Local furnishings take center stage: New approach steps in as real estate sales slide

While newspapers reiterate unwavering doom and gloom to describe the ongoing real estate slump, thanks to some help from Rockland resident Christine Oliver, local realtors have reason to be optimistic.

When the swanky homes at the Black Rock Country Club in Hingham don't sell themselves, realtor Marilyn Jackson Adams brings out the big guns, and adorns the empty rooms with furnishings and decorations from Oliver's store in Rockland, Restorations & Originals on Commerce Road.

Jackson Adams said she believes using Oliver's pieces to "stage" the empty rooms will help to sell homes because the furnishings breathe life to previously bare walls and floors.

"It will help with sales, it always does," Jackson Adams said.