Last week we explored steps one needs to take to prepare to sell your house. You can read that post here. One of the steps is to ready your home for potential buyers. Removing clutter and personal items are key to preparing your house, especially if you are still living in it. However, sometimes homeowners can go too far and turn their homes into bland, unattractive places with no personality. This is definitely a mistake!
Today I want to discuss staging an occupied home for showings. I found a video from Design Time that does an incredible job covering this topic. The designer literally takes an occupied home and makes it look like a model home with items the owners already had in a very short amount of time. As she talks us through her thinking process, I believe that you will learn how to see your house through the lens of a potential buyer.
Key Areas to Focus on:
Kitchens and bathrooms sell a house. However, most just need some elbow grease to make them shine and decluttering to make the rooms desirable. You can elevate them with some simple staging. For example, fluffy towels and a candle for a bathroom or two wine glasses and a cutting board for a kitchen. But when your time is limited, staging these rooms should not be your focus.
According to Design Time, you should focus on the living room, dining room, and master bedroom as far as staging goes. Otherwise, these rooms can look empty, stark, and lifeless. Unless your buyers have vision and imagination, they will not appreciate these rooms. I love how just rearranging furniture brought so much life into the living areas and craft room in this video.
Using Your Resources:
One of the main reasons that I chose this video was because Design Time did not send you out to IKEA or any other furniture store. Why buy furniture for a home you are wanting to move out of? It seems like an impractical use of resources. However, you can re-imagine uses for a floor rug or lamp placements. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
Setting the table is an easy example of using your resources. Why not make your dining room table look inviting? After all, the placemats, plates, and utencils are sitting in a cabinet or drawer. What a difference such a small change makes!
If you are thinking of selling your home, hopefully you found this post helpful. Staging an occupied home can be a challenge, but now you know the key areas on which to focus. You know to use what you already own. In addition, I hope you have seen how you can take decluttering too far. May you get a strong offer on your well-staged house as soon as possible.