To Grow, This Home Stager Said 'Yes,' and Figured It Out LaterScreenwriter Meridith Baer began a home staging business by diving in before she'd nailed down the details.

Los Angeles screenwriter Meridith Baer loved to rearrange furniture and furnish her home with plants during lulls between writing projects. In 1998, after the home she'd helped a friend spruce up sold within a week for $500,000 over the asking price, brokers started calling to enlist Baer's staging services.

So began Meridith Baer Home, a luxury home staging company that today makes more than $3 million per month, maintains five warehouses of inventory and employs some 200 people. Last year the company staged more than 1,500 properties in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Florida, greater New York City and Mexico.