Selling Your Home Tip #2: Staging

If you read my last blog and declutter your house in preparation for selling, great job!  Here is my second tip for selling your home: staging.

Tidy vs. Staged Homes

There’s a difference between a tidy house and a staged house.  Many people believe that their house is ready for its close-up, simply because they’ve put a majority of their items into storage.  Everything might be put into its place, but that doesn’t mean your house is clutter-free.

Disclaimer: all photos in this article are from our own townhouse.   I don’t want anyone thinking that photos of their house are going to end up on my blog without permission.  The “before” photos show how we were living in the house to suit our lifestyle.  The “after” photos illustrate how we got the house in show-ready condition when it was time to sell.

Bedrooms

This home office might be tidy, but it is cluttered.  There’s no focal point and the room looks very small.

Stand back and assess each room as a buyer would.  We changed the paint color and removed several pieces of furniture (what was I thinking with that weird green wall and brown stripe??)  There are still computer components and visible wires but the clutter has been reduced.

Ideally, every bedroom should actually look like a bedroom so we eventually changed it into this:

The master bedroom is a big selling feature.  In the following picture, the room is tidy and everything is in its place.  For years, the room looked like this:

It’s clean and neat but isn’t special or exciting.  The far wall has too many knick-knacks and the TV stand in the foreground is distracting.  Instead, we pared things down and changed the paint.  A bit of decluttering turned it into this…

…and eventually, staging helped it become this (try to ignore the curtains that were way-too-short when pulled back):

Bathrooms

Bathrooms are another big area of clutter.  Buyers don’t want to see an overabundance of toiletries that make them feel like they’re in the cosmetics section of Target.  Minimize buyer distraction by keeping things in drawers and bins while your house is on the market.

Master bathroom before:

Master bathroom after:

Remember—these things are important for showings AND for listing photos!  I’ll touch on that a bit more in my next blog post.  Now go forth and stage!