CHICAGO — Craig and Amy Smith always felt quite confident, even cocky in their abilities to tastefully design the spacious interior of their steel-and-concrete loft in downtown Denver.

That was until they decided to sell it and a consultant hired to help them “stage” their home told them to neutralize a dramatic accent wall, put away family photos and place most of their furniture and artwork in storage.

“The hardest part was not taking it personally,” said Craig Smith, who as chief executive of ServiceMagic.com, an online business that connects homeowners with prescreened home-service professionals, decided to take his own advice. “When you think you’re the best designers in the world and you have someone saying your taste in things might not be appreciated by others — that could be an ego hit.”

In turn, that is the hardest part of the job for those offering the advice: Breaking it to sellers that their taste in decor and the lovingly acquired pieces and, well, clutter in their homes could be a huge turnoff to a prospective homebuyer.

Their job is to neuter the home before it goes on the market by getting rid of the chaos, opening up corridors, living spaces and walls, lightening bold colors and exposing hidden pieces of charm and architecture.

A New York city home that might heavily reflect, say, an equestrian family’s passions with plaid wallpaper, dark paintings and horse bookends, could repel a single woman’s love for theater, opera, art and bright, flowing rooms.

“What’s fine for living is not always fine for selling,” said Donna Dazzo, president of Designed To Appeal, a home-staging company that serves New York and the Hamptons.

“You want to portray a lifestyle that people can relate to and aspire to,” she said. “You have to have them fall in love as soon as they walk in the door.”

Staging got its start a decade ago when the housing market was on fire and every seller wanted to up the value of their home both emotionally and physically by making it more attractive and purchase-worthy than the house next door.

But as the market has switched directions and the numbers of able-and-willing buyers has dropped like a wrecking ball, home sellers are again turning to staging consultants in give their properties that extra oomph to impress and compete in the buyer’s market. It’s helped too that home-oriented lifestyle television channels show the before-and-after process of how a relatively inexpensive staging can turn the tables for homeowners itching to sell.

“The basic reality is that people buy on emotion,” said Gina Ferraro, president of Cross Home Concepts in Chicago. “People always want to imagine having a grander lifestyle. We like to think that we’re going to live in a beautiful, always-clean home and that we’re going to entertain a lot.

“The reality is that we don’t, but the whole point of the staging is to work on the psychology of the client when they come in the door and have them be able to see themselves in that place,” she said.