15 Home Staging Tips You Really Need To Know

Buying a home can be a tough choice. Selling one, however, is an even tougher task to undertake, and with good reason.

After you’ve lived in a house for a considerable number of years, it naturally begins to show the shades of domesticity. However, if you want to sell your house for a good price, then the property must look spick and span. Otherwise, the buyers will simply go elsewhere.

To ensure that buyers will stop and take a good stock of your property, you need to apply the right staging techniques and prepare the house for the visit. With appropriate staging, any property can be transformed from drab to fab in no time.

The best part: most staging tricks don’t cost much, and some are even outright free! With that in mind, here’s a list of the 15 best home staging tips that you can’t do without.

Let’s see what they are!

Best Home Staging Tips

1. Add On The Curb Appeal

When selling a house, the curb appeal is as important as the interior dazzle, if not more. Potential buyers will often do a drive-by of your home in a bid to determine whether it’s even worth the visit, and a shabby exterior will only serve to drive them away.

In such a situation, you want your home exteriors to be as appealing as possible. To successfully achieve this, make sure your house has a fresh and bright coat of paint on the outside. Also, keep the lawn and garden well-maintained and take time to wash the walkways.

Adding an easy-to-read house number, together with blooming, flowering plants and greenery are great ideas. Make sure that the windows are adequately washed to have a sparkly clean feel. Otherwise, your property won’t get the sheen that it needs to succeed.

2. Prepare The Porch

If the curbside appeal is essential for that first impression, then the porch makes the second one. Even if you have a small porch, make it a welcoming one by having an inviting doormat, potted plants, and a chair or two.

Also, lighting is important, especially if you’re showing the customers around after sun-down. A well-lit porch makes a bright impression on the buyers’ minds, preparing them to take in the interiors as you open the door.

3. Do It With Mirrors

Often, small homes fail to make a significant impression on buyers. Make sure this doesn’t happen to you. An excellent way to lend a unique style to your rooms is to deck them up with mirrors in selected locations.

The sheer reflective beauty of mirrors adds a unique style to any room and makes it look more spacious. Light that reflects off the mirrors makes your rooms brighter, more curated, and gives it an artistic air that’s bound to resonate with anyone.

4. Make Sure To De-personalize

The primary purpose of staging a property is to allow the buyers to visualize the space as if they already own it. This means, while you do need to deck up the house appealingly, it cannot have any traces of personalization that reminds the buyers that this place isn’t theirs.

To achieve this, take the time to remove any personal or family items from the staging areas. For example, photo frames with personal photos should be removed. Also, clothes and personal knick-knacks need to be stored out of sight, as should personal hygiene items.

Also, if you have a religious affiliation, it’s best to remove such signs from the staging. You can never know about the religious sentiments of the buyers beforehand, and it’s best that you don’t risk offending them on the first encounter.

5. Keep It Clean

This, of course, goes without saying but it’s a crucial step, perhaps the most important one, yet. To attract the eyes of the buyers, every surface of your property must be sparkly clean.

Whether it’s the floor tiles or window glasses, everything must be scrubbed and cleaned to perfection. In this context, it’s important to remember that while cleaning your house thoroughly is cost-effective if done yourself, it can be a tough task to handle. We suggest getting the help of professionals to correctly and conveniently get the job done.

6. Deck Up The Windows

Do you have old drapes on your windows that seemingly weigh a ton? Toss them out and replace them with lighter, modern variants that can dance with the breeze. When choosing curtains, it’s best to go with lighter options that are simple and functional.

This not only enhances the appearance of the space but also makes it seem more spacious. Plus, lighter drapery allows the interiors to breathe, creating a sense of openness that’ll appeal to potential buyers.

Also, carefully placed curtains can alter the perceived dimensions of the staged area. For example, floor-length curtains that have been hung near the ceiling can give the room a taller appearance.

7. Declutter To Impress

When showing your house to buyers, you’re selling them a piece of personal space. As any homeowner knows, clutter is the enemy of a well-maintained home. If your house is strewn with knick-knacks, decorative items, and clothes that you don’t need, it’s time to move them out.

This doesn’t mean that you’ll have to permanently get rid of them, but just store them out of sight, preferably out of the house. This can include winter garments (if you’re staging in summer), personal books, and any items that you don’t need daily.

On that note, do remember that if you have closets, buyers will probably be opening them up to take stock of the storage space. This means you shouldn’t stuff the extra items in the closets, but pack them up in boxes and move them out of sight instead.

