We recently connected with Fabiana Alceste and have shared our conversation below.
Fabiana, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?
Astoria Design Co. is named after our neighborhood in New York City: Astoria, Queens. This neighborhood is vibrant and comfortable–a community of immigrants accessible to people from all walks of life. I moved to Astoria from Manhattan during my second year of graduate school, while I was pursuing a PhD in Psychology. Soon after, Cory joined me in Astoria and we stayed there for the rest of our time in New York. We found Astoria to be a respite from the loud, busy streets of Manhattan, while simultaneously maintaining the buzzing energy of the city. We loved Astoria so much that we decided to make it the namesake of our home staging and interior design company. We keep the neighborhood in mind when we design new spaces: vibrant, yet accessible; comfortable, yet energizing.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Astoria Design Co. is a home staging and interior design company in Indianapolis, IN. As a small, family-owned business, we strive to support our local community. We source most of our furniture and decor from other small businesses in the area. We also sometimes upcycle, reclaim, or refinish previously-owned pieces that we have acquired from local Indy residents or thrift stores.
Staging a home is one of the best marketing techniques at a realtor/seller’s disposal. It’s difficult for potential homebuyers to visualize their own life in an empty house. It can also be difficult to imagine yourself living in a home full of someone else’s personal belongings. This is where Astoria Design Co. comes in–we design the interior of a house for sale to accentuate the positive features that might be missed in an un-staged home. At Astoria Design, we aim to wow every potential homebuyer as soon as they walk into a new space. Our designs inspire people to imagine themselves living, entertaining, relaxing, and loving life in that house. We love using modern colors, a variety of textures and shapes, and inventive decor to showcase the beauty of your future home.
Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
The best source of clients for us has been the growing community we have built in Indianapolis. During the pandemic, one of our cherished activities was to attend open houses in our area on the weekends. At one of those open houses, we met Steph, a realtor who has become one of our closest friends! She introduced us to other realtors in her field, who have hired us as stagers for their listed homes. Never underestimate the potency of word of mouth!
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
In the home staging business, there is a lot of talk about appealing to the widest audience possible. A good example of this in practice might mean removing photographs of the family who is selling the home–if people see photos of another person or family in the house, that might make the psychological jump to “this could be MY home” a little more difficult. And usually this is good advice, as you want a home for sale to call out to anyone that could potentially be interested in buying it, and not just one specific kind of person, or someone with a particular lifestyle. However, we have learned that there are limits to this advice. A lot of staging we see has taken this “appeal to the majority” tip to mean “no personality.” Dozens of staged homes might all look the same, with grays and whites permeating the entire space. We find that look to be a bit sterile and frankly a tad boring. The homes we stage are always accented with a diverse array of colors and textures that provide a unique and interesting vibe to each room in the house. The living room might have green velvet couches and accent chairs with gold legs–an energizing vibe for a part of the house meant for entertaining. The bedroom might have warm desert tones that evoke feelings of relaxation and coziness, since this is the place in the home where people wind down. If everything is white and gray everywhere, it’s hard to evoke those different vibes in different areas, and it comes off as plain and unimaginative–no one wants to live in a house like that! So we take the “appeal to everyone” lesson with a grain of salt: we always aim to be inclusive and accommodating in our designs, but that doesn’t mean the space can’t be stylish and fun.
Contact Info:
- Website: astoriadesignco.com