Maine's Home Staging Expert Got Her Start Well Before The Real Estate Boom. Meet Elizabeth Polansky

Lisa Belisle: Hello, I'm Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to or watching Radio Maine. Today I have with me in the studio Elizabeth Polansky, who is the founder of the Styled Home. Thank you for coming in today.

Elizabeth Polansky: Thank you for having me.

Lisa Belisle: So I'm interested to hear about the work that you do in particular, because I believe you are one of the first organizations of its sort in the region doing the styling.

Elizabeth Polansky: You are very correct. My company does real estate staging. We also offer interior design services. I started it back in 2000, so I'm 22 years into it, and actually brought the concept of staging to the Portland, Maine area and grew it from literally nothing to now. I have truly the only company of its kind, which is staging, and I have incorporated a retail division to my business. I have a 10,000 square foot warehouse in Westbrook that houses my staging inventory, but also I have about 4,000 square feet dedicated to my retail showroom.

Lisa Belisle: How did you get into staging, and what was it about staging in particular that interested you?

Elizabeth Polansky: To be perfectly honest, my ex-business partner and I got a phone call in 2004 from a realtor asking us if we did staging, and we looked at each other. We knew the concept and we said to her, absolutely. And that's actually how we got our first project, and it's morphed since then.

Lisa Belisle: What was your background?

Elizabeth Polansky: My background was in retail. I was in the fine jewelry business, in management and buying, in Rhode Island and New Jersey and Philadelphia. And then when I came to Maine I was a stay-at-home mom, and when my daughter started kindergarten, I had this concept of helping professional homeowners decorate their homes. So I came up with this concept way before HGTV. I would go in to meet with clients and figure out what their room needed. I would go out and then I would shop and source for those items, come back, set the room up, and their room would be decorated in a matter of a couple of days.

Lisa Belisle: Did you have an interest in art when you were going through school?

Elizabeth Polansky: I have always had an interest in art. That was probably my favorite subject in school. Interestingly enough, jewelry was my favorite, and I ended up following that passion, but also interior decorating and creating a beautiful home, and helping people create a beautiful home, just really became a passion of mine.

Lisa Belisle: So was there any sort of moment in your life where you can kind of look back and connect with where you said, oh, I like design, I like interior design, this is something that I really wanna focus on?

Elizabeth Polansky: Probably when I was looking to discover where I could take my life, when my daughter started kindergarten and I had the opportunity to work with a woman who was starting out just a small design company, retail and interior design. And so I worked with her, helped her set up her store and get that going and running. And my retail background helped me with that. And as I got moving with her, it just clicked and I just loved it. And it has taken me to a place that I never thought I would ever be at. When I walk into my warehouse and I look around, I'm like, I did this. And I will be the first one to admit I don't have a college education. I learned on the street, so to speak, and learned by doing, and it just came very natural to me.

Lisa Belisle: Well, I can tell just by looking at your jewelry, which is beautiful, that you have a wonderful eye. And I'm wondering, did you have that from when you were young? I mean, when you were a little girl, did you look at lovely necklaces that other people were wearing and say, oh, I would like that, or have a discerning eye about things?

Elizabeth Polansky: You know, it's just so funny that you should say that. I was always a girly girl. And through when I was in high school, I was 16 and I worked at a little lady's, back then we called it a dress shop, but it was a lady's clothing store called The Style Shop. And I loved it. I loved clothing, I loved jewelry, and as I started in my jewelry career when I was 16 or 17, you have to look professional. And so I have always been used to getting up in the morning and getting dressed and putting on my jewelry and being the best person that I can be and looking the best that I can. And I find it quite easy. Some people don't, but it is truly who I am.

Lisa Belisle: Tell me about the collaboration that you've had with the Portland Art Gallery and the Cumberland Club.

