Dietary aide Georgia Barnes and the last of her three children, Barachel, 13, helped build their Habitat for Humanity house in Bay Shore, but what they didn't know when they prepared to move in Friday was that stagers and several businesses - from feng shui experts to sod suppliers - had donated everything to stock the home.

"They knew my tastes but they didn't even know me," said Barnes, who now wants to donate the bed, couch and other furniture she had already bought. "The house is perfect."

Usually, a Habitat house is mostly bare at move-in time, but this one was decked out, the idea of Val Allocco, founder of Staged 2 Sell NY in Northport . She borrowed an idea from a Habitat fundraiser in New Jersey this summer, when rooms in a McMansion were set up by stagers. Les Scheinfeld, associate director of Habitat's Suffolk affiliate, suggested staging a real Habitat home - not a showcase home.

Allocco and the new, central Long Island chapter of the American Society of Home Stagers and Redesigners took on the project. "This would be unique, but I said we can't approach it the same way," Allocco said. "We can't put rental furniture in there and then pull it out. That's mean."