Although we are completely happy with our home, my lovely wife Cassandra and I are moving to a new house a half-mile away in Los Angeles that’s even older and more expensive and falling apart faster. We’re doing this so we can fight over trivial things instead of actual marital problems. You can’t hurt someone much when you tell her she selects tiles just like her mother.
To sell our home, we had to hire a stager. Staging, which a few years ago was just for superrich people, has trickled down to mid-priced houses; there are 1,000 members of the Real Estate Staging Association, and Meredith Baer Home is a nationwide staging firm. So the superrich are now also producing short movies about their houses. For an average of $12,500, filmmaker Curt Hahn will show a house through a story, of, say, a dad’s surprise birthday party in which his uniformed son who is stationed overseas Skypes in before appearing from behind the screen to hug his dad. After watching it, I wanted to own that house and invade a foreign country.
So I got my talented friends Marvin Lemus and Igor Hiller at Moose Hill Productions to shoot my movie for free. Hahn suggested that they aim for the kind of buyer we were when we bought the house: childless, new to L.A. and with values I could live with. Because buyers could be from overseas, he said, we should eliminate as much dialogue as possible and include multiracial families. This made even more sense when I watched Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner on mute and appreciated all the exposed brick and natural light.
My friends, however, are comedy writers, so they made a movie about two detectives who admire the house while questioning a woman named Cassandra about her husband’s untimely death, life-insurance policy and cost of their new screening room. Enjoy.
Inside the Weird World of House Staging Videos
Part of our staging involved ash trays. Not just any ash trays. Ash trays that look like feet. Next to an opened book of Van Gogh's paintings. On a coffee table that looks like pavement.
Joel Stein for TIME"Excuse me, sir. Can you tell me how to get to Barkers Place?" "Of course! It's at the Stein's fountain in their back yard!"Joel Stein for TIMEI keep a couple of jars of dried beans on my utility sink in my garage office, don't you?Joel Stein for TIMEA silver bear carrying 4 large dice, placed on the fireplace mantel. I don't understand any of this. #nightmares #tacky #creepy #weirdJoel Stein for TIMEThis is the SECOND boat prop in the house! Boat imagery must be very key to selling a house!Joel Stein for TIMEAnother boat?!
Joel Stein for TIMEI found yet another painting of a boat!!! This makes the 4th boat image in our house. (Plus, the nautical rope in a jar.)Joel Stein for TIMEWe have absolutely no yard. No grass. Just a brick courtyard and a hill of trees and bamboo. So this croquet set feels like a deliberate joke.Joel Stein for TIMENow Joel is in on the fun. He re-staged my coffee maker staging with a semi-broken Pasquini espresso maker. It's becoming a competition! Submit your home staging submissions for "garage office utility sink!" (Anything will win compared to two jars of dried beans.)Joel Stein for TIMEThe home stager gave us this dining set and told us not to eat there without covering the chairs and table. For real. I'm afraid to even walk near it. I eat on my floor now.Joel Stein for TIMEI actually own this Himalayan salt lamp and book about meditation. What's funny is that the stagers put this hippie stuff on Joel's side of the bed. No tissues, alarm clocks, pens or hand lotion allowed on nightstands. Just books you will never read.Joel Stein for TIMEThey took away our TV because, apparently, nobody wants to admit that TVs exist in every home? Instead of a TV, we now have a row of old fashioned movie chairs and a pair of red velvet curtains pulled back to reveal another ugly painting. And a jar of popcorn in the middle of the floor. Which is where we keep our jar of popcorn usually anyway.Joel Stein for TIMEOn my nightstand, is this book that isn't even a book: It's a galley. But that doesn't matter. It's got the word "French" in it! Apparently, the words "meditation" and "French" make people want to buy houses. Someone should write a book about meditation in France.Joel Stein for TIMEThis is "art!" that we paid someone to put on a wall in our house! Imagine that mischievous and expensive elves took over your house and hid everything useful in places you can't find them and replaced them with things like this.Joel Stein for TIMEApparently, fake people in fake staged houses don't cook, so they don't need pot holders. Spices must serve as decoration only, I guess.Joel Stein for TIMEI found our coffee maker which was stashed away in the garage. I replaced the two jars of beans on the office utility sink with this adorable "take a break from working" set up. Doesn't coffee in the office make more sense than dried beans?Joel Stein for TIMEJoel says, "Cassandra, you know when you send a letter and you don't put enough postage on it and it gets sent back to you? What do you DO with all of those letters?"Joel Stein for TIMEHow did I miss this?! A rope in a jar! That's part of a decor service you pay people for!: A rope stuffed into a Mason jar! Why not place your "jar of rope" on a stack of plates next to a ceramic white artichoke candle? Then stick it on a shelf in your dining room.Joel Stein for TIMEHome stagers apparently like objects that people only own in pretend worlds. Like a ship in a bottle.Joel Stein for TIMEThis one is called "The Rolled Towel." The cotton ball and q-tip jars are mine. What we apparently paid stagers to do is take one of the white towels they told me to buy and roll it up. Bathroom decor, stager style.Joel Stein for TIMEThe ugliest painting in the world will make people want to buy our house. One Instagram comment summed it up as "abstract snake bookmark plaid." And a shiny gold chevron pillow.Joel Stein for TIMEThis is a broken video game from Joel's youth that I've been urging him to discard for years. Boy was I wrong! It's an objet d'art that gets prominent display by the home stagers.Joel Stein for TIMEI went to Target and bought these white towels (and white sheets) because apparently, if you want to sell your house at a good price, you can't have colored towels.Joel Stein for TIME
Cassandra is played by Scout Durwood, Detective Tommy Sparks by Jonny Cruz and Detective Melanie Lafonge by Katie Orr. The film’s cinematographer is Moira Morel. Taylor Gill is the assistant camera operator. Marvin Lemus is the director/editor. And Igor Hiller is writer/producer.
