Home Staging Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Goal of the Game
• Setup
• How to Play a Round
  • 1. Start on a New Room
  • 2. Furnish the Room
    • a) Choose furniture
    • b) Draw the chosen furniture
    • Exceptions
  • 3. Finalize the Room
• End of a Round
• Design Rules
  • Hallway
  • Front Door
  • Access to Rooms and Furniture
  • Windows
  • Unconnected Circulation Spaces
  • Cards Showing Walls
  • Distances
  • Wild Card
• Special Rules
  • No Hallway
• End of the Game and Scoring
  • Scoring Example

Components

• 66 Furniture cards
• 5 Room cards
• 25 Selection tokens
• 1 Drawing pad for your floor plans
• 1 Projects book

Make sure you also have 1 pencil and 1 eraser per player.

Ages 10+. 2-6 players. 30 minutes.

Goal of the Game

Following the instructions of your chosen scenario, create a harmonious layout with as many pieces of furniture as possible to score maximum points.

Setup

Choose a scenario from the Projects book (1). Open the book to that page and place it in the center of the table where everyone can see it. The number of pencils on the right of the project's title indicates its difficulty level (2): Tutorial Scenario, Easy, Medium, Hard.

Take a sheet from the drawing pad and fill in your name, as well as the name and number of your chosen project.

Note: for your first game, we recommend starting with the Tutorial Scenario.

Read the project description out loud (3).

Draw the floor plan (exterior walls; any trees, roads, and other features) on your own floor plan sheet, following the project instructions (4).

Place the number of Room cards listed in the project, in a column on the table, face down (5).

Now check the "Rooms" box on your current project page. Find the listed Furniture cards and place them face down in a row next to their corresponding Room card.

Important: there are 2 different Furniture cards for each number. Select 1 at random without looking at it. We recommend keeping the Furniture card deck in order, so you can easily find the numbers you need.

Place the Selection tokens on the Furniture cards, question mark-side up, as shown in the "Rooms" box (6). The Selection tokens tell you how many pieces of furniture to add to your plan per card.

Read the special rules, bonus points, and tips sections out loud (7).

You're ready to play! The player who most recently put together a piece of furniture launches the project.

How to Play a Round

You'll develop your project over several rounds: 1 round per room to furnish. To furnish a room, you'll play 1 game turn per Furniture card linked to that room.

1. Start on a New Room
2. Furnish the Room
   • a) Choose furniture
   • b) Draw the chosen furniture
3. Finalize the Room

1. Start on a New Room

At the beginning of each round, flip over an unplayed Room card of your choice. You'll be furnishing this room over the course of the round. You must work through the row of Furniture cards next to this Room card before you can move onto a new room.

2. Furnish the Room

In this phase, all players will have the option to draw 1 or more pieces of furniture. The active player will choose the type of furniture to be drawn each turn.

a) Choose furniture

Flip over an unplayed Furniture card of your choice from the row next to the current room. Each Furniture card features 2 different furniture options.

The active player must now choose 1 option per Selection token on the card. They must assign each Selection token to 1 of the 2 options by flipping the token to the exclamation point-side, and placing it next to their chosen furniture.

In this example, the card has 2 Selection tokens. The active player can choose between the 3 options above when assigning them.

Example: the active player decides to make everyone draw an L-shaped kitchenette this turn.

b) Draw the chosen furniture

All players simultaneously attempt to draw the selected furniture on their floor plan, following the Design Rules (see below).

Each piece of furniture will take up a certain number of squares in its own unique shape. It also needs spaces around it so you can get to it. These are called circulation spaces.

Mark each of your circulation spaces with a dot to remind yourself where they are.

You cannot cover furniture, circulation spaces, or any obstacles added at the start of the project with other pieces of furniture. However, you can overlap the circulation spaces of multiple pieces of furniture.

Drawing a piece of furniture is always optional: you can decide not to add anything to your plan on a turn.

Note: you can make your drawings as simple or detailed as you like. Just make sure you can easily tell the difference between each piece of furniture. This might be useful in certain scenarios when it's time to calculate your bonus points.

In this example, you must fit in a one-wall kitchen countertop and a small table.

Allowed: the circulation spaces overlap with each other, but not with the furniture.

Not allowed: the spaces in front of the one-wall kitchen countertop must not be covered by furniture.

You can rotate your pieces of furniture any way you like before positioning them. However, you cannot flip them over to create a mirror image.

You cannot change, move, or erase the furniture from previously played cards.

Exceptions

Some common pieces of furniture don't follow these placement rules.

• You can place other items of furniture on top of rugs. A rug won't prevent your clients from getting to other furniture, and the squares it occupies can be counted as circulation spaces. It doesn't count as a piece of furniture for base points, and only scores bonus points. It can therefore be a good idea to just draw an outline around the total area covered by the rug.
• The small plants on the 19 cards don't need circulation spaces.

