As any real estate agent worth their salt will tell you, staging matters when selling a home. According to the National Association of Realtors, staging a home is a crucial step as it's proven to help potential buyers better emotionally connect with a home and visualize how a space can be optimized. Seeing a well-furnished space can also increase its perceived value, thereby encouraging buyers to place even higher bids. 

Having a well-staged home can drum up interest and hasten sales in an open house, where both serious buyers and casual visitors may drop by. Overall, staging has been found to help homes sell up to 30 times faster than nonstaged ones. Additionally, staged homes can sell for 20% more. Depending on your budget, you may choose to stage only select rooms. Given that around 78% of recent home buyers are families, it’s wise to focus your staging on communal spaces, like the dining room. But how can you stage a dining room so that every open house visitor can see themselves wining and dining in it? Read on below. 

Choose an inviting dining set

First and foremost, you need to have the right dining room set. Since this will be the room's focal point, you want a set that fills the room but doesn’t feel overwhelming. As a rule of thumb, you want your table to be large enough that the room is no longer cavernous but still has a lot of space to move around it. Apart from size, it would be best if you also considered the seating. Too many seats will look cluttered, but too few will look incomplete. Generally, a dining table with bench seating is a great middle ground. As seen on retailer Living Spaces, benches can seat between two to three adults and even more children. This flexibility helps buyers see how versatile a dining room can be for virtually any gathering. Since dining sets with benches tend to have a more casual vibe, it can help the space feel more inviting. These sets still come in different styles to suit the home’s overall theme. For instance, while the Titan Grey Faux Concrete model has a modern industrial style, the Felix Toasted Natural Oak is more mid-century Scandinavian. 

Decorate with an appropriate tablescape

Next, once you’ve got your dining room set, you need to decorate it. Remember, staging is all about creating a beautiful lived-in scenario that the buyer will want to be part of. With this in mind, create a tablescape that is aligned with the overall theme you're putting forward. For example, if the house is on a beachfront property, create a more sea-inspired tablescape with materials like rattan, shells, and linens. On top of this, you want to decorate in a way that suits the time your open house will be held. So, if you’re having an open house at night, ensure that your tablescape suits a more intimate evening affair. Designers at Lobster and Swan do this in their stunning tablescapes by adding more romantic touches like candles and herb sprigs. Adding a living table runner, like Finding Lovely’s greenery runners, can add life and color to an otherwise generic dining room. 

Upgrade with a light fixture

Lighting is not just for function but also for ambiance. In a dining room, you want your lighting to be bright enough that nobody is struggling to see but not overtly so that the space looks cold. Warm lights are preferable in a dining room since they add a soft glow that gives off a cozy atmosphere. This is why if you have access to natural light, you definitely want to take advantage of this by washing your windows to let in as much as possible. In many cases, though, realtors must also rely on artificial lights. Should this be the case with you, go for overhead light fixtures with dimmers. For instance, Wayfair’s chandeliers have dimmable bulbs that let you control the intensity of the luminosity. Just make sure that the style of your fixture matches your table to complement rather than clash. For example, the linear Pitman will work better with a rectangular dining set. You can properly illuminate and accentuate your dining area using the right light fixture.