More than any other room in the house, your dining room has one focal point — the dining table.

That said, it’s crucial to ensure you are staging a dining room table well before listing your home on the real estate market. An empty table will make your dining room feel awkward and bare, but a table that is staged too heavily will make your dining room feel cluttered. A table stuffed with too many plates, pieces of silverware, and bulky decor can even make a small dining room feel crowded.

A professional home stager knows exactly what it takes to stage a dining table to appeal to buyers, which is why it’s worth the investment to hire a staging company. These are some of the things a professional stager will do when staging your dining table.

1. Create an Intimate Atmosphere

A dining room is where home buyers will envision throwing dinner parties, spending holidays with their families, and celebrating other important milestones and events.

That said, buyers need to picture themselves gathering around your dining table with family and friends. One of the best ways to do this is to provide enough furnishings to showcase the room’s potential but to choose neutral colors, place settings, and decor that allow buyers to fill in the “blanks” with their own personal style and preferences.

2. Find the Proper Placement For Dining Room Furniture

Dining tables should be the focal point of dining rooms — period.

This means if you have a chandelier or light fixture in your dining room, the table should be centered under it. If there is an area rug in your dining room, the table should be centered on top of it. If there is a mirror in the room, the table should be centered next to it (placing a wall mirror on the opposite side of a large window is also one of the top dining room staging tips for maximizing natural light).

3. Use the Right Number of Chairs

Setting the perfect number of dining chairs around the dining table is essential. A small dining room with a smaller table should have four chairs, but a bigger one in a large dining room might have enough space for six to eight chairs. However, when in doubt — less is more. Stuffing too many chairs around a table will make your dining room feel small, drastically reducing dining room appeal.

This should go without saying, but you also need to set the table to match the amount of chairs around the table. If you have four chairs — there should be four plates, placemats, and wine glasses around the table, too.

4. Keep Decor Chic and Simplistic

When potential buyers look at your home — they don’t want to feel like they’re at their grandma’s house for Thanksgiving dinner. That said, keep the old-fashioned plates in the china cabinet (and in a storage unit — please!) and opt for simplistic, modern tableware and accessories instead.

You don’t need a tablecloth if your table is in great shape. Tablecloths add an unnecessary “bulky” feel to the table. For a round table, consider adding a simplistic centerpiece, like a vase of fresh flowers, and for a rectangular table, a table runner with a few large pieces of decor in the center is a nice touch.

5. Match the Home Viewing Hours

If you are having an open house viewing, set the table for the time of day the house is being shown.

For example, a more casual luncheon setting in the morning might resonate more with potential buyers, but in the afternoon, having the table set for an evening meal might better match the mood.

6. Hire THE STAGING COMPANY for Your Dining Room and Home Staging Needs

Staging a dining room table on your own might seem easy — until you list your home, only to be met with crickets (and no serious buyers).

Professional home staging is the best investment you can make during the home-selling process. While many sellers see staging as an “added expense,” it’s actually the only investment you can make before selling your home that builds value and creates an emotional connection with buyers. That connection is what sells homes, and it’s the reason why staged homes sell 88% faster than vacant homes!

So, are you ready to invest in home staging? Our experts at THE STAGING COMPANY would love to help you sell your home in Texas or Florida in less time and for more money. Contact us to learn how to get started — we can’t wait to hear from you!