Once all players have finished placing their furniture, the player to the left of the active player becomes the new active player and starts the next turn. They follow steps a) and b) above, and so on around the table until all the Furniture cards for this room have been played.

3. Finalize the Room

Once all the Furniture cards for this round's Room card have been played, you must finalize the room by adding walls around it. Leave 1 square without a wall and place a door there.

Important: each room should have only 1 door.

You can place walls wherever you like. They don't necessarily have to abut your furniture and you can include unused squares (without either furniture or a dot) in the room.

Example: you've drawn a double bed and a dresser. You must now draw walls around your room to finalize it.

End of a Round

Once you've played all of the Furniture cards for this round's Room card and have drawn the room's walls, the round ends. The next player chooses a new room and a new round begins using its Furniture cards.

Design Rules

Hallway

Your floor plan must include a hallway that all of the rooms open into. Unless otherwise stated in your chosen project, all the rooms must be accessible only via this hallway, and not through any other room.

Your hallway:

• must connect all the rooms inside the building to the front door, which will be located on an exterior wall.
• can be any length or width.
• can only include unused squares, i.e., without furniture and which are not being used as circulation spaces.
• counts as a single, undivided room.

The hallway, highlighted in green, connects the doors of each room to the front door, which is circled in orange.

Front Door

Your floor plan must include a single front door. You can draw your front door at any point during the game and on any exterior wall, so long as it connects to your hallway.

Access to Rooms and Furniture

At the end of the game, you must be able to get to each room and all the furniture from the front door.

I.e., in each room, your circulation spaces must form an uninterrupted pathway that connects each piece of furniture within the room and leads to the hallway, which leads in turn to the front door.

If any of your rooms or furniture cannot be reached from the front door in this way, they don't count toward your final score.

Avoid: the circulation spaces linked to the small dresser are not connected to the door. This means you can't reach this piece of furniture, so it won't score you any points.

Windows

You can draw windows anywhere on any exterior wall. You can place furniture in the squares in front of your windows or leave them empty.

Some projects will award bonus points if your window lines up on the grid with a decorative feature, such as a tree or lake.

Other than in these specific scenarios where they can score bonus points, windows are purely decorative. If your window lines up on the grid with a tree, the room it's in now counts as looking out onto the tree.

Unconnected Circulation Spaces

Some pieces of furniture come with multiple circulation spaces that are not connected to one another. You don't need to worry about these when placing the piece of furniture, but they must be connected and reachable at the end of the game.

Cards Showing Walls

Some pieces of furniture must be placed against walls, which are shown with thicker lines on their Furniture card. You must position these pieces of furniture against an interior or exterior wall.

The wall must already be in place when you position the piece of furniture: you can't plan to add the wall later.

Distances

Some scenarios will ask you to gauge the distance between 2 objects, such as doors, pieces of furniture, or windows. The distance between 2 objects is equal to the number of empty squares (i.e., containing no furniture) between them, taking the shortest route.

You can only move vertically or horizontally, not diagonally, when calculating distance. You must go around any obstacles between the 2 objects.

Examples: 3 squares apart; 5 squares apart; 0 squares apart.

Wild Card

Once per game, you can use your wild card to take 1 of the following 2 actions:

• choose the non-selected furniture option on a card (you can do this if another player made the selection, or even if you did); or,
• flip the chosen piece of furniture to create its mirror image.

You must let the other players know you're playing your wild card, and cross it out on your floor plan sheet. Your chosen effect applies only to you and only once to the furniture option you use it on, even if multiple Selection tokens have been assigned to that option.

Special Rules

Certain projects have special rules. If these contradict the base rules, the special rules take precedence.

No Hallway

Certain scenarios will ask you to create a layout without a hallway. The front door will therefore open directly into a room. You must place the doors of any other rooms such that they connect to this initial room.

End of the Game and Scoring

The game ends when you've finalized all the rooms.

Record how many points you've scored for each separate room in the scoring area under your floor plan.

Scoring:

• each square covered by a piece of furniture scores 1 point.

Reminder: only count rooms and furniture you can reach from the front door via the hallway.

• circulation spaces and unused squares score no points.
• if you haven't drawn any furniture in a room, calculate your score as though that room doesn't exist and take a penalty of -3 points.
• depending on your project, you may score bonus points. These are shown on the pages for your chosen project in the Projects book.

Add up all your points, subtract any penalties, and record your final score in the "Total" box on your floor plan sheet. The player with the highest score wins the game!

In case of a tie, the player who fitted in the most furniture wins. If there's still a tie, the tied players share the victory.

Scoring Example

Project: Tutorial Scenario. Name: Blue Orange Furnishings, Inc.

The floor plan shows a Kitchen, Bathroom, and Living room. Points per room: 9, 7, 8. Bonus points: 3. Total: 27.