on The Wall Street Journal’s Real Estate Journal by Rachel Koning Beals of MarketWatch, “The art of using what you have: Hiring a redesigner for your home,” looks into this innovative way to either prep your home for sale, or just change things up a bit.

“Sometimes even a stuffed hunting trophy and a modern sofa can exist in harmony, if left to redesign professionals. Challenged by cavernous ceilings, off-center fireplaces, unmanageable collections, odd traffic flow or any of several decorating dilemmas, more homeowners are hiring redesigners to breathe new life into their rooms. “

The biggest perk to hiring a re-designer is not only do you get to keep your old furniture, but you save a lot of money by not starting over from scratch.

“Handing over a home to an objective outsider for a few hours may save thousands of dollars otherwise spent on new furniture and accessories. As trained redesigners mix and match items from several spots in the house, group accessories for impact and re-hang artwork, clients are reintroduced to underutilized spaces and their nearly forgotten possessions long relegated to storage. Others learn that limiting display items to a few favorites or rotating accessories is an effective fix.”

Marie Kinnaman, a San Diego based redesigner who coordinates the website, www. Interior-redesign-exchange.com, says every homeowner should try using what they have first before they spend another dime on a piece of furniture or new home accessory.

“‘I love the idea of recycling and reusing,’ added Kinnaman. ‘People just grow tired of their things. You can give a new feeling to a room just by rearranging what you have and it turns out, what you have isn't so bad at all.’”

Most redesigning firms are paid either hourly or by the project, it all depends.  According to the article, the average cost of per hour ranges from anywhere just below $100 to just above $100.

“Plan on a minimum of three hours up to an entire day for most full room makeovers, said Rochester, Minn.-based Cindy Hughes, who with her partner has expanded a furniture and clothing consignment business into a redesign consultancy called Rearrange. Some redesigners offer shorter appointments for beginning consultations, including color advice, tricks for editing possessions or furniture-buying strategies.”

Redesigners will sit down with their clients before they begin the redesign process in order to get a good feel of their likes and dislikes.  Since they are using all of the person’s original possessions, an unsatisfied customer is very rare in this business.