Twenty years in any career may feel like a life well spent, but when major moments throw a curveball, it can leave one wondering about the next steps. For Fuller, time away from work on maternity leave a decade ago put her in a position to pursue something new. While that often means starting from the ground up, her relationships and experience in staging-adjacent work prepared her to take on an exciting new life in home staging.

After a career in merchandising, Fuller decided to hang it up when her soon-to-be eleven-year-old son was born in June of 2013. Her police officer husband, now a detective sergeant, was always on-call with his work – and Fuller says someone needed to be around for their young son. She looked at work in both interior and home design, but quickly realized it was not the right fit. Soon enough, she found home staging – a visual medium different from her experience with clothing retail… and her interest was piqued.

Fuller became certified through an intensive course with the Home Staging Association and was able to open her own company within months. Fortunately, she says she had a leg up in growing her brand due to the relationships and connections she had formed in her previous life. She spent time sharing resources with Lisa Leonardi of The Room Doctor in Madison before branching out to find her own space, crew, and furniture. It took a while, she says, but the results have come.

Of course, that was before the pandemic.

The staging field of the real estate industry – and home buying and selling as a whole – took a significant hit during the early years of the pandemic, with many stagers unable to push through COVID and stay afloat – Fuller did. She credits the relationships that she had built over seven years staging pre-pandemic, and the understanding that staging has become a critical part of selling a home. Fuller says the business is not about selling the home anymore – it’s going to sell at some point, at some price – it is about maximizing the investment. Fuller says staging will help homes sell for the highest amount possible, drive additional traffic to the home, and give sellers an improved online presence.

Like assembling the perfect wardrobe, Fuller says staging the perfect home is a process that takes time and effort but pays dividends for future sellers. To her, staging means walking into a room in which sellers can picture furniture and other necessities that will complement the space – and visualizing the result that will make someone fall in love with a home all over again. 

Is the process of staging just furnishing a home? Far from it! Fuller refers to herself as ONE STOP SHOPPING. Her team does dump runs, donation runs, and refer contractors for prep work. The team handles everything from soup to nuts to prepare a home for sale.

Lindsay noted, "I can handle harry situations during the original walk and talk, so agents may keep their professional relationships unscathed. I can even give feedback for the do-it-yourselfers...sometimes sellers only need a few items and I'm very specific on what to look and shop for."

Does staging an ideal living space make it harder to move? For many, she says, yes – but the decision to find a new living space is always made, the property is always sold, and stagers like Lindsay Fuller will always find a new project to turn a house into a home.