At the insistence of my real estate agent, William Pitt Sotheby's, I contracted Staged Ryte to…read morestage an almost 5,000 foot historic Dutch barn that was restored into a luxury residence and had never been lived in. The owner, Dawn, reviewed the property and eagerly stated they could handle the magnitude of staging three floors. I contracted them to stage a design theme of antique farmhouse meets modern farmhouse at the hefty price tag of $18,000.00.
Red flag #1: Over two days they moved a plethora of large, heavy furnishings in without sending me photos of the main pieces they would be using, as promised, for my approval. They provided no story board in advance. When I showed up, it looked like they emptied out their warehouse just to fill the home. The downstairs was covered modern motif, nothing farmhouse - it was leather and fake animal skins and looked like a separate residence. The main floor had so much furniture crammed in it that the vast beauty of the original 1860 barn floors and beams got lost in all the clutter. The main focal point was an open liquor table an alcoholic would love, set between two large, bizarre chairs that were nothing farmhouse and more about filling space. Lets not even talk about the rug they chose, see photos.
The upstairs loft bedroom space had a king size fabric gray sleigh bed with cheap satin-like bedding, definitely NOT farmhouse, with French Louis XV antique furniture pieces scattered about and more hideous garage sale chairs. This was accented by a single bed, also Louis XV style and some bizarre iron garden fixture. There were Homegoods type large pillars on either side of the fireplace, where the bed had been placed smack in front of where a sitting area should have been. The bed was flush against the wrought iron, hand crafted banister. From the grand center hall staircase looking up, it appeared a mattress was leaning against the artisan handcrafted banister. Not very appealing for photographing this home for a listing and WHO PUTS A BED IN THE MIDDLE OF A ROOM, seen from downstairs?
Thankfully I came home a day early and when I questioned them about this, they stated they 'weren't done" but really, all that was left was for them to position a bunch of French themed kitchen accessories and a ton of weird house tchotchkes they had scattered all over the kitchen for "sorting" to determine which ones they wanted to use, again, none of which were farmhouse themed.
BUT THE MOST EGREGIOUS part of this was when I instructed told them to remove everything, as this clearly was not in their wheelhouse (my real estate agent and multiple other industry professionals agreed and were aghast) and that I was canceling the contract for failure to provide the services in accordance to what was agreed upon, they tried to tell me I would owe them $6,000.00 for their move in and out fee. BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE: Once they removed the ridiculous furniture they tried to pass off as appropriate, I found that thier lazy movers simply DRAGGED the heavy furniture across the BRAND-NEW upstairs floors, creating so much long, deep scratch damage and deep grooves and circular dents created by DROPPING large heavy, pieces of furniture into place. The cost to replace the flooring will run me $8,000.00 as they cannot be sanded down and stained again without creating obvious areas of dissimilarities (there are approximately 35 areas of damage on the floors and two sets of staircases). Mind-blowingly, they refused to acknowledge the damage and never even offered to repair it. This made the holes they left in teh wall from hanging ridiculous "artwork" and picture frames of FRUIT seem like nothing.
This was a home that has never been lived in. They were charging $18,000.00. Run, don't walk, away from Staged Ryte. Everything about their services and inability to own their mistakes is STAGED WRONG. Save your money. Hire a company that can do more than make a few small rooms look cute.