Elizabeth Polansky: Ah, well, I am very proud to say that I sit on the board of the Cumberland Club. And for many of those who don't know what the Cumberland Club is, it is a private social club, and we have a beautiful building down on High Street, where our members can come and socialize, they can dine, and we have an absolutely beautiful room that is dedicated to one of our members who passed away, Mr. Bruce Buxton, who was in the art business. I'm not sure if you know Bruce, but this room was dedicated to him, and I had the pleasure of being involved in redoing it, redecorating it. And so we knew, when we were doing this, that we had the concept of doing a rotating art gallery, even though the club has a lot of beautiful pieces of art throughout the club.

So we had the art rail put up and we attempted, pre-COVID, to do an exhibit, and it never really went anywhere. And then COVID hit, and the walls of the Buxton room sat empty for almost three years. And I reached out to an artist that I follow on Facebook, Cooper Dragonette, who I just resonate with his work. It is just so gorgeous. And I messaged him on Facebook and said, would you ever be interested in doing an exhibit at the Cumberland Club? So he directed me to the Portland Art Gallery and Emma, and completely unbeknownst to me, I had an experience with Emma where I had staged her home back in Yarmouth maybe two years prior.

And then she proceeds to tell me that she's also a member of the club. And so I talked with her about my concept and how I wanted it to look and feel, and obviously I had to present it to our board. And that took a little while to work up all the logistics and things like that. But once that was all done, our membership committee and Ralph Hendrix, who heads that, reached out to Emma, and the installation was put in place, and we had an absolutely fabulous opening night. And the exhibit is hung, and we'll be rotating that every quarter to feature different artists. And every time we do a new exhibit, we will host a cocktail party, because we want as many of our guests and outside guests to come in and not only enjoy the club, but to enjoy the new show.

Lisa Belisle: What was Bruce's connection to art?

Elizabeth Polansky: So I knew Bruce through the club, basically sitting at the bar, having dinner. And he actually did a project for me. I had a client that had some art that I needed to facilitate getting sold. So I brought Bruce in and he took care of that whole process for me. And he was just such a lovely man, and we were very, very sad when he passed away, but he was such a part of the club, and so we named our main dining room after him, and it's the Buxton room. And because Bruce was an art appraiser, again, the whole thing about having a rotating art show in his room just made sense, I think, to all of us, quite frankly.

Lisa Belisle: Do you think that he would've liked the Cooper Dragonette pieces?

Elizabeth Polansky: I do. I do. I can't think of anybody who doesn't. I mean, we all have our taste in art. And I hope one day I will have a piece of his art hanging in my home. I could be so lucky. But some of the other artists that Emma brought in that are hanging not only in the Buxton room, but she has hung some other pieces in our main lounge as well, and those pieces are breathtaking. So it is a beautiful mix of art. I believe there is one piece of Cooper's hanging in that show. And there's a couple of other artists that were featured at our initial opening.

Lisa Belisle: When you go into a client's home, how do you start the conversation about staging, whether it's with them or with the realtor that you're working with?

Elizabeth Polansky: Well, it typically is the real estate professional that's gonna bring me in, because they know, working with me throughout the years, that they want their listing to look as good as it can. It's a beauty contest out there, and I always say the prettiest one wins. But the way that I start all of my presentations with my homeowners is this: I am not discounting anything that you have in your home. We all have what we have because it's beautiful. I'm being brought in to look at it with a fresh eye, but I'm also looking at each room through the lens of the camera. I wanna see how that room is gonna photograph. And in many cases, the way we live in our home, the way our furniture is positioned, is not conducive to photography because it's not balanced.

And so what I do, and what my team and I do together when we go into a home, is we are balancing it, physically balancing it, centering it, positioning furniture, rehanging artwork. And I will say nine times out of ten when we leave a home, the homeowner will say to us, why didn't we know you five years ago? We have never known what to do with this room. It has never felt right. And you were here for two hours and it looks and feels amazing. And I say to them, it's because it's not balanced. So that's probably the biggest piece of it. But then I'm also looking at the overall condition. I'm looking at the condition of the paint. I'm looking at the condition of the carpet. Buyers today have such high standards, and they truly want perfection in the home that they are purchasing. And through COVID, we all know what that market was like, it didn't matter. But that's shifting. The market is truly shifting, and it's getting back to where it was in 2018 before COVID hit.

