Hillsborough interior designer helps to elevate empty spaces into homes that sell
If you’ve ever spotted a neighbour’s home for sale and found yourself browsing a property site to sneak a look at their living room, you’re not the only one.
Sometimes we look to be nosey. Other times we look to seek inspiration for our own homes.
However, many property listings appear bare and uninspiring, which can cause homes to linger on the market longer than expected or force sellers to reduce the asking price.
To Robyn Rycroft, founder of hōm Robyn Rycroft based in Hillsborough, an empty space is a chance to craft a home that sells.
“hōm furnishes empty properties to create a vision of a lifestyle, and that way prospective buyers can connect,” she explained. “They can’t connect with something when they can’t see the scale or the warmth; there isn’t an emotional pull. What hōm does is we remove that friction so the buyers can see themselves living there and not just walking through it.”
hōm is a property staging business – one of only a handful in Northern Ireland – that dresses houses before they go on the market.
Furniture, lighting, art and soft furnishings are brought in not simply to fill rooms, but to show how a home could be lived in.
“Empty houses are harder to sell because people can’t visualise. Staging fixes that,” she explained.
“Also, when you’ve got a £750,000 or £1 million-plus property, buyers expect a lifestyle as well as space, so staging is one of the tools that we can use to influence that.”
While Robyn is content to work with lived-in homes, empty properties - often new builds or homes that have already been vacated - are where she is at her most creative.
“The mindset that I’m trying to teach is the fact that it’s not a cost, it’s an investment,” Robyn continued. “Often they’re getting a large return on what they spend on staging their home. You could have a house that was up for sale for £140,000 and by dressing it, it could sell for £185,000.”
Despite those numbers, staging remains relatively uncommon in Northern Ireland. Robyn, who is originally from Alberta, Canada, explained that it is “something that is done in North America 99% of the time”.
She added: “It’s not very often you will see an empty house on the market. Staging is just part of the selling process and you just don’t skip it.”
Her attention to detail comes from her personal experience. Having moved 15 times in her life, living across Canada, Robyn settled in Northern Ireland 19 years ago and now calls Hillsborough home.
“Every time I move, I am staging again and again,” she said.
She helped friends and family prepare their homes for sale long before it became a business idea.
Three years ago, she launched hōm as an e-commerce interiors brand, sourcing small furniture and soft furnishings.
At the beginning of 2025, she pivoted decisively to become a staging business. “I knew I still wanted to be in interiors, but I also really love property,” she added.
“I get to continuously enjoy the process of sourcing, getting the concept, curating the design for that particular property. I design and decorate as I had it in my mind, and then I get to leave. I don’t have to worry about selling that to somebody. It’s now going to do what I set out for it to do.”
Initially, Robyn funded hōm herself, determined to prove the concept. By late 2025 the business had momentum, so she decided to look into finance which would help her take her business to the next level.
That search led her to the British Business Bank’s Start Up Loans programme.
The government-backed personal loans are available to individuals looking to start or grow a business in the UK.
In addition to finance, successful applicants can receive 12 months of free mentoring and access to business resources to help them succeed. The loan is unsecured, so there’s no need to put forward any assets or guarantors to support an application.
All owners or partners in a business can individually apply for up to £25,000 each, with a maximum of £100,000 available per business. Loans can be paid back between one and five years at a fixed rate of interest.
“What I was looking for was some breathing space,” she continued. “A good business makes better decisions when it can breathe.”
She added that the mentoring that comes with the programme has been “invaluable”.
“You’re getting expertise that’s not from a family or friend, and while the mentors may not know the ins and outs of what I do, they have a wealth of knowledge that I'm very grateful for.
“There’s nothing that I can’t learn from somebody else.”
Robyn acknowledges the challenges which new businesses can face when it comes to accessing traditional finance.
“To be frank, my own bank wouldn’t have given me a loan,” she admitted. “When a bank gives you a loan they’re taking a chance, but there’s just something about that, especially when somebody believes in what you’re doing.”
Robyn believes that hōm’s early success comes down to the simple fact that people are led by their emotions when it comes to investing in a property.
Find out more about Robyn’s services online at www.homrobynrycroft.com.
“The emotional response happens way earlier when a house is staged than when it’s not,” she adds.
Where emptiness once prevailed, hōm Robyn Rycroft is transforming spaces into irresistible homes and giving buyers a lifestyle that they can instantly imagine.