Top Home Staging Tips for Every Room

When you are getting ready to sell a house, whether you are a homeowner or a realtor, you want to make a great first impression. You can do this by staging the home before bringing potential buyers in to see it. This is also a great way to help those potential buyers to visualize themselves living in the home.

If you are new to staging or just looking for better ways to show off a home’s potential, here are a few tips you should try to incorporate throughout the home.

The Living Room

When staging a living room you want to make sure that the space looks clean, open, and clutter-free. You can help brighten up the space by using the following tips: 

• • Remove any unnecessary furniture.
• • Pull all furniture away from the wall
• • Remove or tuck away all visible cords and wires
• • Replace any dark curtains with lighter ones

Small furniture that has no purpose, furniture that is pushed against the wall, and a lot of cords and wires everywhere can make your space look crowded and cluttered. Instead, let your most functional pieces do the talking. You can also brighten up the space with light window coverings to open up the room and give it a larger appearance.

You can also use home decor pieces to give the space a more aesthetic appeal. Consider some of the following ideas: 

• • Pack away family pictures
• • Store away old magazines
• • Hang the largest artwork on the largest wall
• • Add a book on the coffee table
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Being mindful of the space when arranging artwork will help to create balance. Move large art pieces to the largest walls so that they don’t overcrowd smaller spaces. You may also want to consider removing any family photos. While your family is wonderful, you want buyers to imagine themselves in the house. This will help them visualize the house as theirs. When potential buyers come to view the home, just tuck the photos away during showings.

The Dining Room 

Like the living room, you want your dining room to look bright and open. For many people, especially families, the dining room is an important space where meals will be shared and quality time will be spent. Here are some ways you can make your dining room more aesthetically appealing to potential buyers: 

• • Remove the table leaves to make the room look larger 
• • Hang light color floor-to-ceiling curtains
• • Bring light into dark areas with lamps 
• • Use 100 watt light bulbs for more light
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You can also add some home decor elements to liven up the room and help someone visualize the space’s potential. 

• • Properly set the dinner table
• • Bring in house plants to add life 
• • Add mirrors for more light
• • Wall art should be hung at eye level

The Kitchen

For a lot of homes, the kitchen can make or break the sale. If you’re someone that loves to cook, or you have someone in your family that loves to cook, a good kitchen can be the entire reason you chose to buy your home. Here are some small things you can do to open up your kitchen and give it an updated look: 

• • Remove most items on counters
• • Add a bowl of fruit to add color
• • Stain or paint dated cabinets
• • Replace old hardware
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Simply putting away most appliances and removing clutter from all counters in the kitchen can make a huge difference in opening up the room. Simple touches like a fruit bowl will brighten the room and make it feel more welcoming. 

You also want to make your kitchen look as up-to-date as possible. If you have really outdated cabinets one affordable solution is to give them a fresh coat of paint. You can also add new hardware to your cabinets to easily change the look. Modern hardware can give an updated look to the space without a total renovation.

If you have some additional money to spend and a bit more time, here are some more ways you can easily update your kitchen:

• • Add a new backsplash
• • Install a new faucet to replace an old fixture
• • Repaint to get rid of any bold colors
• • Clean all windows inside and out
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While you might love the bold colors of the kitchen, it’s better to stick to clean and neutral colors when you are trying to sell it. A fresh coat of paint over a bold color can make the kitchen more appealing to potential buyers. Also, don’t forget to clean the windows before an open house to let as much light in as possible!

The Bedroom

Bedrooms are where we spend ⅓ of our days, so it’s important that these rooms impress potential buyers. Here are easy things you can do to make the bedroom more appealing:

• • Remove the TV
• • Add fresh white linens to the beds
• • Add new pillows and throw pillows
• • The bed should not be pushed in the corner of the room
• • Clear out bookshelves and built-ins
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How do you ‘wow’ someone with a bedroom? First things first, make it a bed they could fall asleep on! Adding new throw pillows can spice up a bedroom set and keep linens white if possible because they come off clean and crisp. Make sure to clear off the nightstand to eliminate clutter and if your bed is against a wall pull it away from it so you can walk around the whole bed.

One area that many people don’t think to clean up is the closet, but this is an area you shouldn’t be afraid to show off. Closet space is important to home buyers, so expect them to take a peak. Here are some ways you can highlight the closets in your bedrooms:

• • Pack away 50% of the stuff in closets 
• • Hang clothes in groups, and face them in the same direction
• • Use all the same hangers
• • Clean up and pack away most toys
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When you consider toys, furniture, clothes, and anything else you keep in the closets, it can add up to a lot. Tidy the closets by hanging all the clothes facing the same way and group them by kind (dresses, shirts, pants, etc.) This is a great way to clean up quickly and impress buyers. Feeling fancy? Spring to get matching hangers for a high-end feel. 

The Bathroom

The bathroom is often overlooked when houses are being staged, but it can be a major selling point for your home. Whether the home has a single bathroom or several, you want to make sure that they look clean and bright. For many people, the bathroom is a very personal space, so you want to make sure it appears comforting and inviting. Here are some easy things you can do to help make your bathrooms more appealing: 

• • Put away toothbrushes and all toiletry items
• • Apply caulk around the tub
• • Put away wastebasket
• • Always keep the toilet seat down
• • Fix any squeaky doors
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When staging your bathroom there are several tricks that can help make your old bathroom look more updated. One quick update you can make is to apply new caulk around the tub which gives it a newer and cleaner feel. And like a polite guest always does…remember to leave the toilet seat down! There are also a few things you should add to the room to make it more inviting: 

• • Hang a new shower curtain or clean the old one
• • Roll small towels and place them in a basket on the counter
• • Add a new bottle of hand soap on the counter
• • Hang new white towels
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The bathroom in most houses can look lived in pretty quickly so don’t forget to clean your shower curtain and liner. If you want, spruce up the room with a new inexpensive liner and/or curtain altogether. Rolling some small hand towels and placing them in a basket on the counter can fill the empty spaces your toiletries once sat and has a classy hotel feel. Tuck away all of your own toiletries from countertops and hand up some crisp white hand towels.

The Entryway

Finally, you need to stage the entryway to the home. This will be one of the most important places you should be staging. Here are some easy things you can do to make the home more inviting: 

• • Clean and paint front door
• • Add new house numbers
• • Put away shoes and coats
• • Add a new welcome mat
• • All doors should open and close easily
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The front door and the entryway are the first impressions of your house you’ll be giving to potential buyers. You’ll want to make it a good one. Want to give your house a major facelift without the big price tag? You can clean up the front door or even give it a nice new paint job. Other easy and impactful changes are putting away coats and shoes out of sight and putting out a fresh welcome mat.

Bottom Line

Before you bring potential buyers to view a home, go through each of the rooms above and get them ready for viewing. Remember, you want your visitors to visualize themselves living in the home. Once someone can picture themselves building a life in the home, they will be more likely to want to submit an offer. If you’re ready to sell your home, reach out to Keith and Janna today!