Hi. I’m Chrystie

There is a version of the home stager story you have probably heard before. The one about a design degree, a lifelong love of interiors, a natural eye for color. 

That is not my story.

Over the last twenty years I have built my career around a single skill: listening to people well enough to understand what they actually want, and then crafting something that speaks directly to that want. Marketing, at its core, is the art of helping someone recognize themselves in a product.

It turns out that is exactly what home staging is.

Many years ago, I worked in real estate. I have stood on both sides of every transaction that matters in this industry, as the seller holding her breath at an open house, as the buyer walking through a door and deciding in seconds whether a place has it or it doesn't. That accumulation of experience gave me something a design education alone cannot: I know what buyers feel, because I have been one, repeatedly, in markets that required me to pay attention.

My eye for design was trained across many moves, seven home purchases, and more renovation decisions than I care to price out in hindsight. I have decorated from scratch, renovated with intention, and staged for sale, on my own homes, with my own money, under the particular pressure of someone who needed the market to agree with her choices.

That kind of experience teaches you things a design course cannot. You learn what actually sells versus what just looks good in your head. You learn where buyers' eyes go first. You learn the difference between a room that functions well and a room that makes someone feel something when they're standing in it.

I founded Merit + Pine on the belief that the right home doesn't just sell. It shows someone who they could become inside it. Learn more about my philosophy here.