Lisa Belisle: So tell me a little bit more about that.

Elizabeth Polansky: Ah, well, again, when COVID hit and everybody wanted to move to Maine, to our quintessential beautiful Maine, they were online looking at pictures, and again, it didn't matter what a house looked like. I still had my real estate professionals that used my services for every listing. And COVID didn't matter to them. They are presenting a product. And when you get ready to sell your house, it's a product just like anything else. And that product needs to look its best. So those real estate professionals still brought me in, still had me do everything that I typically would do. But things like replacing carpet and painting and light fixtures that I would recommend prior to COVID, I wasn't doing anymore. I said, we don't need to do it. We just need to make sure that the online photo presentation is as perfect as we can get it.

That's what's gonna draw that buyer in. I'm creating an emotional connection between the buyer and the home. When they see that online, they're like, oh my gosh, I have to see that, I have to have it. We buy on emotion. Doesn't matter what it is, a car, a pair of shoes, a house, we have to connect emotionally. And I'm proud to say that I create that, and I also created that tagline, and it is a tagline for my company.

Lisa Belisle: So if you have someone that you're working with to stage their home and you're trying to create balance, what types of things do you employ as kind of tactics for creating this balance in a space?

Elizabeth Polansky: Well, the first thing that I start with is the area rug. Nine times out of ten, an area rug is positioned in the wrong location or the wrong direction, or it's the wrong size. It's either too small or it's too dark. Another thing that I also look at are dark rugs. Dark rugs do not work in real estate photography because they actually kind of suck the light and the life out of a room. So if I am working in a house, they have heavy oriental rugs, nine times out of ten, I will advise those rugs be rolled up and perhaps replaced, where I would bring in other rugs. So it starts with the rug, then it starts with the furniture, and again, picking out the focal point of a room. If I'm doing an oceanfront room and the windows, you are overlooking the ocean.

That is how I want that room to be directed. But let's just say that's somebody's TV room and the only wall that they could put a TV on is opposite of the windows. So I will work my hardest at getting that room positioned so when the pictures are taken, we're looking at the view, we're not looking at the TV, we're not necessarily looking at the furnishings. And then it comes down to the accessories and lamps, balance, scale. Nine times out of ten people are afraid of large lamps. It's very interesting. And so the wrong scale lamp is gonna throw off the look and feeling of the room. So I may have to bring in lamps. The final pieces is the artwork. If artwork is not positioned in the right spot, it can also throw a photograph off, the piece is either too small or it's too big, or somebody takes a small piece and puts it on a big wall, and it looks like this poor lonely little piece of art. So we will address that as well, and make sure that's all balanced. And that's part of what I call a photo prep, where we go in prior to the real estate professional bringing in their professional photographer.

Lisa Belisle: Do you do anything differently when you know that there's going to be a live showing? So you've talked about a lot of the photography and the product online. Is there a different feel when somebody walks through the door, or is there anything different that you do in that case?

Elizabeth Polansky: There actually isn't. So when I leave a home that we have just done a photo prep on, we pretty much say to the homeowner, it needs to look as close to this as possible, because the buyer's expectations, they wanna see in person what they saw online. So the homeowner may take pictures of how we made the beds, of how we position the pillows on the sofa, how we set up the kitchen counter. So it is advised that it looks as close to how we left it as possible.

Lisa Belisle: Have you ever had homeowners who are in the process of selling a home say, wow, I'm so impressed by the staging that you did, I actually wanna carry some of this forward into the next place that I go to?

