Home Sale Staging Artistry

An interior designer transforms care-worn homes for sale into high profile showcase listings.

Call it theater in the square. Beth Odence, home stager extraordinaire, is in her design center, a boxy, corrugated-tin workspace on Kidds Hill Road in Hyannis, surrounded by furniture and finishing touches that she has purchased, commissioned, or recreated. Creamy Belgian sofas are topped with pillows hand-sewn by local seamstresses. A long French table is casually set with a birdcage styled after a Victorian house and an Eiffel Tower lamp with a reed base. Art and mirrors hang from soft-colored walls.

Photo by: Anne Robertson Photography

Artistic, eclectic, and sumptuous, Odence’s business space could be a set from a staging of a Noel Coward play. “It’s kind of funky,” Odence laughs. “It suits us. We need a lot of space for what we do.”

Odence, an interior designer, has carved a niche in real estate throughout the Northeast and abroad. Most of her business is staging homes, preparing residences to improve their selling price on the market. One thing led to another, and soon, as Odence says, “staging opened up to interior design.” Producing unique furnishings for staging and interior design led her to selling pieces to private homeowners. “I couldn’t find things when I started to buy,” Odence explains. “It needed to be unique and different.” So she began creating her own furnishings and accompanying pieces.

Photo by: Tyra Pacheco Photography

It is an interwoven business that Odence has captured with a starry presence. She began her home staging business 10 years ago, as BjtOdesigns (based on her initials). Now in its 10th year, she recently renamed her enterprise Design No. 5, with an expanded vision. In home staging, it means constantly refining and creating pieces that are unique and represent the right ambience for a home on the market.