What does property styling cost in Melbourne?

The short answer

Between $3,000 and $10,000 for most Melbourne properties.

We're aware that publishing a number is unusual. Ring around five stylists and you'll get five versions of "it depends on the property", which is true and also useless when you're trying to work out whether this is a $2,000 decision or a $20,000 one.

So: most of our projects land between $3,000 and $10,000, for a standard six-week campaign.

What moves the number

Three things, mostly.

Size. More rooms means more furniture, more objects, more time. A two-bedroom apartment and a five-bedroom family home are not the same job.

How empty it is. An occupied house where we're editing what's already there sits at the lower end. A completely empty house where every room needs building from nothing sits at the upper.

How long the campaign runs. Six weeks is standard. Extensions cost more, because the pieces stay in your house instead of going into the next one.

What doesn't move it much: the suburb. We charge for the work, not the postcode.

What you're actually paying for

Furniture hire is the part everyone understands. It's also the part every stylist can offer, because most of it comes from the same handful of Melbourne warehouses. That's why so many listings look the same on a Saturday morning.

The part that's harder to buy is everything on top of the furniture. The lamp. The tray. The piece of glass on the sideboard. Rod is a collector, so the objects that go into your house come out of his own collection rather than a hire catalogue. Nobody else can put them in a competing listing, because nobody else has them.

Furniture fills a room. Objects are what make someone remember it three inspections later.

Questions worth asking anyone you're considering

Whoever you end up using, these are worth asking.

Is the quote fixed, or an estimate? Quotes that move after the walk-through are the main reason people end up unhappy.

What happens if the campaign extends? Ask now, not in week seven.

Do you own anything, or is all of it hired? Not a wrong answer either way, but it tells you how different your house will look from the one down the road.

Who does the installation? And will they be back to collect it, or is that a different company on a different day.

What's the insurance position? Someone's furniture is going to sit in your empty house for six weeks.

Why most stylists won't quote over the phone

Because they genuinely can't, and because a number without context does neither of you any good.

We can't tell you what your house costs until we've stood in it. What we can tell you is the range, so you know whether to keep reading.

Finding out what yours would be

Start with a conversation. A phone call or an email, ten minutes, no obligation. If it sounds like a fit we'll come and walk through the property, and after that you get a fixed number before you commit to anything.

If the answer turns out to be no, you'll have lost half an hour and gained a fairly detailed opinion about your own house.