Elizabeth Polansky: Absolutely. There are so many clients that I stage for that then become my design clients. It's wonderful. And I make so many amazing new friends and relationships, because they're bringing me into their private space, and that's not easy for a lot of people, to basically bring a stranger in, and then you bring my team in, and that's really a whirlwind. But to your answer, yes, I have a lot of design clients that I've actually staged multiple homes for over the years, and they just keep bringing me back in. And that's a testament to what I bring to them and to what I bring to their realtor.

Lisa Belisle: You've also created a team that you work with, and obviously you can't just duplicate yourself and ask each of your team members to be exactly like you. How do you create ongoing cohesiveness and create kind of a similar look and feel and approach amongst your team members?

Elizabeth Polansky: I have to tell you that my team is amazing. I have five women that have worked with me for years, and they simply know what to do. They've done it long enough. I've trained them. Initially Holly, who's been with me the longest, I hired Beth, trained Beth. Beth and Holly trained Emily and Sarah. They all help train Maria. And they know what I expect. They know what a house should look like. I have a certain aesthetic. And when I'm staging a vacant property, so that's a home, it could be a brand new build, could be a property where the homeowner has moved on and moved their furniture out, my team and I literally create a brand new home in a matter of hours.

And they are such a fine oiled machine. It is incredible to watch. And they work off pictures, and quite frankly, I don't do that piece of it anymore. I'm the one out there getting the business. I'm the one out there meeting with the homeowner and the realtor. When we secure a project, that's when I bring my team in. They take their pictures of each room, of all the walls, they take their video, we go back to the warehouse, we select and tag all of the furniture that we wanna take. And then they go to it, and they pick center pieces, they pick all the lamps, they pick the bedding, everything is coordinated, everything is cohesive. It all flows room to room. And it's an amazing process to watch from start to finish. And clients that are at the home while I'm doing this process, and sometimes they are, sometimes they aren't, sometimes our realtor will stop in, they're blown away at how it all comes together. It all comes in bins and it's wrapped. And again, in a matter of hours, we've created this beautiful product that then is photographed and hits the market.

Lisa Belisle: Elizabeth, what is your Maine connection?

Elizabeth Polansky: My Maine connection. Well, I moved to Maine back in 1998 with my husband and my daughter. He was in the shoe business, and so that company brought us here. And I divorced 11 years ago, and he went back to Milwaukee, which is where we're from, and my daughter and I stayed here, and I knew I couldn't leave what I had created, and Maine, I couldn't leave Maine. And I absolutely love it here, and I've never regretted my decision. It has allowed me to create this business that I never thought possible. And my daughter, who's now 28, she just moved to Milwaukee. She wanted a change. And when she told me, I just thought it was the most exciting process, and I encouraged her, and she's been there a couple of months and she is loving it, and she gets to spend more time with her dad. And it's perfect. I'm very happy for her, and I'm also very happy for him, because he missed out on much of her life. But now they're getting to share what I had for several years. I'm excited about that.

Lisa Belisle: Well, we're very lucky to have you still here in Maine. And also congratulations to your daughter for making that big life choice.

Elizabeth Polansky: Thank you. Thank you.

Lisa Belisle: How can people learn more about your business?

Elizabeth Polansky: Well, I obviously have a website. I am online, which is how a lot of people find me. It's thestyledhome.com, and I'm on Facebook. I have a lot of followers. I don't advertise, and quite frankly, I have never had any luck advertising. Most of my business is referral. I'm very proud to say that, whether it's referrals from the real estate professionals that I work with or from past clients, that's usually how I get my business.

Lisa Belisle: Well, I encourage people to learn more about the Styled Home. I've very much enjoyed my conversation with founder Elizabeth Polansky. And I've learned a lot today, and I suspect that there are many more things that all of us could learn from Elizabeth and her team. I appreciate your coming in and having this conversation with us today.

Elizabeth Polansky: This was wonderful. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.