8. Pay Special Attention To The Bathroom

When staging your property, it’s imperative that you pay special attention to the bathroom. Bathrooms are incredibly personal spaces, and it’s tough to make them feel appealing to potential buyers. Yet, there are a few simple tricks that you can use to do just that.

For starters, make sure every corner is properly cleaned, and that there’s no odor in the space. Next, remove all personal items such as toothbrushes and medicines from the bathroom cabinet.

Finally, replace any colored towels with spotless white ones. White towels lend a certain pristine feeling to the location and give out positive vibes. This is something that colored towels can rarely achieve.

9. Style The Dining Space

The next staging location you need to pay attention to is the dining space. Don’t keep oversized furniture as this will distract the visitors from checking out the rest of the room. Also, make sure the area is well-lit in case there’s a lack of natural light.

The center-point of the dining space is always the dinner-table, so pay extra attention to it. Tables can look uninviting when left bare, so make sure to add something, such as a bowl of fruits at the center of the table.

10. Get Floored

You may not always notice it, but a potential buyer will always make it a point to check out the quality of the flooring. So, it goes without saying that you need to make sure that your floors are good as new.

In the case of wooden floors, we suggest getting them touched up and polished to give off a newish vibe. Any carpets that you have should be cleaned appropriately; dirty carpets never got a house sold for the right price.

While we’re talking about rugs and carpets, keep the following point in mind:

• When buying a rug, make sure that it fits your room and aligns well with the furniture.
• Don’t go for too small or too big ones; the right sized rug can make the room look spacious and organized, so exercise caution in your choice.

11. Be Bookish

Nothing lends an intellectual touch to a home like a bookcase, and you should be putting yours to good use. However, it’s essential that you don’t stuff your shelves with any dog-eared title that you’ve got in the basement.

When doing up the bookshelves, make it a point to remove at least 25% of the books, and make some space for decoration. Then, stack some books horizontally, while keeping the others vertical. This’ll add a nice touch to the room and make it look modern.

Also, as decorative pieces, you can place a few trinkets in the bookcase. If you have the time, we suggest getting some fancy bookends that can enhance your collection’s look and feel.

12. Keep It Neutral

We agree: this tip isn’t one that you can get done for free. Plus, it takes a considerable amount of time as well as money to complete. Nevertheless, it’s essential that you get a fresh coat of interior paint for your home when staging it for buyers.

When you’re getting the house painted, never go for bright colors. While bright and bold hues can be expressive of your tastes, the purpose of staging is to de-personalize. Plus, bright colors can distract buyers from the property’s assets.

That’s why, when repainting, it’s best to go with neutral, muted colors; gray, taupe, and white can be good options. This allows prospective buyers to choose their hues or keep things as they are in case they like neutrals themselves. Either way, it’s a win-win situation for both parties.

13. Freshness Matters

When a prospective buyer comes to check out your property, you want them to get the feeling that they’re entering a new house, not one in which someone has lived. In short, you want the property to feel as fresh as a newly built home.

There are quite a few things you can do to achieve this, such as placing potted flowering plants around the house. The kitchen table can be decorated with a vase full of bright flowers or even fruits.

In case you don’t want to go through the trouble of maintaining actual plants, you can take the help of room fresheners. Just make sure the odors aren’t too intense. Otherwise, you’ll be doing more to drive away customers than actually attracting them.

14. Take Care Of Extra Space

If you’ve been using the spare bedroom to store junk and broken furniture, then it’s high time you made the room purposeful. A room full of junk without proper use can stick out like a sore thumb in your otherwise well-maintained home.

So, clear out the junk, furnish the room wisely, and give it a function. Maybe a guest room or a nursery? One of the best options would be a home office, given that this is trending nowadays.

15. Light It Up

Finally, be sure that your house is well lit, even during the daytime. Take advantage of natural light by drawing apart the curtains and letting the sunshine through. In case you don’t want potential home buyers to be distracted by too much light, keep the blinds down while opening the slats.

Also, be sure to turn on all the lights in the house. This will help your buyers get a good look at the surroundings. At the same time, it’ll give them the sense that they’ve stepped into a positive, welcoming space.

Conclusion

Staging a house can be exciting and profitable; you get to deck up your home, while enticing customers at the same time. Even if you’re not selling the house right now, it doesn’t hurt to give it a good makeover.

Whatever the reasons for staging your home, just remember that you’re only limited by imagination. So, put on your thinking caps, get the tools out, and be ready to give your house that face-lift it deserves.

After all, you never know when a buyer might drive by!

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