Paula and Valerie Zacher

Paula and Valerie have been practicing for their staging business their whole lives.

Growing up they lived in a large Victorian home where their mother didn't rearrange the furniture in her 35 years of residence. In a typical offspring rebellion against their upbringing, they fanatically and regularly rearranged furniture in their respective homes. This "eye" for furniture placement options is what led them both to the interior design field. 

Valerie is a graduate of Stanford University. She also has a degree in interior design from West Valley College. She owned a high end decor boutique for 9 years, then worked as a commercial designer and planner for Silicon Valley high tech companies. Her high tech tenure was interspersed with three years in the Peace Corps in Botswana, Africa and a year and a half in Japan studying Japanese culture. 

Paula is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley. Paula also did graduate work at the University of Madrid.  Following college, she worked as an international flight attendant for Trans International Airlines for 10 years, combining that career with scouring the world for imports for Val's boutique.   After leaving the airlines, Paula first worked in industrial property design and sales, followed by several years as a real estate agent. During the time Paula was rearing her family, she worked in the residential design field, doing interior design for high end clients the in South Bay and in Carmel. 

Together Val and Paula participated in 5 designer showcases for both the American Cancer Society and the San Jose Symphony.  One of their design contributions was voted as being among the "Best of the best" by Gentry Magazine. 

In the early 80s, the sisters collaborated on their first staging ventures. They bought and sold several homes on the Peninsula and in South Bay. Each home was remodeled and staged by them for the purposes of resale. In the late 90s, the sisters began staging on a part time basis between design jobs. In 2003, they established themselves as the UpStagers and made a firm commitment to staging as a full time career. 

Today UpStagers has over 10,000 square feet of warehouse space filled with an arsenal of furniture and decor items worth over half of a million dollars (and climbing).  The sisters are committed to giving each customer's home a custom look to enhance its curb appeal and sales potential. Every UpStagers job is choreographed and staged by Paula and Valerie personally with an eye to augmenting the intrinsic style of each home.