Buyers walking through an empty home have a lot to work out on their own. Will a queen bed fit in the second bedroom? Where would the sofa go? Is that nook a study or wasted space? When they can’t tell, they guess, and they tend to guess low.

Staging answers those questions before anyone asks them. Each room shows what it’s for and how much fits in it. The photos give buyers a reason to book an inspection, and the inspection lets them picture themselves living there.

That’s the test a DIY stage has to pass. It’s the same test ours has to pass.

We saw a comment online recently saying staging is overpriced, and that you’d be better off spending $1,000 at Kmart and keeping the furniture. It’s worth checking that maths, because $1,000 doesn’t go far once you write out what a house actually needs.

For a typical three-bedroom house, the list looks something like this:

• a bed, mattress, bedside tables, lamps and linen for each bedroom
• a sofa, armchair, coffee table and rug for each living area
• a dining table and chairs
• artwork for the main walls
• outdoor furniture for the patio or balcony
• cushions, throws, plants and a few accessories for each room

Start with the beds. Even at the very bottom of the market, a frame and mattress runs to a few hundred dollars each. Three bedrooms can use up most of that $1,000 before you’ve bought a sheet, a bedside table or anything for the living room. The sofa, dining setting, rugs and art all come after that.

Then add what doesn’t show up on the receipt. Delivery on bulky items is often charged per piece, and the rest means a van or trailer. There’s flat-pack assembly, a weekend or two of your time, and getting it all back out once the house sells. You’ll also need somewhere for it to go. If you’re moving into a home that’s already furnished, a second set of beds and sofas isn’t much of a saving.

A professional stage for a vacant home with us starts at $3,900. Once the whole list is priced, the gap is a lot smaller than it first looks.

Phoebe made the point well in one of our videos. Kmart, Target and Big W all have their place, and plenty of us furnish our own homes from them. But the home you’re selling is probably your biggest asset. You’re not trying to get a budget price for it, so it’s worth asking whether budget pieces are the right way to present it.

Most people own a phone with a good camera, and they still book a professional photographer when they sell. Owning the equipment and producing photos that sell a house are two different things.

Furniture works the same way. Buying it is the easy part. Setting it out so a buyer can picture living in each room is the actual job.

Two places DIY stages tend to slip:

The first is scale. A lot of budget furniture is small and light. In a large living room, a compact sofa and a small rug can make the space look sparse in photos instead of generous.

The second is gaps. The budget runs out before the house does, so the last bedroom or the patio gets left empty. Buyers compare the rooms inside your house against each other, and the empty one is the one they remember.

These come straight from how our stylists are trained. They apply whether you’re buying new, borrowing from family or using what you already have.

Put a bed in each bedroom

Buyers are paying for bedrooms, so show them as bedrooms. That includes the spare room you’ve been using as an office. If space is tight, a single bed is fine, but ideally only in one room.

Keep colours neutral

Solid red, bright blue, strong yellow and lime green don’t photograph well. Save the bold colours for your next home.

Go easy on pattern

When the cushions, rug, throw and artwork are all patterned, the eye doesn’t know where to land. Pick one and keep the rest plain.

Don’t overfill

Step back and look at each room the way a buyer would. A big spread on a small table, another display behind it and a crowded kitchen bench all compete for attention. Fewer, better-placed pieces make a room easier to read.

Choose the right table shape

A square dining area suits a round table. A long, narrow one suits a rectangle or an oval.

Hang art where people look first

The first wall you see when you walk into a room is the one that needs artwork. Hang it properly, too. Adhesive strips aren’t strong enough to hold anything heavy, and a frame on the floor mid-inspection doesn’t help anyone.

Set it up to sell, not to live in

The way you’d live in a room and the way you’d sell it are often different. A TV and sofa facing each other across the biggest wall might suit daily life and still close off the space for a buyer walking through. Arrange furniture so people can move through easily and see how big each room is.

If the photographer is booked in a few days, you’re selling from another city, or you don’t have a spare weekend and a trailer, DIY gets hard quickly.

If you’ve already got some good pieces, you don’t have to choose between all or nothing. We can style around the furniture you’re keeping and fill in the rest.