Staging (a house)

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

We're "staging" our apartment to sell it. I noticed the term on AOL today.  
Any OED entry for "stage" (v.)?
...
...
...
(OED)
stage, v.
5. To put (plants) on a stage; to exhibit (plants or  other objects) at a 
show. Also absol.  
1850  Beck's Florist 249 There were  several useful flowers staged, but few 
novelties. 1881  F. YOUNG  Ev. Man his own Mech. §930 For  staging auriculas 
the distance between the rows of shelves need not be so great  as for 
pelargoniums. 1883  Goole Weekly Times 7 Sept. 8/2  With holyhocks, he has taken first 
and second prizes every time  he has staged them. 1897  C.T.C. Monthly Gaz. 
Jan. 24 A  few silver-plated models were staged.

...
...
...
_http://finance.move.com/homefinance/realestatenews/sellers/sellbetter.asp?gat
e=aolrealestate&source=a11392&poe=homestore_ 
(http://finance.move.com/homefinance/realestatenews/sellers/sellbetter.asp?gate=aolrealestate&source=a11392&poe
=homestore) 
 
All the Home's a Stage
Quick, cost-effective ways to spruce up your home  
By Diane Benson Harrington     
A half hour spent in front of HGTV's "Designed to Sell" or A&E's "Sell  This 
House" tells you a couple of things. 
    *   The first is that an astoundingly high number people have really 
lousy  taste in décor along with an undeveloped sense of what's frowned upon by 
the  general, home-buying public.  
    *   And an investment of a few hundred or maybe a few thousand dollars in 
a  home headed for the market — a sprucing up the pros call "home staging" — 
can  yield nice returns. 
Why stage a house? "Buyers can only imagine what they see, not what it's  
going to be," says Barb Schwarz, a broker who now focuses entirely on staging  
homes with her International Association of Home Staging Professionals. "If you  
don't clean the carpet or don't take down the flocked wallpaper or the  
teenager's walls are painted bright purple, the buyer can't envision it any  other 
way." 
If done well, staging makes a remarkable difference. "We took over a house  
that was on the market for six months, didn't change the price, staged it, and  
it sold in 18 days," says Realtor® Paul Conti, who with his wife Ginger, 
stages  and sells houses with Re/Max Valley Properties in San Jose,  Calif.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org